1.
the first tear falling on the carpet of a funeral parlor cements us to the bottom of the river of sadness in an almost definitive way
the great tragedy of our dead is that they do not disappear
they haunt us with a smile
ready to jump in one of our tears
they are there hoping to save themselves from our memory
but our memory constantly replays their disappearance
but grandma, you’ve died hundreds of times
I beg your pardon
your DNA is cut in my dreams
I find vestiges of your voice in the trees
I wonder what flower grows from you, grandma
I protect you by not forgetting you
I know the gods started dying when no one was praying for them anymore
2.
He wrote to me several times following our meeting. “I’d like to give you a try.” Try that with a trans woman. »
People should know that we can’t try on someone, that we are not pieces of clothing.
And I answer him: “It’s not the first time that I’ve tried someone hurtful like you, you must feel less unique, don’t you? »
3.
the mirrors are on strike, no longer reflect reflections
shadows take advantage of the fallow land of our bodies these rebel against what we keep quiet
our panicked cells of radioactive night
suggest that the sun is unhooked from its base
that society will never find its voice
we deposit our sick poems in the hollow of our palms aged with anguish
hope they wiggle a toe that we don’t bring death
4.
One morning you watch the trees sway in the green promise of summer to come. It seems that this promise is for others. Those others who know how to rejoice in the buds.
Still snow on your shoulders—not melting.
Maybe if someone offered you their hot breath.
One morning you get up and your wounds no longer want to heal. They are on strike following a burnout that has not been recognized for years.
The scabies take over the infection and the traumatic memories are so vivid that they take the place of the future.
5.
No one suspects that for a trans woman, succeeding in smiling at herself in the mirror is a sign that the world is changing, transmuting. Besides, his image is more than an image, it’s tears that have learned to walk.
6.
We already have the birds flying across the sky without the world protesting. So I think it will be possible for a trans woman to slip away during the day without disturbing anyone, without fearing for her life. For the moment, this is in the realm of utopia, and yet trans women are very real.
7.
Learning to laugh can be harder than learning to walk. But, on leaving my therapist’s office, a tickle full of the power of what created the world. This tickling swells the esophagus until it says, there you go, I’m alive.
From now on, a challenge is offered to me: to laugh as many times as the number of times I have cried.
I revisit the country of sadness and for once, I feel like a foreigner. I no longer want to let the crystalline convulsions of despair trail behind me. Because I deserve it, because I find another meaning in the word heal.
To heal: to wage war on sorrows with laughter.
8.
Thanks to you, who see us, without us having to justify ourselves.
Thanks to you, who embrace us without setting us on fire.
Thanks to you, who offer us your warmth when our shivers carry the weight of our dead.
Thanks to you, who want us alive.
Texts 1 and 3 were written as part of the evening tribute to the work of Marie Uguay, PIECES, produced by L’Automne des mots at P’tit Bonheur in Saint-Camille, last September. They have never been published until today.