Android Interrupted | Elle J. Snyder
POETRY
7/12/20261 min read
When they made me over again
they added a human hand
to hold the memory
of dashed dreams.
The washable-marker dashes
and dots around the problem;
my body can’t BE anymore
worthy than it was the day before.
I can palm my metal skull,
feel the eye socket,
slightly askew.
Feel the lines of newness
fleck and web
the meat.
It’s spelling out explicit
confirmations no one can verify.
When they made me over again
they added silicone where they could—
saved them some frustration
with the flesh budget.
I could feel it all out,
where the human ended
and the rest began.
They gave me one human hand
to hold the memory
of who I was.
Elle Jay Snyder (she/her) is a trans woman, poet, and swamp witch from Staten Island (traditionally Lenape land, stolen and colonized). She has represented her borough as part of the 2018 Advanced Slam Team at NPS, facilitated workshops in her community and for LGBTQIA youth, buried herself alive at Queer Van Kult: Revelation exhibition in 2022, and published a limited release chapbook, Where the Knife Landed, from NYSAI Press. Her work most recently appears in: Unendurable, The Words Faire, AC/DC, Pink Ochre, The Uncommon GRACkle, et. al. She is also aggressively seeking sponsorship from Mountain Dew.