Spell for Trans Safety (I)
may you know yourself in a world of noise & confusion when voices berate & anglicize remember your rootedness with each stomp like toph shake centuries-old rage off you / begin anew may you know hydration remember your cells are made from the same waters that coarse rivers the same rivers that jade mountains the same mountains our people tended & traversed to arrive where we are today may you know what it feels like to be loved at your saddest may a friend catch you hold you close remind you you are light despite what you’ve been told the mirror is not broken find your reflection in their eyes let dovetail embraces soothe cold memories may you stand taller know the past is a past you no longer need to hold onto when damaged devil comes clawing enact your boundary shield yourself with gravity -defying waterfalls wind up & around you know you have it within you to do this may you know who & where & how you are is more than enough is magic is everything. may you know anger the violence enacted on your bod is not one we need to downplay or pretend is not there to survive interpersonal slashes & transgressions actions warrant reactions you need not sit still & smile through pain / even when it is not safe to express your rage feel it / when are you are alone in the presence of ancestors shake your arms then legs your hips then your whole bod give yourself permission to tantrum / there is nothing more ancient than anger released nothing more freeing than anger released how else do you think we have survived all these years? & when the feelings subside as feelings come & go let the exhales of your breath meld with mist bring yourself back to a you | you have been forced to forget light incense call in forces beyond forget what you don’t have wipe the shelf corners clean grime off porcelain cups / it’s time to return to who you thought you could never be i ask you through this song stay here with me.
River 慧瑩 Dandelion (fka Huiying Dandelion Chan) is an award-winning poet, healing practitioner, and educator. River writes to connect with the unseen and unspoken, so we can feel and heal. His work lives at the intersections of personal and societal transformation and is rooted in love. He has been awarded fellowships from Kundiman, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, DreamYard, Kairos, and Mellon Mays Foundation. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net (2022) and is published in Best New Poets (2021), The Offing, The Margins, Seventh Wave Magazine, Asian American Journal of Psychology, and elsewhere. River is working on his first full-length poetry collection that explores matriarchal legacies, belonging & home in diaspora, and self-remembrance. He recently won the AWP Kurt Brown Prize for the title poem. You can connect with him at @rememberingourlight on IG.
