that it is on meand its physicality )though not me( is how i’ve been addressedm  y  w  h  o  l  e  b  o  r  i  n  g  l  i  f  ewhen i was ninei watched aladdin and thought, after moneyi wish for whiteness*i didn’t even have all my teeth—or vocabulary,just two birchwood hands trying to catch the basketballmy brother hurled at my facewheni was nineteen my ( face )erupted / in nodular cyststhe bleeding jupiter kindof sulphuric condensatesand an alien registration.i had it alla family, some second-hand sweatpants,a genderwhose every sentence beganwheniwasaboyi looked like my mothernow, more like Father, Baba, dadam a full yard of ironywaiting for lightning to lick me back ^~oncei was on a gay date (just once)and a hunched-over woman slipped me a white notei thought it said “JESUS”but instead“mario badescu”the skincare brand i would sell months laterwhen i learned to smother the errataof hormonal bludgeoningsto the surface—other children saw derm-atologists at the sight of a curly pubewhile my own motherwheniwasaboy waited until her gallbladder explodedto get her gallstones removed.i watched her dimpled assblow in the wind of the hospital hallwayas she learned to walk againand i slept in her bed and fedher plain contraband congeei am still talking about facesthe dented, fraxeled, mole-scarred and trenched onesi took a pill many times that induced apoptosis“cell death”i could barely afford 4 months ofmy lips peeling like WWII wallpaperthe sex i was not supposed to havedid not happen anywaysas a nude-myself i am cratered irreversiblyso whymust i explain the thoughts i’ve hadon the things i never got to decidethey happened to me ) happen all the time& i changed         i learned i could keep changingi must to keep myself