Lay Off/Lay Down

“Non-working notice period”, they called it,
a “notice period” before I am ejected straight into the ether,
into the Big Empty,
into the Churn,
but hey, I get paid to not work in the meantime!

And by no means did they
twist
the knife in,
no,
by most accounts I am probably one of
the most financially stable 20-something trans women in the world,
even now,
but like in so many other ways
my body has not caught up this reality.

It is lingering in
other places,
other times,
responses to
other situations,
and just because I grew tits
doesn’t mean the rest of it doesn’t have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the now.

And I know my therapist
is internally rolling their eyes
reading me write that I need to exist in my body
in the present moment—
as they’ve suggested many times.

But sometimes it takes
a needle jabbing into your skin a million times a second
in the shape of a matching ouroboros
or the semi-uncertain future of a
“non-working notice period”
to see that which is right in front of you—

That I will be okay.

That the importance, the authenticity, in my life
is not the symbolism of a looming, monolithic wine fridge
or a fast car
or the Bauhaus pen I’m writing this with
—not that you can’t be a communist and like nice things— but is (cheesily?)
the people I choose to love and who choose to love me.

That to be overwhelmed with fear is to reject
the one thing I can surrender to.

That sometimes I must remind myself
that they took my job, not my life,
not my self,
not my love.

That sometimes I just need to think
of the rain in June
pounding against the roof
and then kiss my wife
and lay down.