hypothesis with toothmarks by Joni Thomas

don’t call it necklace

  if it left a ring of sleep

    where my breath should’ve lived

•

I wore the word girl

  like a biteplate—

    caught gravel in it

        spit gravel out

    (boy said smile, I showed molars)

    (mother said please, I unspooled)

•

I did not bleed

  so much as leak

    from the corners of language

no

  was a slit

    I stepped into like a dress

      & locked from the inside

•

my sister said

  clench. it won’t show up on x-ray.

      so I became a theory

        not a girl

I grinned like

  a blade grins

      before naming something open

•

I want a god

  with no eyes

    only hands

      & not for blessing

Joni Thomas is a poet and photographer based in Richmond, Virginia. Her work has appeared in Transfixmagazine and Anarkiss, exploring themes of transness, roots, and reclamation. Through both poetry and photography, she traces the intersections of identity, memory, and place.