There's a very specific sort of shame
that follows joy
when you're abuser is nice to you

It trails behind a
seemingly inexplicable burst of happiness
Dragged in between the inciting incident
and the recognition that this is just a diversion
and you let yourself be fooled again

This is the high before the fall
This tastes like good memories
because they've succeeded
in drowning you in misery

A small gesture feels like a life preserver
A door you think they'll share with you
But they're not at your side wading through the tide
They pushed you in the water in the first place

But when they hold out a buoy
A kind word
An ugly type of hope

You don't remember that
This is the type of happiness that comes with hooks
With strings attached
You're the marionette

And they'll you drag out
only if you just wrap them back around your limbs.
And you are tempted by a
familiar and convenient kind of amnesia

When I look at things
in the grand scheme
I'm not so sure this was the person
I was supposed to end up being.

Generally scared and distrustful of other people
Hard
Prickly
Sometimes I feel so stagnant and unheard
My writing feels like my last will and testament

It's easier to keep secret
Than to talk too much
And realize no one cares

People only want to hear your darkest desires
When they've coerced it out of you
When they're pulled from you against your will
There's something so tasty about reluctance to them

And my bed holds me hostage
No longer a sanctuary or place of rest
It weighs down all my decisions
And wraps up my never quiet head

It embraces me so tenderly
In what can only be described as a choke hold
And my hands get so cold

In the dead of winter
I took my heart off the shelf
But in the dead of winter
I find it so hard to care about anyone else

Confession:
I'm not entirely a boy.
I'm in between genders right now.
Somewhere found in the cracks and crevices
underneath our ever crumbling binary.

A toss up between a proud queer girl,
and a fairy gay boy.
Yes sir,
But not a man.
Along the lines of
Prince and Princess,
Both King and Queen.

Don't call me a *** or **** -
Call me Genderfuck.
A concept you can't quite pinpoint,
At least it's an accurate depiction of your ignorance.

Genderpunk;
an identity wrapped up in style.
Androgyne -
A word that is not entirely girl
Not entirely boy,
But has elements of both.

I'm pushing away from women
when people put it on me.
It's dysphoric and uncomfortable.
So I run towards guy,
Phonetically and conceptually.

I want something other than human,
Not exactly person,
Alien, celestial or ethereal being
of which there is no words necessary.
Something...other.

But Agender rejects the concept entirely.
And I do not want to abandon the idea
that there is a word out there for me.
A community like me.

And before I hear any rhetoric about
having 'too many labels',
Let me just say:
If cats have taught me anything,
There is a huge difference between
Being put in a box,
And putting yourself in a box.

My ideal gender is something like feeling
part women, part dude -
not entirely male -
and part non-binary,
All simultaneously.

This may come as a surprise
But I do not deny my lady-like qualities.
I see strong, realistic female
representation
And I rejoice.
I feel part of that team.

I experience sexism and misogyny,
and I recognize how others perceive me;
as a girl.

Well in the context of a ******* girl relationship
Girlfriends doesn't seem that bad.
Being a butch lesbian,
or gay girl -
a feminine boy,
bisexual guy.
Though, I'm never a man.

Just something dancing along the edges,
Picking and choosing the flowers I am drawn to.
Ultimately something queer.

I want more access to words,
different types of non-binary,
A broader third category.
Six, Eleventh and,
Twentieth gender options.

Otherwise I'm caught gendering myself, always.
God or Goddess?
Mermaid or Merman?
Sure there's also merperson, merbabe,
godev, princev...

Referring to oneself - zeself?
As a magical being works.
Fae, Faerie,
Fae, Fem(me), Faer
pronouns would be cool
I just don't want to fully surrender
to being a girl.

Even though I know
there's no shame in it,
it still feels wrong,

It's misgendering
when I'm called "Miss" or "She".
I feel like crawling out if my skin
when I'm being forced into anything
womanly

Even though I have no
real quarrel with the concept.
I'm just uncomfortable with pronouns
and all the words around it.

I am anti-girl, negagirl,
the opposite of female
but not necessarily guy.
I am running away from cis-ness,
Cis-ciety.

