when i feel like a girl
christening my new car by vomiting in a cvs bag on the side of the road swerving across the yellow lines to watch the deer graze in someone’s lawn pulling my hands and the muzzle off the rottweiler who went for my neck and telling him he’s a good boy so brave biting the inside of my cheek when the eye doctor fawns over my birth name yes it’s italian yes it’s so pretty for a pretty girl with pretty eyes reading the latest news that says the F on my birth certificate is now a tattoo on my body that i wasn’t numbed for and which will no doubt get infected squatting in the vet hospital yard with the other kennel techs nearly in tears as the half-paralyzed doberman puppy tries to walk and almost succeeds exchanging resigned glances between the all-girl tech staff as the man in charge berates us over the metzenbaum scissors he misplaced touching up my mullet and thinking hoping nearly praying i’ll look like a guy this time if i fill in my eyebrows enough if i layer my chest enough if i break and bend and break enough then getting my period
Izzy Peroni (he/they) is a poet, student, and veterinary assistant. He is earning his MFA in Creative Writing at Hood College, and is the former book review & assistant poetry editor of The Sock Drawer Literary Magazine. Their poems have appeared in Crow & Cross Keys. He believes in queer joy, TNR, & a free Palestine in our lifetime.