"compartmentalized" poems
I think sometimes, about what it means to be transgender. I probe and probe for answers, because as the possibility for a new age of enlightenment and safety increases, the others want to know. I’ve come up with many answers, but I can hold to none. I don’t deserve to paint the definition of a culture with the limited experiences I’ve had. I don’t see myself in the transgender identified people allowed on television. I don’t see myself in the transgender identified people making news feeds and giving high profile interviews. And as my nation’s exposure to our culture increases, likely will their curiosity. Am I transgender? Do I have the right? I’ve heard doctors, psychiatrists, may refuse transgender patients access to hormone therapy based on how dedicated or convincing their portrayal of their identified gender. If you want to be a man or woman, you’ll have to look like the women and men on TV. If you want to be transgender, you’ll have to look like the trans identified people on TV. Every single one of us who has an active role as either participant or observer in our society is prey to the crisis of validity. Am I pretty enough? Am I strong enough? Am I brave enough? Mom enough? Dad enough? Competitive enough? Successful enough? Rich enough? **** enough? Pious enough? It never ends. We’re, as a nation of people, being crushed and compartmentalized by this ever present lens, looming over us, exploiting our weaknesses and fears so it may grow wider, and support itself as it follows us, seemingly forever into the future. And one of the worst fears this camera of existential torment exploits, in most of us every day, is, “Do I have a reflection?” “What does it look like?” “Do I look like me?” What does it mean to be transgender? I can’t get away from that question. But I don’t have an answer. There are varying degrees of anguish, depression, panic, anxiety, and other wonderful emotional states that creep up on you and breathe down your neck nearly every waking day. Absolute contempt for the lie of a life you’ve lived till now, and contempt for the fragments still stuck to you, in memories, attached to your body and mind. Fear of those in your own community who would purposefully humiliate, invalidate, or attack you, choosing their own universal moral code over the innate urge and capacity to support the health and continued well being of another human. A ******* neighbor. A ******* pupil. A ******* employee. A ******* sister, brother, son, daughter, mother, father, cousin, ******* blood. What is being transgender like? By my experiences, it’s just like being anyone else in the country. But with a lot more fear, death, exclusion and medication.
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 5:07 AM UTC
Her shadow
Washed in sin, covered in blood
Oh, what a sad little dove
Festering secrets, slathered in shame
Purity poisoned, life to blame
Born unwanted, a mother denies
Behind the shadow of our eyes
His shadow
In dynamics
Of dysfunctional dismay
Lost in secret family shame
These emotional contacts delay
That we carry 'til the end of our days
Cast in stone, in foundation of lies
All these shadows behind our eyes
Her pain
Painful memories of long ago
Though, I know, I must let go
Triggers upon the aching scars
That burns within an injured heart
Full of fear, in the wake of lies
All behind the shadow of our eyes
His pain
An unending twitch
The fast fading smile
The ever bleeding heart
Of a broken lost child
Carrying stones up endless hills
All these issue we're forced to feel
And stuff them down, way down inside
Behind the shadow of our eyes
Her darkness
Hidden is a blacken variant
Attached with unbreakable sealant
Of life's destiny, from the gods
Concealed amid, evolved facades
A mind, compartmentalized
Behind the shadow of our eyes
His darkness
Desensitized to life, empathy left poor
Bottomless abyss where my spirit now soars
Love is a dream in my abandoned role
The pieces won't fit my wandering soul....
The window to a soul hides
Behind the Shadow of our Eyes
May 29, 2017
May 29, 2017 at 11:44 PM UTC
Amethyst ,
Greek for not intoxicated
A gemstone of violet colored quartz
once believed provided protection
against becoming intoxicated
Black Butterfly , a book about transformation and rebirth after death
But I don't know where the stripper
drama comes in
The rest is life ,
compartmentalized
into daily drudge
Oh , but for the last dregs
of glory
at the bottom
of the bottle of life
The electric breath that once
activated every nerve cell
of your being
into ecstacy
has become a distant emoticon
that was once closer
than shadow thin
But now has become the one
living in a graveyard
with hopes
of raising dead dreams
May 22, 2016
May 22, 2016 at 3:52 AM UTC
Non compartmentalized, thus trenchant...
an unbeknownst poetic
songbird picked its patch of blue to fly home
to.
