CONTENT NOTE: This piece discusses top surgery, gender identity, and the body.
Kelsey L. Smoot | Issue 11, Summer 2026
Keep me here
is the last thing I think
before the world goes dark
here as in I like this life,
here as in I am only just beginning to know myself
I awake to the sound of someone else’s name,
though I know they are speaking to me
Gauze in the shape of a waistcoat
all gussied up,
all newborn,
all undone, and redone again
My body feels impossible
collapsed into shards,
more intact than it’s ever been
For days, I wander the apartment
looking for the old me
catching glimpses in screens, spoons
fearful of meeting my own eyes,
fearful of who will return my fervent gaze
Truthfully,
I am the same as I ever was
Different than I’ve ever been
here, as an I am not yet ready to float away
here, as in I am becoming so belligerently myself
so rooted to the truth,
although infinite in sublime incarnation
Now the world, so tenderly near,
Pressed right up against me
No insulation between me and the wind
The soft, yet stinging pressure of the seatbelt
Your face, cradled in what is no longer a bosom
A boy, a flash, a throb, a body
Here, as in something meant to be kept close—held tightly
Kelsey L. Smoot
Dr. Kelsey L. Smoot (he/they/Kelz) is a gender theorist, an elective Southerner, a writer, and a poet. His autoethnographic style has become the lens through which he understands and reflects on his experience navigating the US sociopolitical landscape. Proudly, he is also the author of two chapbooks: we was bois together with CLASH! (An Imprint of Mouthfeel Press) and Muse,with Another New Calligraphy. Thrillingly, Kelz’s debut full-length collection of poems, [SOULMATE AS A VERB]is out now with DOPAMINE/Semiotext(e).
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