Four-Lined
Snake

I—a human body standing still,
opposite the entrance of the theatre stage.
In upright position, on the hard floor.
Standing still.
Beneath the skin, hormones are at work.

Human shapes enter through the narrow door,
one after the other.
I make eye contact, holding their gaze.
What are your expectations tonight?
You’re not coming neutral in here.

Drone sounds fill up the space with vibrations.
Sounds that permeate the skin and resonate in the bones.
An attempt to free the fixity of the mind, to unbind the attachments,
to untame.

Fashion videos flash on the wall behind the stage.
A slow mesmerising choreography of tall and slim females.
Walking on a narrow strip of ground,
one after the other.
Their skin is made of fabric, their skin is snake-like.

A long snake-print fabric piece hangs above me.
I get hold of it and wrap it around my shoulders,
like an armour.
I can now move my body towards the seated humans.
Slowly.
With caution.
Judging intentions.
Assessing risks.

I drop the fabric and start again.
Naked—or as naked as a trans body can be.
A body charged with expectations.
You are not as neutral as you think.

I drag the fabric across the floor,
activating the space,
making the cold cement my nesting ground.

Ferality—like trans-becoming—
needs to start from somewhere.
I start from the ground,
an unbounded beginning.

I feel suspicions, doubts, accusations of superficiality.
I see fashion trends, appropriation, capitalism at work.
Making profitable,
making harmless.
De-wilding, domesticating, bringing into home.
Attaching to the body.

“obviously, this is all snake print we’re talking about though,
it’s not snake”²

Leave the skin unharmed— quite a messy job these days.
Better take the pattern, make it fabric,
reproduce it.
Cleaner, faster, cheaper.

“…if you monochrome the print
If you abstract the print
You sort of take the danger
take the heat
take those messages away from the animal print
You’re just left with this nice idea of it
without it being too scary…”³

Becoming is never a nice idea,
becoming is dangerous,
becoming is at times too scary to achieve
or too complex to describe.
Prose fails me— I turn to poetry.

“…to talk with the body
is what the snake does…”⁴

I start from the ground,
as if in the mud.
I harden my skin through layers
and layers
and layers
of fabric.

Fabric is gendered
colour is gendered
shape is gendered
movement is gendered
existence is gendered
desire is gendered.

A trans embodiment is bound to
be perceived as a stereotyping act.
Trans-gender, trans-species, or both.
I move across identities.
Multiple trans-gressions raise multiple suspicions.

“…and you are no longer
the idea of a body but a body…”⁵

I am here, in front of you.
At the intersection of gender and species.
Entertaining the possibility of feral embodiment.
Untamed.
Unbound.
Without a predicted trajectory.

This is not a show.
I leave the stage and the lights behind.
I’m coming towards you.
In the darkness,
where the camera cannot see us.
I touch you.
My snake-skin against your human body,
my transgender fingers against your cis hands.
This is your opportunity to see I’m real.
A mutual acknowledgement.
To my eyes, you are not a neutral species.

I look into your eyes and hold your gaze as I leave,
because things are still unsettled between us.
Risk underlies ferality.
Risk haunts this becoming.

Even when imitation is reduced to the surface
and danger is not apparent anymore,
ferality is still latent in this skin
and trans-becoming is deep desire.

A question appears in the darkness.

“Who were you
when you were a snake?”⁶