Psalm for God's Mother
by Charlie Blodnieks
plead with god in secret. o, moonlight. how you witness me
crack open like no other. here, i am on my knees praying god
will make me boy. my grandmother overhears and i know
god said no. o, body, wretched, unholy thing. you have never
survived a man’s gaze; so if god is a man, tell him i don’t want
him watching me change into myself. coming out
of a suffocating womanhood i have been forced to call home.
tonight it is a drowning. a royal asphyxiation. body drenched
in an unknowing of future. i am not allowed boyhood. i do it
anyway. the moonlight listens and i yell: if god is a man, tell him
i’d like to meet his mother. o, goddess. woman of the changing
leaves. turn me over like springtime. i am body ever-churning.
o, mother. press your hands to my chest. push my body into
wax-coated wings, pristine. please. i don’t want to see the shame
in them. yes, mother. i run off the cliff and fly this time. the sun
cannot stop me. i am free. i gift myself a new name, etched
on the back of my hand with a quill from my spine and mother:
i am still life as the sun melts my wax. behind me, every feather
becomes a bird. they sing and i become that sound. fill the air.
i smile and now i am the thing illuminating. o, goddess, i am
the sun. i will not die. on earth, my mother is warmed in my
light. eternity passes. and passes. and passes. and i am always
the sun. her son.
Charlie Blodnieks (they/them) is a genderqueer poet and first generation Chilean-Latvian-American poet whose work primarily centered on trans identity, mental health, heritage, and the creation and sustenance of joy. They spent the majority of their childhood in South Florida and moved to New York City two years ago. Charlie was a finalist at CUPSI 2019 as a second-year member of the Barnard College slam poetry team, where they met most of their chosen family and began to learn kindness.