Ty Raso
compost
On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my Country and to obey the Scout Law – Boy Scout Oath
never had a homoerotic experience as a boy scout. on
ce did at bible camp tho. boy teaching me to swim, my
arms held afloat by his. we did it in the honor
of night, which makes it gay. snuck out of our cabins like papercuts. i
even brought my flashlight like a spirit looking for a body. will
all the boyfriends in my mind ever realize they can just open the windo-
w and escape? will they ever meet the me in my
mind? their stupid flower crown like a portal. the best
prayers are embarrassing. i pray the lord my soul to
ooze out my outside and kiss the souls of whoever is into that. do
-ing it is my favorite euphemism for sex, so artless like a home. my
troop leader made us stand shoulder2shoulder2shoulder. our duty:
be boys the way a pot is a boy. a boy the way a to-
ol is a boy. back then, they were all my boyfriends, in my mind. god
is a cloud, said one. his lips convincing and
flower-shaped. my sweaty hands like soil my
sweaty dreams became venus fly traps in. the country
of my imaginary boyfriends is also imand-
ginary. overgrown ivy and tulip and to-
unges sprouting from the pavement. you would like it. i was too busy obey-
ing boy to visit it. ever think about how much pollen you swallow? the
(not yet?) beautiful things that disappear in our bodies like morning. yet, scout-
me loved and loves that song that bird sang that went up, and up, and up, as if hope is the only law.
thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination… and the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the inequity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants – Leviticus 18:22-24
so. when r we going 2 get 2 the vomitething.
no pressure.
ill start.
often im falling in love w/ the idea of ppl. smth abt flesh is hard 2 wrap my head around.
1st time i lived a metaphor was in the boy scouts. we made box pine cars 2 race. every1 else had a father who could do it 4 them. start w/ a rectangular prism of pine. shaving the wood. shaving the wood, curling slightly at the center like a rabbithole, the skin of my hand peeling open. it was less abt aerodynamics and more abt gravity. the race took place on a downward slope. whosever reached the bottom 1st. so the more weight we added 2 the car, the better. the more it craved the earth i guess. the louder the sound when u dropped it i guess. the more u noticed it when u carried it i guess.
ive had 2 vomiteth up a lot 2 inhabit myself. tho its not like a 1-n-done thing. every so often i dream abt my dad with his lil bible at the foot of my bed. in real life we lived next 2 the traintracks and u could feel the ground gurgling, like its stomach was empty. in the dream were in a forest and hes made of copper, oxidized in that way that looks moss-like. if i could vomiteth him up 4 good, i mean. the forest of my mind thinks its funny, flashing shadows like tendons.
u no when it rains on a road and it pools 4 days, sometimes, bc whoever planned the road didnt give the water a clear way out?
im pro-vomitething tho more in theory than in practice i guess. mostly that i havent perfected my vomitething methods. if u want 2 go 4 it, i love it 4 u.
as a kid i thot there were xceptions 2 every rule. gravity included. thot if something wanted 2 enough, it could send itself elsewhere. i was like, every1 seems 2 think im being a boy wrong. like, i dont seem 2 no what planet boy is on, how 2 find it. like, my body is not a planet boy naturally occurs on.
its not like i dont get it. the vomitething thing, i mean. i grew up in 2 separate steel towns, where parks were no bigger than swimming pools. hadnt seen a star 4 years, each night a wall where a sky should b. i didnt even no u could c venus toothy-smile bright. its like, i thot we were so alone here. that the streetlight flickering like a bone. that the carsound thru the evening was a silence u, like me, learned 2 unhear.
