He/him like

Rayne Alarcio
Published on July 2, 2026

During La Mercè

I wander the Gothic

Quarter, the heat

of bodies and 100%

cotton brushing

against the back

of my palm.

I pause

to take a video

of graffiti

my cousins say

is ugly.

 

One says: 

I don’t understand

how someone

could deface

architecture

like that.

 

Some graffiti

is beautiful, I say.

 

Another asks:

How could graffiti

be pretty?

 

I take

another video, zoom

in on the EL—

zoom out

on EL COMO

and my brain goes:

HE/HIM LIKE

 

In the boutique

doorway, my jean

jacket with bisected pearls

for buttons.

In my bag: a black

T-shirt printed with a red

dragon poised

to strike,

las palabras

in English and

kanji printed

on the back,

I remember

my younger girl cousin

once told me:

Women are cuter anyways.

Why would anyone want

to be a man?

 

Genre: 
Poetry
Author Bio: 

Rayne Alarcio (he/they) is a Filipino American transmasculine poet from Los Angeles. Their work appears in and is forthcoming in Chicago Quarterly Review, Cimarron Review, and Up the Staircase Quarterly. They are the author of the chapbook Starving the Wolf (Bottlecap Press), housed in the Poets House Permanent Collection.

Issue: 
62