This is what the trans flag
really looks like.
It isn’t pretty.
It isn't perfect pastel stripes
of pink and white and baby blue.
It's the fragments of yourself
that you keep digging out
with bleeding fingers
from the mud of everyone's expectations
of who you would-could-should have been.
It's the bits that you cling to
when you're too tired to go on
but you go on anyway, because of a Someone,
or several someones, or a Somewhere,
or even a Somewhen;
or because of a song you haven't sung yet, or
a crazy dream that nobody else understands,
or the colours of next autumn, or the scent
of the cinnamon rolls you haven't baked yet,
or just because of all those who didn't.
(This was supposed to be a simple painting
for Trans Day of Remembrance.
Neat lines of text making up a neat candle.
In blue: WE.
In pink: WILL.
In white: REMEMBER.
In pink: THEM.
In blue: #TDOR.
But anyone who knows me at all
knows I am not someone
who can do neat.
Or simple.
But grief is a messy thing
anyway. It doesn't stay compliantly
into boxes; it can't be encased in files
or folders. It has an unpleasant habit
of surfacing at unexpected times.
So maybe, after all,
a messy remembrance
is enough?)