A Scout is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties. – Scout Law
the scoutness of it all was a
tired and lonely game. that one camping trip, two other scout-
s pushed me off a not-sharp stone, into a barely-moving river, claiming i fell. is
that the best they had? it didn’t even hurt, the lapping of the water reverent
with my young calves like speechless lips. my body not even hurtling toward
the ground, not even making an imprint where i landed, no pansy-shaped ass-mark for God
to squint at like an appraiser at a pawn shop. the river and i getting familiar. no “he”
from the river’s tongue. the kind of clearing mostly rocks, mostly eroded, like the water is
contour on the cheek of the land. will be and was linking pinkies in the river. my body faithful
somehow to my body. in the wild, there are so many bugs. cricketsound building shelter in
your ear. as i made my way back to the campsite, the queer thing called my skin his-
sing like a hallway. the queer thing of birdsong landing for a moment on my body. religious
was the queer scuffling in the brush. to be passed-through is one of the body’s greenest duties
1 of my biggest vomiteths was, i used 2 feel a re-verse gender envy 4 men who were so uncomplicated in their love 4 their own masc. i didnt want 2 b it, or have it, or wear it, or sew it in2 my skin, or look thru its bars, but. it was like, i 1der if the birds that fly over the zoo look @ the birds in the zoo and think. smth like, how sad. smth like, @ least they no where their food is coming from. prob reductive, but 1ce i went 2 one of those planetariums and every1 speechless in their mechanized chairs, pointing their body 2 the interesting thing, the music like a big curtain, and all i could c was the strings of light the projector spit. @ the end, there was a worksheet we put our name on.
on occasion, i let ppl hurt me bc they find me beautiful, or tell me they find me beautiful, or tell me they could find me beautiful if.
in my silly lil job, i walk thru a college campus 2 get where i am xpected. every year i stop 2 admire the trees, this 1 w/ white flowers lil pink lips rupture from, this 1 budding green the shade of lime flesh rind-less, this 1 a shade of purple i dont hv reference 4, but def not a bruise. every year i am late 2 some function bc. every year, whoever i am walking w/ stops 2 stop w/ me as i stop 2 stop and just b in the looking, and others look @ my looking, stopped.
when i heard u were thinking of vomitething all of ur inhabitants, i 1st grieved the beauty. i thot, what about this flower? that? this bird? the park i walk my friends dog @, where i c my beautiful trans friends play ultimate frisb, 4 no reason other than that its sunny out that day, as their skin salts itself and waters itself, as the grass carries them 2ward each other. what about this looking i hv practiced here, there? what about all the places i hv scraped my knees, hv laid in the grass, hv been touched by the ocean? how, 4 a moment, when the wind passes thru u, there’s a hole in the wind, w/ edges shaped like u.
on campus, a friend tells me abt an invasive tree planted here. i am only half-listening. she says, it has a habit of strangling other trees underground, crosspollinating w/ whats left. its white flowers w/ their long eyelashes, the smell sweet like a story. its a real problem, she says. she says, i find it un4givable, @ which point, i am whole-listening. i say, 4giveness is hard 4 me. i say, i burn things b4 i 4give them. i had filled my water bottle w/ t, blackcurrant, which i pour on2 the grass, so i can fill it w/ water.
this guy i dated 1ce would stare @ my body out the shower and say shit like, whos my pretty boy. @ the time, the closet strangling me underground. “my” was his fav word. i was always “my” smth. his looking a silent “my” like a lasso. that’s a vomiteth.
more i think about the vomitething, i think of all the imitation. parks, campuses, whatev. the land emptied and sold back as beauty. u no better than i do. the concrete they make loop around the lawn like a throat. every tree a human decision. if the branches reach 2 far, they trim them, if they get caught in the power lines, if they cast a shadow over the wrong house like a definition.
A Scout is true to his family, friends, Scout leaders, school, and nation. – Scout Law
it’s not easy having so many imaginary boyfriends. not a
day goes by where i’ve been fully alive in this world, all those scout
kids who i never liked but invented versions 2 love bcus it sure is
lonely being a hole in a tree waiting for birds 2 b birds in u. tru
things bored me as a kid. sure, what we breathe is mostly nitrogen. sure, photo
synthesis is not smth our meat-bodies can do. sure, im a boy in this
body according to ppl who have never seen the hills under my eyelids. family
is a bad word in the country of my imaginary boyfriends. xcept in the friends-
to-family chosen sense. me and my imaginary boyfriends eat dinner together every nite, scout-
ing the frolicking green 4 a good spot to lay a blanket on, no leaders,
just us wayward queers indecisive in the sweet breeze, hungry 4 handholding each other. school
taught me abt the food chain. this eats that eats that eats that. wolves eat deer and
hares and other things with eyes big enuff to see a whole ruined nation
a few ppl i love refer 2 me as “man.” like “i no, man.” whenever i hear it, its a lil vomiteth. it is a way
2 say “loved one,” so i trim the meaning as it passes thru my ears, and only keep the uncomplicated
beautiful part.
