"binder" poems
I walk the halls and glance at everyone I see,
The girls who are hurrying to the bathroom to fix their makeup,
And the boys who check them out as they walk by.
Is there anyone else here who can't go to the bathroom, because I swear to God just the thought of it gives me a small panic attack.
Is there anyone else here who looks down and is disappointed everyday because I am small, chesty and my face is far too round.
I never check out the girls, nor do I run to the bathroom to fix myself,
I walk and look at how much I wish I was one of the guys,
Flat chested, tall, lean and not having to wake up 5 extra minutes to put on a binder.
Never hating that their voice along with their round face will have others calling them "She" for their whole life.
Never will they come home with aching ribs,
and feel the stab of being misgendered.
Never will they be told "but you still look like a girl,"
Even though you are trying so hard that you feel your mind wearing thin.
Why can't I just be what they want me to be?
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 5:03 PM UTC
I let you go
to Philadelphia
I let you go
thirteen goin' on “life”
to your momma-- (God rest her-- and keep you
--from wherever she is)
to your father in Philly
outa the picture
Sheepish in the doorway of my classroom
back again
one last time--
Say good-bye, kid, to your short stay in Scranton
a town that can't rhyme
whose name falls over its own misery
No use for outsiders
“Where's your book?
Found your binder in the rain
Soggy protest to school's demands?
Of course it's yours
I checked, ya know”
"No way!"
Desk's been empty, three weeks now
Still, gotta ask
“Whacha doin?
Where ya been?”
“Khmir,
I'm sorry for your loss....”
Thirty seconds shares our grief
Thirty seconds for your future's-- all I got
“Listen to your teachers!
Do your work!
Please-- be okay?”
Khmir
in your wooly black coat-- like a bear
like a dare
shruggin and dancin in the doorway
of the “show”
Homework? Aint happenin'
But one paper, though
on why--
YOU-- should be president
and I almost vote for you
Oct 24, 2016
Oct 24, 2016 at 3:24 PM UTC
Dysphoria, it wraps and weaves but plunges me like a knife,
Dysphoria, it's like a big useless chest binder that tightens around your self-esteem.
Dysphoria, It is my best friend, but I smile in joy when it briefly leaves.
Dysphoria, My thighs, my chest, my hair, my jaw, my eyes and my smile write 'Her' 'She' 'Female' Girl'.
Dysphoria, I'm always alone.
Jan 23, 2019
Jan 23, 2019 at 12:17 PM UTC
This isn't fair!
Don't you try to blame this on me!
my love for you was bulletproof but your the one who shot me!
and god **** it!
i can barely breath
this fricking binder is possibly killing me
but it really helps me look even more like a man
and don't you even know
my name is Cody
and I won't respond to anything else
I'll keep saying that I am male
no matter what you say
I'll scream it at the top of my lungs
Oct 5, 2015
Oct 5, 2015 at 7:31 AM UTC
My trans body brings me joy,
My trans body brings me tears.
Everyday I put my binder on,
I am equal parts overjoyed,
And stood there in pain.
Joy in hiding from the world,
What I wish to be gone.
Pain in knowing that each day,
They will still be there.
Each time I cut my hair,
Each time I'm called handsome,
Each time I wear boxers,
Each time I wear cologne,
My trans body bring me joy.
Each time I'm called 'she',
Each time I'm on my period,
Each time I look at my *******
Each time I'm called 'she'.
My trans body brings me tears.
But each day,
My voice is deeper,
My period is no more,
My smile is bigger,
My skin glows.
My trans body brings me joy.
Oct 17, 2021
Oct 17, 2021 at 3:24 PM UTC
Humanity has no support to duty
Both contrary in dealing and punctuality:
Non-the-less deny each claims still their validity
Former needs emotional skip where later regularity!
Humanity is a thing roundly soul concern
Fancies of many idles, despotic and obligated.
