poem for a transphobic president

Trans Voices In Trump's America #7

it used to be, you couldn’t turn on a television 

without hearing kamala’s for they/them, not for you. 

and for the record, she’s not for us either—

but anything is a lesser evil to some people 

when the bar is in hell. in this case, i am the greater 

evil, a so-called blight on society the size of my five-

foot-four frame and the letters i tore off my birth 

name. i send conservative christians scattering

in the night and i know this from experience. my biggest 

regret in life besides not cursing out my misogynist ex 

was not telling a transphobic “family friend” to shut 

his fucking mouth before i shut it for him. i take digs

like rubber, which is to say relatively calmly, flinching

only for a second before regaining my original

shape. this is how we are conditioned—the first time

the commercial says comes on, it stings for a second

and then just as quickly, an antidepressant ad takes

its place. i think cis people think we are just supposed

to put up with pinpricks to skin—only a scratch.

do they consider the size of a pack of pins, though?