im a big fan of ur work. i no when ppl say that, it sounds like nothing, like dust on the countertop of ur life. i love how its never totally silent in the woods. there is always smth speaking smth i cant understand w/ my human ears like traffic cones on my body. i love being lost and saying, i recognize that tree, and not rly being lost anymore.
when i was a kid, i ran away from home a lot, slept on the grass in a nearby park. woke up w/ a lil dew-coat on my young hair. it was a vomiteth 4 sure, as i vomitethed my body beneath a willow tree, sort of a gray-purple hand shape, sort of a small planet where me and a squirrel sometimes would step over roots, put our ass on the dirt, smell the wet air. what were we talking abt.
2 tell the truth, i spent most of my life avoiding writing about u. there r so many ways for ppl 2 b cruel, in every language. smth 2 vomiteth i guess.
when we moved to a town with 3 rivers in it, i remember falling in love with water. i thot, the river is not pretending to love me. its sharp edges, cliffs, crashing sounds, rolling sounds. they call it babble, but i dont hear it. we try to place it adjacent 2 language i guess. a pre-language. the whitewater fingernails of the river could care less if u live or die, if the meat on ur bones bruise on the rocks. not fingernails. like im calling it a pre-body:
just noticed i wrote failure as “failyour” in my draft of this.
there r many things i am still learning abt my body. many ways i am breaking open lil eggs in my brain. cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep is my internal monologue. babble is a language im relearning i guess. what do u no.
so. i came here 2 confess b4 the vomitething. confess what? i dont no. confess my being. confess my nearness 2 u. confess my farness from u.
i check my weather app every day b4 i put on my clothes. my whether app. my body asks permission b4 embracing its elements. sometimes the app is a lil wrong, or incomplete, or. and my sweat sticks 2 my sweater like runoff.
i watch a lot of reality tv where ppl who hv broken up will say things like “i nvr stopped loving u” or “i will always love u.” wherever i go post-vomiteth, i hope there r stars big enough 2 c, not like lightbulbs, but like stars.
so. this is how it ends. not w/ a bang, but w/ a blank.
A Scout is Obedient. A Scout follows the rules of his family, school, and troop. – Scout Law
it’s xhausting being a
body ppl want 2 make a me(a)taphor out of. a scout
is a meta4 4 boy, xtracting i-lashes, me in the l(i)ne-up, pulling i-lashes like commas, is
it necessary 2 b, o, i don’t no. i’m in the tall grass of my (me)mory, obedient
to the (i)m-pulse 2 o. 2 wear my lil skirts like a bush and (i)mag(i)ne a
lil world wear lil me and my lil life can, o, i don’t no. scout-
me snored like a motherfucker. breath wasn’t smth my b(o)dy understood, my soft palette follows-
ing the a(i)r d(o)wn the p(i)pe called a thr(o)at, like, take me w/ u, puppying like a m(o)(o)n. the
xtent of my des(i)re is m(o)rt(i)fy(i)ng. my (i)mag(i)nary b(o)yfr(i)ends like rules
i must follow 2, o, i don’t no. i sw(o)re a lot as a k(i)d. every “fuck” a lil w(i)ld an(i)mal of
l(o)ng(i)ng, slicked in bl(o)(o)d like the future. the body others “his”-ed
saying, fuck that. fuck he, fuck his, fuck him, fuck the family
of gender, the school
of gender. when (i) was learning 2 sw(i)m, that b(o)y placed his chin on the f(i)eld btween my
shoulder and
my neck, his l(i)ps barely cl(o)sed, barely (o)pen, his l(i)ps the smallest o, i don’t no, not (me)taphor,
not not, un-trooped.
