Deleted Scene: Each Time I’m Trans Enough

The universe inside my breath
I hold in walking home
the eyes glued to me become planets
my head must be a sun my dress deep space

my learning to feel small
despite this body’s gravity

                                    not   real

                                                            but                               tries

                        to be                a    Star

            be born                                                be made

                                                                                                            a thousand times

            ice

                        violence

                        or                     pathology

but       ________

                                                            not ________

             real     ________

                                                                                                  thinks       ________

                                                                         thinks

once loved a good debate with friends
our nostrils flared like telescopes
not these arguments about my name
who knows me more than I do

                                                  not   real

            not   real

but       terrifying                                              very close

            but                   criminal

criminal

                                     identity

what

                        thinks is

                                                            thinks

                                                 tries

thinks

passing by the squad car
with its officers agape
I taste asteroid out of instinct

                                                  not   real

not   real

                                                                          but                 tries to be

             not    real

                                                                        not    real

                        but      ________

                                      catch                ________

catch

                                                tries     to be

               catch

             tries to                         be

                                                 catch                                                   tries

Note: unitalicized body text is composed through an erasure of dialogue between Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs (1991), where the characters claim that the antagonist Buffalo Bill is not a “real transsexual.”

CD Eskilson is a trans poet and editor from Los Angeles. Their work appears or is forthcoming in Hobart, Pleiades, Washington Square Review, minnesota review, and they are a 2022 Best of the Net finalist. CD is assistant poetry editor at Split Lip Magazine. They are an MFA candidate at the University of Arkansas.