The Trans Man Jane Eyre Reflects on Helen Burns at Lowood Institute 

 

Helen the unburning,

 

                                                                  I confess

 

I was a girl

 

                                                                  going mausoleum

 

before you looked upon me

 

                                                                   & said surely seraphs brightened at my soul.

 

Helen, sitting beside you,

 

                                                                    my future felt as joyful as a spring in the desert.

 

Without you,

 

                                                                    I am as anxious as a shepherd.

 

Helen,

 

                                                                    in the red room, I–

 

I dreamed of fur on my shoulders.

 

                                                                    I dreamed of my life, inverted.

 

Of women in satin dresses,

 

                                                                    holding their handkerchiefs full of dance cards,

 

their fans flapping hopefully in perfumed air.

 

                                                                     Each with my name written in their girlish ink,

 

incomprehensible as all things are

 

                                                                      to men.

 

And yes, you

 

                                                                      a beloved I only saw in prayer.

 

Helen, my northstar,

 

                                                                      my oasis waiting for silver coins

 

to lay themselves to rest on your eyes.

 

                                                                      I beg you:

 

do not leave me lonely. You are my respite. Lady of

 

                                                                      milk and honey,

 

I would follow you

 

                                                                       into still waters

 

to be your man.

 

 

On My Way to See You 

 

The way the earth is round
is the way I like to be
on my way to seeing you.
It is a fact that your great grin has stopped most wars. It is
an indisputable truth that I have been saved many times by
sweating in lawn chairs
out by your garden,
with the gnats lazily buzzing
around us, the box of fried chicken growing cool
on the little white table. 

I have uprooted pain only to see it crawl
all stiltgrass on whatever is left
tender and exposed.
Still, I know love grows anywhere it can fit:
in the blip of a laugh,
in a terracotta pot of marigold,
cradled against the threat of August. 

I am so frightened by possibility
but all the time with you I want
to see us budding green, becoming new in the sun,
our faces held towards the sky.
On the other side of despair,
I know there to be something so quiet and wonderful. 

Yesterday, I arrived at your door
with a wretched mind and a heart
drawn as tight as a sour harp. 

You were already there with the door open.