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Mr. Muscle forcing bursting

Stingy thingy into little me, me, me

But just "ripple" said the cripple

As my jaw dropped to the ground

Smile smile

It's true I always wanted love to be

Hurtful

And it's true I always wanted love to be

Filled with pain

And bruises

Yes, so Cripple-Pig was happy

Screamed "I just completely love you!

And there's no rhyme or reason

I'm changing like the seasons

Watch! I'll even cut off my finger

It will grow back like a Starfish!

It will grow back like a Starfish!

It will grow back like a Starfish!"

Mr. Muscle, gazing boredly

And he checking time did punch me

And I sighed and bleeded like a windfall

Happy bleedy, happy bruisy

I am very happy

So please hit me

I am very happy

So please hurt me

I am very happy

So please hit me

I am very very happy

So come on hurt me

I'll grow back like a Starfish

I'll grow back like a Starfish

I'll grow back like a Starfish

I'll grow back like a Starfish

I'll grow back like a Starfish

I'll grow back like a Starfish

I'll grow back like a Starfish

I'll grow back like a Starfish

Like a Starfish . . .

(Antony and the Johnsons 2000)

I call this piece a critical enmeshment rather than a personal account. For I want this to be a doing and a knowing that Iget knotted into-a kind of phenomenological telling that grapples with the mundane and sublime. I am not only describing and articulating, not merely charting the geography, but am pulled into the fleshy gerunds of what I write out. That is to say, I am not telling my story; rather I'm simply entangling myself within the stitches of ongoing processes. I am here not to confess, but to confect.

As such, the following sections or interludes are not some teleological account of transsexual/trans-species becoming, or a disclosure of my stakes. Instead, it is in the encountering of my body with Antony's song, in the interacting of the text /sound and myself, in the changing patterns of lifeways that this essay is sense making. "Critical enmeshment " is always a verb just as it is also always situated...

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