smashed compass

you went as far north
as the compass proclaimed
excelled at embodying
one direction,
designated
make this route 
as expansive as possible
fit everything you can
inside

and then you reach a limit
and still there is more
and the parameters
of before don't hold
and the definition
doesn't fit
as much as you shift it
if the definition slackens
do you release the root
was the root ever yours
even if you knew it intimately
or like can the root be true
you've just got another route
yet to meet

the word converge
comes to me in a dream
and i think about flannery 
o'connor who loved jesus
like me, everything 
that rises, must then
converge, a meeting 
of the selves, maybe 
we don't lose one side,
we just gain another
that must see the light 
of day more

how to negotiate
these things 
in a single body
in a society
with bisected lens
how to convey
multitudinousness 
everyone is volumes
of course, sure
but this princess 
sailor hybrid feeling
so elusive-- how much
t do you have to take
to wear a skirt again
in the conceptual
landscape

or maybe you don't want to
a relic of the past, something
you eventually pet with fondness
knowing it held it's role
and then was over
i believe in continuums
and braids, i am one
to let self grow
in a direction never known
i've done it before,
but this time on the outside
you went where you were told
and did it with fight and seething rebellion
all flowers have fangs femme fangs
femme dick raging soft soft
it was all so real it all does count
i was and now this flipped switch
she still has tits he does they do
bleating wet heart and pussy
you are this multitude
easter basket of gender
exhausting-- imagine yourself
growing in forms,
these shifts in protrusion
and concavity

my therapist says i am
gaslighting myself
i flip through old 
photo albums
trying to gauge
my childhood feelings
beaming with manicures
dotted in sequins diy
tutus and lipstick
we loved hard
what we had
we did our best with it
then the form burst
you still loved your boyfriend
even though you left him
it's the body and it's
permanent change
we're afraid of

is my voice deepening
from all this excavation
and unlearning
am i forgetting my frills--
to recontextualize everything
eradicates the significance
of what truly was, in it's context
the lived and the living
and the multi-layered
the panda bear on my pillow
was named pansy, next to peony
next to a third little unnamed
trio of fairies plush
at the helm of the bed

could every healed queer spirit
come cradle me, or at least
those available, rock me 
into the next dimension
guide my hands pick my frocks
rest my body and brain
offer space for all
any rockhard narrative melts