I Lost My Penis

Dealing with issues of gender, societal notions of boyhood/girlhood, and transgender issues of identity

Mother thrust me from her womb with ten fingers,

two eyes and one penis, which my stomach

rolled over on, hiding. I lost it

to a boy with no penis who wanted

one enough to bet his vagina on,

promising it would be mine if I won. I

asked for his breasts, too, and he demanded

my testicles. I didn’t have the heart to tell him

they weren’t more than leaking flesh and cum-

bersome weights smashing into the bike that held

my baseball bat, soccer ball, boxing gloves

(only dusted by the breeze as I rode and girls who

traded for them with Barbie Dolls.) Never breasts

or vagina; those I never had and

wanted to try. We played a game of numbers,

not of chance but of words that trumped and

spilled over each other in a torrent of

digits larger than the one before until

I stumbled, tripping on a D--into Ds--on

a step forward he caught me in his ten fingers,

staring at me with two eyes and one penis.

Reviews

[Tinotenda Nyevedzanai]

Perfect I love this piece from start to finish well done!