And that's okay,
It's absolutely alright to feel this way.
The world told you what you were entirely
Based on your reproductive organs,
And doesn't that just sound a little funny?

Being trans doesn't have to mean
being at war with your body.
It doesn't mean you're born into a special group
A cool club, where others are barred access.

It means thinking critically
and wanting to redefine, redesign,
The way you are seen,
The way you see yourself,
and reclaim something
that was taken from you.

Folx, gender is fun.
It is fluid, and it changes,
it ages,
It starts to mean different things.

What you feel for now
doesn't have to be forever.
Move past the boundaries
others have set for you.

I encourage you to find your own
Trans doesn't have to be right
or wrong for you,
That's up to you to discover.
Just know you have options.

There's 7 billion people on this planet
So that's the possibility for 7 billion genders
And sexes.
Yes, that's a spectrum too.

***** and ***** are not the only thing
That defines you.
Think critically about the things
people have force fed you.

As for me,
I am a different breed of dude.
Not dad or father,
nor lady or daughter.

I fit with brother, guy, sir & gentlemen.
Call me fae, goth, punk, merhunk
and royalty.

Today I am a blank slate
A canvas I always have the potential to recreate.
Call me Damon.
That is my gender of the day.

I am a guy.
Just a guy.
Not an "ummm...technically."
or "biologically female."
Not: "used to be a girl",
"Thinks she's a guy",
"Doesn't dress like a boy",
"What she got between her legs?",
"Wears makeup",
"Doesn't pass"-

Gender norms literally **** people.

Every "I'm sorry" is just a peeling paint job
over an intercity wall,
no one really wants to look at,
or fix,
or admit to.

This is not a problem I brought on myself.
My gender is not a problem,
You are the problem.

I'm not running from what's inside me anymore,
I know what's inside me,
I've made peace with what's inside me
It's the same old, same old,
with a new set of words
you ******* can't wrap your tongues around.

I don't care if you slipped up,
Fix it.
I don't care if you didn't know I was a boy,
Fix it.
I don't care about your cis guilt, cis excuses, or cis ignorance
Fix it.

Because you don't know the age limit
not to be Emily anymore.
The hundreds of dollars it costs.
Every: "Hello Ladies",
every "Sorry Miss",
every "What can I do for you Ma'm",
every "You'll always be my niece-"
"My daughter",
"My girlfriend".

The cis questions,
cis answers,
cis stares,
cis disinterest in my ******* feelings.

I am not going to hold your hand
and politely explain to you that
I
AM
NOT
MY
GENITALS.
That's your job cis people.
Fix it.

Every misgendering is peeking through the veil
of how people really perceive you.
It's all just a game they play along
with in your presence.
Going along with a trance they think
you've put yourself in.

They don't really see you,
When all it takes is
changing a single word
in one ******* sentence.
That would be no inconvenience to them,
But makes or breaks the world to you.
Covering it up with a strained smile,
Lying that it's fine.

Is it even a question that over 70%
of trans people **** themselves,
as opposed to 1% of the general population.
It makes so much ******* sense to me.

Because trans means knowing
I will never be properly gendered by a stranger,
Unless I get a **** I don't ******* want.
Being trans is waking up everyday
with the guarantee you can not
use the bathrooms in public.

Can't be called a guy
Hearing: "Emmett? That's a weird girl's name."
Having people ignore you
When you're on the verge of tears
begging them not to see
your soft curves and small chest and skirt
as one big sign that says 'SHE'.

Then being told:
"It's not their fault,
people just don't know."
"You have to be more understanding,
more patient -
be nicer about it."

How 'bout applying that to yourself?
Don't tell me I have to be kinder
about being denied my identity everyday.
Don't tell me to shut up about a system
so ingrained in my brain
I still misgender myself.

It's gaslighting,
A society denying reality
And telling us we are the confused ones.
The crazy ones.
For veering outside these neat little boxes
ahem, cages
of made up rules
they've tried to lock us into.

The consequences are absolutely deadly.
Is it any question
That people bleed themselves dry
Get drunk, get high
just to escape it all?

