"binaries" poems
I live beyond morality, cloudy
Skies issue complaints, however
I hardly have the time.
I often catch myself
Staring at creatures.
Wondering where they
Wander, and why.
I want to fight dragons today.
I want to find a voice
That suits me. Grey skies
And frozen cranes, bother me.
The stone wet, and
Broken. Lifeless creatures
Can be neither evil nor
Wealthy.
Broken Binaries. Broken
Machines. What glues
Our heads to our
Bodies?
Is there a separation?
Voices
Walk down the hall and
Interrupt my view
Through the window.
Focusing again I see
Opaque. Unable to
Look past the glass.
Only up to it.
Apr 30, 2012
Apr 30, 2012 at 1:17 PM UTC
A shout out to the transgender people,
to the strong women and men,
may you see yourselves as self-made heroes.
A shout out to the non-binaries,
to the gender less,
the in between,
may you take pride in who you are.
Happy Trans Visibility Day.
Mar 31, 2017
Mar 31, 2017 at 10:27 AM UTC
White Noise Static
Hot Haze Humid
Heat Lightning
condensation
compression
******
Peace comma
be still
wait
written
analog interference converts
2 digital Binaries
on shhh off
finished? Thank God
For Today,
close the book.
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 8:02 AM UTC
whether it be your
local shop
or the park across the road,
a nightclub
or a library, or
the school where
your children go
we're here
the bathroom,
the classroom,
the living room and kitchen,
marching downtown
with a rainbow parade
or hidden
in the closet
we're here
we've been here
forever
did you know that
ancient Greece
was a homonormative society?
we've been alive,
just trying to live our lives
we're here
no less human,
no less susceptible
to hurt or pain
or love;
we love in bright, bright colours
and we love freely
never bound by binaries or convention
we're here
you'll never be rid of us
as we are not
a disease
to be cured.
all we want to do
is be as free to love
as you.
we're here
we aren't going anywhere
May 5, 2017
May 5, 2017 at 3:31 PM UTC
What's the deal with binaries?
Such pinhole lens.
If you feel wrong, then,
ask yourself, Who's standing
in my salt circle?
What's the deal with sorting hats?
So limited.
If you feel out of place,
ask yourself, Who's speaking
to my lowest disgrace?
You knew as well I as I did
this catalytic event would happen.
For only so long, can you grind
your face in the acceleration,
before you ****
with the aperture, then what?
Great opening, come to closing,
Let's love.
Great opening, come to closing,
Let's love.
The alpha myth dispensary, dead,
I see you running free, safely packed.
Mr. Wolf, I want some of that!
Apr 4, 2019
Apr 4, 2019 at 9:06 PM UTC
when you only
see the world
through the prism
of an Instagram filter,
the spectrum's
overshadowed
by black and white
vignettes.
brick-by-brick
you build that wall
around yourself,
closed off to the plight
of every one else.
who needs borders
when you refuse to see
beyond the periphery
of your iPhone's screen?
refugees? border patrol?
endless war?
merely fragmentary
snapshots
in off-kilter
snapchats
casting grim light
on contemporary
outcasts, rebels
built to outlast
the vitriol leveled
at modern-day martyrs
by tyrants and overlords.
'cause when you neglect
to read the passages
of history, you scapegoat
the brave, can't see
the forest for the trees,
reduce the complex
to Manichean binaries
of Good vs. Evil,
Left vs. Right,
an infinite etcetera
of demagoguery.
noses glued
to illuminated screens,
ignoring the visionaries
for illusionary fantasies:
one-click—purchased
happiness, bread
and circus.
advertising
has us chasing
a feeling fleeting
as a riptide when we
ought to be rallying
on the front lines,
punching Nazis.
a black bloc
tossing bricks into
storefront windows.
Apr 1, 2017
Apr 1, 2017 at 12:46 AM UTC
I grew up hearing
Little miss this and
Little miss that
But I think there’s been a little mistake
A little misunderstanding
Like there’s something that they missed
Because certainly sir could replace the title of miss
And mister wouldn’t stir up a fuss
And I could still be me
Right?
