AmLit Fall 2021

Page 53

Fall 2021

I am sick I am tired I am angry And I do not know how to tell you how those feelings have drilled into my bones Engrained like sand into the very fabric of my being How do I tell you? Yet another time I open the news and see another dead face staring back at me Another request for funding for the funeral Another name for the list I am tired of seeing that there is another dead trans woman When Black trans women have a life expectancy of their mid 30s I think of Marsha P Johnson, our foremother Dead in her 30s Her body floating in a river But we remember her We commemorate our dead on a day every year The hundreds killed in 365 days around the world All because they’re trans I do not know how to tell you how sick I am How tired I am Or how angry I am Because how do I tell you how I hate to see the news debating whether I exist Whether who I am makes me sick or makes me crazy Whether people like me deserve to be alive Because it isn’t who I am that’s the problem When it’s their attitudes killing the most vulnerable of us How do I tell you the betrayal of families turning on us? Their hearts broken because I am me? I am sick I am tired I am angry And I hate the screams trapped inside my soul As the states do their best to outlaw us To deny us medicine or the right to our gender The right for our bodies to match how we are 32/50 states cracking down 13 of our own dead this year, one dead trans person a week It’s not new It’s not special This is every day Every year Wondering how many of us go unremembered, unrecognized Because they were still trapped inside Or their families denied who they were even in death And yet I should be happy Because my state has banned the trans panic defense, only the 12th And things are doing better here than they were before While I worry for my trans siblings in Arkansas and North Carolina and Dakota As their rights are stripped bare How can I be happy? When all I feel looking at the news Is sick Is tired Is angry And how can I tell you that?

How Do I Tell You Rhys Allison Content Warning: transphobia

53


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the effects of distance: a series of love letters — Sydney Muench

5min
pages 101-106

Not a Nightmare — Kaitlyn Newport

0
page 97

manic pixie nightmare — Olivia Wenke

2min
page 94

The People in That Car Must Be Dead — Max Robins

2min
page 93

Mother — Gracie Donovan

0
page 89

I Love Long Titles But I Can Never Be Clever So, Here It Is You Bastards — Ray Koffink

1min
page 84

Shadow Puppet — Ashley Hocking

0
page 87

First Supper — Vishwa Bhatt

0
page 86

February, 2009 — Gracie Donovan

1min
page 81

Zeyde’s Big Day — Max Robins

5min
pages 78-79

Beautiful Things — Annie Przypyszny

0
page 76

the green interlude — McKenna Casey

0
page 61

Dollar Value — Abby Grifno

2min
page 65

milk carton portrait — Alexia Partouche

1min
page 59

How Do I Tell You — Rhys Allison

2min
page 53

Dog World — Hope Neyer

1min
page 54

White Dust — Natalie Flynn

1min
page 46

perfect places — Trevor Luciani

0
page 51

Dreaming of a Spanish Morning — Lindsey McCormack

0
page 45

Mango Juice — Maite Ramos

1min
page 40

if you’re reading this i’m alive — McKenna Casey

1min
page 39

Untitled — Noah Fischer

0
page 34

Ghost Story — Vishwa Bhatt

1min
page 36

Finding — Ashley Hocking

0
page 35

Cicadas Hum Psalms — Annika Rennaker

0
page 28

Call Me Shallow — Liah Argiropoulos

3min
page 31

And So I Do, And So I Do — Ray Koffink

0
page 26

bittersweet — McKenna Casey

1min
page 25

On a Hill in Vermont — Lindsey McCormack

0
page 18

Tongue Twister — Jamie Klinger

0
page 16

I’m Thinking — Annie Przypyszny

0
page 22

Skeletal Remains — Hannah Sjovold

2min
page 12

Ode to the Closet — Jamie Klinger

3min
pages 10-11

At the Wild Reef Exhibit — Annie Przypyszny

1min
page 15

A Premonition of Philophobia — Callie Lau

1min
page 20

Sapphic x3 — Gracie Donovan

0
page 9
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