The November edition of the IndieWeb Carnival is about impact. Host Xandra invites us to reflect on, among other things, “what has made the biggest impact on your personality?”

A golden retriever-like,
glitter-in-your-face
enthusiasm for life
is one way
I sometimes use
to describe myself.

I see it appear in the
Get Well Soon card
my coworkers put together.
“I miss your smile!”
“I miss my compliments!”
I am but one day out of my cast.

At the end of the shopping street
for people who look like
they do in the magazines
there’s a blonde marching in place waiting
for the light to turn green.
She is not running per se, rather
she’s hinting at running.
Selling it, the way
Charlize Theron sells
a night to remember in a perfume commercial
with next to nothing for evidence.

Me, a tired mother,
and a tennis player with wet hair
stare at the blonde,
one more covertly than
the others.
I know not to tilt my head
when encounting something
in which the world tells me
I will never see myself.

As soon as she hands you the gift
you know it’s another one
“Trans Life Survivors”
says the cover
“Merry Christmas!”
says your sister
you have only been using
they/them pronouns
in private
for a year or so
it’ll look so beautiful next to
the ex-gay book
your other sister presented to you
on your birthday last month

At family dinner you
spend bathroom breaks in your
childhood bedroom
five in total
logging on to talk to us
about how the heavy things feel
being the punching bag
on which your 11-year-old cousin
practises her right hook
screaming fire about
her trans classmate
stings
and
it stings
like a shattered jaw