Ever since I was little I took pride in the word tomboy
Not realizing the other labels that pride could be applied to
Because I spent my life being lied to
About what gender really means
And I’ve been starting to question and I’ve been starting to learn
That expectations aren’t everything
And when it comes to gender roles
I grew up just rolling with it
But recently realized that I don’t have to
And I’ve been coming up with different ways of coming out
But mostly I’ve just spent a lot of time thinking
About spectrums and pronouns and labels and orientation
About binders and binaries and identity versus expression
About the way that I never really minded the onslaught of
She
She
She
Shhhh…
He
Maybe he can fit just as well
Maybe she fits fine
Maybe I can be a daughter by day and a son by night
Maybe I can bypass the binary and angle towards androgyny
Or transcend transgender in term of ambiguity
Maybe I can be
Me
And maybe someday that will be enough
Because boy oh boy there are days that I do love being a girl
But what can you do when it’s a dog eat dog world
And you were born a cat?
Just a little bit more of a ***** than you were hoping for
In this world where facts are misconstrued
And your words are misinterpreted
And you’re feeling a little
Just a little… misgendered
Jul 14, 2014
Jul 14, 2014 at 1:00 AM UTC
Nails the length of javelins click on countertop
with the speed of a coked-up woodpecker
as this goddess of the night with bullets
of caked foundation sweating from her forehead
awaits her fifth free Long Island of the night.
Safe to say, she's a little high maintenance,
like all treasured centerpieces
of a local museum deserve to be.
She is your generation's Mona Lisa, trust.
Her sneezes will be dissected for coding.
Like the rust on buried Babylonian armor,
she lives sandwiched between myth and reality.
A Frankenstein of queer iconography,
door-knocker earrings designed by Adrian.
Stilts for heels clack on blinking dancefloor,
balancing a hermaphroditic echo
that charges through hieroglyphic binaries
with a four-on-the-floor precision.
May 10, 2014
May 10, 2014 at 8:20 PM UTC
To begin with,
We have YOU,
And we have Me.
And we also have THEM, THEY, THEIRS THOSE, WE AND US.
As well, we have:
SOGIES
Asexuals
Allies
Intersexes
Bisexuals
Lesbians
Gays
Homosexuals
Pansexuals
Queers
Straights
Heterosexuals
Gender Binaries
Afabs
Amabs
Agenders
Androgynes
Gender Blenders
Bigenders
Cisgenders
Cross-dressers
Drag Queens
Drag Kings
Enbies
Gender Dysphoria
Gender fluids
Gender Non-conformists
Gender Queers
Gender Variants
Non-Binaries
Questioners
Transgenders
Transitions
Transsexuals
Two-Sprits... and
LGBTQIA+
(Flora and Fauna?)
Does Genesis have anything right?
Nov 30, 2023
Nov 30, 2023 at 10:35 AM UTC
To the author of the Huffington post “article” We Are The Generation Who Doesn’t Want a Relationship you’re wrong.
We Are The Generation Who Doesn’t Want to Be Straight, but you won’t let us.
I want domesticity like a fish wants a bicycle, which is to say that it would be nice but not useful.
I want the next boy I date to be able to flirt with the bar tender and to be tender and kinder than the last one. You keep putting us in jars with labels and naming us after stars and hurricanes but when we want to tear down your system you just say “shush now, just listen.”
I don’t want to hear your voice anymore – I don’t want to be told that I can’t love who I always have.
I don’t want any more halves, I want whole people to love me and make me more than the person who got called ***** all through high school because they couldn’t keep just one partner I don’t want to be an outsider anymore.
My darling says she wants someone to hold her hands when the world ends. You’ve put the fear of God in her and it makes her cry so much louder. My dearest says he wants to bring smiles to the people on the street and when he sees someone he thinks is cute his whole body goes mute I want to help him speak.
We keep swiping right like gamblers hoping for a chance at more than a second glance, we don’t want divorces or anymore court cases we don’t want second or third bases we just want patience while we pick up the pieces you dropped in front of us.
We want to keep believing in what you lost. We want pumpkin spice lattes and lately I want ladies, but not always because his smile drives me crazy and we don’t want babies.