A wet one, soppy...one-offed and kissable sun,
monk-ocher... presents its only case...clearly through
him...to you.
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 2:28 AM UTC
are you afraid of parking garages
do you think of empty parking spaces
with empty cars beside them
like your own compartmentalized mind
do the empty spaces scare you
like my own scare me
are you afraid of the dust
are you afraid of the ghosts
sitting where people once were
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid of the lonely silence
are you afraid of the concrete walls
that are more solid than anything
that you have ever created
are you afraid
that you'll be just as cold
just as lifeless
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid of where they take you
are you afraid of the airports
that you always end up in
missing those that never come back
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid that you'll park
and that you'll never leave
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid of the flickering lights
and your own shadow
bouncing in front you
are you afraid of going somewhere
and never coming home
are you afraid of your home
and when they asked you where home is
did you stutter
because you almost said someone's name
instead of a place
or is your home that parking garage
blank and grey
empty and hollow
are you afraid of parking garages
[holyoak]
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 1:26 AM UTC
As a young girl I was always expected to do as I was told.
Don’t be too loud, don’t talk back, don’t appear to be sassy or bold.
Mind your manners, hold your tongue, there is no space for being rude.
Tone it down, cover it up, we don’t want your black girl attitude.
Forced into boxes with no space to move.
Restricted and restrained with everything to prove.
Constantly combatting the narrative they paint.
Making us look like animals while they look like saints.
We are said to be angry, bitter and loud.
Troublesome, uneducated, following the crowd.
Masculine, impute, stubborn and broken.
Accessories, trophies that ”one” friend, the token.
These strings of disrespect will no longer be allowed.
I don’t care if I’m not polished enough, I’m unwilling to be cowed.
Take back your subtle hate and blatant prejudices all wrapped up in a bow.
Served on a platter with fluffy words of disapproval and the saying “that’s just the way things go”.
They say we are stubborn, unmovable and complacent.
Well , consider how our feelings are always compartmentalized and latent.
Our cries go unheard, our request are unmet.
No one to protect us, left on our own to fret.
This debt that we carry is too much to bare.
It’s just as heavy as the onus that we all have to share.
We are ethereal, complex and fed up with your satire.
You can have whatever you think of me, I’m done being your Sapphire.
Nov 10, 2022
Nov 10, 2022 at 2:19 AM UTC
clink clink clank cling ding
ding-ding clack
ding ding clink clink clack
masquerade
pianissimo charade
heart strings pulled taught
by a known gentleman
transformed into an unknown savior
flying faces
other worldly in expression but not intent
all are drawn blankly lustful
craving distinction from
a sea of flamboyant feathers
stretched personas
masquerade
freedom is her trade
the light in your eyes
the corners of your lips
for a mask
and a fanciful freedom
alive in compartmentalized limits
clink clink clank cling ding
ding-ding clack
ding ding clink clink clack
ding ding
the song masked musicians play
isn't a song at all
but a simple masquerade
Jan 3, 2011
Jan 3, 2011 at 2:19 PM UTC
Walking around Widener bookstore
Brown bag 40oz in grip on the first floor
Hurricane
my life and future funneled life a twister whimsical whirlwind
down the hatch guzzle guzzle. Oh, Christie! How are you!? can you see I am a mess? I know Youtell my Chinese girlfriend from our study abroad you saw me a mess in the bookstore. SHe is now heartbroken in chongquing. see ah ha
later im just returning books to get dope money.
LAter
Oh, I see you are stocking that Stranger Camus
Langston Hughes
English 102
I drift in my own “end of summers night”
still dreamin’
still falllin’
Dropping, stumbling, the house of German exchange professors
Sequestered on speed *****
Welcome to Chester
Corpse exquisite
the Bride resides in physics-compartmentalized-drawers
hiding refuge from the storm
He was Alone
( Most of the time he got weirded out easily)
Feb 11, 2015
Feb 11, 2015 at 7:53 PM UTC
our quiet rooms
compartmentalized
like louis vuitton
to basic calvin kliens
secretly living the best
of our lives
under the stars
and each other’s tired eyes
Jul 24, 2018
Jul 24, 2018 at 9:16 PM UTC
If your a freakshow
everyone will hate you
if you be yourself.