Estimate not to beautify active approach return;
Deserve aid remarkable quiet pleasing black arts.
Duty declares the deed must accomplish statutable,
Gratitude, greed and gratification are sub-judice here-of:
A crazy caution compel to foil inapplicable
Yonker's pride, old hand cultivated doctrinal of.
Certain condition humanity plays role of pre-eminence
Duty looks wanting help out of heels,
Depending on probation passion of sincerity convince,
Rejecting deep binder satisfactorily set aside exceeds.
If stands duty and humanity both together,
Glorifies the spirit immortal as His name
And also deal showing clean impersonality further,
None appeal to mercy could not dare blame.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 4:14 AM UTC
We paint over the things we dont think are normal and expect the bumps from the truth hidden beneath this temporary solution to quickly disappear as if every fault we hold inside of who we are can simply be ignored. I remember watching the paint dry but i was never able to identify if it dried from top to bottom or bottom to top, and that may never truly matter to anyone but me. That paint mau dry and harden and make us all god **** statues but for me it was always knowing that once i got home id have to hide and i can only hide for so long. When i was born they painted pink over the already blue walls trying to desguise who they were hoping id be, or at least what my father wanted. As i grew up the paint began to chip and the patches of blue were so beautiful compared to the bright pink. Pink. Pink bows pink tutus, learn to do ballet tory. Pink barbies, pink lipstick, pink earrings. The color pink just sends shivers down my spine, they said pink is how you identify if you are born female. Blue. Blue eyes, Blue shoes, blue chest binder. Blue the color of my freedom. I remember painting over my words as soon as i told you that i no longer belong under the category of being your daughter. Blue laughter, blue skies, pink cheeks, pink dresses. Painting over the walls of who we are and how we identify is our greatest weapon, too bad my paint ran out a long time ago.
Nov 20, 2015
Nov 20, 2015 at 3:56 PM UTC
This is the story my body tells...
A story of struggles marked with scars.
A page of freckles from the sun kissing my skin.
Cracks and snaps from the past breaking me down.
Every breath tells my body that my binder is there.
My body tells what I was born as but is becoming what I am.
In a mirror my body shows eyes that have seen so much.
Lips that have spoken many regrets but many accomplishments.
Ears that have heard too much but sometimes not enough.
In a mirror my body tells a deep story.
My stomach houses the scar from a box too sharp.
My fingers grasp the rope so tight that keeps me above the water.
My body tells a story but my mind a deep tale.
Jun 11, 2015
Jun 11, 2015 at 8:09 AM UTC
*I yearn for that ability,
to feel human without ease.
No binder grasping at your ribs as your breathe,
no **** being stuffed into your pants.
No having to see if your hips stick out in those jeans
or if your chest looks weird in that shirt,
just being human.
Sometimes I think I never will,
because feeling human is a privilege
and the different don't get them.*
Sep 3, 2016
Sep 3, 2016 at 6:57 PM UTC
That boy is warm freshly printed papers
Stuffed in his overflowing binder
That boy is the leaves being painted
In early November
That boy is Pokémon cards skewed all over the floor
Who never signed up for this 'growing up' thing
That boy is a huge stuffed frog on Valentine's
Lessening the winter's violent sting
That boy is obscure facts of the arcane
A curiosity never satisfied
That boy has an ever expanding brain
And long hands that reek of formaldehyde
That boy is beautiful freckles
"Splotches of melanin" as he puts it
That boy is compliments I don't deserve
And a love I just can't quit
That boy is a long way down
A relationship that's nowhere close to flawless
That boy is worth the fall because that boy
Is my dear Nicholas
Jun 16, 2014
Jun 16, 2014 at 9:29 PM UTC
yesterday my feet rested comfortably on the bar of someone else's chair
and my eyelids slid heavy and the world seemed slow
a graph of survivorship curves glowing blurry on the whiteboard
and then words slid from behind a neatly trimmed white beard
". . . .as our bodies are programmed to die."
as our bodies are programmed to die.
