Today I’m a little less free,
yesterday also, tomorrow too,
and each time I look in the mirror, less free
than before I wrote “less free,” my signature
less legible on petitions,
the lines in my notebook
more suggestive of barbed wire
though my passport still says F,
my checks still clear, I’m still free
to theorize my gender
or write another stanza
comparing hope to a fire escape
and politics to a fire
but by the time I finish
the subject of every sentence
is a little more likely
to lower its eyes in public,
the whispers of my conscience
harder to hear
over fears of being punished,
my private sphere –
one bedroom, one bath, one marriage, one cranium –
a little closer
to being searched and stripped
to what’s left when freedom isn’t:
flesh and spirit,
fire escape,
conscience, and resistance.

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