If you hide yourself
without openin up
its easier, right?
Ive compartmentalized myself
but in each room
is
me.
Hate it or like it
I will be who I be.
You can too
I understand more than I let on
Jun 11, 2012
Jun 11, 2012 at 1:39 AM UTC
I'm compartmentalizing my thoughts and delivering them to you on my tongue. Gift wrapped in a silver metallic paper, with a tiny pink bow on top that bounces jubilantly with every step I take. Waiting to be opened and heard, the gift sits on my tongue.
Sometimes no ears are lent so I swallow the thought and redigest it. It falls into the black and finds itself trapped back in my head. It ricochets from wall to wall, eager to be released.
One day I found out no one wants to listen.
So I bottle it all up, and the thoughts start getting crowded. I become scatter brained, my head hectic with inmates, jailed without a crime. They riot, burning me out each time. My head sizzles like road **** in the heavy heat.
It's time for a jailbreak!
I pick up a pen and release the inmates into my veins. They pump through me and fill me with life, violently pounding their way through my fatal heart. Once I channel their energy, they flow out my fingers, into the ink and onto the paper.
They bleed as they're released, finally free,
singing the song of a man compartmentalizing his thoughts.
Apr 10, 2018
Apr 10, 2018 at 9:53 PM UTC
All I have are memories and curiousities
which I try to satisfy hunting around the internet
and finding very little except what I already know and
was it a dream? NO a thousand times no
How do I KNOW?
My poems are the breadcrumbs to my dark memories of the place
A place without honesty a place where I struggled to find the appropriate
illusion or delusion or denial that seemed to work for those successful here
but could not stand it, bear it, do it
and some could, but it wasn't good for them either
"this program is working" "we are at the cutting edge of education"
"our leaders are smart" and I couldn't do it,
couldn't activate that switch which is so close to those switches I struggled so hard to turn off
"my family is happy" "if I am unhappy at home it is all my fault"
and to turn them back on, for they are all connected somehow, would be a kind of death
and I'm not adept enough, compartmentalized enough
not yet. I made many mistakes there,
leaning on the unstable which caused him pain
trying to get comfort from a stone, which dislodged him
but it's over now and today I have a scholarship and I have little notes on my work:
"nice job," "very thoughtful response" and I am that same person I was only a few weeks ago
that same person who wasn't a "good fit" who didn't get it,
who was causing problems with her quick mind and rebellious thoughts
but now its over and all the people I offended have moved on
and the dagger stuck in my belly has been removed and the bleeding
has stopped, and healing has begun
and someday I will make peace with all this
Jun 14, 2013
Jun 14, 2013 at 5:00 PM UTC
That you exist, that you know, that you care - this is joy enough for me.
Dawn mingles with your ruddy cheeks.
Peasant woman, I read the language of toil in the wrinkles on your brow.
Why should I love you? I ask of myself. This is the constant soliloquy of the monsoon rain in empty valleys.
What do you brood over on sultry noons?
But then, why shouldn't I?
Winter's witheration is everybody's lot.
I want to know the hive called death that shelters tiny loves compartmentalized.
The sweat on your brow is sprinkled on autumn skies, waiting to sob out their agony.
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 2:03 PM UTC
i used to live in boxes,
not just the ones from packing my life
away and expediting it, or where i would
store myself under old refrigerators,
making soft buzzing noises with my tongue
i kept things in them, wings plucked
from butterflies and soaked in the
sickly sweet scent of formaldehyde.
it was satisfying to separate myself
from all the spheres of influence
and drops in the bucket
of my mind.
the past was all accorded for,
the present mattered not. i could get by
on scratching windowpanes for golden flecks
of light. as long as i had the memories of
being too young to understand thoughts,
i was okay, and okay was a word i could say
without regret. it promised nothing.
so what chance did you stand, all silver
and sparkles, speaking backwards and boiling over
with steam? you pretended it was virtue you were
smoking, hand-rolled, on the slowly sinking porch.
i could taste it as hypocrisy, some softest contradiction.
and i wanted to seal you off, garnished in
a soft sort of word salad, and dressed with adjectives
like “lonely” or maybe just a little bored. my way
was too angular for your knees, softly curved as they were,
and supple on my chest. you compartmentalized
so sloppily into a stream-of-consciousness story.
so there is a box for you, sitting somewhere, and i confess
that i always wanted to sleep alone. a can of soda
can be champagne if i’m celebrating something. and so
i think i’ll spend my night sugary and sober, painting
the sky cardboard and faded, like a memory without
a frame to hold it in.
