Two poems by nat raum

praise you

— After the Fatboy Slim song of the same name

i have to celebrate you, baby, body of mine

i’ve never much cared for but lately feel

hell-bent on cradling in the supple sublime

of trans joy. our first two decades were written

by the world that reared you, by the grasp

every jack-rodgers-vineyard-vines classmate

had on your baby brainstem. it would be easy

enough to say you’re not woman after all that

but twice as hard to admit there is any ounce

of the masculine in your bloodstream after every

man you knew was elated to enlarge you like

a projection, circle each spot that made you less

than flawless femme. how lucky we are now

to settle for and into nothing, dive headlong

into the void where gender goes to dissolve.

prose poem with hard edges

— cw: sexual assault, abuse

nat raum (b. 1996) is a disabled artist, writer, and genderless disaster based on unceded Piscataway and Susquehannock land in Baltimore. They hold a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA from the University of Baltimore. They’re the editor-in-chief of fifth wheel press and the author of you stupid slut, the abyss is staring back, random access memory, and several chapbooks and photobooks. Find them online at natraum.com.