Then get thrown into a 'health care system'
for attempted suicide,
get misgendered by the nurses and doctors
who ignore why they're there in the first place.
Then denied hormones for their
'mental instability'.

We are thrown into a world of glass ceilings
and imaginary borders
with all too real consequences.

Make no mistake,
We are not dangers to ourselves.
You absolutely put us here.

Blame it on whatever generation or
individual you want,
but we are all participating in cisnormativity
if you are not constantly unlearning.

If you equate genitals with gender,
Ask what the baby's going to be -
As if it ******* matters -
Don't think to ask pronouns and get it wrong,
See every character, every face on TV
that doesn't look like ours,
have everything catered
to the way you turned out to be,

That's privilege is our danger.
The gaps in judgement
and consideration for our situations
is where we live
and our destined to fall.

Because when someone hits you with a car
It doesn't matter of they didn't see  you,
didn't mean to,
have never done it before,
are the nicest person in the world -
They ****** up.
And it still hurts.

Sure, if they meant to
it would be worse,
But I'm through with this rhetoric
about intent.

Don't think this is too drastic a comparison,
Gender norms literally kills people.
Every mark of 'self-harm' on our arms
Is a scar society put there.
Every trans suicide is a ******.

The question isn't why
we are killing ourselves.
It's how the ****
are we still alive.

I understand all the unhealthy relationships now
I understand enduring all this ****
I want to invest all my time and love into someone
who gives me nothing back
in hopes for isolated 'happy' moments.

In hopes to retrieve that frozen idea
That intense flame or spark
Preserve it
Make it last
Let it eat me alive
Just so it can live on
So that the burning is the last thing I'll feel

So I don't have to stop relying on you
So I won't have to stop indulging in this madness.
I don't have to be happy all the time
As long as you just keep feeding me enough
that I know what it tastes like

String me along so I believe
Deprive me of good treatment
So every small gesture seems like a gift from God
Become my God
Let me worship you
Let me beg at your feet while you act humble
Like you don't deserve this
That you didn't ask for this
That I am somehow equal to you
Even when I'm on my knees

Lash out at me when you're unhappy
Don't ask me how I feel.
Let me lick your wounds
Even when I'm the one bleeding.
Let me feel guilty for walking out
On the person who lashed me in the first place.

Tell me all the white lies in the world
Slip around words like commitment
While making mediocrity and misery sound so, so sweet.
Tell me you see a future
Don't promise me you're present
Don't promise me your presence

Make yourself feel like a gift
And you could have never made me think this way,
Because you hate yourself so **** much right?
You need me, you need my support
I am your angel
I am your saving grace
You make me feel so. ****. special.
Except when you don't.

Inject me full of jealousy and call it
my fault when I overdose,
Or spill over,
Or reveal anything resembling romance,
Or wanting your affection.

Tell me about your ex-girlfriend and how she hurt you
Now tell me how you get along
Tell me how she's your best friend
Tell me she's in love with someone else
How you wish to be the guy ******* her
Tell me how she deserves so much better
Tell me it's all in my head.

******* it Sam,
hit me
Just ******* hit me,
Hit me!
It would hurt less,
It would give me a reason to walk away.

I wish I hadn't met you
Because it would have meant
I would have never fallen for you
It would mean I wouldn't be stuck
with the thought of you forever.
You will always be a 'what if'.

You have to be the villian, Sam,
Or you will always be the one who got away.
I'm not sure which is worse,
Both seem impossible to forget.
At least one I have a reason to walk away from.
There is a foreseeable end in sight.

But I'm not really going to leave.
...I understand all the unhealthy relationships now.
And I am so, so scared.

I want brass knuckles
to sport between back allies and gleam in the street light
a neon sign that says all boogie monsters beware
I want weapons to flash in the sight of men
while they try to peek up my skirt.
Let all boys know I'll shoot a pistol
before letting them near my ***** line.
Do all the things action movies told me to
in order to stay alive.
But my first abuser wasn't a shadow in the alley,
or a bruised and sweating testosterone filled brute.