We don’t want “consent is **** we want control over our own bodies. We don’t want binaries we want multicolored beanies and maybe, just maybe, we want nothing but to be gay.
Sep 20, 2016
Sep 20, 2016 at 6:06 PM UTC
What is between your thighs? Empty stares hidden behind masks of confused faces, those who are brave enough to speak out.
Wavering hesitation in the questioning of names, locations, attractional appeal.
Do I even seem real?
Does my body "pass" the notion binaries with lingering questions of male? Female?
Of course, but who am I to decide the way I should live my life, or how I've "become" when I've shedded the skin of someone I once was.
I am nothing, if not a charade.
Jun 10, 2015
Jun 10, 2015 at 6:02 PM UTC
your version of love is an algorithm more basic than take-aways. you're allowed to take as much as you give and you still get a solid number. a real result. but i don't work in binaries and black-and-whites.
love is my negative number and the missing letter to my typewriter i can't find no matter which dusty beasts i search through. it's the bruise on the heel of my palm as i collide with secrets -- swiping hands beneath your sofa searching for my missing key.
love is your receipt.
here's what you bought, here's what it cost.
i'll register bankruptcy instead. take my seven years and start over instead of being your negative number and unknown variable. a declined credit card stamped on your list of positive transactions.
Mar 15, 2017
Mar 15, 2017 at 10:16 PM UTC
Like...it feels like whole world and the, you know, uh...all the smily candy teeth and stoned-out-of-their-mind ******* with their lip service to some techno-God of...what? Acceptance and power dynamics, or empowerment or whatever... It's like they're out there building these monoliths to themselves...like, mirrors made out of diamonds that's all positivity and critical theories and **** even Heidegger or Nietzsche thrown in there, Foucault, Lorde sometimes, a lot of other names, too...so much to remember when you wade into the world of identity, right? But it's also so sugary that I get a headache, like, when I see the steel roots that they're...repurposing? I keep tripping over them and stuff, I dunno.
Queer's a word I hear mostly coming out of only my own mouth, maybe the walls...if wall's could talk, right?...and that really tells me a lot, I guess? About what it means to be a *** but like, not really? And how I'm totally not trans? I mean I'm still BASICALLY a boy, right? Like shouldn't I be like, calling myself a girl if I'm not a boy, etc.? The stony monuments to Liberation...they're using the big L right?...tell me so. I'm so close but still not good enough, or something like that. The binaries are there for a reason, etc. Not even that. Just a quiet, like...exclusion? Joke? What I wouldn't give to be a fully-fledged ****** or a true ****** y'know?...card-carrying member of the conference, where I can actually cry and my voice comes out in something other than a croak and people look at my tears and hear my words and say, Yes, that's real and that's okay?
Whatever though. I'm probably wrong anyway, right? I'm just half-baked, or not exactly full, or...what's the word?
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 10:05 PM UTC
Like so many of us, surrounded by binaries and cold concrete,
he finds it hard to say what he feels, and I found it hard
to understand, for a while, that he loved me just as I did him,
when he never vocalised his feelings completely, and I did.
It took me some time to realise he shows them instead, and maybe
that is all the more eloquent than anything I could ever
materialise on a piece of paper filled with smeared ink.
His love manifests itself in lingering gazes and the lightest touch,
in private smiles and the softening of his eyes when I laugh.
Like a child resorts to pointing at things they cannot name,
he ends up holding close what he cannot verbalise he needs.
- “You make me happy,” I tell him. He looks vulnerable and smiles. c.s.
Apr 7, 2017
Apr 7, 2017 at 9:17 AM UTC
when that shy
strand of hair
trembles out of
your skin.
slowly
ashamed of its
wanton birth.
thinking it's an
'unwanted' curse
you're plagued
with, making it
your shame,
a pariah you must
deal with. thinking,
why on a man, i confirm his
manhood for a world revolving
in binaries. but, for a
woman all i am is a furtive indignity.
i want you to
caress it's roots, and
whisper to them-
i will never let your
birth go in vain by
obliterating you
to satiate howling
bellies of hollow
skeletons floating
around seeking young
flesh to feast upon.
i will honour you and if i may
choose to live without you.
i'll do that under no obligation
from a world assessing my
worth from the
arch of my hips.
or the
color of my skin.
