I fall asleep and see a dragon in the mirror (after Jinhao Xie*) - poem, context and reflections

Worried looking small blue dragon with large, expressive eyes looking to their left.

Look out for Blu, the trans-masc dragon in my comic book, “The Weird & Wonderful Surviveries of Squid Horse”

Content notes for my poem: reference to gender-affirming surgery



say a non binary son like me is cosy

i will show you a forest of colourful paper trees

where nobodies are welcome. say

my eyes are green-blue because i love the water

show me how to swim if my heart is out of ink


some nights, the sky celebrates me with the

kind glimmer of invisible ancients

i mourn the felling of our tall tree friends

unlike their sad stumps, after top surgery

i feel a little less but also vastly more and this ghost

desire commands me with a gentle nudge


in the paper forest, where the paper birds are

swimming in the swish swish of grassy paper water

yesterday my mother drew her face on a cheese plant leaf

and next to her face she drew a squid and though

the irritation that ravished me into a shadow was hard

to shake, i am a paper moon rustling



At yesterday’s Shaded Writers QTIBIPOC writing workshop, we read I wake up & see a girl in the mirror by Jinhao Xie (they/them) and then I wrote this poem which is very much based on their poem. I found I wake up & see a girl in the mirror surreal, intense and mystical. Possible content notes are: gender dysphoria, sex, violence and possibly sexual violence (although it’s ambiguous/dreamlike).

Below, you can see the cheese plant leaf I refer to in the poem, on which my mum drew her face and a squid.

I ran a craft event at “Community Care Retreat”, run by EVR ESEA, On your side and Aloe Mental Health. I invited participants to draw or write a face, or a wish or thought about community, autumn and/or ESEA Heritage Month. It felt strange and positive to see her there amongst ESEA - mostly of a younger generation than me.

Arranging to have her attend took some effort and preparation (a few weeks ago and a friend to assist her with travel to the venue as well as an alternative dog-walker. I also spent a few weeks sending her the Instagram screenshots about the stallholders and activities.

Although I was surprised not to see any children or young people at the event (as it was described as a family event), it did mean that I felt ok about my mum attending. I love taking part in queer/drag events but there tends to be more nudity, sexualised language/imagery and swearing! In this sense, the event helped me to combine my creativity, inviting people to create, telling people about my forthcoming book, collaborating for the first time with EVR ESEA, On your side and Aloe Mental Health and inviting my mum into “my community”.

The top part of CommuniTREE

I have posted a video of the whole tree on my Instagram and Facebook, although I may add more pictures later.

2 absurdly humorous panels from comic story about coming out as trans - taken from my comic book "The Weird & Wonderful Surviveries of Squid Horse"

2 absurdly humorous panels from "The Return", a story from The Weird & Wonderful Surviveries of Squid Horse

The Weird & Wonderful Surviveries of Squid Horse is my new comic book about mental health, grief and growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Find out more here.

writing, trans, LGBTIQ, creativity, poetry, ESEA, family, neurodivergent artist, storytellingThe Mollusc Dimension