This country was founded on the idea of being who you are in liberty, yet there are people trapped in closets because the monsters are on the other side and the darkness has become too comforting at this point; the face of death has become too beautiful to want to turn away. We are hidden, dancing around the idea of being hung as perfectly as that shirt that was “too gay”; planning our proposal to the Grim Reaper because, at this point, he is the only man who can “turn us straight”. We’re rolling out our blueprints and studying the structure of surviving instead of accepting that we’re different and actually living. The pride that used to live in us died a long time ago, maybe around the same time we were in the closet writing our suicide notes; for others, it was the day they were calling their loved ones for final words before their pulse was devoured by the hurricane.

This country was founded on the idea of being who you are in liberty, yet it was built off blacks and Native Americans forced into captivity; sold and sent off into slavery. The basis of this country is “freedom”, but… I’m still trying to find the point in time when we practiced what we preached, um - have you heard the joke about the Annoying Orange? He was elected president. No, wait, I think it was actually part of a horror movie. I’m sorry, was that racist? Because there are people on twitter who rant about how “REVERSE RACISM DOES EXIST” and “WHITE OPPRESSION”, now please don’t get offended, but it’s 2017 and the true founders of these divided, yet technically united, states are being held at gunpoint simply for being born that way. Just when we thought the crackling of our spines was enough to run the white boys away, they had to send their dads in to drop charges labeled “thief”, “****”, and “felon” on our shoulders until they crushed our will to live. Now don’t have hope on justice for that is nothing but a fairy tale. If you haven’t already realized, the dragon of their arrogance grows the more they see us fail.

This country was founded on the idea of being who you are in liberty, ...but we forgot to include women in the subtext. Did I say “we”? I’m sorry. I meant HE, and not HE as in God who created you and me, but HE as in the Annoying Orange and every Arrogant Coconut elected to run this country. Apparently, we must conform to their manly mentality, their barbaric way of living because

“Women are too emotional”

“She’s probably PMSing”

But tell a guy he throws like a girl and watch his estrogen crawl from the deepest corners of his eye sockets as he runs away; their faces flushed with shame… because being feminine is something to be ashamed about. Throwing like a girl is offensive. Losing to your girlfriend in 2k is not Ok.
“You must obey me” they say.

“You belong in the kitchen”

And all we knew to say was “ok”.

You see, I’m tired of being tamed by men and am regurgitating all these false allegations.

I will not stop eating chocolate cake to please you. I love chocolate cake. It pleases me.

I will not watch my weight to protect your pride. Loving my weight is my pride.

I will not do squats because you want to post a picture of me on Instagram under hashtag thicc. I hate exercising. It’s exhausting.

I will only stop eating chocolate cake when I start to break out in places I shouldn’t.

I will only watch my weight when my doctor tells me I will die otherwise.

I will only do squats when I want to check myself out in my new bikini in the summertime.

This country was founded on the idea of being who you are in liberty, but it’s difficult to get the message across without learning the word “respect”.

You. Heterosexual judging me. Respect our various identities.
You. Caucasian individual. Acknowledge and respect our black history.
You. Cisgender male oppressing my womanhood. Respect your own mother.
You. Liberal teen defending your right to believe. Respect the worn out Cheeto puff.

And you will see…

Maybe one day we will know a free America.

Apparently we belong to
The "minority"
Some kind of "riotry".
Because we love someone of the same gender
Or perhaps we're not cisgender.
Suddenly loving is a crime
Harmless expression of what's within- is the biggest blunder there ever could be.
Heart's content is criticised.

They brand us names,
FREAKS! DISGRACE! OUTLAWS!
Make mockery out of innocence
Demean our mere existence.
They want "normal"?
Then maybe it's themselves who are the problem.
They want us to hide and blend in,
Go back into this "closet" we "came out" of?
(Ha, good luck with that)

They think we're alone
But we are not.
There's one love 
In all our hearts,
Beating together
Creating art.
We show the world
Consented love needs no apology
Expression needs no **** apology!

So much cruelty
So much hate.
But, you know what?
We can't back down
And be another statistical figure.

Take pride in loving each other
Take pride in being true to yourself.
Pay no heed to those who say otherwise,
Take a stand, you glorious beast.
All in all, we come in peace.

