When you have a crush on
the transgender boy at school
your friends will say
“you like her, don’t you?”
They’ll say it’s like
having a threesome every time
They’ll say
He’s the perfect man,
because he’ll never make period jokes
you’ll just sync up at the same time
eat ice cream
and watch netflix.
When you have a crush on
the transgender boy at school
You will talk about matters of the heart
They will make it
Matters of the vagina
Of the breasts
Of the what-happens-in-the-bed
What do you call it when you’re fucking
Of the
What-Does-This-Make-You-Now.
When you have a crush on
the transgender boy at school
You will cry when they call him “Catherine” at graduation
You will cry when you see his name misgendered in the yearbook
You will cry when you never see his name in your phone.
When you have a crush on
the transgender boy at school
You will eavesdrop on stories about his household
Stories about him on T
About him off T
You will watch his face harden and soften
Under the stress of his own body
Refusing to cave into his identity
Under the stress of his own family
Refusing to cave into loving who he is.
When you graduate high school
still crushing on the transgender boy
You will hear your name called correctly.
You will wear the white, female graduation gown
You will eat dinner with your heterosexual boyfriend and his parents
Your will go home to the loving embrace of your own
And you will tell no one.
And you will get away with it.
When you go to college
and still fall in love with transgender boys
You will tell your lovers your sexuality is “flexible”
That you love women because they are soft
They will use the image for their own devices
When they ask you what gender turns you on the most
You will not speak outside their binary
You will not want to scare them with your answer.
When you have a crush on
the transgender boy from your hometown
You will notice him walking on the side of the road
Milk crate in his arms
Filled with the pieces of his broken home.
You will ask him how school’s going
And will feel lead fill your shoes
When you learn his family stopped funding him
when he started transitioning.
You will feel the burden of your affections erupting into feathers
And stand covered in a sheath of plumes
So no one can see your goose bumps.
The transgender boy will stand there naked
How everyone labeled him in the first place
How everyone tried to explain him in the first place
You will drive him the rest of the way home
And write him love letters for every street sign
Especially the ones that say “stop.”
You will try to tell him about your crush
on the transgender boy at school
and feel the words catch in your throat.
They are weighed down by your own milk crate you have chosen to carry
The one that’s small enough to swallow.
When you realize you weren’t brave enough
to love the man waving goodbye to your car window
thanking you for the ride home
You will wonder how much farther you could have taken him
Just by loving him
instead.
