"I only mis-gender myself when Fleetwood Mac comes on" by Lyd Havens

Lyd Havens lives in Boise, Idaho. Their work has previously been published in Ploughshares, The Shallow Ends, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal, among others. Lyd will graduate with their BFA in Creative Writing from Boise State University in 2021.

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I only mis-gender myself when Fleetwood Mac comes on


I’m not a woman, but part of me
is always going to be a teenage girl,
screaming into rivers and watching
​herself weep in the mirror. Sometimes

                 my hair grows like a curse word.
                 My lipstick smears, and my teeth
                 find a new hysteria to fantasize about.
                 I still identify

as a spiteful bitch. The gold dust settles
on my cheeks, but I don’t. The tables
have turned,

                 and now my father is afraid of me.
                 Damn my fury, damn my forgiveness.
                 ​I’ve learned to fight like an anarchist racehorse--

my legs will give out before my heart does.
When I was still a girl, I cut all my hair off

                 ​in mourning. Twice. When I was still a girl,
                 I found my grandmother’s childhood braid
                 framed in an attic. She sliced it off herself
                 ​while angry at her own father. I sleep

with scissors next to my bed, just in case.
I practice a running start. I tell the mirror
what I want to tell my father:

you will never get away from the sound
of the [                      ] that hates you.