The 27 Club

Solar Return 6/8/26

I was a honeymoon baby

My parents made love in New Zealand

And 9 months later

I wore my mother like a crown

Blood streaming down my forehead

Thorns embedded in my skull

For years

I regretted this gory entrance

Wishing I could sweep

The crimson curtains closed again

I’ve spent too many birthdays

Wishing I’d never been born

Before I finally realized

I regretted the conditions I was born into

Not that I was written into existence

But that I had no autonomy

Over the authorship

I watched the world pass by

In a whirl of color

Closing my eyes and imagining

The red wave cresting and claiming me

Praying for it to

I've known pain and suffering

Like none other

But I continue to correct

The course of my narrative

Even with a heavily blotting hand

And shaky scrawl

On days with my head in my hands

As I keep ruminating

And a friend recently reminded me

I'm ancient in the cosmic sense

Chances are my struggles with sentience

Are as old as the universe

Grappling with its own dimensions

If my spirit chose this time and place

I must've chosen this body

And this life path

I no longer regret my abrupt and rude

Introduction to consciousness

I'm overwhelmingly grateful to be alive

I love myself

I love my friends

I love my queerness

I love my lovers

I love being trans

I still love my family

I'm patiently attending the birth

Of who I'm becoming

The person I'm quietly drifting into

Until I'm ready to break out the womb

Kicking and screaming

I'm younger me's answer to their prayers

The person they only ever dreamed of

Bringing into existence

I'm beaming in bliss

Hope feels like a returning dove

I'm smiling through mist

I'm not alone

If I uproot my life by 28

Leaving my birthplace behind

And move cross country on my own

I'll find a new place to be from

And community to plant myself in

I'll face my past and reparent myself

I know it doesn't define me

My future can't confine me

And the present is where I'm designing me

I'm afraid to leave

I don't know if I really want to

Especially when all I've worked for

Is finally coming to fruition

But I know I won't just disappear

I'll leave traces behind

Not pollution in my wake

But evidence of teeming vitality

My progress is still buffering

It's exciting and never the same

It's got me blooming and blushing

I’m seizing it by the throat

For a passionate kiss

I’m not flinching away from intimacy

Or avoiding conflict anymore

I’m going to emancipate my chest

Before the clock turns past the Crone

Just take a little off the top

Because I believe that

I’m worth investing in

I’ll reap the return for the rest of time

I went looking for a creation myth

Ended up with a pair of cracked lips

From arguing at death's door

Found and lost my fear of God

And discovered my own divinity

Even though I still write my obituary

In my head

Headlining the daily paper

The 27 Club hasn't claimed me yet

And 30—

Ready or not, here I come!