E. M. Lark

“can i tell you a story?,” she asks, teeth bared

(cw: allusion to domestic abuse)

“i am going to hold a gun to your head. i am going to count to three. and you are going to walk
into your bedroom. you will close the door, and take off your rusted brass knuckles. you will
dispose of your violence. your birthright misogyny. the traumas you have shoved down my
throat. and then we will sit down at dinner. eat the calabacitas mom has made. and you will no
longer have the guts to look me in the eye.”

somebody was having another gender crisis

(cw: gender dysphoria/euphoria)

I am not a man and I am not a woman. I am truly just here. Yes, maybe some days I’d like to shift in and out. Maybe sex would be better. Maybe I actually do look good in that lingerie. Maybe people see me any day of the week and do not think I’m a fraud. It’s a stretch but I will reach anyway.

I am not a man and I am not a woman. I am a good old-fashioned lover boy, I am one of those girls against god – I am feminine rage and masculine tenderness. In the name of the daughter, the son, the antichrist, do not pray for me because you will scrape your knees on the way down. The ground is blessed with gravel and glass, all that I have already bled on like my last sacrifice to the Earth and to the ceilings and the rock and roll that blurred all my colors in the most brilliant hues.

I am not a woman and I am not a man. I am the face in your window. I am the specter waiting just out of focus, because you will realize too late all you have killed to make people love you.

According to the Alexander Technique

(cw: suicidal ideation)

People leave each other’s lives. That’s just how it is sometimes. I wonder if the people who left mine closed the door quietly, or slammed it shut for me to flinch at. I can never really tell the difference. I am not enough and yet too much, and it consumes my every waking and dying thought. “It’s okay to take up space” is not enough, I have never been faithful to the doctrine of those who know how to love themselves.

I’ve killed myself about a hundred times now. Different people march in for every funeral, and anticipate every rebirth. They curse and spit at my coffin, knowing that I’m not there right now, because they know I’ll end up there again. I wish I could vanish enough times to make it go away for good. Then no one will have to choke on my mistakes.

“Now imagine your arms and legs are made of lead. From a 1 to a 10, how much does it hurt? How painful do you look to other people? “You better straighten your back because no one is going to carry it for you.”

Everyone carries a toxin. some just make it look lighter, smell better, taste less like blood. Yet we must not be eradicated. We must take up space. I will breathe in my fire and breathe out my smoke. I am not the only one who ruins things.

E.M. Lark (they/them) is a writer/reader & reviewer/weathered poet & job seeker, originally from CA and currently based in NYC. Their work can recently be found in The Lumiere Review, JAKE, Penumbra Online, Cutbow Quarterly, among others past and future. Twitter: @thelarkcalls