No, this has nothing to do with biology. Nor is it concerned with whatever you own beneath the drag you're wearing. On the contrary, it is about unashamed nakedness - the type that bodies are praised for having before the fall. It is about owning up, undressing, revealing and embracing all that is there, skin, and flesh, warts and scars and cellulite.

It's funny how several posts ago, I wrote about the experiences of transmen captured in photographs, and someone asked if I was transitioning. I wasn't then, but I do feel some part of me transitioning now towards a more queered space in the gender binary.

I hobble back to my room
under the stars watching
as they always do
when I walk alone
back back back to my room.

I hobble back to my room
world turning around me
as I leave into the night
turning away once
and for all

in the clear crisp night
laughs and goodnights
echoing back and forth
i hobble hobble

and found the final lines
of a chapter lying
in the night

two souls sweep
but they sweep
alone in their own
night time
their own dreams
and quiet echoes

two souls weep
because i hobble
back one last time
and never return
to that night.

closed eyes silent in prayer
a gentle smiles curves
up to the two
bronze tumescence that
sit between dangling
vines that, when you swing
them drowsily along with
your tail, you call on the
spirits of the willow tree,
large, sturdy, and old,

yet you could not see me
your eyes were closed
your prayers silenced.

an ugly boot hits your head
and stays there against
the bark of your cranium
a shoe caked with
mud and prejudice lands
itself on your branching
snout

then comes two
three more ugly men's
shoes - the bulky, dirty,
darker than the brown
type of your skin, more
bulbous than your roots,
more violent than your size.

they've guillotined your head
and your eyes pained
in silenced prayer
tells me a sorry story
about your tail, swinging
like a willow vine in the wind
waving whispers to the flies
which you gently whisk away

before those religious men
came
with their parangs and banners
came
and decapitated head between them
came

shouting
scarring scaring
away those Hindus
who planned to plant
a willow tree of worship
inhabited by spirits

spirits that sit on your sturdy
back -

all now is no more
except for a face
silenced in prayer
tranquil and calm
as you graze the grass
of hate.

ivy leaves redding edges
vines crawling down around
the one old what-used-to-be
kerosene lamp pendulumly
hanging under the arch
a cold wind blows
and picks up the hairs
on my hands and the rectum
shivers in the chill
up the spine
to my nose
leaves fly across the window
they that have fallen
red edging
arriving fall.

On Merdeka day, I stayed mute. I refuse to congratulate a country that does not know how to respect its different minorities. I refuse to honor our heroines and heroes, who fought in the name of independence, under the banner of peace and on the shoulders of genius, when our current leaders, both Pakatan and Barisan are squabbling over nothing.

After all, they are synonyms for the same thing: failed flawed coalitions. Uncompromising, disrespectful and embarrassingly narrow-minded in the way they handle topics of race and religion. After all the temples that were destroyed, denied funding and existence, you do it again. You shove another temple to your shelves of other rotting promises.

And as we watch your child-like drama unfold, our transmen and women live another day under the baton and fat cocks of (our?) policemen. Our children go to schools without desks and chairs, without textbooks, and missing teachers. Our women go missing from the parliament, imprisoned within a society made up of insensitive misogynists. Our people's residences are bulldozed, faith destituted, and heritage lost.

I cover my face, cowering, covering, when I am asked about our sexually abused Penan women, tortured political prisoners, and marginalized low income families. I don't want to point at you, Najib. You've been the butt of too many jokes and misdoings. You smell like the butt of insensitivity and inexperience.

This is sedition. Because I want to aggravate your grip on the reins of our country. It's time the horses neigh and throw you off our backs. It's time we were free again. It's time.

It's time for another Merdeka, an Other which is not you.

I like hearing your voice
it makes me feel safe
it makes me feel
like a comforter
on a morning
after a storm
it makes me feel
like the cross
you carry around
your neck.

I like hearing your voice
among the strawberries
that taste like sun
despite last night's fall
and this morning's chill

for comforters do not shiver
but cover
and crosses are not cold
but heated by the blood
that heats your warm skin
and rise up to the pink
of your cheeks when you smile

a pink
as sweet as sun strawberries
on a cold morning

i eat them while listening to the rain
of your voice
wrapped in the covers
of last night.

I've been proven wrong. Again and again. And I am humbled in my ignorance, my youth, my immaturity, my inexperience, and my perspective. I can only see from these two eyes, so forgive me if it sometimes takes a little longer to imagine, empathize, and consider what your eyes see, what you hear and feel, what scars you bear, what memories you repress, express, and share. It can take me a while.