Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir

The narrator carries a pocketknife with her throughout the entirety of the text. Initially it symbolizes both violence and protection. She admits that she uses the knife to harm herself, to “open mouths in her skin” to release the insects that symbolize her trauma. She also considers it an important tool for protecting herself, although that inevitably means hurting others. In this way, the pocketknife also symbolizes violence more broadly. The narrator explains that, from her perspective, she and the pocketknife need one another. Addressing the knife directly in one of her poems, she states: “[I] know that you can’t make it better, that you can’t fix what’s always been broken, but still, i deserve this, you” (128). In her mind, the narrator and the pocketknife are inextricably intertwined. Eventually, however, the narrator recognizes that she must forgive herself and that in order to do that, she must also forgive her knife. She does so by giving the knife away, literally setting it free of the meaning that she has placed on it. She sends it to her sister but cautions her to use it only if she really needs it.