roman Sigley
horsegirl
I grew up a horse girl
not one of the rich ones
but one for whom horses represent some primal fantasy.
I have a fullcolour memory of leading a pack
of nine-year-old girls around the school field
all of us galloping and whinnying and shaking
our manes and stamping our hooves and rearing
up on our back legs.
We probably also bit each other
and I was the stallion.
I’ve told this anecdote on a few first dates
and I’m not sure what it says about me
nor do I know what I want it to say.
Made them laugh at least (nailed it)
and something about it is definitely proto-gay
‘Queering the horse herd’
anyway I haven’t ridden a horse in years
so I call myself an ex-horse ex-girl.
I still think it’s really fucked up
that I wasn’t born a vagrant stallion
saddled instead by lumpen white flesh
slow moving and got to pay rent and all that.
Roman Sigley is a French-Kiwi nonbinary writer from Tāmaki Makaurau. They hold a BA in English and Politics from the University of Auckland and explore embodiment and liminality through poetry, tramping in mountains, and dancing in nightclubs.