My Trans Body As Karmic Vengeance
(1)
I am Buddhist & have been since birth
& I have a photo of me head-shaved red-robed
& 5-year-old to prove it. We do not
pedestalize creation because we recreate
every lifetime as men & women & sometimes
something else— it’s all in our good,
Theravada bones. Ground calcium
chanting: Humans are self-replenishing
& the possibilities are wild!
The transsexual blue is reinvention coming
much earlier. Catechize yourself
until nothingness comes– horns, strings,
graveyard spirits noisemaking — a death
to be celebrated. A death that starts
from questioning. Creation arises!
Newness! Novelty! All from questions
too unkind for any child.
Still, this is wonderful. Infinite suffering
& infinite joy; the most dutiful forces
at taking turns— even at regeneration,
disorder. & we even have a word for it: samsara.
Fiddles with karma, implies linear
equations– this present & once-future a sum
of pasts. My transsexual body, frighteningly
& solidly present, is no exception.
(2)
Everyone always starts with a sinless slate
but I must have been one faithless husband–
or wife, if this invisible hand I always fail
to make concrete of, would be so very kind.
An equation that ends in punishment
is what every hair on my chest & every glance
thrown my way sings out, & the kindest
of my neighbors say dance with karma
as karma comes, as if this is
not the equivalent of stroking a maneating
flower that you know only craves your blood.
Cisbodies reborn is holy, but my entire self survives,
supposedly, only as a penalty— I would beg
to differ. I wish
to beg to differ.
But is the self– reconfigured
or not– so feeble
as to depend only on– to result only in–
the physical body? That defies the Buddhist
strive for liberation.
(3)
Isn’t a self I created feeble in the same manner?
Are all selves feeble?
Liberation means the absence of self.
Any presence of self must be feeble. Trans and cis.
Is my transsexual self feebler in comparison?
An egalitarian karmic system does not exist.
(4)
Question religion. Question
self. But haven’t I done enough
questioning already?
T.R.San is a queer, transsexual poet based in Yangon who writes horror without meaning to. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Mister Magazine and Tigers Zine. They tweet at @trsanpoet.
