You make me so mad
And I just want to shout
Make you respect me
I want to feel dangerous
Let my heart grow hard
So I threaten to fight you
Stand up real tall
I could cause some damage
I'm ruthless in truth
Oh but you won't will you
You just start to laugh
And you call me  short
A pitiable 5"3
You're a big strong man
You couldn't hit me
I'm just a girl
Just a girl
Just?

I pulled a piece of string
from my sleeve,
watched it float to the ground,
collecting itself into a small circle.

The ring reminded me of days past
when I thought that was what I wanted-
that ring.
How odd
that such an ordinary string
on such an arbitrary day
could teach me about myself
in one split second,
pointing out that the ring
was never what I wanted,
never what I needed.

The wind blew the flowers around me
and tossed up my hair
yet the ring remained,
stagnant,
unmoved,
a praxis,
like the boy who still hoped for the promise
of a ring.

So I collected my things
and rose from my spot between those two Hydrangea bushes,
stepped over the ring
and continued on my way,
movement from the
staleness of monogamy
to the chaos of something more.

Always moving
to something more.

Well, my daddy left home when I was three,
and he didn't leave much to Ma and me,
just this old guitar and a bottle of *****.
Now I don't blame him because he run and hid,
but the meanest thing that he ever did was
before he left he went and named me Sue.

Well, he must have thought it was quite a joke,
and it got lots of laughs from a lot of folks,
it seems I had to fight my whole life through.
Some gal would giggle and I'd get red
and some guy would laugh and I'd bust his head,
I tell you, life ain't easy for a boy named Sue.

Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean.
My fist got hard and my wits got keen.
Roamed from town to town to hide my shame,
but I made me a vow to the moon and the stars,
I'd search the ***** tonks and bars and ****
that man that gave me that awful name.

But it was Gatlinburg in mid July and I had
just hit town and my throat was dry.
I'd thought i'd stop and have myself a brew.
At an old saloon in a street of mud
and at a table dealing stud sat the *****,
mangy dog that named me Sue.

Well, I knew that snake was my own sweet dad
from a worn-out picture that my mother had
and I knew the scar on his cheek and his evil eye.
He was big and bent and gray and old
and I looked at him and my blood ran cold,
and I said, "My name is Sue. How do you do?
Now you're gonna die." Yeah, that's what I told him.

Well, I hit him right between the eyes and he went down
but to my surprise he came up with a knife
and cut off a piece of my ear. But I busted a chair
right across his teeth. And we crashed through
the wall and into the street kicking and a-gouging
in the mud and the blood and the beer.

I tell you I've fought tougher men but I really can't remember when.
He kicked like a mule and bit like a crocodile.
I heard him laughin' and then I heard him cussin',
he went for his gun and I pulled mine first.
He stood there looking at me and I saw him smile.

And he said, "Son, this world is rough and if
a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough
and I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along.
So I gave you that name and I said 'Goodbye'.
I knew you'd have to get tough or die. And it's
that name that helped to make you strong."

Yeah, he said, "Now you have just fought one
helluva fight, and I know you hate me and you've
got the right to **** me now and I wouldn't blame you
if you do. But you ought to thank me
before I die for the gravel in your guts and the spit
in your eye because I'm the nut that named you Sue."
Yeah, what could I do? What could I do?

I got all choked up and I threw down my gun,
called him pa and he called me a son,
and I came away with a different point of view
and I think about him now and then.
Every time I tried, every time I win and if I
ever have a son I think I am gonna name him
Bill or George - anything but Sue.

Our eyes we can shut
When we don't want to see,
Cover our mouths
When we feel we can't speak

We can plug our ears
When hearing's too much,
And pull away
At the unwanted touch

But our hearts, you see--
They've minds of their own
A content little beast
In a cage of bone

It disregards reason,
Rejects any rhyme,
Ignites and excites
At all the wrong times

But we must pay attention
When this beast stands *****--
Because maybe, just maybe,
This time is correct.

I live in a glass house
built up on polite smiles
and forced laughter.

A house that I want
everyone to look into.
But one I never look out of,
to see you walking home alone,
on these dark empty streets
with lonely branches and street lamps
as company.

If I could see you
I would love you.

Because then I would understand
that love is

listening to you sing in the shower
to an audience of watered down
shampoo bottles
and gray bars of soap.

It is seeing you stare
out your solitary window
looking for stars in a city
whose lights are too bright.

It is feeling your heart beat
under thin cotton sheets, while
your mother and father
are fighting in the hallway
and you feel like these 17
years have been a waste
because you are just a child
holding a blanket again.

I’ve kept my shades down
and my doors locked
but the foundations of my
house are cracking like thin ice on
a January morning.

I have learned that
obligatory hugs
in the hallways, at dances, and at train stations
do not substitute for love.

Love lives beyond borders,
and fences, and walls, and barriers.

Ones that I’ve been to frightened
to jump over.


But if I knew what it felt like
to hold you under the covers
to keep you as warm as these
cold hands could.

To hear you in your silence screaming
in whispers, just like I am.

If I could look at your almond eyes
and your gawky arms,
and your spongy fingers,
and your silky hair.

And let the colors wash away, and the noises
fade out, and let the scratchy feeling of
reality become soft like your fingertips grazing my skin.

I would realize that the two different
houses we live in, share common ground.

Help me leave this house
that I’ve built on fear of honesty and
hold your hand, because in between the
spaces our fingers intertwine
is your heart and mine.

Building a new home,
with cement made of vulnerability,
and bricks made of acceptance.

Because we aren't what you want us to be,
You shut us out completely and refuse to set us free.
Why can't we lock you up for not being the same as us?
If we could all work together there would be no need for such a fuss.
and what is normal when it is not defined by you?
It is only a word, that much is all we can be sure is true.
Society is telling us how to live a respectable life...
Yet they don't know our situations, they don't know our strife.
No person can walk a mile in someone else's shoe
If you were born into a different life who knows what you would do?
So we guess the question we are asking is why should you shun us..
When really you have the same biological potential to become us?