SPENCER WILLIAMS / THIS NIGHT TOO WILL END
Laura
when I first
listened to that record
I rode home
on the back
of a witch’s broom
shouting out for a reason
not to strip
buck naked in the street
right then
and there suddenly
every
inch of wrong my body’d
been told
to shelter
shriveled like zombie grapes
against the tremor
of that gruesome
sound
so
I flung with glee
my voice
beneath a tire
flashed my tits
at ripple waves
sun cast
upon the granite
and that
was the first
night I howled
through the navel
of an LP towards
a barren sky
the first night
I sought to baptize the tatter
in every dress I owned
with cock
listen
I clawed my chest cut
curling hair
down to the skull snuck
out the back door
and into
that record repeating
the faggot in me
unable to catch
her breathe so
thank god for that
gym membership
Satan gagged me with
all that grace
all that summer sick
turned beauty I swear
that record was
the first time I came
of age again
gripping
the fresh
kill of a dead
name in my jaw
I was there
heart pounding
feet rank
and delicious
from dancing from
throwing my neck out
into the rafters
of an empty church
the graffiti wall
next to the railway
and the third floor
of a hotel
hallway
red like
The Shining
the first film I saw
with a crush
before
he took me
to his bedroom
with the intention
of meat
then pleasure
Laura
I could not
name
what I was then
or how I wanted
him
to prepare me
so I sat
on the floor
and begged
for water
turned
and saw
outstretched
his cock
an angry
flex
said suck
said now
said boy
bitch
became so
bitch of me
to run home
though I did run crying
with track two
throbbing like a kiss
in my ear
I guess better to be
alive bitch
than dead bitch
yes better to be
alive—
Laura
for a time
I performed
altar boy duties at
St. Matthews Episcopalian
back when I
thought only
gay thoughts not
woman thoughts
and the
proof
that god blessed
my transgender heart
is how
when he untethered me
from the giant
bird bath
my family half-
drowned me in
I did not
immediately
burst into
hellfire
so
even when I stopped eating
I still ate your Side A
and Side B
to please my father
who would knock
on the bathroom
door then bust through
like Kool-Aid man
to police my shits
floating in the
shallow pool
of every pale mouth
Laura
that was the year
I learned how
to flush before
his hand could
reach the handle
how to scream
blood at my father
about privacy laws
some days
my flesh
slithered off
somewhere brushing
against a mapwork of red
and blue organs dangling
in the bone cage
like porch chimes
and when they clanged
together
I would run
nauseous
clutching my mouth
to dive
lips first
into the sink
with thoughts that
one day I would choke
up a girl
everyone could
actually see
so I want you
to know how that record
kept me
from blowing my prospects
on a slender death
yes when I finally
crawled to the edge
of hunger
I replayed track three
and decided to starve
the vultures instead
Laura
it’s true
I believe god
so loved
this earth he had
you pluck dead petals
from my tongue
and drop them onto
the surface curve
of a sleek
and empty road
and sure it’s all stupidly
contrived to call
a record rehabilitation
but I can’t lie say
I haven’t found a cure
for body
lodged in the gutter muck
of a punk song before
in the headbang collision
of a postered bedroom wall
that I haven’t
found my way back
to limbs I keep
ghosting
because a singer cried
with you with you
and maybe meant
with me
so then
the trial becomes
how to un-ugly
this non-passing life
how to restructure the bones
in their frame
I mean—
I look
in the mirror
once a day
and glimpse
this wretched
surface
know
there is no handy
denial no
fantasy football crowd
tilting me towards
heaven
on a great mass
of shoulders
oh my
god how I want
this dick
to be
meaningless
to have it
un-be a twisted branch
so close
to snapping
that everyone is
scared to cross
beneath it
though once
I listened to
that record
on a walk home
from the park
when a group
of boys my age
circle- jerked
my fear into
the center of their hands
made me
lick
each palm clean
of my
red lip
Laura
if I could define
my dysphoria to you
it would be this
a constant desire
to be attractive
and already dead
at the same time
to have the shit
kicked out of me
as fetish
for just a minute
and could you imagine
a lover like that
toothpicking gore
from my teeth in
the afterplay
of torture and
consumption
yes on the worst days
that
is what I tell
myself I want
like maybe he won’t
actually kill me
if he gets the chance
to pretend he did
I think
if I want anything
it’s considerable
practice at cheating
death or else
a fair shot
at filling my
young grave with
nests
of dead cum
dead names
dead friends
dead skin
dead reasons not
to strip my face clean
from the bone
and grow back
something legibly
woman is not
a destination for me
cuz I’ve been living
inside one for some
time now
incubating in glorious
arrival
Laura
when the lights
cut out
I am touching myself
a future
without curdled blood
touching
another person
with the feral
of an untamed beast
I mean
is it so
impossible
for us to be lame
in how we’re desired
just once
to be couched in
by pillows
in a room with familiar
warmth not
quenching for
sacrifice
is there any
room left in me
to hope
I won’t be doomed forever
some sweat-
slicked fever
cascading off
a stranger’s brow
that true love
will find me
like that record did
coursing down
my legs
the night I pondered
the act of leaping
into god’s view
through the roof
of a passing
Honda Civic
Laura
I mean to say that once
there was
a voice
that pulled me
backwards
from condolence
that once I listened to
that closing track
four times
until the moon
blacked out
into a hangnail
before me
and if this
is all
I get
Laura
I think
I can take
this life
like a stiff
drink
if I learn
to love
whatever dark
the sky brings
when the sun
won’t take
If I keep dancing to
whatever hell
they have left
to show me
whatever heaven
I can’t touch
with both hands
if this
is all I get
Laura yes
I’m going to
kiss each scab
where the light
breaks through
and marks me
just a little
just a little
“This Night Too Shall End” was inspired by the Against Me! album Transgender Dysphoria Blues, released in 2014 by Total Treble Music and Xtra Mile Records. The title of this poem takes its name from a lyric in the song Unconditional Love, which is track three on the album. A few lines from this poem are inspired by lyrics to the songs True Trans Soul Rebel, Dead Friends, and Black Me Out, all featured on the album.
Spencer Williams is from Chula Vista, California. She is the author of the chapbook Alien Pink (The Atlas Review Chapbook Series 2017) and has work featured in or forthcoming from ANMLY, DREGINALD, Cosmonauts Avenue, Hobart, Alien Mouth, and [PANK]. She is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at Rutgers University-Newark.