I don’t know how to explain
this to you: when walking
into my therapist’s office
my lips hook themselves
together and I don’t tell him:
my gender is like an ocean
roiling somewhere between
the things I tell myself and
the things I tell my mother:
when the first man enters
my mouth, I imagine clouds
as gray as the salty musk
spreading over my tongue:
when two anglers come
together one is always lost:
when my therapist asks if
I’m not just rejecting masculinity
because all the men in my life
have been horrible, that
manhood lumps inside me
like some toxic garbage patch,
I don’t scream—remember,
I’m hooked shut;
that sea of chest
between my shoulders
rolling a tide of shaky breaths
feels good, real good,
when a man touches it
and kisses it and in the dark
I cannot tell where he ends
and: when my mother asks
where I was over the weekend,
I resist the urge to tell her:
I was drowning: I don’t know
how to explain this to you:
I don’t know where I end
and: the anglerfish subsumes
its mate into itself, there’s no
time for: grief is my latest catchall,
or maybe everything is grievous,
I hope not: grief is me climbing
into the anglerfish’s mouth
ready to turn the light off.
this to you: when walking
into my therapist’s office
my lips hook themselves
together and I don’t tell him:
my gender is like an ocean
roiling somewhere between
the things I tell myself and
the things I tell my mother:
when the first man enters
my mouth, I imagine clouds
as gray as the salty musk
spreading over my tongue:
when two anglers come
together one is always lost:
when my therapist asks if
I’m not just rejecting masculinity
because all the men in my life
have been horrible, that
manhood lumps inside me
like some toxic garbage patch,
I don’t scream—remember,
I’m hooked shut;
that sea of chest
between my shoulders
rolling a tide of shaky breaths
feels good, real good,
when a man touches it
and kisses it and in the dark
I cannot tell where he ends
and: when my mother asks
where I was over the weekend,
I resist the urge to tell her:
I was drowning: I don’t know
how to explain this to you:
I don’t know where I end
and: the anglerfish subsumes
its mate into itself, there’s no
time for: grief is my latest catchall,
or maybe everything is grievous,
I hope not: grief is me climbing
into the anglerfish’s mouth
ready to turn the light off.
Aidan Aragon is a poet and student writing and studying in Madison Wisconsin. Their work can be found at The Hellebore, Peach Mag, and Homology Lit among others. You can find them online @aidanaragon.