I wrote the first of these poems (ten years) in October of 2023 and the last of them in the first week of April of 2024 (again). This time period also marked the start of my second year of HRT and my partner of eight years leaving the house three months after I had ended things.
The next six months were a whirlwind of feelings fully expressed -- more fully and honestly than I ever had in my life. More rawly than I had since I was a teenager. These nineteen poems capture and chart those feelings as best I knew how, and the writing of these poems was therapy for the events they reference.
One aspect of starting all this in middle age is that after decades of living a shadow life and absorbing everything I could about transition -- I knew all the cliches. Knew the lessons everyone else learned. Knew every pitfall of the heart to come, and yet, I still needed to do it all.
Knowing and feeling are different things. A heart in the harbor is safe but that's not what hearts are for.
RISO cover printed on Mi Teintes stock, heavy weight laser printed interior.
19 poems over 37 pages
