Left Behind by Victor Henry

 “I hope the exit is joyful and I hope never to return.”  Frida Kahlo

Desiree, a twenty-year old transgender female,
Finds solace in the streets,

Sometimes sleeping in the park,
Sometimes in shelters,

And if she’s lucky, sometimes at a friend’s house.
She’s gender fluid. Most of the time she’s female.

Her parents have disowned her,
Thrown her out, told her never to come back.

But tonight, unbeknownst to them,
She’s been raped.

Pulled into a side-street alley,
Mutilated, disfigured,

Cut,
Sliced, pared open, flayed.

A week later, after the trauma,
A doctor tells her

She’s tested HIV positive.

My poetry and prose poems have appeared in Misfit Magazine, Dead Snakes, Homestead Review, The Paterson Literary Review, Red River Review, and Slipstream, among others. My book What They Wanted was published last November 11th, Veterans Day, by FutureCycle Press in Lexington, Kentucky. http://victor-henry.net/