Nov 22, 2016
Nov 22, 2016 at 2:11 AM UTC
I have this little pink composition notebook with that title written across it.
After feverishly writing in it while I was in Europe, a girl on our trip asked what I meant by that title.
I made up some excuse,
because when you are stuck in a room with three girls, the last thing you want to admit is that you aren't quite a girl.
This notebook is full of prose and poetry about gender and binaries and prefixes that a national merit scholar has trouble understanding.
Most people on that trip would not need a notebook on why they don't belong.
Because they do,
and I do not.
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 9:18 PM UTC
if
you
are
reading
this,
then,
you
aren't
alone.
your
being
-right now-
by virtue of
reading this
is
with
mine;
and mine,
with yours.
and even when
you go
away,
you
are still here,
existing in
my
little
poem,
smeared
light
remnants
rubbing up
against mine.
and even when i go away
after sending this off,
i too will still be here
like you.
all of our weird
written words
penned at a distance are
always connected
by some
strange
residual angle
and spin
emitted,
leftover
from our
small but
eternal
interactions;
alignments of the light which do not discriminate,
nor create hierarchies of strict titanic binaries
that demand and interrogate..
your
big
red
hearts
make my
little grey
lightning bolts
light up:
bright yellow strikes fluoresce
over and
over
and
o v e r,
again and again.
your
tiny torch
forever
charging
me,
even as i
cool off
and
darken,
is much appreciated,
dear poets
of
mine.
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 1:47 PM UTC
I sit back, listening to the morning songs and reminisce about how creative I once was
Not taking into consideration the way in which I live my life, day by day
Pushing the boundaries, breaking the binaries and bruising
Hoping that some day, alongside the sunshine, it will all end up okay
Feb 23, 2018
Feb 23, 2018 at 12:38 AM UTC
When I tell my little sister I got a pet mouse
She's asks "why didn't you get a hamster like a normal person?"
Her voice poisoned with disgust
When the guy at the pet store says he didn't expect me to be a snake person
Says he didn't expect to sell a mouse to someone like me so quickly
I know he means little girl, breakable woman
Little girls are not supposed to be into snakes and scraped knees and oversized tshirts
But I, I always have been
And yet my friends who have the best intentions
Tell me if people saw my accessories they'd never assume I'm queer
But they don't say queer they say gay
But I'm not gay
But I'm not straight
And I keep teetering between too much and not enough
Always in this heat of this new game
And I was never taught how to play
I was never given a rule book to my gender
To my sexuality
Because they never tell you how to be in between
I never correct people when they mislabel me in one way or another
Because I've learned people hear what they want to believe
It means I will be wasting the already fleeting breath in my lungs
To explain something to those who will never embrace it
My gay friends debated over whether bisexual people are actually gay in front of me
And wondered why I walked out of the restaurant
They didn't see the lava bubbling with anger and shame at the back of my throat
I cannot even call myself bisexual
Because that implies too gendered
That implies too simple
For my hopelessly complexed identity
I find myself somewhere on the border
And some days this body serves its purpose
Other days it is violently trying to escape itself
Not quite enough to mention to anyone but me
Not quite enough to matter to anyone but me
But I see these binaries as a prison
And most days it seems like I am in solitary confinement
Too much, not enough
Always in between
Oct 4, 2016
Oct 4, 2016 at 11:33 PM UTC
Purple pen
Cursive handwriting
Voices
Laughter
Sadness
Joy
Binaries
Are what life is made of. Not too much in between. Completely addicted.
Or utterly sober.
Joyously happy & content
Or gray skys sad
Too much energy to sit down
Not enough energy to think
Hot as *****
Or cold as the titanic.
When will we be able to find something in the middle?
They made me take a medication to put me in the middle. Don’t know if it works. Because sometimes I don’t have any emotions at all. I’d be content with staring at the wall.
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 1:01 PM UTC
What if the stars around us
are of Sentient life devoid ?
Binary stars and Giant blues
are common in the void.
Binaries do not provide
a habitable clime
Blue Giant Stars burn fast and short-
Evolution needs more time.
