Poem For Old People Who Don’t “Get” They/Them Pronouns
You know we’re just waiting
for all of you to die, right?
You continue to scoff at
what’s important to us,
and ruin the only world
we’ll ever hope to have.
Y'all are like ignorant
fathers who want to
“test out” our brand-
new birthday bicycles;
we know that thing will break
before we ever get a turn.
Babies are burning in
our palm sized windows.
We get front row seats
to genocide we pay for
against our will.
No one cares about
what’s really important.
The poets often remind me
that kindness is all there is.
More and more
The courage to
Correct a masculine
Assumption grows
Like the impatience
Of a SeaWorld Orca.
What I’m saying is,
this is the bare minimum.
My name is ▊▊▊▊▊▊
and I use they/them
fucking pronouns.
What’s yours?
I swear to god if you say
My pronouns are U-S-A,
I will hug you tighter.
I understand that
we’ve kinda changed
the language
a little bit,
and that scares you,
how quickly we’re able
to rewrite what’s been written.
It’s okay.
This generation believes in therapy.
You don’t have to keep it all bottled up inside.
Come on, tell us, tell us how you
feel.
Calling Grandma In Full Glam
I spend almost an hour
beating my face with a
CPR beauty-blender;
trying to make my eyeliner
perfect, plucking feathers off each wing
til both are impressive identical;
a nearly impossible task,
much like this phone call.
She always talks about
what a handsome young
man my grandfather was,
& what a handsome young man
I’m turning
out to be.
On her side
of this call
She thinks she
is talking to the boy
she raised to
take care of
a woman
like her,
but I just wanted to be her.
I’m walking towards a
Queens bound G train,
muffling the sound of
my heels on the sidewalk.
I’m looking for a man she
could’ve fallen in love with
If my old spice grandfather
wasn’t discharged from Vietnam
for being allergic to the uniforms wool.
I am wearing a gown.
My eyelids are smoky.
Lips brilliantly lined.
I’m dazzling in highlighter.
If they saw me now
they’d go blind.
She talks about her flowers.
She talks about her sisters.
She asks me about my “little friend” (boyfriend of two years)
She asks me how I’m doing with money.
She tells me about the most recent side character death.
She asks me what that sound is (G train arriving)
I tell her I have to go.
I tell her I love her.
I want to tell her
I am snatched to the gods.
I want to ask
can I be beautiful
and handsome?
I want to ask
do you love
whoever I am?
Hunter Hodkinson (they/them) is a non-binary, Ohio born poet and editor, building community in Brooklyn & beyond. They have worked with The Adroit Journal & are the founder of Dead End Zine, a quarterly publication showcasing art, poetry, & interviews. Their work appears or is forthcoming in, december, Anti-Heroin Chic, Dream Boy Book Club, SplashLand Magazine, Poetry is a Team Sport, and elsewhere.