She was a tiny, silly bird
that lit up a room with the colour of her feathers,
And a bubbling laughter like morning song.
She was a little girl
a damsel in distress
you'd want to cup your fingers around
to shield and protect.

But one night,
her songs spilled over her lips,
distorted through ***** filled breath.
Her thin limbs became persistent and demanding
in the face of an electrified buzz.
She was presented to me like a flower.

But when the truth came to her the next day
And it was forced into her mind
The petals didn't unfurl
The curled inward and shut
any intimate details snapped between the teeth
of the Venus flytrap.

Her guilt dissolved
Somehow putting me at fault
How dare I frame the gentle martyr.
What a mistake, that I made,
trying to force the blame
on a little girl, certainly not capable of ****** assault.

Why would anyone believe that
this pretty queer activist would try to **** this boy.
Not listen to the 'no',
in between insistence of her enthusiastic noise.

Why listen to petty rumors of her past
When she's offering you wide blue eyes,
freckles spread across her skin like stars in the sky,
and a giggle inviting you in between pink glossed lips?
Why bother paying attention to how touchy
she gets with alcohol
When shes telling you
you're the fairest of them all.
After all, she is not what the big bad wolf looks like.

She truly believes in her innocence,
She may even bring it up between drinks and activism.
Ignore the people she has pushed the boundaries of,
Ignore more than six people she's pushed under the rug,
The victims at parties who's mouths she's sewn shut.

All the ignorant she has under her thumb,
with all the people in the camp of:
"We like Moira, so she would never -
even though we weren't there,
and you're not the first to come forward."

I learned the hard way
that rapists aren't just sleezy men at bars.
They're girls with sweet smiles
that slip into your friend circle.

But they're also that guy
in the corner of a room at a dorm party.
Inviting you back to his room for a blunt
and doesn't expect you to leave til morning.

People who have respected my pronouns have ****** me over.
People I sleep in beds with.
People who assure their friends they'd never push for consent.
I still see the mutual friends we have on facebook.
Unapologetically smiling back at me from the computer screen.

They don't ask for details
as to keep their conscious clean.
They shy from those assaulter's shame
Because bliss is ignorance.
And because rapists can be hard to hate.

I know that it's tempting to ignore
an invasive touch for a pretty face.
But it feels like a kick to the stomach
hearing my best friend will be
sleeping at her boyfriends place
With my ****** abuser the next room over.

I don't know why people
don't see my story as legitimate
It was that boy's shoulder I first cried on
and now they're soon to be roommates.

Do people wish that badly to believe in fairy tales?
That the bad guys are always obvious and ugly
and easy to despise.
The heroes are always the beautiful ones
who never dare lie?
No, they're the people who make their way
into your lives.
The people you like
The people who get close.
Who hear you cry.

I want to defend myself from those villains
but I don't have the benefit of x-ray vision.
I can't see through their trust-worthy mask.
I don't need knives and guns and broken glass,
Just friends who have my back.

Take no ****.
And be there for me,
Listen and believe
when people speak up
about *** crimes in emergencies.
**** is not a joke.

It isn't a mistake made by accident.
It's a conscious choice to ignore someones voice,
And decide your ****** desires,
are more important than someone's ****** autonomy.

Twice now I've been violated
By supposed friends trying to take my off my clothes,
and not listening to my 'no's.
Twice now I've seen people stand by them
and try to silence the truth,
Cover up all the abuse,
but make no excuse:

There's a wolf amongst your flock
A thorny rose in your garden.
And uprooting me for dealing with that *****
Instead of nipping that problem in the bud
Is not going to keep you safe from harm.
It may put your mind at ease
But only temporarily.
It does no good just to silence the alarm.

Dear God,
I know your secret.
If something is too good to be true,
it probably isn't.
A merciful father who never leaves,
always loves, and promises immortality.
All if you abide by his 10 little rules,
But it's not that simple is it?
An entire book,
Imperfectly translated through tongues and time,
paraphrased to fit what we see as logical -
Your words coming out of man's mouth
Justifying hate, and slaughter and genocide.
What happened to thou shalt not ****?
Was that even what you really said?
Or was there a different sort of bush
Moses was smoking in the desert?
Did you ever mean for your words to be twisted
like the minds of those who **** in your name?
God help us from the people claiming to do God's work.

