two Trans ™ Sex Workers messaging the Verizon guy ™
oh! he made a mistake, you said,
and then he corrected it.
or he’s just a really good computer,
i think. then you wonder aloud
“i just asked him why they need a credit check.
he says there will be no impact.”
like how you said my tattoo would be,
but, four days later, there we were peeling dead
skin off my underboob. i thought it was like:
1. lake steam, 2. carbonated, 3. moon
sauce, 4. puberty, 5&6. sea (scum) weed, 7ish. Forever
21 jeans after two weeks, 8. a good two pounds
9. asymptotically attractive, but I actually go with
“authentic”. you said its your ghost.
“better be careful. Yikes! and we have to have a landline
too,” he says. a transgender plan—
it’s both, actually,
internet and Unlimited Calling across U.S.A., the Verizon guy ™ temps.
{Life’s all negotiation}. but for a breath,
we actually see our future unclench. “that’s our landline!” you say. “babe, that’s our baby!
so if we ever lost power, and we lost our phones, you can still call
your mom and be like come pick me up.”
we, ultimately, decide Verizon guy ™ seems sketchy.
you know why. they stand on street corners, pretend to be construction workers.
“Y’all ain’t got no account with US!” {today, real life’s nothing but
dialogue}. in the “Acceptable Lower Speeds Disclaimer”
section of their website they didn’t even finish a sentence. how embarrassing—
to make mistakes online. because now he’s asking did i lose you?
{our mistake was living} “why all these mens so corny?” you say.
my tattoo was cellophane pudding skin and then “voila!”
It was irritated, and pimple; bamboozle and violence.
“is he gonna come into my screen now that i told him i’m here?”
you worry. tap{p}ed camera. “Apple does that shit.”
i agree, even though i wasn’t aware.
Wonderful. (he interrupts) Please click our synergistic “Place Order”
button and update me once you get order # ? Ok, babe?
“what bout my deals? :)”
Does not compute ; )
cute. i ask, “well? did we get one? did we get a Verizon, daddy?
{life’s interruptions, seriously}
You leave a final question
cooling on your text box—
“babe, who gonna tell Comcast”
Poem for Liv, # 58/37909659(:?8;7& tiiycr357;67)7
How many of these am i gonna do pretending / it helps any. / The thing that alway gets me—you
say i love you so much, people start refusing. / So let me show You: // the following is collected
from things i texted regarding, / in one way or another, You. / So, in regards to you: if your
androgyny / could just please pour out of my throat and on to my nice white converse / that be
nice. i’d be like Thank You, no lie. // and in regards to Our Jungkook: fuck me full of butterflies,
you full- / sized cherub. in regards to (definitely only) Our Dominos / fetish: ITS NOT YOUR
FAULT (*falls in Your arms // fully sobbing rose petals as Your eyes / roll clean out Your head
and over the bucktoothed dusk) / with regards: i wish i could bring You soup so You’d throw / a
fit and toss it in my face while Adriana / sneaks up behind, gives You a peck on the cheek // the
peck You otherwise wouldn’t accept but still need / and then while You Leo under Your sheets /
Adriana and i SHALL FLEE / And then She’d take me straight / to the hospital. regarding poetry:
// Lol i’ve done it all dude and yet still i bob / on the surface like a drowned, unmarked bird. /
Regarding temporal injustice: i wish You were here too! / We’d watch Jungkook do anything
until We die. // What You need regardless: i’ll draw an UWU instagram band-aid / on Your nose.
You won’t know what hit You, Bitch. // regardless: i LOVE YOU AND HERE’S THE POEM / i
(been) PROMISING!!!! / Regardless of this conversation: Erk just sent me a tattoo of a cute-
cocked UWU-fox-kin in stockings. Regarding offense, i think: / no one Venmoed me for my
likeness for this. // Regarding Our/my bong: which has just become a metonym for “cool”
smoke, and all that that means, / and which makes me puzzle my lady beard over what the breeze
in Hades’ must be like, / which is just another way to think asthmatic phoenix whose hunger
sounds exactly like ambulances / which is one of the many angles i hope never saves you: Liv, /
let us thrive / in our poem’s: the canary yellow of blue.
Woody Woodger is a trans/non-binary, pan, disabled, anarcho-commie, currently living in Washington, DC. Her poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, from DIAGRAM, Northern New England Review, Drunk Monkeys, RFD, Exposition Review, peculiar, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. Her first chapbook, postcards from glasshouse drive (Finishing Line Press) has been nominated for the 2018 Massachusetts Book Awards. You can find her bi-week column Pre-Op Thot on COUNTERCLOCK Magazine where she serves as Blog Editor and Poetry Reader. If THAT wasn’t enough (it was) you can find her on Instagram and Twitter @lovlyno1.