Owns Your
Mikaila Hanman Siegersma
–
i
my mother tells me I used to dress more arty say
you mean more femme she says yeah
like a woman now you’re more
plain
you cut your hair you’re talking about all these new gender identities
like you don’t fit into your own
cause i don’t sometimes i want to go out not having breasts
looking pretty
but today you wore mascara she says
winking
ladyyyyyyy do lady beeeeeeee
ii
gimme me a body with a blank slate
oil on the road petrol or — what is it? — rainbow shimmer
i’m in a desert staring down a highway there’s a mirage sweat
across the brow like that
wipe me down between the big toe and the next toe
length of breasts
my thighs saying the body is blank slate
empty empty saying
no thing huge piece of glass marble or dough
what shape says me my thighs saving everybody
except for me is it a
cool morning are they losing their substance is it an
object of love i don’t love them
they mean all this stuff i don’t like
underside of flesh not blankness or blanket
I’m so abject rolling eyes i’m the object of love
take something away better be my pillow
iii
oiled up, sliding- ing ripping as position is claimed we curse, we lick the ice. hey
girls. you’re a girl that’s why your jaw has stopped growing. we lick the wounds we touch bodies say belong say mine mine mine
kick the bucket, cream away get a mirage
stroke over objects until they turn to thighs
is an undressed table nice or intelligent? like in English how are there are not certain words to say that’s a female lounge suite &
i’m taking off my shield
that’s how much speech it takes to eat
how much does it cost to be gender-less
Mikaila Hanman Siegersma is an Australian essayist and poet who has written for Places, Mary Journal, GORE Journal and Emerging Writers’ Festival project 9 Slices. Mikaila thinks that kindness is really radical.
Aaron Billings is a human beanbag who likes Project Runway and whole heartedly believes sprinkling chia seeds on any meal makes it healthy. He has been published in The Lifted Brow, Voiceworks, Canary Press and Going Down Swinging to mention a few impressive situations.
