I have this friend
          (it's really me)
Who has this girlfriend
          (who's really she)
Who has this quirk
          (really several)
Which she'd deny
          (which is another)
She's not anti-gay,
Sees right past color, creed and ethnicity;
Sees women for being women,
Men for men,
And any combination thereof,
And vice versa.
No, she can see right past bigotry,
Is blind to prejudice,
But has an innate drive that goes straight for wardrobe.
From the gowns of celebs,
To the color of Alex Trebek's tie.
A sartorist, that's what she is.
          
          I heard that.
          And I am not.

          (contrary too)

Sadness and euphoria.
They are bitter truths that go together,
Like zealotry and bigotry,
Or monogamy and deceit.
Sadness and euphoria: sadness the shell, euphoria the oyster.

I stripped the branches,
Debarked the limbs
Like peeling sunburnt skin
On the chest high grassy plains.
There's a nest in the crotch of our tree
With umbilical vines detached and green;
I check to see if my bellybutton
Is missing, just like Eve's.
I see that mine's an Outie,
Still connected to the trees.

We're misrepresented
(We male Caucasians),
Who don't indulge
In bigotry.

Our yesterdays are foreign shores,
With unusual customs.
Among us are worm-holers,
Using foreign words
Like Whitey, ******, *****, Indian.
Archaic phrases,
A woman's place...
A child should...
Are you a man...
Our boundaries have shifted.
Isolationism, provincialism, racism,
All derogatory isms
Are placed in a time capsule,
Not to be opened by this civilization,
This new country for ex-pats.

One of these things is not like the other,
White, and white, and white and brown.
Who is this one? He can't be my brother.
He's different, let's all break him down.
One of these things is not like the other,
Straight, and straight, and straight and gay,
What a weird thought, she cant be a mother.
She's different, that there's easy prey.
One of these things is not like the other,
Happy, and happy, and happy and sad,
Everything strange to me, I must smother.
When they're just like me, they'll be glad.

In this nearly empty trash can
I can see the hard work of a former student who wanted her club to feel loved
Thrown away and ripped apart just like our confidence.
In this nearly empty trash can
I can see the scars on a kid’s wrist
Torn open and ripped apart until all of their pride bleeds out of their skin
In this nearly empty trash can
I can see the suicides of my brothers, sisters, and siblings that don’t identify as either
Their memories tossed out and joked over as if their breath never breathed life into their former friends
In this nearly empty trash can
I can see another GSA meeting poster, ripped off the wall and tossed away
Because even our papers don’t get respect in these hallways