never had a homoerotic experience as a boy scout. on
ce did at bible camp tho. boy teaching me to swim, my
arms held afloat by his. we did it in the honor
of night, which makes it gay. snuck out of our cabins like papercuts. i
even brought my flashlight like a spirit looking for a body. will
all the boyfriends in my mind ever realize they can just open the windo-
w and escape? will they ever meet the me in my
mind? their stupid flower crown like a portal. the best
prayers are embarrassing. i pray the lord my soul to
ooze out my outside and kiss the souls of whoever is into that. do
-ing it is my favorite euphemism for sex, so artless like a home. my
troop leader made us stand shoulder2shoulder2shoulder. our duty:
be boys the way a pot is a boy. a boy the way a to-
ol is a boy. back then, they were all my boyfriends, in my mind. god
is a cloud, said one. his lips convincing and
flower-shaped. my sweaty hands like soil my
sweaty dreams became venus fly traps in. the country
of my imaginary boyfriends is also imand-
ginary. overgrown ivy and tulip and to-
unges sprouting from the pavement. you would like it. i was too busy obey-
ing boy to visit it. ever think about how much pollen you swallow? the
(not yet?) beautiful things that disappear in our bodies like morning. yet, scout-
me loved and loves that song that bird sang that went up, and up, and up, as if hope is the only law.
thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination… and the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the inequity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants – Leviticus 18:22-24
so. when r we going 2 get 2 the vomitething.
no pressure.
ill start.
often im falling in love w/ the idea of ppl. smth abt flesh is hard 2 wrap my head around.
1st time i lived a metaphor was in the boy scouts. we made box pine cars 2 race. every1 else had a father who could do it 4 them. start w/ a rectangular prism of pine. shaving the wood. shaving the wood, curling slightly at the center like a rabbithole, the skin of my hand peeling open. it was less abt aerodynamics and more abt gravity. the race took place on a downward slope. whosever reached the bottom 1st. so the more weight we added 2 the car, the better. the more it craved the earth i guess. the louder the sound when u dropped it i guess. the more u noticed it when u carried it i guess.
ive had 2 vomiteth up a lot 2 inhabit myself. tho its not like a 1-n-done thing. every so often i dream abt my dad with his lil bible at the foot of my bed. in real life we lived next 2 the traintracks and u could feel the ground gurgling, like its stomach was empty. in the dream were in a forest and hes made of copper, oxidized in that way that looks moss-like. if i could vomiteth him up 4 good, i mean. the forest of my mind thinks its funny, flashing shadows like tendons.
u no when it rains on a road and it pools 4 days, sometimes, bc whoever planned the road didnt give the water a clear way out?
im pro-vomitething tho more in theory than in practice i guess. mostly that i havent perfected my vomitething methods. if u want 2 go 4 it, i love it 4 u.
as a kid i thot there were xceptions 2 every rule. gravity included. thot if something wanted 2 enough, it could send itself elsewhere. i was like, every1 seems 2 think im being a boy wrong. like, i dont seem 2 no what planet boy is on, how 2 find it. like, my body is not a planet boy naturally occurs on.
its not like i dont get it. the vomitething thing, i mean. i grew up in 2 separate steel towns, where parks were no bigger than swimming pools. hadnt seen a star 4 years, each night a wall where a sky should b. i didnt even no u could c venus toothy-smile bright. its like, i thot we were so alone here. that the streetlight flickering like a bone. that the carsound thru the evening was a silence u, like me, learned 2 unhear.
A Scout is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties. – Scout Law
the scoutness of it all was a
tired and lonely game. that one camping trip, two other scout-
s pushed me off a not-sharp stone, into a barely-moving river, claiming i fell. is
that the best they had? it didn’t even hurt, the lapping of the water reverent
with my young calves like speechless lips. my body not even hurtling toward
the ground, not even making an imprint where i landed, no pansy-shaped ass-mark for God
to squint at like an appraiser at a pawn shop. the river and i getting familiar. no “he”
from the river’s tongue. the kind of clearing mostly rocks, mostly eroded, like the water is
contour on the cheek of the land. will be and was linking pinkies in the river. my body faithful
somehow to my body. in the wild, there are so many bugs. cricketsound building shelter in
your ear. as i made my way back to the campsite, the queer thing called my skin his-
sing like a hallway. the queer thing of birdsong landing for a moment on my body. religious
was the queer scuffling in the brush. to be passed-through is one of the body’s greenest duties
1 of my biggest vomiteths was, i used 2 feel a re-verse gender envy 4 men who were so uncomplicated in their love 4 their own masc. i didnt want 2 b it, or have it, or wear it, or sew it in2 my skin, or look thru its bars, but. it was like, i 1der if the birds that fly over the zoo look @ the birds in the zoo and think. smth like, how sad. smth like, @ least they no where their food is coming from. prob reductive, but 1ce i went 2 one of those planetariums and every1 speechless in their mechanized chairs, pointing their body 2 the interesting thing, the music like a big curtain, and all i could c was the strings of light the projector spit. @ the end, there was a worksheet we put our name on.
