On being queer

it starts with:
1. two words. one hanging over my head every day, the other only waiting to be said. ironically, they make babies and they make my head heavier.
2. the first salt-water drop.
3. the sound of stitches splitting and skin ripping, beginning all the way from the whatever-the-fuck-is supposed-to-be between my legs.
skin peels back on itself on either side of the tear and it gets bigger and bigger until my stomach is lying wide open. there is no fire, but the air fuels the burning at the taut, white skin at the top of the gash.
(this is called a uterus. this is how you will make babies, if you're particularly unlucky.) the tear widens, lengthens. i fall to my knees, my back arches, grotesque, and my head hits the floor between my feet. i could call it a perfect circle, but there is nothing perfect about this.
(this is called a heart. this is where everything goes and nothing belongs. this part of you is useless, because it serves as no more than a reminder, and it makes you what you are.)
oxygen hits my lungs for the first time in my life and i have never been less able to breathe. bones were not made for this; my back threatens to snap and my throat refuses to cry. the gash makes its way across my face, skin ripping off every dip and rise until i am reduced with a "t" to nothing more than a twisted mass of flesh and bones on the floor. the only humanity holding this body intact lies in a pile of skin
and i don't have its protection anymore, the flesh and bones on the floor are no longer a person.
(this is called a brain. this is where the words make babies.)
every exposed nerve is pelted with the words, and they become branded into their ends so that i can do nothing but feel. the queer spills out of me like a dream come true except i will never be able to bleed this out no matter how much i try, and through all the spite and dread i think that if there is a god letting this happen, He is either laughing or powerless. the first word is "transgressor". the second word is "queer".