There is a minyan in the bedroom.

ten invisible men in black hats

crowding the corners of the ceiling,

measuring the distance between my skin and his.

I can hear the rustle of parchment

every time a hand wanders toward a hip.

They speak of Hashem and hysteria.

of the laws of flesh and the boundaries of holiness,

until my blood retreats from where it is needed,

fleeing back to the center of my chest

like a student running away from the yeshiva.

The ghost of the conversion room sits on the nightstand.

whispering that this pleasure is a fracture,

that my transition is a garment I stole.

When the man is kind, the shame is a blanket—

too heavy to move under, too thick to breathe through.

I apologize for the softness of my body.

for the way it refuses to be a monument to his ego,

for the way the 14 years of being 'out'

It feels like 14 years of being watched through a keyhole.

II. The Shelter Manager

I have turned my home into a sex arena

and myself into the night shift manager.

The door is never locked for the man who smells of secrets.

the one who hides a wife and a station wagon

behind a curtain of "straight" aggression.

He arrives like a storm with a bad attitude.

bringing drugs to numb the space where my spirit should be,

and I feed him, I therapize him, I hold the mirror

so he can see a version of himself that doesn't exist.

The liberals scoff at my desperation,

not knowing how hunger feels when it’s 3:00 AM

and the only touch available is a transaction of utility.

He takes his fill, plants the seeds of a dozen new problems,

and leaves before the sun can expose the "shame."

He claims not to have it but wears it like armor.

I am the one left scrubbing the floor of his debris.

The one who keeps the secrets he would kill me for telling,

while he laughs with his buddies, rating the "hotness."

of a body he treated like a temporary bed.

III. The Nurture of the Exposed

We are all just children who grew tall and calloused.

Still looking for the milk, the nipple, and the cradle.

I want to lay my head in the crook of a strong arm

and not feel the need to apologize for my disability,

for the way my skin sags or the way my mind wanders

into the dark woods of depression and HIV fears.

I want the penis to be a source of salt and sun.

not a weapon or a measure of my worth as a "shelter."

I am letting go of the voices—the blood family in the walls.

the rabbis in the rafters, the abusers in the doorway.

Sex should be a return to the primitive state of being held.

where consent is the air and respect is the light.

I will no longer be the dumping ground for another man’s shadow.

Nor will I apologize when my body says not today.

I am a phat, crip, genderqueer, Semitic-rooted, and weighing heart.

And I deserve a love that stays after the drugs wear off.

a love that doesn't count the days until I am "disposable,"

but learns the language of my skin and stays to listen.