To answer your question, no,
I don’t think I’d like you to say anything
at the funeral for my male body.

I don’t want you to bring up
how fast that small animal used to run
papercut fingers digging in the dirt for dandelions
as the other boy scouts swarmed like flies.

No need to mention a teenager sobbing empty in the school bathroom
hands rubbed raw over acetone-stained sink
pink polish scrubbed from each pale fingernail.
No reason to dwell on the hours clutching
rusty tweezers, plucking out leg hair one by one.
Blood vessels bursting at each pinprick of pain.
Strawberry skin, pockmarked thighs,
ten thousand mosquito bites.

Please don’t mention his betrayal
in that girlfriend’s bedroom.
Pinned down, lips frozen,
that animal moaned guiltless, guttural,
cried out in pain without knowing the reason why.

It was years ago that I decided:
this body was better off split in two.

So, nowadays, cold metal.
A needle introduces us, myself and the girl inside me.
She guides my fingertips to my eyes; we dry our tears.

I feel her molecule find her home in the small of my back.
I acquaint myself with sore breasts, nausea, the stares from strangers.
I drain myself, bloodletting my first puberty through my upper arm.
I dirty my hands—they pierce deep in my swollen chest.
I dig through each bloody lung and scoop out stale air.

To answer your question, no,
in fact, there’s no need to have the funeral.
Because a dead boy who can still bleed
isn’t really dead at all.

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