*thousands of miles away
one gleaming thought against a murky sky
(that's how i imagine it anyway--murky, cold,
stagnant air)
a frantic explosion of lean muscle power
and a body launching into the lake.
he was 17 and in that moment gears somewhere in this world shifted,
numbers were crunched and
some profound device processed the seconds, linking and unlinking them with an automatic, well-oiled certainty
he was 17 and the number on his football jersey suited him like wool socks on winter feet
his stride under the lights a weekly prize to all hungry, bleacher-ed, washed-up life-hunters bundled against october-night chill-streaked skies
they drank hot cocoa and he took three sips of gatorade
he was 17 and his smile
and his curls
and we all hear about hospitals but
this feels different because
he was 17 and suddenly,
instantaneously
his body was just a beep
and his skin turned the color of the walls
first the ICU painted quick brushstrokes across his wrists
then it stopped giving a **** at all
and the water rushed endlessly, heartlessly.
when I shift through memories and
find his seven-year old face in my mind, i remember a gap
where he'd lost a front tooth and i remember sunlight streaming behind his hair
it was valentine's day and he gave me a small smile and a silver charm bracelet in a powder blue box.*
i shifted my feet
heard the snap of a binder closing
and all i could think about was
the oversimplification of words
and survivorship curves
and 17 years
and
and
piles of numbers spurting from a computer
and an echo of a splash.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 4:32 PM UTC
I'm not a typical teenager
I don't facebook things
Or post my life to the world
I don't tweet
Or Twitter
Or all the other
Networks
I don't instagram
In fact
I don't like pictures
If me. I hide from the camera
Hoping no one will
Click the photo button
I don't party
Or stay out late
I sit at home
Watching TV
Or better yet
Cuddling up with a good book
I don't waltz around
In revealing clothes
Hoping for a boyfriend
I don't act all bubbly
I cry and worry
I don't worry about boys
And dates
I worry about depression
And cutting and if my
Friends are really fine
I don't doodle or draw names on a binder
I write poetry on a site called helo poetry
And the only thing that upsets me
About that, is that I didn't find it sooner
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 2:08 AM UTC
When I attempt to think about my future, I know I can't. I know, I can only do what I can now to piece together my future like a puzzle. I want to get on T, I want to cut my hair shorter than my parents allow, I want more body modifications, I want to have a completely flat chest, but at the moment, I can't imagine what I'd turn into. A butterfly I'm not able to picture yet. I am at the moment, a small catapillar, not being able to pass for the gender I wish. She's. Hers'. That's not what I want directed towards me. I wants he's and they's. Male and neutral term are what I want my friends to use. Not my birth name, Kit. Kit Lucas Zachary is what I'll become when I get older and scrounge the money together to make that change possible. I must change myself and bold myself into what I want to be happy, even if that means I lose people, I can deal. If they don't agree with how I feel, they don't need to be in my life anyway. I can't say that I'm a boy yet, I can't say I'm pansexual yet. The violence that is occurring against my LGBTQ+ people locks my lips together to my parents, and possibly some of my friends, because I don't want them to be my demise. In this hick state of Texas. My chest binder must be put up due to high summer tempatures, it's too hot to have on so I can't feel at home in my own body. I hate my feminine face, and my father uses double standard, making me shave, making me feel naked and incorrect. I feel incomplete, like I haven't had my right growth spirt, my right puberty. "Oh yeah, she-" makes me want to put a bullet in my head, but it I pulled the trigger I know my family wouldn't understand why. "Hey girl!" don't look, don't turn, they aren't talking about you. But, once I'm an adult with a steady income, I hope to become the person I wish to be.
Jun 17, 2016
Jun 17, 2016 at 11:35 PM UTC
There are days when my body doesn't
Support me doesn't
Hold me close and
Protect me.
