by mk zariel
You don’t know what’s more of a pain—your gender, or the chicken you’re currently attempting to handle. The way she runs across the lawn at the childrens’ museum, evading your grasp, flapping her wings without purpose, having a minor freakout. The way you told a toddler, attempting to be funny, that chickens were dinosaurs—and then the toddler cried, and you wondered if you actually might be a horrible person. She’s an education animal, supposedly, but in actuality she just hangs out in the verdant grass, among the suspiciously faded wood chips, pecking at the ground and suspicious of all who surround her. You find that relatable; you too hate educating people. You long to heal your inner child. You wish children would be slightly less loud around animals, but you know that if they weren’t here, they’d probably be watching Cocomelon while their parents doomscroll. You fancy yourself a harm reductionist, despite the chicken freakouts that take place on a daily basis. You have serious concerns about late-stage capitalism, and they’re embodied in the average three-year-old. And you’re still chasing a chicken. “Hey weirdo, can’t you just chill, can’t you just sit down, can’t you walk toward your coop, can’t you stop pecking at random preschoolers during a field trip”—the pleas are neverending, and she doesn’t understand them, Your gender vanishes in a blur of anxiety and cast-off feathers.
mk zariel {it/its + masc terms} is a transmasculine neuroqueer poet, theater artist, movement journalist, and BashBack aligned anarchist. it is fueled by folk-punk, Emma Goldman, and existential dread. the author of VOIDGAZING (2026, Whittle Micropress) and BOY APPARITION (2025, Vinegar Press), it can be found online at https://mkzariel.carrd.co/, creating conflictually queer-anarchic spaces, writing columns for Asymptote and the Anarchist Review of Books, and being mildly feral in the great lakes region. it is kinda gay ngl.