Good News
My gender is a party crasher
it’s the television show you’d never
admit watching
it’s the tampon that WANTED A DIFFERENT
LIFE
it’s a piece of spinach
stuck in teeth
so big it pulled a tooth out
it’s a mouth full of blood
in polite conversation
it’s why some of you
stopped listening
or maybe we don’t know
good news when we hear it
anymore
aren’t we artists
don’t we make dresses
out of war propaganda films?
tik tocks out of alt-right rants?
don’t we plant tiny explosions
called
revolution
called think different
called
let’s keep this going
until we get this right
coming out trans
is a slow avalanche
as I try to celebrate
like I saved a life
like I saved my life
like I stopped my infinite
audition to be a woman
like look at my happy
but all people seem to hear
are boulders dropping out of my mouth
they/them/he/him
transmasculine
is there an app I can use
some sort of translator
that can make this sound like
good news?
because it feels
like I’m telling people
my best friend
is alive again
I don’t let him go this time
as rocks fall from our jaw
as people turn and flee
my male self asks me
how was the hiding
what you did
to be called one of the guys?
I ask him to hold me
to pull me from that mud
tell him how I missed him
and now that he’s really here
we can be a different man
be our own man
thanks to avalanches
like art
like unafraid
I tell him
I’m so sorry
I ever thought
I could leave you
you have always been
my good news
It’s me, your closet
Hey look
In case you were wondering
(and I see that you’re not)
your closet is doing just
fine without you
yeah I mean who needs
to hear all that crying and
wailing and I really got
sick of hearing “Toxic” on
repeat
I mean Britney does
have other songs
I don’t care that
I’m no longer the only one
who knows your true form
that the specialness of what
we had was clearly just foreplay
that I was merely a launchpad for
the jet plane of your
sexuality and identity
I have your pronouns down though
I’ve been practising them with
you for years all those speeches
for your parents I have them memorized
how was it telling them?
you never came back to say
ok I know I know I don’t
represent a refuge to you anymore
I guess at some point I have to
accept I was more of a prison cell
type metaphor but really I’m
just four walls
some hangers
and a light switch
are you sure you don’t
need me anymore?
I mean grandma’s coming
next week
I loved our every moment
sometimes I flick the lights
on and off when you walk by
I put the fake fur carpet askew
I just want you to notice me
I’m not doing ok really
I’m all for the revolution
I’m here for your happiness
as much as I held your sadness
I never wanted to stifle you
I just wanted to keep you safe
like any small room should
I’m just saying
maybe you should tear me down
and reconstruct me into the dollhouse
you always wanted
one that is all dressing rooms
and boudoirs and no need to hide
I don’t want to be a closet anymore
I don’t want anyone to find me
crawl inside
and almost
disappear
Photophobia
I left school for lighting
Let my life become theatres stadiums
film crews ballasts and trucks
1000 watts to 20,000 watts
from practical lights to Xenon bulbs
that if dropped became actual bombs
they would take the actors off set
when we’d be placing one
into the head of the lamp
after a migraine that became
a monster that ate my brain
I have these little seizures
when lights flicker and flutter
I’m told I have Photophobia
which translates to
Fear
Of Light
maybe it is a fear of light because I’m
so tired of leaving
my house with brain fog and aphasia and
sleep masks on the subway
brimmed hats forever and the way I
flinch scream gibberish
when bike lights find that centre of my
brain
that no longer can process them
Photophobia : Fear Of Light
how can I reconcile that when
I’ve risked my life for light
climbed the guardrails
while operating a crane at 120 feet
to replace a white hot scrim on a 18K
as a thunderstorm approached the movie
set
as the ballast sat too close
magnetising my very cells
and my old crew dies of ALS
and the producers still won’t admit
however we got that disease
as I folded knees that never came back
inside a blizzard with a 10k for
8 hours instead of fighting for
my rights
I’ve climbed on dysregulated
A-frame ladders knowing they
were deemed too dangerous
as I’ve flown through the rafters
of a theatre that’s never heard of
a harness
Photophobia: Fear of Light
but there’s this
I can tell you exactly why you feel
that way
in white blue light why you forget your name
because a disco ball took it
why people only go to your restaurant
once
because they remember the headache and
not the meal
and why we’d first switch out all the
fluorescents
before the camera even got there
I can tell you what’s incandescent and
what’s LED
by the way my brain starts to sputter
out
by how aphasia takes over mmmmmmmmmmmmy
momomamamaaaamouth and turns
it into reflexed mishmash of animal
gibberish
but there’s this
I still know how long I can touch hot
metal before it burns
I can tell you how I loved light so
much I didn’t
report the harassment I received for
being a
femme presenting tech from the
very first day when I was assaulted by
my mentor
in my high school theatre till
my last day working with men who
grabbed my breasts before asking my name
and called me mountain dew in the
summer
because hey it was the 90’s and all of
them
could decide if I got to work or not
Photophobia: Fear Of Light
years after this job I bury my husband
and his sister
and I go right back to work
I spend a day with a flickering light
which turns my small migraine humming
into a full scale hemiplegic
into something closer to a stroke into
a numb face and arm
a swirl of what words used to be and
it’s like a door
was left open that day and now all the
light gets in.
I used to think moths
were enamoured with light
now I know it traps them
interrupts their navigational systems
to the delight of prey
and they call that phototaxis
I didn’t fear the harassment
or death or the level of danger
on every set or lighting booth or truck
all I did was never listen when they
said
someone like me couldn’t do the job
maybe I loved light so much
I became the moth
the seizure
what do you call it
when your passion
becomes your disability
please don’t tell me
fear has anything
to do with it
Charlie Petch (they/them, he/him) [photo credit: Nika Belianina] is a disabled/queer/transmasculine multidisciplinary artist who resides in Tkaronto/Toronto. A poet, playwright, librettist, musician, lighting designer, and host, Petch was the 2017 Poet of Honour for the speakNORTH national festival, winner of the Sheri-D Golden Beret Award from The League of Canadian Poets (2020), and founder of Hot Damn it's a Queer Slam. Petch is a touring performer, as well as a mentor and workshop facilitator. Their debut poetry collection, Why I Was Late (Brick Books), won the 2022 ReLit Award, and was named "Best of 2021" by The Walrus. Their film with Opera QTO, Medusa's Children, premièred 2022. They have been featured on the CBC's Q, were the Writer In Residence for Berton House (2023), were long-listed for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2021. Their solo show "No one's special at the hot dog cart" debuted at Theatre Passe Muraille in 2024.