two names

       1.
the ghostly daughter, 
damn near dead
is busy dissolving like sugar
frame by frame 
her face
her whole self 
breaking apart
on her way out. 

yet you keep dragging
that rotting child back,
like a chair across the floor.

​

      2.
a whirlwind of dust;
some                 thing
to be reckoned with.
sheer air turned
black, getting blacker.

watch it assume a shape
from bones and bad ideas.

to take a name 
is to wish then you had been born 
that way
at the start.

​

Gospel of Thomas​

when I left that boy--
the one who raked his nails 
along my legs--
I entered the kingdom of heaven. 

I laid down my earthly things
and made it so.
I did it myself--
I made it all up,
as if to say 
who am I then? if not my hair,
my flesh?
who am I then? if not man,
not woman?

to change,
to turn
is an unpracticable trick;

to become holy 
before your very eye
is to see kingdom come. 
 

​

Tabia Lewis is a Black, trans writer, curator, and DJ living on Catawba Nation territory in Charlotte, NC. While they mostly creative non-fiction and critical essays they also have an affinity for poetry. Their work is aligned with Black radical imagination, memory, mythography, and transness beyond physical matter. They’re also a big fan of cartoons. Currently, they’re working on a memoir, which they hope to finish by 2022 if the world doesn’t end.  Twitter: @baesopsfables