These are the days that I am a clay figure
Molded by clumsy hands shaped
With curves where there should be flat
Planes where I exist to create a mask a
Persona of who I am who I want to be.
These are the days when I want to avoid
My reflection yet check it to make sure it
Matches what I want to see.
These are the days that my reflection Never matches what I want to see where
My insides twist in disgust and I want to
Crawl inside myself and hide from the
World. These are the days when I wake up
Two hours early to prepare to layer first Binder then undershirt then shirt then Shirt then sweatshirt then jacket because
The bulk makes my body a secret.
These are the days when my body is a
Secret that I never want to reveal when
My steps are unsure and my face is set to
Boy-mode.
These are the days that I watch guys and
Imitate them stealing their walks hoping
I'll steal their identities so I don't have to
Live in my own.
These are the days that my heart fissures
When I am called "her" when a pronoun
Becomes an insult and
These are the days that I wish my mind
Wasn't so dead-set against my happiness
That I could just feel "girl" that I could
Just pretend it away.
But these
Are the days that I fight hardest to be who I
Am and fight to educate others and
Imagine a day when I won't be misgendered or gendered at all.
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 10:00 PM UTC
he steps forward to bless us with song
benediction’s serenade
binder clips and clothespins weaken wind
as sheet music tries to take flight
with each strum he was fighting it
emoting with sad lips and blue eyebrows
taking deep breaths let out with heavy sighs
but holding steady
singing and crying come from the same place
as he sang the sun sneaked out
shadows surrendered their stronghold
a moment of warmth shown upon our gathering
near the pine tree at our father’s grave
Terence’s ashes to be interred with dad
a musician, an artist, a writer of songs and poems
a technician, an electrician, a wood worker
his many gifts now only spoken of in past tense
a son to two, a brother to eight
an uncle to many
a father to one daughter
his passion relived in his writings and works
his essence reflected in her eyes
Sep 6, 2010
Sep 6, 2010 at 10:59 AM UTC
Joe Mole, Marnhull Danny
1974
His eyes were luminous steel blue, alive
with twinkling shards of mischievous fun.
His face, a weathered map of his long life:
brown and crumpled, carved by clean air and sun.
A grubby khaki flat-cap, jauntily askew,
bedraggled grey-green ancient jacket
secured with hairy binder-twine (calves too),
brown dungarees, muddy boots and thumb-stick.
His gruesome work was in grazing meadows
under attack from an invasion beneath
of unwelcome little furry fellows
destined to perish between steel-sprung teeth.
Tiny corpses hung in a row (job done)
on barbed wire like Joe met at Verdun.
A Danny was the name given to any man from the village of Marnhull in Dorset. The word was in common use locally during the 1970’s but is now rarely heard.
14 lines
(FBRSO)
Copywrite: Craig Andrew White,Author, July 2011.
Jul 12, 2011
Jul 12, 2011 at 2:41 PM UTC
One doctor with a yellow number
Two pencil, writes notes on a paper clipped in a
Three-ring binder, scribble, scribble, scribble.
Four white walls suffocate me black.
Jul 20, 2012
Jul 20, 2012 at 11:55 AM UTC
(Tr)aveling w(i)th the younger I
With her on your back
She gazed at intricate diamonds of the dark.
Never facing an ounce of (um)brage.
With age, her knowledge flourished
Growing from the water of your trunk
Her brain was nourished with ex(p)erience
Following in your trail
Strengthening over time
She (ha)d no i(nt)erest on your back
Nor the night sky
Rather clouds and the outside
Away sh(E) wa(l)ked from your shadow
With your trunk raised high
Lions and crocodiles swarmed her on s(e)a and land
With no trunk or tusk
Adrenaline rushed
She shook in nerves til dusk
Continuing days with no shade
Skin cells accepting harsh sun rays
With the storm of your stom(p)s
She awaited your presence
(h)yen(a)s laughed as you came
Splattering blood on your name
You laid with your wheel
As she wailed with no trunk
She wept
For you sculpted her i(nt)o who (s)he was
Long, Long down the road.
