Aurora Hatche

Life as a Political Thought Experiment

When the president posts a picture of the pink triangle
In the context of a trans military ban 
In the context of a trans healthcare ban 
In the context of trans identification ban 
I am debating with my therapist 
About the purely theoretical possibility 
Of needing to flee the country in the dead of night. 

When I put my four-year-old to sleep, she prayed 
That God would not trans her into a boy 
Because her trans mom cries all the time. 
She can hear me through our thin walls
Because my sobs are thick and mannish.
And there is nothing speculative about that. 

There is nothing hypothetical about the man 
Following me off the metro with a sharp smirk. 
Nothing academic about my students begging me 
Not to tell their parents about their deepest beauty. 
It is not an intellectual activity to have a body, 
Even one as half-muted and still-birthed as mine. 

“I need to know the concrete moment,” I tell my therapist,
“The time on the clock, 
When I need to put five souls into a cramped van, 
And go into a night that holds more certainty 
Then this country can offer me.”

Aurora Hatchel is a trans poet, novelist, and teacher in Washington, DC, whose work focuses on the intersection of gender, trauma, and hope.