Dear God,
Do you ever get tired of playing Santa?
Tell me, when did praying begin to resemble
Siting on a jolly man's lap
Asking for toys and candy from his knapsack?
Because your people,
these days,
are starting to sound more and more like bad friends
you only exist when they need something from you -
I was one of them.

Dear God,
do you feel more and more like an under-appreciated artist?
Like Vincent Van Gough or Poe,
Never recognized in their time,
Bound to die penniless and forgotten.
Do you feel as though all your masterpieces
Will be eclipsed by the tragedies and mistakes?
Good intentions lost,
as if chaos is what you tried to make.

Dear God,
I can't say I'm all too fond of you
But anyone who says you do not exist
Because of global warming, or kids with cancer,
or a dead family member
Does not know what it's like to be a father.
To create some something,
send you out into the world,
and just hope for the best.
I understand that the human race was a baby you did not abort.
A child you didn't necessarily plan to have.
You sent us to our first day of kindergarten
With a tight anxiousness in your chest
And a book bag with everything you thought we needed.
We needed you.
We threw a temper tantrum
and got sent to the principles office.
Some of us graduated, some held back,
others failed.

Dear God,
I understand you are man-made,
A necessary concept, easy to believe.
You give us peace,
that our sins are not our own
And all will be forgiven if we just ask.
But who will forgive you?
People got tired to praying to
Gods of War,
Gods at War
They needed some stability
and Jesus was recompense.
Well I'm sorry, if one of many martyrs
Does not erase the memory of a man
named Abraham.
An old soul with an old wife
Too aged to have children.
And yet, they did.
But Isaac was only a boy
When you decided to have a rebate.
"Take him to the hill and sacrifice him" You said.
"He was never yours in the first place."
Is that a fate you would wish on anyone?
A father forced to **** his only son.
To think
You have known the pain of losing a child
when Lucifer fell.
Did you just want to inflict the pain you felt?
Well, when Jesus came down
You learned we were a virus
Humans are not angels
Crucified by us
We killed him.
And you could not drown us out like rats
Flood the earth
We are still alive
We spread like poison.
Gasping for air, foundation, salvation.
But whether you watch us suffocate,
Or send us to shore,
There was still suffering.
You can't erase that,
You can only make the smudge a stain,
Turn black to gray-
Not white
Never white
Your God will never be white
And neither will his people.

Dear God,
I understand why people want to see you as pure
That there is a reason
Some kind of explanation, and a savior.
But the only thing that put us here
Was a faulty ****** and ***** teenagers.
No divine ******* prophecy
We are high functioning apes
With the ability to choke out life
with these opposable thumbs
Or choose love with all the words of the people before us
and the people to come.

Dear God,
I know your secret.
You are a disappointed father,
turning a blind eye to the college drop-out of a kid
You forgot to mother.
Maybe you never existed
But just because something is man-made
Doesn't make it easily forgotten.
Dear God, if something is to good to be true
it will more than likely just disappoint you.

Apparently, there is a word for people who like to cover up pain with a smile.
That's such an odd thing to have a label and concept around
Considering how broad the meaning could be.
Are these people simply masochists?
What type of pain are they subject to?
Physical?
Mental?
Emotional?
My body doesn't always know the difference.

But when I think about my personal embodiment of such a concept,
I think of tense social situations.
Either private, or public
With only one other person, or a group
And the smallest tip of the scales has led to,
what was previously,
a tall and solid tower sculptured by your own iron will
Only to be unveiled in all its fragility
as a flimsy stack of paper sheets

Maybe you see your ex-lover are at a coffee shop
And you realize they don't think about you all that much any more
Or maybe they never did
Or maybe they just moved on.

He used to say he saw a universe inside of you
and oh, how he longed to be a part of it.
One day, he could see a future with you
One day.
But just not now.
He lied.

