Part of my experience coming to Spain/the novel condensed into a poem

Ella, se dicen, ella, senorita,

Y no sé si puedo be trans here.

No sé puedo decir, este género no es lo mío.

No soy mujer, no soy hombre

And I don’t even know enough about this language to know

if that doesn’t just mean no soy adulto.

And you thought it was hard

getting gente estadosunidense

to use they pronouns

My pronouns, mi ‘ele’ y ‘senore’

are not to be found anywhere but in the radical queer spaces

that I can’t find.

‘Cause I’m glad you guys

got gay marriage

but that doesn’t help me

I’m not interested in your

white bread poster child gay boys

and lesbianas who are ‘just like you’

respectability politics shit.

Give me your QPOC

Your agender, aromantic bi pan trans

Your nonbinary, agender, genderqueer and

none of the above.

Give me your disabled queers and your mentally ill.

Mierda

Give me your queers who never get to see themselves on television.

Que están enojadas radical feministas

Que se dan miedo un poco

Who don’t give a shit about respectability politics

because it never helped them before

not while pretty white boys are the faces of queer

Pero, ¿existen en este país? ¿Dónde están?

These are my people, this is my home

Pero en esta lengua, no tengo las palabras.

No sé how to ask.