on occasion, i let ppl hurt me bc they find me beautiful, or tell me they find me beautiful, or tell me they could find me beautiful if.
in my silly lil job, i walk thru a college campus 2 get where i am xpected. every year i stop 2 admire the trees, this 1 w/ white flowers lil pink lips rupture from, this 1 budding green the shade of lime flesh rind-less, this 1 a shade of purple i dont hv reference 4, but def not a bruise. every year i am late 2 some function bc. every year, whoever i am walking w/ stops 2 stop w/ me as i stop 2 stop and just b in the looking, and others look @ my looking, stopped.
when i heard u were thinking of vomitething all of ur inhabitants, i 1st grieved the beauty. i thot, what about this flower? that? this bird? the park i walk my friends dog @, where i c my beautiful trans friends play ultimate frisb, 4 no reason other than that its sunny out that day, as their skin salts itself and waters itself, as the grass carries them 2ward each other. what about this looking i hv practiced here, there? what about all the places i hv scraped my knees, hv laid in the grass, hv been touched by the ocean? how, 4 a moment, when the wind passes thru u, there’s a hole in the wind, w/ edges shaped like u.
on campus, a friend tells me abt an invasive tree planted here. i am only half-listening. she says, it has a habit of strangling other trees underground, crosspollinating w/ whats left. its white flowers w/ their long eyelashes, the smell sweet like a story. its a real problem, she says. she says, i find it un4givable, @ which point, i am whole-listening. i say, 4giveness is hard 4 me. i say, i burn things b4 i 4give them. i had filled my water bottle w/ t, blackcurrant, which i pour on2 the grass, so i can fill it w/ water.
this guy i dated 1ce would stare @ my body out the shower and say shit like, whos my pretty boy. @ the time, the closet strangling me underground. “my” was his fav word. i was always “my” smth. his looking a silent “my” like a lasso. that’s a vomiteth.
more i think about the vomitething, i think of all the imitation. parks, campuses, whatev. the land emptied and sold back as beauty. u no better than i do. the concrete they make loop around the lawn like a throat. every tree a human decision. if the branches reach 2 far, they trim them, if they get caught in the power lines, if they cast a shadow over the wrong house like a definition.
A Scout is true to his family, friends, Scout leaders, school, and nation. – Scout Law
it’s not easy having so many imaginary boyfriends. not a
day goes by where i’ve been fully alive in this world, all those scout
kids who i never liked but invented versions 2 love bcus it sure is
lonely being a hole in a tree waiting for birds 2 b birds in u. tru
things bored me as a kid. sure, what we breathe is mostly nitrogen. sure, photo
synthesis is not smth our meat-bodies can do. sure, im a boy in this
body according to ppl who have never seen the hills under my eyelids. family
is a bad word in the country of my imaginary boyfriends. xcept in the friends-
to-family chosen sense. me and my imaginary boyfriends eat dinner together every nite, scout-
ing the frolicking green 4 a good spot to lay a blanket on, no leaders,
just us wayward queers indecisive in the sweet breeze, hungry 4 handholding each other. school
taught me abt the food chain. this eats that eats that eats that. wolves eat deer and
hares and other things with eyes big enuff to see a whole ruined nation
a few ppl i love refer 2 me as “man.” like “i no, man.” whenever i hear it, its a lil vomiteth. it is a way
2 say “loved one,” so i trim the meaning as it passes thru my ears, and only keep the uncomplicated
beautiful part.