I engage in transness
but with no emphasis on transition
I am not one to the other
I am on a continuum that can't be defined
to male or female
if I opened up on what parts define me
you'd be in for a while
my transness is not fixed
my transness is evergrowing and bountiful
it doesn't stop at male or female
I've passed what it means to be trans
I've ran the marathon
and won at the finish line
transness has it's own path
not what cisgender people decide
I live in a revelation of social control
by what's under inclusivity
the performance of transitioning is over
I engage in transness
and I exist with no finish line

some people find labels oppressing

straight
gay
cis
trans
black
hispanic
girl
boy
none of the above

even the absence of a label is a label itself

labels are things that corner you in,
limit you to one word,
a word in which you MUST fit the bounds

labels only exist for things we know about,
what if we don’t even have a word for it yet?
they’re limiting in this way too

yet,
i find that i enjoy labels

i enjoy labeling myself as a white, cisgender, pansexual girl

labels help me fit in
they help me to make sense of myself
and place myself in certain categories

labeling gender can be tough for some people
but i like identifying as a girl

labels can shut you in but they can also free you

free you from yourself
from the expectations of society
from embarrassment and dysphoria

i like labels
i don’t know about you
but they make life a whole lot easier for me

As a young boy I was happy to have it.
The toy that brought me fun.

As I grew older it served me well.
I shared it with my one.

Now that I am "elder" I see it.
Like an old photo found again.

I never knew I had a choice,
But I'd do it all just as it has been.

(Cisgender?)
...hahahaha...

When I die,
Don't let me die straight.
Don't let the world think that I enjoyed *** and romance strictly with the opposite ***.

When I die,
Don't let me die cisgender.
Don't let the world remember me through misgendering.
Don't let them bury me in the wrong cloths,
Don't let them cover it all up with their fancy words.

History came as history goes,
Twisted with every word.
Just because I talked to that one once,
doesn't mean that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with them.

Take the evidence, don't throw it away.
Don't let it rot as it's being washed over again.
Hold it up, don't let them bury me deep down in their lies
Pass it around, don't let them ignore my cries.

Don't let them walk over my grave as I lie.
Don't let them erase me when I die.
If I am to be remembered somehow,
Remember me as the queer that I was.

dear doctor crombie
rhymes with cranberry remember
that’s what you told me so that i
would remember your name
and you chuckled like that was
the most clever thing in the world
but all i cared about was getting the hell
out of the **** psychiatric ward because being
in that place made me want to try
and **** myself all over again
which is totally the opposite of
what i was hoping for when i agreed to be
admitted but i digress

because what stuck
with me more than the dismal room
i was put in that was either
as hot as hell-fire or freezing cold
to the point where i decided that i’d rather
be able to see my breath than be soaked in sweat
and your ******-*** joke
was the fact that on our first meeting
you told me that you thought my
coming out as transgender was
nothing more
than a diversion tactic

now dr. crombie
i want you to put yourself in my place
i was 16 years old
stimming and shaking as you stared me down
and then labeled me as nothing more than
a diversion tactic
and that crushed me
it had only been a few days since
i swallowed 40 trazodone and accepted
the fact that i would not be waking up again
and that was all you had to say to me
a diversion tactic
you pulled down the very core
of what i was in two words
and my god i hated you so much
in that moment

because dr. crombie
i had known i was not a girl
since i was 7 years old
and i held that inside me for 9 long years
that almost killed me
because *******
i knew that i wasn’t a girl for longer
than i had lived as a girl
and you just didn’t care
you took what i had given to you
laying myself out before you
because i was a scared
mentally ill teenager
that had just survived a
******* suicide attempt
and all you had to say
that my being transgender
was a diversion tactic

and even now
three years later
that still haunts me
the fact that you
a heterosexual cisgender male
born with a ***** and a flat chest
decided to chalk up my
9 years of hell to nothing more than
a diversion tactic

so dr. crombie
tell me what do you think
i was diverting from exactly
when i had willingly been admitted
to a sterile-smelling hellscape
where i was forced to relive
how i tried to forcibly end my life
every day in the ******* little therapy groups
that made me feel so much older and hollowed out

tell me doctor
what exactly was i diverting from
what was i trying to hide from and behind
by putting myself through the hell
of being near constantly dead-named
and misgendered and having to pay
up into the double digits just to change
my legal my deadname
and gender marker from an F to an M
and being told that i was technically still a girl
and being asked why i couldn’t just be a tomboy
a lesbian
a ****
a butch
why couldn’t i just be a girl huh
why did i have to be a boy

so tell me
dr. crombie
rhymes with cranberry
just what exactly was i
******* diverting from