Buying from an old bookstore
Finding a binder filled with the Royal Animals
Turning the first sheet
She noticed a stamp
Reminding her of her stuffed friends
Triumphant Elephants
Feb 1, 2017
Feb 1, 2017 at 12:37 PM UTC
Let's say
Hypothetically
Someone was
Keeping score
And I had a
Perfect
Unsurpassed
Record.
In that case
There would be
Three hundred and twelve
Pieces of paper
Somewhere
In my house with
Five to thirteen lines of
Text on each of them.
And then suppose
Five and thirteen averaged
Out to somewhere between
Seven and eight.
Then do the math
And tell me what seven or eight
Times three hundred and twelve is
And then think about how
For each line of text on each
Sheet of paper
There is another
Sheet of paper in some
Binder somewhere
Or a pile in the righthand
Corner of my room.
And remember
I'm just one person.
And then think
About the butterfly effect.
Do you know
What happens
In the mail room
When you're not around?
Do you know
Who uses the copier
In the dead of night
Or the morning dawn?
Do you know
Where we go
When we
Die?
Or even
Why we're
All alive
To begin with?
It's sure
As hell
*(Or should I say
As unsure as hell
Because no one can
Agree on anything
Even a universal a
Concept as hell)*
That we're not living
To make paper
To print out our
Personal whims on.
And then think
About the butterfly effect.
Aug 9, 2016
Aug 9, 2016 at 8:30 PM UTC
forty-eight hours is a long time to wear a binder,
and my ribs are screaming for mercy,
for a break from the compression and lack of mobility.
but it's not that easy.
sometimes i'd rather face the pain,
than face the fact that i am female.
these weights on my chest,
drag me to the ground.
i break down.
i feel locked in my body,
and all i want to do is break free.
nobody should feel the need to shower in the dark,
because the reality of their body is too much for them.
it shouldn't be this way
and i know i shouldn't compare myself to people,
but i cannot stop thinking,
'what if i were cis'.
i think of how much easier everything would be.
i wouldn't have to worry over how long i've been wearing my binder,
or if i pass,
i wouldn't have to worry about turning eighteen,
knowing i will be homeless.
but instead, my mother would celebrate her baby,
becoming a "legal adult."
forty-eight hours wouldn't be a worrying statement,
just another frame of time,
it wouldn't reflect on my self-care routines,
or lack thereof
it'd just be forty-eight hours.
Apr 23, 2018
Apr 23, 2018 at 10:24 AM UTC
The deepest depths of our lungs
have been deprived of oxygen
for so long
that we cannot remember what is like
to breathe,
deeply and unhindered by
this binder
as the constriction threatens to
collapse the cavity of our chest.
Willingly, we trade our breath
for the exquisite, piercing pain
that we quickly come to associate with
peace of mind
and freedom
because it means the reflection of our silhouette
finally matches the physique our
dysphoria has been telling us
we should have had
our whole lives.
In time, this addiction festers and
we bind longer and more often as
our bodies grow weaker and
our minds more chaotic until,
despite the destruction,
we cannot bear to take them off
and face the truth
written in our curves.
The pain is at one with us now.
We endure, if only to be able to
run our hands longingly down
our flattened chests
as we wait, hoping that,
one day,
we will finally be able to learn
what it is like to
breathe again.
