Only Two Genders

The bones of the federal machine grind, cementing another layer of control, spitting out edicts like ash, like gender was a box to check, a cage to live and die in, a border they could patrol.

The white man stands at the podium,

stacked on a tower of lies,

proclaiming truths he doesn’t own.

“Only two,” he says,

as if the sky isn’t full of hues

that defy his crude binaries.

Two genders.

Like the earth stops at the horizon,

like oceans run dry at the shore,

like rain knows only wet or gone,

like the body doesn't sing in keys

he cannot fathom,

or shift in rhythms

that dismantle his paper walls.

The bones of the federal machine grind,

cementing another layer of control,

spitting out edicts like ash,

like gender was a box to check,

a cage to live and die in,

a border they could patrol.

Two genders.

Like his fragile empire depends

on us forgetting who we are—

seas of selves spilling over lines,

bursting through gates,

unwritten, unbroken.

He speaks in absolutes

because his power shrinks

in the face of fluidity.

Because they fear what

they can’t name.

But there is no one truth here,

and his words burn like gasoline,

lighting fires in throats and streets,

igniting what they cannot contain.

We are a thousand rivers,

unmarked and unafraid.

We will never fit

their cramped, brittle worlds.

And the cracks widen

with every step we take

outside their lines.