im a big fan of ur work. i no when ppl say that, it sounds like nothing, like dust on the countertop of ur life. i love how its never totally silent in the woods. there is always smth speaking smth i cant understand w/ my human ears like traffic cones on my body. i love being lost and saying, i recognize that tree, and not rly being lost anymore.
when i was a kid, i ran away from home a lot, slept on the grass in a nearby park. woke up w/ a lil dew-coat on my young hair. it was a vomiteth 4 sure, as i vomitethed my body beneath a willow tree, sort of a gray-purple hand shape, sort of a small planet where me and a squirrel sometimes would step over roots, put our ass on the dirt, smell the wet air. what were we talking abt.
2 tell the truth, i spent most of my life avoiding writing about u. there r so many ways for ppl 2 b cruel, in every language. smth 2 vomiteth i guess.
when we moved to a town with 3 rivers in it, i remember falling in love with water. i thot, the river is not pretending to love me. its sharp edges, cliffs, crashing sounds, rolling sounds. they call it babble, but i dont hear it. we try to place it adjacent 2 language i guess. a pre-language. the whitewater fingernails of the river could care less if u live or die, if the meat on ur bones bruise on the rocks. not fingernails. like im calling it a pre-body:
just noticed i wrote failure as “failyour” in my draft of this.
there r many things i am still learning abt my body. many ways i am breaking open lil eggs in my brain. cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep is my internal monologue. babble is a language im relearning i guess. what do u no.
so. i came here 2 confess b4 the vomitething. confess what? i dont no. confess my being. confess my nearness 2 u. confess my farness from u.
i check my weather app every day b4 i put on my clothes. my whether app. my body asks permission b4 embracing its elements. sometimes the app is a lil wrong, or incomplete, or. and my sweat sticks 2 my sweater like runoff.
i watch a lot of reality tv where ppl who hv broken up will say things like “i nvr stopped loving u” or “i will always love u.” wherever i go post-vomiteth, i hope there r stars big enough 2 c, not like lightbulbs, but like stars.
so. this is how it ends. not w/ a bang, but w/ a blank.
A Scout is Obedient. A Scout follows the rules of his family, school, and troop. – Scout Law
it’s xhausting being a
body ppl want 2 make a me(a)taphor out of. a scout
is a meta4 4 boy, xtracting i-lashes, me in the l(i)ne-up, pulling i-lashes like commas, is
it necessary 2 b, o, i don’t no. i’m in the tall grass of my (me)mory, obedient
to the (i)m-pulse 2 o. 2 wear my lil skirts like a bush and (i)mag(i)ne a
lil world wear lil me and my lil life can, o, i don’t no. scout-
me snored like a motherfucker. breath wasn’t smth my b(o)dy understood, my soft palette follows-
ing the a(i)r d(o)wn the p(i)pe called a thr(o)at, like, take me w/ u, puppying like a m(o)(o)n. the
xtent of my des(i)re is m(o)rt(i)fy(i)ng. my (i)mag(i)nary b(o)yfr(i)ends like rules
i must follow 2, o, i don’t no. i sw(o)re a lot as a k(i)d. every “fuck” a lil w(i)ld an(i)mal of
l(o)ng(i)ng, slicked in bl(o)(o)d like the future. the body others “his”-ed
saying, fuck that. fuck he, fuck his, fuck him, fuck the family
of gender, the school
of gender. when (i) was learning 2 sw(i)m, that b(o)y placed his chin on the f(i)eld btween my
shoulder and
my neck, his l(i)ps barely cl(o)sed, barely (o)pen, his l(i)ps the smallest o, i don’t no, not (me)taphor,
not not, un-trooped.
Ty Raso (she/they) is a trans poet, essayist, and teacher. Her work is featured or forthcoming in POETRY, The Adroit Journal, Electric Literature, The Offing, Black Warrior Review, DIAGRAM, Salt Hill Journal, Split Lip Magazine, and elsewhere. She's currently in residence as a fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and she is the author of the collection Mirror Would Be A Beautiful Name for A Child (Noemi Press) and the chapbook no seed yes seed (kith books).