”Since last September, contractors have been painstakingly demolishing the old Princeton Hospital to make room for a 280-unit development of rental apartments”
– Anne Levin
Picture sex as life and death
sentence. A dance where the self
is unclear. An eye for something
else. Here, Men are born of ink
and anatomy. Bodies pass
into hands looking for something
to hold on to. I call this place home
before. Maybe, if I can return
to a liminal space between birth
and memory, there is still some peace
to be made with something beautiful,
whole, and free, but not quite me.
Someday, this deadname revealed
as both prison and investment,
I will come to understand why
you speak for me before
I have voice: to provide something
to outgrow and remember outgrowing.
Like all mothers, fathers, and doctors,
you must teach me to live and to die.
Kylan Tatum is a writer from Plainsboro, NJ. He is a first-year college student at Harvard University. His work is forthcoming in Polyphony Lit and has been recognized by the Center for Fiction’s National Criminal and Social Justice Contest, and the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.