—after Chen Chen

You summon My Discomfort 
in the bathroom mirror—
say the deadname three times 
in the low candlelight mystique—
and there I am, to inhabit the smoke
of a shifting, nervous flame
that fills the air of your housing. 

You repeat the truth of your face to your eyes
until the incongruence begins—
and the word becomes a shape,
and the sound has a shape,
but you do not feel as if you have a shape
to call yourself—

You name what reflects before you
against what you reflect upon,
as you try to speak to both
in new sputtering utterances
that cannot speak in all tenses,
that do not speak to all there was, is, and to be—
yet you need a name
that many won’t care to learn,
you need a shape
that only their bodies are born to make.

Their bodies shaped you.

Their shapes are your body.

You try to speak from a wordless place—
through the framework of their bodies—
but all that you exhale now is formless,
and all that you inhale burns your throat.

You will repeat this every night
until you are only smoke and mirrors.