the blueshift journal
blueshift / ˈblo͞oˌSHift / noun
the displacement of the spectrum to shorter wavelengths in the light coming from distant celestial objects moving toward the observer.
concept: if god created everything in her image
then her mirror must look a lot like mine
​
concept: if everything existed in the beginning
and everything is still happening
then i must have been there too
among the garden beasts and broken ribs
against the first ugly sky against
the first manifestation of “ugly” as
a thing to look at with a name
​
known fact: adam had a penis and
eve had a vagina but
this does not mean
adam never tried on eve’s name
perhaps longed for the kind of blood-rush
he remembered before he broke out of her like
a song so
​
if everything that exists now also
existed in the beginning of itself
then transgender people were in the garden too
okay hear me out
​
the snake is a trans faggot
god imagined the color red after
the good kind of slap
god named the sky after the word for
the first time my best friend’s hair is
long enough for elastic to contain like
the rest of the work-girls’
​
concept: maybe god walked in on adam
climbing out of a girl’s body and thus
conceived a misinterpretation
of genitalia
​
concept: maybe eve felt the boy-parts of her
shudder and her whole skin soliloquized despite
the absence of ears to listen
​
concept: the snake sheds its skin over and
over and everyone only remembers the
sin of it
​
concept: if the snake was created in god’s
image then that means
god was called a dyke once
and it still stings
concept: if god created trans people then god
must hate herself
concept: if god created mirrors then god
must hate me
​
concept: it does not matter what the snake’s gender is
what matters is my classmates think this is important
what matters is i have to bury myself in a mirror
to find a sound that is similar to mine
what matters is everyone else looks at my friends and i
and see perhaps the first instance of sin
​
known fact: my friends call themselves ugly and i
unlearn my own language
once i was called a dyke and it was not
necessarily a mistake just a misspelling
once the first trans person broke out of
their old skin and named each fresh tooth
after another color god had forgotten about
​
known fact: sometimes god blames herself
for sin growing a mouth and seeing
something human in the mirror
and sometimes
god gives up and closes her eyes
and nothing can be created
in god’s image if she refuses
to look at herself—
​
concept: god has been asleep since adam and eve
tried each other on and pulled out something wet
and breathing with hands that look like mine
and this is how god knew
she was not needed to create
something both beautiful and
​
alive