On Being the Queer Cousin
By Vesper
I think all of the queer cousins are in the psyche of their straight cousins,
they tiptoe into their mother’s heels and father’s ties but we’re seeing
ourselves in the mirror— at five the queer cousins are playing dress-up,
at eighteen they’re glad we’ve gone to the city, our skeletons sit in our
family’s closets but dance when the lights turn off.
I think all of the queer cousins are magicians. When you pull a shiny quarter from their ear you just get all of the family holidays you attend again, where you want to walk into oncoming traffic, but stuck out a gorgeous smile. Instead of pulling a rabbit out of a hat they pull out a long line of interconnected carabiners; at the end it’s just their mothers' tears.
I think all of the queer cousins are still kids holding flashlights, running around in the dark playing flashlight freeze tag. When the flashlight hits them they are mannequins— pinned, seamless, binary. When sweetdark floods back over them, when they are “it” they are locking themselves away in their bedroom, packing or tucking or binding, fingers run across their bodies fast so they won’t get caught.
Caught. I think all of the queer cousins live as Leslie Feinberg said, with their hair on fire. They are alert, in case handholding becomes handcuffs and face against pavement. It’s illegal to carry self-defence tools along Edinburgh streets, but American queer cousins will tell you how many knives to carry. I carried two.
I know all of the queer cousins are alive. They might never get out of the Matrix, smash their heads into a TV to say they saw it glow— but we bleed. We might be alive, ruby streaks running down our faces to everyone we know, or we might be alive from chat room to hotel room to bathroom stall. We’re holding coffins
on our shoulders from the day we’re born, from Pink Triangle to Red Ribbon tied around our throats. I know all of the queer cousins transform, add layers and layers of skin until they are the human they can still see reflected in the mirror, until they are their own person again, again, again. I know all of the queer cousins throw their fists when you ask them to.
Vesper (he/they) is a disabled, neuroqueer trans poet from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is a Creative Writing, Poetry student at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Their work can be found through www.officialvesperpoems.carrd.co and is forthcoming in new words {press}, Lilith's Diaries, Opal Age Tribune, Full House Literary, and Coin-Operated Press.
Follow Vesper on Instagram @official_vesper