Allow me to open your eyes
we are human and we matter
I am a member of the LGBT family
I have been bullied down and beaten for who I am,
for who I love
This is wrong

Tell me, what did I do wrong?
love is free, love knows no gender
my sexuality does not define me
my gender does not define me
it's just a part of who I am
I no longer will be put down for who I am
gay or straight, male or female, transgender or cisgender and everything in between
we all deserve respect
we all deserve the right to love

Even if it were a choice,
I choose to be happy
I choose to be me
I choose love
because love is simply love

To the drunken slob who tried to get his way with me at a wedding
To the pig who called out "Mmm, get a load of that body."
And to the total idiots who came into my workplace and hollered
"I'll take a cheeseburger, with a side of you."
*******, I am not a side order
I am the whole ******* meal
I will unhinge my shut jaw
And swallow you whole
With my feminist outcries
With my pleas for the reform of a broken body
A system in which all the parts are not in tune
The arms work against the legs
The heart works against the mind
The cisgender male works against all else
And like all broken things
Most do not intend to be sexist
Most do not understand that what they are doing
Is incapacitating an entire group of people
That it is diminishing them to anything but
We are not equal
Because my body is seen as a play thing
My body is seen as something a man can take and toy with
My body is seen as parts, but not a whole
While his body is composed for him.
He lives in a society that teaches him to take, take, take
But that society teaches us to give, abide, be good
All of which do not work in harmony with each other
Because according to this logic
I cannot make ****** choices
Because mine are made for me.
But I cannot give in to the choices he makes for me
Or they work against my father's wishes.
I am either a **** or a ***** their is no in between
When my entire existence is reduced to what a man thinks fit for me
So to these men who seek to manipulate, control, and take
I am not conforming to society's standards set for me
And I am not your side order
Or for men to pick and choose the parts they want from me
I am my own woman, my own hero
I am my own meal.

i hate it
when people tell me
that they do not support gay rights

they forwardly tell me,
a queer as hell person,
that they can't approve of my sexuality

you know,
cause of their religion,
"men shall not lay with men"
and all that jazz

or just cause the thought
of me making out with anyone but a cisgender guy
is absolutely repulsive and an abomination

and what about the kids?
what will they say when they see me
in public holding hands with an androgynous, non-binary person
who is obviously not a cisgender guy?

they tell me that being with someone i love
is confusing to children
and that i'm trying to push my sexuality onto them

sometimes i think they imagine me
going up to random little kids
and shaking them up and down
shouting "be gay already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

there's so much more you should be worrying about
than me turning your kid queer

in fact,
there's so much more you should worry about
than who i want to be with

how about making sure your kid
doesn't turn into a closed minded *******
like you?

Love isn't black and white.
It's all the colors of the rainbow.

Love isn't coloring inside the lines.
Its overlapping and adding your own touch.

Love isn't the house on the corner with the white picket fence.
Love is the house in the middle of the street with overgrown grass.

Love isn't a perfect trimmed bush.
Love is a colorful autumn tree shedding its leaves.

Love isn't male and female.
Love is transgender, genderfluid and cisgender.

Love is difficult.
Love is tragically beautiful.

you are more threatened by
my existence than you give yourself
credit for

and honestly that just baffles me
because i have a hard time killing spiders
and loud noises make me jump

but you don’t care about that
you just care about what you think
is in my pants
and the fact that the gender that is on
my birth certificate is different than
what i was assigned at birth
and my name is different too

but you don’t even care why
and even if you do
it is likely just a farce to give you
more reasons that in your mind
qualify me as a freak and a monster
and a horrible person that is willingly
mutilating the body that god gave me

well god has never had ears for me
and i do pray
i promise that i do
and never mind that it’s usually swearing
but if there really was a god
i like to think that he wouldn’t have stuck me
in a body that i have spent more time
wanting to destroy than actually living in

and i still don’t know
what about that
threatens you in any way
but you sure do feel threatened enough
to **** my brothers and sisters
with guns and knives and
your cruel words
over and over again

and not all of us are old
though 20 in the life of a trans person
could be considered old
since the chances of being murdered
jump a whopping 1%
to transgender individuals having a
1 in 12 chance of being murdered
and a 1 in 8 chance if they are a trans
person of color

and a good number of those people
are children and younger than
your sister or brother
who may be 14 or 12
there are so many deaths
every year
and the only reason that is given
is they were transgender
they were everything but white
and cisgender and heterosexual

so again i will ask
what about my existence makes you feel
so threatened that you think it is okay
to **** me for no other reason than
my daring to live as a male
instead of dying as a woman

Female, male, novi-, pan-, trans-, cisgender,
questioning, agender, non-gender, alia! inter! apora!
    andro, bi!
chuckchi ne'uchika,      guevedoche,
  maverique,      winkte,
xanith...and approx 60 others.

