Asia Franklin

Cellular Disposition

So what?
Dead leaves hitting my bare shoulders
during the hottest Texas on record. And there weren’t little fires
everywhere in my organs. My name genuflected inside me,
asking.
 
So what?
My conversations with Sydney-
I fucking hate everybody especially the little twink & butch
under the heart of me. [voice message] You’re happy.
I laughed in my cup- shades of kool-aid blue.
 
So what?
Wading through handsomes of loneliness,
regurgitated by my intellectual arrogance. I wasn’t special.
I was just a kid who found sorcery on lined sheets of paper.
Overusing words like: I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.
Until it made me sick.
 
Until I flirted with the keypad. Until I called
Phillip DeVine, Brandon Teena, Marsha P. Johnson, Lou Sullivan,
Sylvia Rivera, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy. And asked.
And it was ok. Their numbers didn’t change.