Caseyrenée Lopez: Me and My Body Are Breaking Up

Nathan Anderson

personhood

me and my body are breaking up

we used to be besties, but now i’m

all twisted up inside.

my body isn’t what it used to be

or maybe its always been this way

and i’m finally beginning to see

the disparity between my intangible

self and my physical self

or maybe my vocabulary has gotten

better so generic adjectives don’t

fit the way they used to

or maybe im hyperaware of the

gendered dichotomous world

that im apart of and its sickening

i’m on the spectrum, the gender

spectrum, and learning how

to create my body in my image.

i’m not a woman or a man or a

gendered toy to be labeled,

i try on person and it fits,

the way vanna white’s dresses don’t.

my body isn’t a lady, i’m not a lady

and the more i’m ladied the more i

realize the widening disparity.

my body isn’t a girl, i’m not a girl

and the more i’m girled the more i

realize the widening disparity.

my body is simple skin

but my mind, not so much.

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Caseyrenée Lopez is a non-binary queerfemme atheist from the Deep South, USA. They write their pain as poems, and in addition to editing Crab Fat Magazine, run TQ Review and Damaged Goods Press in an effort to platform marginalized writers and artists. Caseyrenée loves reading and writing work that destroys preconceived notions of genre and conventions. Their first chapbook of poems, QueerSexWords, was published by Yellow Chair Press in April 2016. Their recent work can be found in tiny poetry: macropoetics, Yellow Chair Review, UnLost Journal, Dirty Chai, The Fem,  and others. Follow them on Twitter @caseyreneelopez.