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[ The Writer ]

Emily Moon (she/her) is a queer transgender poet from Portland, Ore. She is author of "It’s Just You & Me, Miss Moon." She is host for the Eastside Poetry Workshop and Editor at First Matter Press. Her work most recently appears in Buckman Journal and Pile Press. Shes intrested in how words on the page can communicate in ways that cannot be reproduced when read aloud. You can find her on Instagram @emilymoonpoet and Facebook at Emily.Moon.57. Her link tree is linktr.ee/EmilyMoonPoet.

[ the poetry ]

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Reading trans spring at The Secret Room in Portland, Ore.​

                                                                 anxiety party            

anxiety shows up           in dancing shoes          brings

depression to the party     depression    is a crazy dude

who harangues me    into believing          anything that

goes wrong        is my fault

                                                 anxiety's dance moves

                                         mutate

      social affairs                       into

                                                     thorny thickets

            bewilder

                  coherent thought

 

                             if there's              an escape route

             i flee

                                          otherwise

        i hunker down

                                            a boulder ____in a creek

           subject

                    to currents of

   are you ok

                               i think

                                                    no

                                                         i'm not fucking ok

           i'm bleeding

                         from     a thousand     tiny      punctures

       i'm fine

                          i say

                                                           i'm fine

[ the notes ]

anxiety party is a report on my lived experience
with social anxiety.

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                                                                        slumgullion

 

i   learned   to   carry   anguish                because   that

was   the   offering                               often     received

 

from   trailer  parks               and   blue-collar   suburbs

i    inched   upward                                   to   a   branch

from   which   to   cocoon    rearranged   my   internals

into   an   ensemble                               that   could   fly

 

on the   slightest   updraft                               i   floated

toward   zenith                                    when   hurricanes

ripped   through                       i   learned   to   wrangle

fierce   winds                                                  with   other

audacious                                        creatures   of   earth

 

fire   was   a   teacher                          who   taught   me

to   ride                                  into   the   heart   of   heat

to    transform   heat                                        into   light

to   let   light                                               consume   me

until   i   became                                           a   brilliance

in   the   eye   of    day

slumgullion is a thin soup you make from the last limp carrot, that half onion that's kind of iffy, whatever leftovers are in the fridge, a half bag of frozen succotash, a potato, and salt and pepper. It will probably be the most delicious meal you've had all day.with social anxiety.

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trans spring

 

no transformation without trans

no transcendence without trans

no transmittance without trans

no transamerica without trans

no translucence without trans

no transference without trans

no transfusion without trans

no transaction without trans

no translation without trans

no transience without trans

no transpose without trans

no transistor without trans

no transpire without trans

 

no humanity without trans

 

we emerge in every generation

 

we enlarge the possibilities

of human existence

 

we will always be here

 

we are trans

trans spring - the week following the election,  like a lot of queer people, I was filled with existential dread. I wrote a few phrases in my notebook that were seeds for this poem. The following week I left the dread behind, decided to face the future loud and proud. Those few poem seeds evolved into this poem. As often happens, those phrases were merely the engine that pulled the poem into being and are nowhere to be found in the final poem.

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