What I Am by CD Eskilson
Image by PN art intern Danielle White, @yourdanidoodles.
Associate poetry editor Lauren Sparks on today’s bonus poem: In "What I Am," CD Eskilson interrogates the impulse toward a solid, visible understanding of identity despite the shifting—sometimes dangerous, sometimes empty, sometimes joyous—nature of "self" and "other" in a world that both sees and doesn't see, is seen and not seen—porous, mutable, and yet, here.
What I Am
after Terrance Hayes
I wander Target with a basket full of Nyx
and Venus razors, instant coffee and canned
chickpeas placed as cover. Do I want
them to know what I am? I walk too fast
to earn a name like Harry Styles freak
or too-tall girl, maybe simply one of them.
I bookmark those Them articles I never read—
do you have five tips for queer burnout?
Driving through Taco Bell nobody knows
what I am: there’s only too-hot beans,
the jokes on sauce packets. I’m see-through
till the cashier smiles, throws in a free
Baja Blast and I panic, become suddenly
too solid. The ACLU wants money
to protect what I am and should I give more?
Paris is burning though I haven’t watched
live drag in years. I haven’t met someone
who knows Candy Darling or Pauli Murray.
Could they ever know what I am? I brew
the coffee, stack the chickpeas in a cupboard,
put my hands and face and heart away
there too. In that dark, my pieces finally
can sleep. Until I wake up stashed
inside some cabinet, taste the coffee
is too bitter, alone in what I am.
CD Eskilson is a trans poet, editor, and translator from Los Angeles. Their work appears in The Offing, Pleiades, Ninth Letter, and they are a two-time Best of the Net nominee. CD is assistant poetry editor at Split Lip Magazine. They are an MFA candidate at the University of Arkansas.
