Gayathiri Kamalakanthan

---

---

trans poets online

and having scoured             thousands of squares          for something like ‘queer’

‘trans’ ‘poetry’ ‘words’                  my finger               once nimble across the glass

is frenzied           whorling             I scroll and heart and feed              off how far

you’ve come            I write you              weightless as light on water               hey

nice to meet you                your words are everything              thank you           xx

we haven’t met in real life                   not for lack of trying but              I’m sorry

I just don’t have energy left                  even for this               I let myself imagine

what it would be like          to have your face pressed to mine            peering out

from one of those               perfect colourised squares                  and we look like

we look like people                                       who people could mistake for friends

---

---

---

---

GAYATHIRI KAMALAKANTHAN is a Tamil poet and sex educator. They won the Faber & Andlyn Publisher’s Prize 2022. They’re published in Propel, Magma, Hoax and zindabad zine. Gayathiri runs the poetry workshop WORD-BENDERS at The Common Press in East London. @unembarrassable, gayathiri.co.uk