Feb 7, 2011
Feb 7, 2011 at 1:12 PM UTC
The technocracy gathers the museum pieces categorizing ideally to undermine and de-emphasizing objective understanding for the sub-categorized priest-craft, drafting a temporal framework for God. In bargaining as it accentuates its void for evangelism.
This classification, this legal ordinance, this academic dissertation and that context of its time.
Then Mary...
© S. Wesley Mcgranor
May 20, 2016
May 20, 2016 at 12:16 AM UTC
This is a man (Malcolm X) I believe gave our Black people confidence in times most needed. He extended common sense amongst scrambled minds and perspective to scholars who thought they had it figured out. His methods, must like a scientist. I'm speaking of the way he even compartmentalized subjects with much harmony and such fluidity. I respect the approaches he took to bind our Black people. I know that he held sincere compassion for the progress of our Black communities. This is why he weighs so heavy on us 50 years later. Probably heavier than ever, he resonates. He rises every time the consistent bullet of injustice pierces the flesh of our people. Each time one falls victim to ignorance or returns to the way they know better than to follow, Malcolm X is there. He is in our Black men, the rebellious hunger. The starvation and thirst will drive you to a point of discipline and control of self or the continuous massacre of dignity, pride and structure in the Black body. We are failing ourselves. We were once victims and for too long stayed that way. We are surely oppressed and have been for too long but we are not to feel sorry for ourselves. We are not to help the oppressor further press us down into our own graves. We are not victims anymore. We are not to allow others to sympathize for us. We are not the minority, they may say what they will. We have learned far too many lessons and we have had far too many teachers to continue letting this ignorance run through and destroy our beauty. Volumes of lectures, instructions - literally the key to rising is in our possession and we have failed generation after generation to seam our strengths and unlock what is already ours. We have been warned, it will not be an easy task nor a joyful journey. We will fight, we will bleed, we will not rest many nights, we will not look the same many years from now, we will not hold the same energy, we will not have the amount of time that we have at this very moment. The amount of time that we have to wake up, change and be better for those looking for answers 50 years from now. **Like those before us, it is up to us to leave our words, power and visions as the foundation of inspiration, as the response for what our struggle has really meant and the love that has to be built to get us there. *
*© 2015 Rhea Nadia
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 3:50 AM UTC
~for M.C.C. ~
who sang me to sleep,
when my soul begged me for
sweet release,
just was lucky, I guess
*"Mornings here with a coffee cup
Stories in my head, looking up
If the rain holds off we'll be in luck
But we're lucky anyway"*
<>
Been there, done that,
ritualized & compartmentalized
the essences of the routinized,
to measure the days of my life,
as small keepsakes,
charms and tokens on a bracelet,
jingle bo jangle,
when another be repeated,
the telling belling of
a ✅ of satisfying satisfaction,
<>
and I!ve been bone
marrowed & narrowed hell~married,
imprisoned until decisioned,
that no life was no life at all,
(take note! y'all y'all),
and I miss my dog's greetings,
and snoring while I'm wide awake,
always loved to drive too fast on
back country narrow lanes,
in my suburban shrunk
small suv,
with radio blaring, no need for
trucking on the Truckee,
been there, done that..
<>
in the small ways,
in the
small places,
take my slow going days my way,
and not no need
to rent borrowed uninfluenc-ed content
cause I custom built it in,
easy like, five easy pieces,
learned to make daisy peaces,
of the bright nights melding
with life affirming hot sunlight
and there is no bad time,
with a cold blue~ribbon
in my left,
my right grasping two O'clock
on my heart and steering wheel,
driving freedom fine,
Chapin~ Carpenter
on the stereo dial,
no set time,
just anytime,
rain or shine
for me and my poems
to *** together,
like old time,
any fine rhyming time,
together we flashback
to the sweet Release
from jail in 2008
<>
***and break out a new one and clap it onto the clasp
my bracelet of charmed
keepsakes,
like memories of
my old dog, thinking
one more time,
just got lucky***
6/27/25
Jun 27, 2025
Jun 27, 2025 at 3:32 PM UTC
My mind is a vortex,
Swirling whirlpool of
Voices and images,
Movies and words.
