all your faves are trans

(for Jim Kirk, Indiana Jones, Aragorn, etc.)

Apollo chastain

Men weren’t terrifying if they could

teach me how to be like them.

Harrison Ford swaddled the little one, always thrashing

to endure, in film and paper. Dreaming to survive.

Viggo Mortensen, William Shatner sped,

steady like a sleeping cat, through highways

back roads childhood terrors, promised the kid

they’d guard him as he slept. That he’d be okay. That

his chest would shine with scars the way they do on film.

Apollo Chastain (ze/hir) is a 20-year-old who writes poetry for people who didn’t think they’d make it this far and for kids who don’t think they’re gonna make it at all. The recipient of the 2021 Academy of American Poets Prize and three-time winner of the National YoungArts competition, Apollo’s work appears in journals including Poets.org and the Trans Masc Diaries, and under a dead name in journals including The Rumpus and Yes Poetry. Pay hir a visit at apollopoet.wordpress.com, or on Instagram @apollo.chastain.