A History of My Brief Body

by Billy-Ray Belcourt

What a danger to creativity, after all, to find oneself fitting neatly into the world!

I have a phobia of the police. How could I trust he who disavowed personhood to instead be a gun?

I’m a poet in the way that all queer men are poets

When I leave, I kiss him on the lips as though they’re a country to which I have pledged, as though I’ll return. I won’t.

The manner in which I stand determines whether I’m a statue or a monument.

Desirous of a beautiful life I get out of bed,