transition

my body is not the same as it was last week. this has been going on for quite some time, since the day i was born. at a molecular level, structure has collapsed and renewed, every 24 hours. inhale clean air, exhale dirty air. birth goes in, death goes out. i'm a transitioner. no big deal.

my body came into the world from womb on a particular day, of a certain week, a friday. it had never felt cold air before, or seen dad's face before, or smelled mom's scent before, so within an hour, the body had downloaded basic me 1.0, then i went to sleep.

when i came to, i discovered a stinky brother and other people who i did not need or like. on that day i was named and pronounced and a telegram went out from honduras to israel "a girl". 

i didn't know about any of this until one year later. when the planet had returned to the same point on it's ellipsis and honduras was facing the same direction where the sun set on a curved horizon. the caribbean was hot. i weighed close to ten pounds at birth, i didn't have to grow much that year, and by that time, me 2.0 was already an asshole. 

a female genetic representation of all my western european ancestors. binary meant mom or dad, but never colin. that dude was sneaky, angry and on fire. he could make me laugh until i felt terrified, and he'd do it on purpose just to rile my chill. by two, i could walk, dance and hit back, but he could spit and run faster. 

fearing for my life, every single day was part of being adored as the second born. mom and dad had made colin the pilot, i was, the whole series. the family of 4 was a complete unit. mom had spawned hers and dad had spawned his. 2.364 would stay the same forever and always. 

until the next day. version 3.0 could count to 12. months went on and became familiar, so many names and faces. i'd had two full years of breast, banana, mango, rice and beans and chewable baby aspirin for fevers when i had growth spurts. i knew the alphabet, song. 

change is the only consistency life has to offer. stay the same but learn new tricks. my family spoke english. all the other families around us, spanish. i could fight colin in english, and fight him harder in spanish. as siblings we were both perfect and awful. 

when mom and dad divorced and remarried and had other children in all their other versions, the binary of boy girl remained. but we were transitioning, becoming both easier and harder on each other as we added words to our language to describe our adversarial yet interdependent experiences of life.

all family ancestors come from generations of horny people who love the sun. some stayed up across the dark nights to observe other planets advancing through space. maps were drawn and signifiers for those planets were recorded. done throughout millennia the asian civilizations coded cycles of elements and animals to describe times and peoples born in those times.

colin was born in pontiac michigan, february 28, 1966. he weight just under 7 pounds, mom labored for 24 hours, the nurses, doctors and dads were smokers, he was circumcised on arrival and instead of breast to soothe his trauma, our grandma reassured my mom that a bottle of formula out of a rubber nozzle, was better. colin in his 1.0 was a fire horse. he could walk just under the 8th month and already needed braces.

i never wanted to be a boy. 

ambergris

if she's a ten, you're an asset.

what if she's an eleven?

when asked, i never gave zuckerberg my permission to use any of my shit on facebook. i stayed at the bottom and built online presence with some likes and a vast number of loves. yes, over twenty years, anyone who took the time to share something cool or pretty, these two eyeballs would look, process and these finger digits would smash the icon. a real face and a red heart to encourage even the tiniest, most insignificant of assets to keep going, and keep amplifying their interests and achievements. by caring for strangers, just a little, i made good, loyal, incredibly grateful friends.  

staring into little black devices searching for meaning to their lives and company for their fun and solace for their woes. why wouldn't i be a big pot of sweet, nourishing honey for their lonely souls. 

but what makes me an eleven? ...i would never take money, from anyone, to dew it.

knup

 little fly upon the wall

aint you got no clothes at all?

aint you got no undershirty?

aint you got no pantyskirty?

ooh

aint you cold?

mirror accounts, check. the machine cannot handle brujeria, you can’t lie to a machine. as much as you cloak, the thought already changed and flew off. bot psychology is brilliant, engage, draw information, disguise it as other questions. yes and no does not exist in my mind. yes please, no thank you, do. 

the alternate space of social media has flatlined. accounts are clones or have gone back to pre phone application. i used to think i was one step ahead of everyone, now i know i’m coming up the rear. dog days are over. if i could take back all my bread crumbs would i or could i? 

jealousy has never been my problem, envy is a sin that i do not indulge, pedastals, pediatricians, pedestrians. pure kids don’t know shit. if the gaze is not met, if the eyes don’t smile, and that’s what we need atomic energy to beam from skylink at me for, it’s not my business. 

what people have stolen from me, i give away. for free. and then i sleep on it. 

punk

if you're ready to break the glass ceiling with me, i'll give you my mom's whatsapp.

the script is this:

hello, is this ---------?

my name is ----------

is this your daughter? 

can she come to the dance with me? 

direct energy weapon

 welcome to my botshop, where we unravel what was said to whom, when, how and why.

i do not like telephones. i use them. growing up the boonies my family had neither television or telephone. we barely had electricity that we had to illegally draw current from the other side of the river. when a phone finally arrived in1984, it was too late. by then i knew books, and time travel, and phillip k dick, orwell and national geographic, time-life series, reader digest, people. i knew leagues under the sea, and secret gardens and girls just like me who grew up without modern things on prince edward island. 

the apparatus was a rotary, beige and since the conversations cost colones by the minute, it was decided only my dad could use it for business. he was a builder and owned every fun gadget for construction ever invented. when the land line came, he proccured, from one of his boxes of tricks, a small lock that was placed on the dial.

that same year, i was removed from my tuition free, spanish language alma mater, conservatorio caastella, and placed in the most expensive american country day school. my new english speaking friends had to call me because i was not allowed to call them. 

in both schools i was the weirdo who got good grades without studying because i paid attention while under my desk i was reading sallinger and jean m auel and doing miss daisy.

my pick of boys to dance with was always based on the words thay chose to ask me, which were never words but, wonkey smile, glimmering eye and messy hair. 

since i couldn’t dial out, everyone knew we were working class and, to be asked to dance, i did other kids homework for them, that way, there was a righteous excuse for a phone call.