TY RASO (she/they) is a trans poet, essayist, and teacher. Her work is featured or forthcoming in POETRY, The Adroit Journal, Electric Literature, The Offing, Black Warrior Review, DIAGRAM, Salt Hill Journal, Split Lip Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the author of the forthcoming collection MIRROR WOULD BE A BEAUTIFUL NAME FOR A CHILD (Noemi Press, 2027).
The game asks you to decide
on a set of genitals.
It felt like being loaned a body.
Green above and below the
half-made avatar like pressing
your face to a window.
I was in my underwear in both
bodies.
I have a pill bottle full of
paintbrushes.
I made several choices.
We could be described as
making eye contact.
There was a certain droning in
the walls.
I was used to it, like skin.
I took off what was left of her
clothes.
Maybe rebirth.
A violent game.
I wanted to be resembled.
I had to lower the graphic
settings, reducing the amount
of edges.
In a pinch, a polished enough
dagger could serve as a mirror.
I liked the music.
I had plenty of time.
My neighbors and their loud,
theatrical sex.
I could tell they had characters
they liked to play.
A judge, a spy, a bodyguard, a
veterinarian.
Once, a painter and a model.
We shared a wall I put nails
through.
A violent game.
The enemies and I taking
turns, trading sword swings
like haircuts.
It felt intimate and remote, like
sending and receiving mail.
I enjoyed clothing the
hardwood with blood.
I imagined it was like going to
the grocery store, selecting the
right cut of meat.
All the fragmented bodies,
beneath plastic like
face masks.
I haven’t eaten meat since I
was a child.
I don’t miss the taste, but I do
miss feeling large.
The heater let off a rust smell.
I could convince myself it was
alive.
It touched the walls with its
stained fingers.
The feral cat returned with its
usual dead birds.
I pretend to understand what
she says.
Like God, probably.
Rot pooled at the bottom of
the fridge, the color of bones
left out to dry.
I built a You out of the
mirrors in my skull.
Like turn-based combat.
We got an email about the
hornet’s nest in between the
doors.
(no subject)
You told me about Your firefly
jar, light like stitches between
light.
It was not my first hornet's
nest.
I have been many places.
Walls seemed to be the
common denominator.
And light, sound.
I closed the windows, put on
the room’s seeing glasses.
You were cold, I noticed.
Now, I make You into a dog.
I try to think of us as equals,
fail.
Your imaginary ear satelliting
the apartment.
You are sensitive to sounds
that don’t stick to me, like glue
peeling off skin in a dry,
tender layer.
The avatar idles, checks her
boots, adjusts her bag.
She seems aware of the weight
she carries.
It is suggestive of having a
body.
As the shape of a chair, the
half-mouth I leave when I
stand.
I ignored You for part of the
day.
Our attention found a meeting
place.
The moon, which felt too
convenient, like an especially
loud sound.
It made the room no brighter.
It reminded me of light.
I study advertisements for
bodies like mine.
Furniture, beer, erectile
dysfunction subscription
services.
A body anti-depressed under
thumbprint sunlight, like a bug
allowed to live.
Not even my most apologetic
obsession, or perverse.
I imagine You urgeless.
Food delivery service
advertising bottom-friendly
menus.
A peach is juiced by a giant
hand, its blood clear, cartoon.
The peach seems to enjoy it.
Eyes Xing like needles leaving
skin.
A violent game.
The avatar kissed and fucked.
It was rhythmless, which made
it seem real.
Two bodies with hands.
Four hands plucking the dark
like grapes.
Unlike me, she closes her eyes
The intake form was
exhaustive.
I resist the compulsion to
invent experiences, like the
television in a dentist’s office.
Drew faces on the steamed
mirror, waited for You to find
them.
I missed the childhood I
hated, like running with a
knife.
If the avatar died, the world
returned to an earlier version
of itself.
The body reattached to the
body.
I couldn’t prove that she had
no memory of the pain.
The siren light painted the
ceiling red.
There were birds on wires.
There were baby names listed
on the screen.
I did laundry.
The machine in my window
turned air into air.
It’s very easy to explain,
actually.
I fell in love with a wall.
I cheated on that wall with
another wall.
It was like being drawn and
quartered.
It was like how I used You.
As a bridge.
Or a blank.
The avatar ate berries, had no
visible scars.
She dreamed of blood like a
wolf or a womb.
Maybe rebirth.
How did we get here? You
asked.
For some reason, I thought
you meant the body.
Volume 16.2, Fall 26
Ty Raso