May 28, 2019
May 28, 2019 at 12:20 PM UTC
And
I will sit in this chair and sort unneeded papers
that I can't seem to throw away
until I do
And
You flit around the kitchen making a dinner
that I will not eat because
my brain says
no he will not come back with happy thoughts on his mind
he never does
And
I will look though these meaningless sheets of history
and drop my chemistry in the waste paper basket
and my earth science from
8th grade was a good year
only 14
where hormones were only whimsical
and we laughed
at things that were silly
And
I didn't mind being caged
because I didn't know the outside world
growing up too fast
but not fast enough for the rest of
this town is smothering my beat
A not so old music binder that holds no music
just black and white spots
all potential disintegrated
And
a poem written in computer apps
while the others type,
a sad dad falls
down
a lass; a lad; fall in
love is something that throws me
because we hurt when we love
and it is against a wall
And
the floor
that I throw these unneeded sheets of scribblings
love notes written by a publishing company
and chemistry tests
down upon
Sep 16, 2012
Sep 16, 2012 at 9:49 PM UTC
I look at my chest the way I'd look at a wound
I know it's a part of me,
I know it's there,
But it feels temporary,
And a little gross,
Like when I sliced my thumb
On glass at 1am.
My binder is a bandage
And it's hard to take it off,
Because I feel the wound open up,
And my back hurts from wearing the bandage,
But it's so much better than
Seeing where my skin splits in two
Nov 15, 2018
Nov 15, 2018 at 10:57 PM UTC
i know that
most days
the cathedral of your body
with all its dips and curves
forgotten staircases
and ripped velvet covers
on the splintered pews
is hard to love
and there are days
where you wish that your
body would have manifested itself
as a palace
made of ivory and bone
with great empty halls
that would host nothing else
but your anguished cries
and empty stomach
but these things
are incapable of filling you up
because it is hard to sustain yourself
on bitterness and past scars alone
so i say to you
my friends
brothers and sisters
my lovers
and those living in the wastelands
of themselves
cast aside these
things for you are not a church
or a palace or a temple
no
you are something
much stronger and vast
grow yourself into a forest
turn all the sleepless nights
and breakdowns and hospital visits
and suicide attempts
and those traintracks of scars
into the great twisting trunks of trees
grow yourself as big and bold
as you need to be
protect yourself
wrap up all your sharp and soft
edges and corners
into the bark of mother nature
become a forest
because
through fire and drought and storm
and flood
the forest always comes back
even the charred remains of trees
stand strong
so
i say to you
with your dark circles
and long sleeves
and chest hidden behind a binder
with all your scars
and imperfections
be a forest
because
a forest is unstoppable
it always comes back
it always grows back
and so will you
Jun 8, 2016
Jun 8, 2016 at 3:06 PM UTC
I.
I held her hand and tried
to keep my voice from shaking as I
whispered to her my love.
She squeezed mine in return,
smiled that sweet smile of hers, and
said she felt the same.
She traced the jawline covered in fat
but for once I felt beautiful,
her hands were in my hair and her
lips were so so close to mine.
Then she kissed me in the dark
so no one could see.
II.
I told her who I was
and she loved me anyway.
Even though sometimes she had a
girlfriend, and other times just a capsule
of spiky-haired affection.
She loved me in my binder and in
my bra, with my ******* and my briefs,
she said it didn't matter.
But she kissed me in the dark
so her mother wouldn't see.
III.
We were both at a party,
but from different social classes.
We both wound up in a quiet room,
and I wanted him to notice me.
He started talking and I let my mind wander;
talking made it seem real, as if maybe, by some force
of the world, we could actually be together.
He smiled enough for me to know
it was because of me, and he let his hands
brush mine for a minute.
And in the dim glow from the pary,
our reflections came nearer and nearer on the
glass doors giving way to the milky snow outside,
and as snow fell gently down to earth
my heart melted from the joy I felt.
Then he kissed me in the dark
so his friends wouldn't see.
IV.
Yes I know you love me,
and you make it clear your care,
but when you hide me away from the people in your life
I feel as if I shouldn't be there.
Yes you've whispered happiness,
and assured me of my beauty,
but when you ignore me when you're out in public,
is it because you're ashamed of me?
Jan 10, 2014
Jan 10, 2014 at 4:34 PM UTC