The anger grazes a kiss across your heartstrings
like the most vengeful angel fire
It sends low and heavy static through your bones until waves reach your seasick gut
and all of its contents beg to scrape a way back out of you now.
You're restless jaw flexes
primal reactions lead to feeling far too eager
to latch onto flesh and rip
Maybe you catch your own tongue or cheek in the process
and the blood will taste familiar
and coppery sweet

You're probably enraged.
You feel livid and betrayed and
entitled to their future and love and
at least some sort of explanation.
As if that would serve as sugar
to make the drug taste sweeter on the way down.
But, it does not change what's underneath that loud, hot and passionate aggression.

You're sad.
Your hurt, demanding to be heard.
Your body is carrying weight it wasn't a few moments before
And yet, you have not shown any of this.
You're not throwing a fit,
knocking over ****
or punching him in the face
in the way you really, really want to.
You're not screaming, or crying, disappearing or leaving
in a way you wish you could even more.

Because you may think your first response is more trouble overall if expressed
On some level you don't want to guilt or blame on this person
You may want to make it seem you're in the same boat of composure and indifference.
As if this show of self restraint will change his mind
And he'll come running back to you
As if him being impressed by apathy
and begging forgiveness is what you'd want him to do

No, on some level, its a feeling of embarrassment
and trying to cover up the fact that
four poems and two songs ago you swore
you'd stop having feelings for this boy
That your heart was your own once again,
and no one had a leash to **** you around
one way or the other.

Nonetheless, out loud, you say: "oh."
Because that is a few second window
to wrap all the dread and fury and hyperactivity
the adrenaline has shot into your bloodstream.
The entire world is frantically on full volume
There's a locomotive, crashing against your sternum
every split second
And you have to dye every sun spotted moment with him
In oily black disappointment

"Oh" buys you enough space to find bandages to hide the bruises
underneath your chest
In that "oh" you have compacted all that space junk whipping around and rattling your skeleton into a black hole
that will self destruct and,
hopefully,
collapse all it's contents unto itself

You hold that star sucker in your centre
and you slap a smile on top
You grin in the face of your own pain
Because it is safe, and what is familiar to you.
And you can hold it in a cocoon for protection
until your left alone to bleed
or breathe
or convince yourself this never really mattered.

But for right now, you show complacence in this agony
as not risk any more damage with exposure
Maybe you say something that sounds mature and impartial.
Convince them you are so happy they've had something good come into their life;
Implying that the same has come to you
Something, at the time,
you can't remember is necessarily true or not.

You are insistent not to stir the living creature
wrangled in muscle
sitting atop your lungs
And that grimace is a 'Do not Disturb' sign.

I think "oh" speaks for itself in its pain and simplicity
Its a gasp of pain
And the pause after a blow
The start to so many sentences with no end
And a reoccurring soundtrack to all my reluctant epiphanies
Played on repeat
and more consistently skipping than my lovers.

Disheartening moments like that
serve as uneven pavement I trip over and simultaneously
have gravel split my skin and break my nose on impact.

"Oh" was the delayed fire alarm
to tell you the building has already burnt to the ground.
Come and see the remaining disaster, now that it's over.
Watch helplessly as the building collapses with a whisper.
"Oh."

That is the sound of you hearing part of your friend group
Still hangs out with your local ******
Even after the dam of stories cracked onto their lap
the night they assured you that you had their ear
That they were listening
That someone cared
But now he's a different guy around me,
he doesn't remember it, I swear.

"Oh," is realizing the friend you never quite got the chance to know in school
killed themselves last week.
It's the sound that escapes me, when someone is interested in who I am
Until they realize I'm trans.
It's a noise that gets stolen when people are interested in me,
accept me for being trans,
but leave when I fall short of expectation because of who I am.

There is so much hurt encapsulated in those two letters
one syllable
one sound
for me
It's packed in pearly whites and dead eyes
a shaky wall with a tornado tucked behind.
How can a storm pass so quickly
Without any sign of trouble outside?

Simply put:
I don't want to let anyone know
I would rather be left to suffer on my own
Without any rescue team to disappoint
when they cannot find a single living body
to dredge from the rubble.