I’m asking you to please stop killing my friends

every trans person in the world is beautiful today
I find us in the dark leaving nightclubs and kissing
the first slip of dawn. bringing vegan cakes to the
community café. pay as you feel.
we can afford one mastectomy between us. pass
around the same ten bucks in circles a small
dance of hope. I sleep safest when someone I
love is awake. dig up healthcare from cracks
in the pavement. remove a teaspoon of flesh once
a month from now until forever maybe then our
bodies could be
home. take photos for posterity. record every
moment of change. don’t trust anyone who hasn’t
heard of testogel. hope I get to see your face
again hope by then it belongs to you.
my arms overflow with our curses. I drop them
in a back alley too heavy to carry any further and I
cry with the voice of a church organ sing
with the voice of a church organ fill myself with
promises I am wealthy with funeral ash

Issue 3

https://manyworlds.place/issue-3/katie-tom-walters/

by Katie (Tom) Walters

Note: This work is best viewed on a widescreen device.

every trans person in the world is beautiful today
I find us in the dark leaving nightclubs and kissing
the first slip of dawn. bringing vegan cakes to the
community café. pay as you feel.
we can afford one mastectomy between us. pass
around the same ten bucks in circles a small
dance of hope. I sleep safest when someone I
love is awake. dig up healthcare from cracks
in the pavement. remove a teaspoon of flesh once
a month from now until forever maybe then our
bodies could be
home. take photos for posterity. record every
moment of change. don’t trust anyone who hasn’t
heard of testogel. hope I get to see your face
again hope by then it belongs to you.
my arms overflow with our curses. I drop them
in a back alley too heavy to carry any further and I
cry with the voice of a church organ sing
with the voice of a church organ fill myself with
promises I am wealthy with funeral ash

and I say I love you and I say I’m sorry and I say
nothing that you don’t already know

Katie (Tom) Walters is a disabled trans poet working in Coventry, England, and writing about the nuances of life as a queer cripple. They understand their body as an extension of nature, and have a deep interest in the transformative, subversive, and weird. They have poems published in SICK magazine and Wishbone Words, and their debut collection, My Body is a Resource I am Willing to Expend, was published by Burning Eye books in 2022.