says a curly haired young man on the B line to Boston College on the eve
of trans day of remembrance. I am trying
to get to Brighton where my beloved waits, but the train keeps skipping
and the lights blinking out. “Major moves,” he repeats as the brakes
cry for help. I imagine every person I see on the train
could be trans. I imagine they could be harboring this same fear.
So many lost. So many killed. So many misknown.
Now he talks about artificial intelligence. The selfmade intelligence
of every trans person claiming their own right to be
what they are compels me more.
“I don’t want to wait fifteen years to get there,” he says. I don’t want to wait
fifteen years for an affirmation of life. Fifteen years from now,
will I still hold my beloved all night? The train stops again. The train and I,
we know what it means to falter. To wish the tracks were kinder. “All the people
I gravitate towards are older.” Every trans person who is older than me
is a treasure. I get off the train a stop early because I am afraid of derailment.
C.M. Green is a Boston-based writer with a focus on history, memory, gender, and religion. Their work has been published or is forthcoming in Full House Literary, Southeast Review, ANMLY, and elsewhere. Their debut hybrid chapbook, I Am Never Leaving Williamsburg, is out with fifth wheel press in February 2025, and their poetry chapbook Without Instruction is forthcoming from JAKE in 2025. They stand for a free Palestine and encourage you to find tangible ways to do the same. You can find their work at cmgreenwrites.com.