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?)