James Hartzer - "Trans Boy's Broken Toe" [Video]

By Button Poetry

James Hartzer, performing at Button Poetry Live, July 2019.

Transcript provided by YouTube:

00:02
Once my floormate asked me
00:04
if I thought being trans made me a better boyfriend.
00:06
You understand girls because you were one, right?
00:09
I broke my toe last year.
00:11
The nail still isn’t growing right.
00:13
Sarah hooked up with another trans boy
00:14
right before hooking up with me.
00:16
She didn’t date boys until she found ones
00:18
that had the same bodies as the cis girls before us.
00:21
The nail jabs through the translucent skin,
00:23
a yolk seeping through a cracked shell.
00:25
To Sarah, I am just another vagina. It doesn’t matter what I call myself.
00:29
Michelle thought about kissing me but never did.
00:31
She’d only sleep with another “girl” if she got drunk enough.
00:34
My skin turns red when I take a step, and the blood pools beneath the nail.
00:38
For her, attraction was just a party trick.
00:40
She drunk-called me every weekend.
00:42
She called me her boyfriend until she got a real one,
00:44
real like he wouldn’t make her second-guess her own sexuality.
00:47
If she flirts with me, but only dates cis dudes,
00:50
she still gets to be just straight.
00:52
I’m the halfway boy, the transition between girls and guys
00:55
just a pit stop along the way, not worth the effort.
00:58
My toe isn’t broken anymore, but it isn’t healed either.
01:01
You want my gender, but not my body,
01:03
or you want my body, but not my gender.
01:05
I am the exciting soft boy that complains about your period with you
01:08
because I used to get them too.
01:10
You laugh, so glad I’m not like the other boys.
01:14
Because you don’t see me like the other boys.
01:17
Once another boy said my being trans wasn’t a problem because he was bi.
01:21
Like it didn’t matter what was in my pants,
01:23
he’s fucked cis girls before so he knows what to do with me.
01:26
His mouth holds the word boy while his fingers spread girl
01:28
all over my body.
01:30
My cracked skin leaks pus on his sheets.
01:32
When Sarah pulls me on top of her, she smashes my foot into her bed frame,
01:35
crushes my newly grown nail into the scabbed skin.
01:38
I make her come, then leave the room limping.
01:41
These cis people just want to fuck me to make themselves feel better.
01:44
They get to be tolerant and accepting even though my body
01:47
is the conversation no one wants to have before or after sex.
01:51
None of them see me like the other boys.
01:53
I don’t want to be like them. That’s not the point.
01:55
The point is I’m not your halfway point,
01:57
not your kind of boy, kind of girl, try before you buy.
02:00
My body isn’t your Rubik’s cube you give up on after ten minutes,
02:03
your free 30-day subscription, your undercut you grow out after college,
02:06
your sex toy when your cis boyfriend doesn’t know how to finger you.
02:09
I’m not some maze you wander through
02:13
before going back to only dating other cis people.
02:16
You want me to be grateful,
02:18
to take what I can get to only make you feel good.
02:21
You don’t call my trans body sexy with all its mismatched parts.
02:24
You don’t want me for me.
02:26
You want me for you.
02:27
You want me to come around when it’s convenient but never come.
02:31
You don’t know what to do with my body so you don’t touch me.
02:33
You want me to be a good boyfriend, but you don’t think I’m a boy.
02:36
You think I already know how to fuck you because I used to be you.
02:39
You love what I do for you without question.
02:42
You don’t ask what I want.
02:44
You don’t even think there’s anything else I could want.
02:46
Well, I’m tired of that shit.
02:48
So no, Sarah, we can’t hook up the next time you’re in town.
02:51
No, random Tinder dudes,
02:53
you can’t say you’ve never fucked pussy before
02:55
and expect to still fuck mine.
02:56
I will do whatever I damn well please,
02:59
and I have a feeling that won’t be you.
03:02
(cheers and applause)