I’m not saying you should have to wipe clean your political slate to understand the power for oppression is in the hands of the state.
Legislative discrimination is slated against us.
Divisive measures are taken to sew distrust.
I don’t believe there is any higher power we can trust.
No god.
No man.
And certainly no ******* government.

When I came into circumstances that could have destroyed me,
I saw fit to ensure that I would not destroy myself.

There is more to be considered than the left or right, or even the right or wrong.
Your moralistic judgments are subjective and often reflect some societal objective.

I’ll re-evaluate my view on the police force,
On the criminal justice system,
On the prison industrial complex on the government when they stop incarcerating non-violent drug users, beating black children,
And when they release my very much innocent father from his life sentence.

We need to talk about this… phrase.
“Transtrender”.
I didn’t know it was your place to police gender.
When did you you first discover you were a transmisogynist?
Are you diagnosed?
Were you born one?

“Like Emerson I write above the mantle of my door ‘whim’”.
I’m a Wildean character in a tragedian’s play.
The tired hedonist in pursuit of beauty.

Black girl.
Heavy word, black.
One that comes with an even heavier history.
A tender burden for the Wildean child,
especially one who had little hope, and little help.
Black boy,
they told you you were drizzle, so you became a storm.
Too loquacious for your identity,
you more than exceeded all bounds.
But they were never really prepared for you, were they?

I would gladly wish upon my self portrait and ask that it age instead of I.
I would have no regrets, should I die tomorrow.
But, my greatest fear is living another twenty years.

En homme, I feel at home.
En femme, I’m still him.
That is, me.
I was mommy’s little princess, and daddy’s little prince.
I just didn’t know there was a word for it:
Him today, her tomorrow.

By the time I smoked down to the filter, I’d re-written my suicide note.
30th revision!
It’s my magnum opus.
Been working on it since I was ten.
Eleven? I didn’t believe in god.
They called me a heathen.
At twelve, even.
They called me queer.
They weren’t wrong.
But that didn’t make them right.