Mira

my brother is laughing at all the places he has chicken pox spots.

he is pointing out to me the one on his ear, and he tells me there are some on his butt and even his penis. i do not know what a penis is. i think that there is more to the chicken pox than just red spots. i ask him to show me.

he is pulling down his pyjamas, and he is pointing to a spot between his legs. i do not understand what i am looking at; i do not see a red spot. i see a strange tag of wrinkled skin.

i am running to tell mama.

she is upset and is telling him that papa will spank him. i am being ushered into the room my sister and i share.

ʘ

my family and i are sitting at the table in the dining room, and we are eating the lunch mama made, in silence. i am thinking about school, and the uniforms we wear. i do not want to wear a jumper. i want to wear pants and a tie.

i ask my parents if i can wear pants and a tie. they tell me i am not allowed to. papa asks me why i want to be a boy. he warns me about lesbians.

☾

i am in my parent’s bedroom, and i am alone. i close the door behind me, and take off all of my clothes. i look at myself in the mirror. i wonder what it means to be a boy.

Jennifer

i am at church with my family. it is almost ten o’clock, and we are the last ones in. we are late but the sermon hasn’t started yet.

i am walking with a flock of children from the church to the school. we are passing under some pine trees, and i run off with a friend. her name is jennifer.

behind the church there are burs in the bushes. we pick them from their branches and we create people with them. as we pick them apart and from our clothing, she grabs my hand.

she compares the inside of our palms. her skin there is lighter than the rest of it. she tells me how one day her skin will be light like mine. she tells me it will start from her palms.

we communicate with each other in false foreign tongues until our stomachs begin to growl. the school bell rings and we run.

Lauren

i am entertaining friends at a house that may be mine.

the afternoon is coming to an end, and the last few of them depart. i bid them a well evening, and i retreat to the bathroom. i am intoxicated. i am stressed and tired. i take my hair down from its knot.

i watch as large dead scalp continents fall from my crown into the sink. i tousle them free, the ones that are stuck. they create a landscape in the basin below.

i am alone and falling apart.

out the window, through overcast light, i see a discarded mitten. the mitten is mine. i dropped it there in the budding of winter. the snow is gone now.

i wish i was that mitten, soggy, cold and sluggish. asphalt for a bed.

feeling the sun would be so nice.