My mother has a singing voice you’d invite to your wedding by Junix Seraphim

Maybe once I had a voice
on its way to being
like hers
But that was before
I changed it
Learned to speak
rattle chest less
nasal
Unlearned girlhood
I coo, “Good, good,”
to the man from Grindr
Cupping the back of his bald
soft head
He says he really wants
to come but really
He is asking permission
When he comes in me I call him
good boy. It is the first time
I call him anything

Maybe the secret to men
is we all yearn to be mothered
Practicing mommy kink &
You ever think Oedipus
was onto something?



At 17, Junix Seraphim started their first over-the-table work as a bookseller at Barnes & Noble in the mall. When that wasn’t enough to pay their rent, bills, and put themselves through community college, they moved to Powell’s where they also worked as a bookseller. Today, Junix is a poet, drag king, and grassroots organizer fighting for the rights and livelihoods of Filipinos in the homeland and in the belly of the beast, the U.S. Their love of goth culture and black lipstick is reflected in his drag performances, which range from campy character drag to macabre explorations of his personal relationship with death, and the relationships with death held by their communities. Junix and their friends are actively shaping the transsexual future.

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