Two Poems
by nat raum
on my ragged right thumb
CW: transphobia, addiction
the smell of acetone is neon manicures in the summer
when school was out, dress code discarded—the sweetsharp
scent of a weekly ritual my mother subjected me to when i
wouldn’t stop biting my nails. was this the moment
i should have known i wasn’t a girl, when i returned week
after week with tattered cuticles and chipped enamel
on thumbnails, when i tore apart the hour spent shaping
and tooling with my anxious teeth again and again? should it
have stuck when i played house with the other girls
during recess and assigning the role of mother became
a fight for everyone but me? when i grew older and stopped
painting my nails or my face except for the rarest
of occasions? and i never stopped gnawing at bits of skin
on the side of my right thumb, feminine hands be damned.
the anxiety never left me either, instead growing the size
of front-page headlines which denounce my humanity
and reflect back in my nightmares like warpspeed ticker-tape.
do the dreams hold truth? would i rather revert to my anxious
girlhood in the absence of an exit plan? or do i merely mourn
the few moments of safety that came after all the knowing
finally did, the morsel of time where it felt weightless to exist?
mississippi river or delaware bay
there’s only one ex i talk to and last time we talked, i told him i was california sober and he stopped responding. the other week i flew over the last town i saw him in, the wood-paneled memphis barbecue joint likely somewhere in the sim city view, the place where i ordered a jack and ginger and clacked my glossblack press-ons against the laminate table. it’s been almost five years and this morning co-star told me to write a love poem to myself and as much as i’ve screwed my own head back on by the sheer strength of my own two hands, i don’t think i learned to extend that emotion to myself until i was twenty days into dry january and, flameflicker reflected in the wall of windows, caught sight of my sober self in the dark and how, not unlike water, i’ve forged a ravine for myself in a thicket of torn cuticles and heart palpitations. how i happened upon enough barriers to now settle my gaze into the seagreen meat of my own irises and say by all means, evolve; i give you permission.
nat raum (b. 1996) is a disabled artist, writer, and genderless disaster from Baltimore, MD. They’re the editor-in-chief of fifth wheel press, as well as the author of you stupid slut, the abyss is staring back, random access memory, and several chapbooks. Find them online: natraum.com/links.