At times it is calm,
Like the sea before a tsunami,
Eerily still, anoxic.
The pop of a rubber band,
The slice of a blade,
Removes me from myself
And at once I am pensive
My thoughts –erased,
My eyes search from emotion
In a brick wall
My mind –transformed to its twin:
Organized, compartmentalized
Sturdy,
But easily crumbled
By the trembling of the earth.
Jun 20, 2012
Jun 20, 2012 at 9:17 PM UTC
Emma
Studying, studying, working, and sitting in zen.
She mothers her child and tends her home.
A denizen of her city's life, an outing here and there.
I see her as compartmentalized in all her facets.
Reading, reading, writing, writing.
So competent she is.
Dealing with life's struggles - they are so big to her if she compares them to all her angles.
When will she be mine? society makes me say.
But when will I be mine and she be hers, when will we take time for ourselves?
For we have so many things to contemplate, so much knowledge to fulfill.
We go to the school of God together, in college now we are.
Why take time to love when insights guide our star?
So take a break from the affection, accomplish your goals thus far.
The next time we see each other we'll have grown so much.
I want to be a better me, and see you a better you.
Let's share only the best fruits and rarest blossoms.
For life is so mundane if not working toward them.
Feb 4, 2021
Feb 4, 2021 at 10:39 PM UTC
That's the thing about insatiability
It can't be compartmentalized
It doesn't have an appointment
Or even a purpose, really
It is a persistent, unwelcome fog
That creeps into your skull
Until it smooths over every surface
And dampens every thought beneath it
And though some days
The fog may dissipate
Nothing is ever good enough
Not for long, anyway
Aug 1, 2018
Aug 1, 2018 at 11:52 PM UTC
my passion
reared it's head
and flashed it's fangs
you kissed the poison
right off its lips
it imploded
destroying
all i loved
unforgivable crimes
and their compartmentalized
little sins
shallow gasps for air
in between sighs of relief
i'll give you my wings
for a wave, hello
i'll give you anything
for you not to go
can you really
not feel the
electricity
between our skin?
Nov 27, 2013
Nov 27, 2013 at 12:13 PM UTC
What we idealize
We condemn.
Strip it from the backs
Of those we oppress,
Notwithstanding ourselves.
Cram it in a box marked “DO NOT TOUCH” -
A false preservation.
Fasten wonder and difference in
Wax-body museums.
The overture of youth, displaced.
Forcibly removed and
Compartmentalized until
Homogeneity reigns supreme
In the halls of collective memory.
Admonishment replaces admiration.
The administration demands -
How dare anyone have what
We stole from ourselves?
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 at 6:37 PM UTC
I want to engage in a conversation with you,
Because in our love negotiations
My divinity is not on the table.
No you can’t love me in fragments
I don’t come compartmentalized
Love me whole
Or I will fly.
I want to build a nest
With you, with all your words,
But remember I’m a migrant bird
And I know how to soar away,
You don’t understand my way of love.
I do not sing in cages,
I do not live in fear,
I live, I love, I worship,
I am a living symphony.
Baby, I am free and thriving,
Whole like the bread you got at whole foods
And I know it's complicated:
I am complete and happy without you
Yet I know I could also be whole with you.
Jan 20, 2014
Jan 20, 2014 at 6:13 AM UTC
Vertigo.
The world is turning.
Turning.
Turning.
Turning,
Too fast.
Turning until
A rip forms.
A tear. A lesion. An open wound.
Raw.
Don't touch.
Don't look.
Don't speak.
Don't hear.
Don't smell.
Don't feel.
it hurts.
Thoughts come then.
Too loud, too quiet.
Too bright; so, so dark.
.
.
.
help.
No help.
.
.
.
help.
No help.
.
.
.
help.
Helped.
Boxes.
Boxes and boxes and boxes.
A library of thought and feeling packed away
In
One
second.
Peace.
Calm.
Joy.
False emotion.
Easy breathing, easy living.
Compartmentalized.
Strike-through.
Recompartmentalized.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Feb 10, 2015
Feb 10, 2015 at 8:35 PM UTC