Beyond Two Selves (Intersex Triptych III)

I had two selves

Light and shadow

Child and adult

Male and female

Public and private

Trash and luxury

All competing imposters

I woke slowly

And am awakening still

To brave multiplicity

To deep secrets hidden even from myself

To the lies of the world I swallowed

And choked on

When I ate the decay

Of identity bounded by opposites

Who am I

To define the mystery I inhabit?

Do I take a breath

Or does life breathe me?

How many discoveries

Lie waiting buried beneath my cells?

My body is an invitation to dismantle certainties

As I strive for something real

To live true

To bumble beyond the peck measures

That quantify my life

To inhabit all the expressions

Of competing selves

And perhaps

That is the truest thing

To worship through the sacrament of curiosity

To explore myself without maps

With stakes removed

And history’s flags uprooted

To embrace the infinite ways I may show up

Or hide

Or simply be

In my body

God and goddess kiss

The sky comes down

To meet the the clay of my flesh

The breath of life

In the water

Of my blood

My blood

That can not be named

His or hers

Sexless like an angel

Androgynous like a god

Containing all that was Adam

And all that was Eve

The dark tree of my former shame

Has become an arrow of light

And I seize it

I name

And proclaim

And aim it at the world’s ignorance

Piercing through a trillion books

That erase me and my kin

Lancing the false choices

We were forced to make

Cleaning the old lines drawn

Across our bodies

And the words used to shame our flesh

And condemn our desires

This bright mystery

Cuts through assumption

With an invitation to the same curiosity

That makes me free

All of us

Are just beyond ourselves

Eternally

But that is where we have to go

Come with me

Or follow if you must

But please don’t stay there in your sciolism

Let your toes sink softly

Into uncharted sand

Beyond what you think you know

Look into the mirror

Gaze deeply into your own eyes

And welcome the stranger

Surely looking back at you