“Selfies With Sasquatch”

I ran out of space on my phone from all the photographs,

all the selfies and afternoons

I spent letting the lens lick my body clean.

These are new pictures

new portraits hanging in my art gallery heart.

I used to hate how I look in pictures.

Somewhere, tonight, in the Pacific Northwest,

a Sasquatch looks at her self in a moonlit pool,

and sees herself clearly.

She doesn’t have the language

but the heat in her cheeks means “beautiful.”

Before I transitioned,

when people took my picture,

nobody could get me in focus.

Even in my wedding photos,

photographed professionally in my best rented tux,

I blurred the lens with questions,

caught mid-stride,

more sighted than seen. 

In my own dark forest, 

with my outstretched and angled arm,

with my apartment light like a new moon

with my body still and in focus,

my cheeks get hot.

I look less like a monster

more like a girl.

It’s a ground-breaking discovery

looking at me

and knowing it took 30 years

to capture.