Giant Reds live long enough
but keep few planets warm.
Perhaps upon a distant rock
there is some primal goo
but that is quite a ways away
from beings like me and you.
So please be better stewards
of this third rock from the sun
That lovely little yellow dwarf
round which our race is run.
Dec 31, 2011
Dec 31, 2011 at 10:32 AM UTC
People laugh,
I hurt
But I don't mind
Gender is the joke
I am the punchline
Fighting for
the binaries
when our
expression is
undefined
If I die
then I'll be
the last bit lived true
My angry people
may take my body
since I'll
not be back
Jun 20, 2017
Jun 20, 2017 at 10:07 PM UTC
As we jirate to the melodies of truth and deceit
Every minute of our days we choose who we are going to be
Its no secret what we think
Whats wrong or right
Or anywhere in-between, our actions confirm our binaries
And show our true beliefs
Through action, what we can see
For if you really care you’d put your neck out there
Otherwise you pretend not to care
For silence is conformation
That you not only understand the world
But approve of it
“it doesn’t affect me, so who am I to say how it should be?”
Is a cop out to avoid responsibility
For once you know you have the power to change
But we’re so comfortable nowadays we don’t engage
With the politics
Each other
Controversy
Unless it’s at the **** of a joke
Or said in conversations with friends who will forget of what we spoke
Its sad to know that people will suffer much more of our inaction
Than actual ignorance
Because our voices are significant
But we’re been soothed into complacency
Not necessarily lazy, but the fellow man or women doesn’t mean a thing
Unless of course it directly affects us
And really the amount of people who genuinely care for other human beings
Are seen as naïve or some special kind of being
Either way they’re seen as a kind of minority
But all I’ve ended up doing is preach
For you already know
Out that other ear like so many times before
But let me hope that a fraction of it sticks
And you leave this world having actually applied your influence
That you leave this room and don’t forget or disregard
That the struggle of any human is the struggle of us all
That you don’t just leave having had meaningful conversations
But that you actually try to solve what we’ve been ignoring for so long
Mar 1, 2012
Mar 1, 2012 at 8:55 PM UTC
She told herself, "Irrationality does no harm."
Emotions have intelligence in their own ways.
Binaries can be a place where stupidity lies.
Being sad, is neither good or bad.
Allowing herself to cry is a way of freedom.
And when the North winds blow-
Cold enough to freeze happiness in iced capsules-
She shall surrender.
Let her burn her bones and neurons
In the hearth of her own heart.
And the shards, wounding with mad thoughts.
Dec 26, 2018
Dec 26, 2018 at 6:43 PM UTC
I'm not losing my
grip on reality
though it may
seem that way
with how abstract
my writing is
starting to
become
on the contrary
I somehow have
managed to
get a death grip
around the throat of
reality and the harder
I stare into the now-turning-blue
face of life itself
the more and more
nebulous it gets
Gone are the
didactic binaries
of right and wrong
and good and evil
and love and hate
it all just sort of
blends together
in a sticky narrative
of just what it means
to be alive and well
carving meaning
out of the universe's
hide in order to keep
warm against
the endless chilling
gusts of strangers
sighing and God
shaking his head
at the fact that
we stunt our
lives by
trying to contain
it in vessels
that hold the
organic flow of existence
in stasis for long
enough that we can
look at all the peculiarities
of this world
and classify them
without the risk
of living among
fellow human beings
why do we cling so
desperately to the past
and the ghosts of memories
of those with whom we
no longer speak
is it because they stay still?
because the ground underneath
our feet is constantly
shifting and rolling
with each new ideal
and we hold on to the flickering
still-life images
of summers long gone
as a means of anchoring ourselves
against the storm?
there has to be so much
more to this life other
than doggy-paddling
from buoy to buoy
memory to memory
endlessly bracing for
the next wave
the next wave
the next wave
until we finally
reach dry land
and can rest easy
on the beaches
of longevity
relaxing in the sand
made up of the bones
of those who just
couldn't make it
to the next
flashing
lighthouse
Oct 16, 2017
Oct 16, 2017 at 11:17 AM UTC