When list is done, perhaps we can finally just be

it's so hard to have a best friend who's a cisgender, heterosexual, tall, skinny man.

he's literally everything i wish to be.

this isn’t my first rodeo
and by that i mean this
isn’t my first poetry slam
but my hands still shake
and sweat breaks out on my
upper lip and slides
down my spine
like cold fingers

the judge
the white
cisgender
heterosexual
old man judge
looks at me like
he’s trying to figure out
what i am and i want to
tell him that he’s not
the first person to ****
their head to the side at me

and my shoulders hurt
under the tight fabric
of my black chest binder
and i wonder if it
is showing through the
fabric of my white and pink
striped button up

i run a hand through my hair
bright and blond
and in your face
and wonder why all the poems
i read and write
fall under a category
that is not strictly
“family friendly”

maybe it’s because i
am a deeply angry person
from living in fear
since i was seven years old

or it’s because i
decided i was going to
be as loud as i could be
about being transgender
and queer
and mentally ill
because being quiet
felt like giving up

but this judge does not care
about how it felt to
kiss a girl for the first time
to fall in love with a girl
and then to fall in love with
that person again
outside the constrictions of gender

this judge does not care
because he cannot understand
and he does not want to
and this is a poetry slam that
i am not going to win
because the cards of the majority
are stacked against me

but i don’t care about
not winning
because my voice doesn’t shake
when i out myself to a roomful
of people in a town that
i am afraid to use the men's room in

and in that moment
i am not afraid
my voice is strong and loud
and these people are listening
and that judge
can’t hold a candle to the
bright light that burns within me

and just as i know this
he knows it too

Unaffected but afflicted, convicted
of the crimes my people have committed,
and all the pain of history that was inflicted;
Sometimes, I get white cisgender guilt
for a system that was already built.

At peace are those,
Who smile at the rainbows,
The society defying, gender unidentifying,
Unapologetic beings with declarations,
Always challenging your expectations.
To declare their love for the same, but different,
Whether it's L, it's G, it's B,T or Q
You are beautiful just being you.

Joined together by a strong bond of love
Man, women, trans or all of the above
Find your harmony in others hearts
Let all their stereotypes swiftly depart
Male or female you decide
May all your fears quickly subside
Whether it's L, it's G, it's B, T or Q
You are beautiful just being you

So there's this wonderful thing called gay
It's not a disease it isn't a issue
It's not an affliction-I could continue
It doesn’t need treatment and no it isn't a phase
And it still deserves love through this fear ridden haze.
Whether it's L, it's G, it's B, T or Q
You are beautiful just being you.

Men are pretty, women are strong
Whoever you love you’ll still belong
Deep in the hearts of those who care
Is acceptance of your love-whether it's Cody or Claire
Bi is both loving and compassionate,
You should show the same emotions, support them, don’t be irrationate.
Whether it's L, it's G,it's B,T or Q
You are beautiful just being you

You can be a woman you could be a man,
Or a mix of the two,
or neither at all if that's what suits you
Drag king or queen, cisgender or trans
Whatever it is, the Lord’s got great plans.
Whether it's L, it's G,it's B,T or Q
You are beautiful just being you

A confused poor soul, alone in the world
Trying to find their place with a boy or a girl
There is a parade where you belong
And to be confused isn’t wrong
Love yourself inside and out
We are your shield to protect you from doubt
Whether it's L, it's G, it's B, T or Q
You are beautiful just being you.

Shame is an ocean we all swim across
But what truly matters is you know your on top
Don't let anyone tell you near or far
Doesn’t matter their status or battle scars
That you are unworthy of their respect
Because you my child are simply perfect.
Whether it's L, it's G, it's B, T or it's Q
You are so beautiful just being you.