Elle Kennedy Fell

scrambled eggs

the morning after the election
i go to work
and pretend like nothing happened.

i try to block out the fact that
they are trying to discard trans kids,
bunny ear my shoelaces,

beg customers
to rack up their bills
so i can pay mine.

they will control me,
make me their bitch,
tell me to perform,

sell them food
while they grit “sir” through their teeth
as if to summon someone from the dead,

or should i say childhood?
the truth is that
everyone’s first assumption about me

is a mistake.

but one of our regulars is also a trans woman.
and now she is there the morning after,
ordering her usual:

eggs
soft scrambled,
bread to soak up the yolk,

black coffee
and green juice.
her lipstick always stains the glass

from the same lips that utter
“i’m finished”
even when she’s not.

she is restraint in a human body,
and when we enter these walls
our names become “pretend”.

all the mornings
we do this song and dance,
act like we aren’t cut

from the same cloth,
dream that youth
isn’t another word for pain.

i don’t know her vote,

but i do know the reason
she is eating eggs so soft
is because tender is her (our) campaign.

and here i am:
a cracked egg, pieces of my shell
worn on my burning chest.

surely she sees
the chick that i became,
the verbosity of my aliveness,

we crafted a sentence together,
made a silent vow to break the rules,
avoided being $18 of unaliveness on a menu.

“i’m finished with the eggs”, she says.
even as they still lay there mordantly,
i take them to the back,

scrape these bright young worlds
from the plate into the trash,
and think of all the trans kids

everywhere

god.

we are heaven on earth,
the children of you.