Gena Burris

“My mouth is a fire escape.
The words coming out
don't care that they are naked.
There is something burning in here.

When it burns I hold my own shell to my ear,
listen for the parade from when I was seven,

when the man who played the bagpipes
wore a skirt.
He was from Scotland.
I wanted to move there.

Wanted my spine to be the spine
of an unpublished book,
my faith the first and last page.

The day my ribcage became monkey bars
for a girl hanging on my every word
they said, "You are not allowed to love her."
Tried to take me by the throat
to teach me, "You are not a boy."

I had to unlearn their prison speak,
refusing to make wishes on the star
on the sheriff's chest.

I started taking to the stars in the sky instead.
I said, "Tell me about the big bang."
The stars said, "It hurts to become.”
― Andrea Gibson, The Madness Vase