Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
From the ashes I descend,
Rising among the flames,
As shades of red.
Orange and yellow,
Blend within the explosion,
Of my rebirth,
Claiming my life force once more.

My deep hazel eyes,
Drenched in golden brown,
Surrounded by a burst of jade,
Speckled with dark green,
Reveal my humility,
Compassion and genuine kindness,
Allowing you to behold,
The window to my soul.

The vessel,
Containing my spirit,
Conflicts with the feminine demeanor,
Exposing sincerity,
Comforting hands of a care-giver,
The voice of loyalty,
Gently escaping lips,
Tears of empathy,
Seeping with understanding,
Kisses of affection,
As soft spoken words,
Depict desires,
Hopes and the warmth,
Of pure love.

Mystery envelops my origin,
Becoming a mystical being,
With the ability to heal,
The potential to inspire,
Living proof of an alleged myth,
Yielding in protection,
As my plethora of feathers,
Shield the individuals I adore,
From darkness,
Attempting to swallow the light,
We yearn to discover.

Blind Thoughts of denial,
Shall forsake your eyes,
If you pass judgment,
Upon me,
For my cloak of skin,
Concealing my true beauty.

As a Phoenix,
I refuse to watch,
The children of diversity,
Suffer degradation,
Living in fear of discrimination,
Stifling the right to love another,
To dress in garments,
That correlate the body with the mind.

I shall rage to cease,
The hands of violence leaving bruises,
Ignorance stripping,
Breaths of air from a pair of lungs,
As homophobia,
Transphobia, and intolerance,
Deplete individuality from a heart,
Deserving liberty,
The pursuit of happiness,
A chance to survive.

The Earth returns my soul,
To reap the love,
Concealed in assumptions,
And sow acceptance into,
The fields of society,
As I continue,
To soar into a cerulean sky.
Brandon Navarro Aug 2014
Why is it so cool to hate on a group
for their fashion sense?
Or that they like to be off the mainstream?
You are doing the same thing that
people were doing to the
grunge
goths
punks
hippies
beatniks
flappers

and they all did something with their counterculture.
Ever think that
ours is the hipsters?
Not really,
they've been around since The *** Pistols
actually
they started them.
They made it cool to go to a thrift store
and buy things out of comfort
then rip it up
change it so it looked brand new.

Punk
that made Hipsters.

But now they are just some fad
that people hate on.
Just because they like to talk about
indie bands
knowing them first
wearing band tee's of bands they listen too
wearing vintage and retro clothing
likes reading
being in a cafe
organic food
vegan.

Stereotyping a group is all people did.
Now I can't wear things or do things
because some ******* is going
to say
"Ha you're such a ******* hipster!"

Why don't we stop hating people on what they wear
because how do you expect to get past
racism
homophobia
sexism
ableism
fatphobia
transphobia
preju­dice
if we can't even get past how people dress?
Fionnuala Lidia Apr 2016
What right have you
To tell someone they are not
Who they know they are.
You.
A person who seems so sure of themselves,
So comfortable.
Tells him,
Someone who questioned himself his whole life,
That he is not who he knows he is?
jan/2016
Boaz Priestly Oct 2016
“Why can’t you just be a tomboy?”
Witty comebacks always come slow when gender is involved, especially with new questions. Surely not new to anyone else, but new to him, at least. Though, it wouldn’t take much to trigger a response, no matter how aggressive or shocked and sad that response might be. But this one, though. This was new. Having never been asked this before, he had no weapons to combat this, to shoot down the asker with a well-placed glare and a retort that would shut them up right away.
He did try, he really did. You have to give him credit for that.
But then his throat choked up, and he fled. The only thing he managed to choke out was that he was going to go now. That was it. Shut down so quickly. From fearless and untouchable to an anxiety attack shaking its way up his spine and into his hands.

“Why can’t you just be a tomboy?”
And there it is again, he thinks. That one sentence wrapping tighter and tighter around his windpipe.
It was a challenge hurrying down the stairs without falling, because the anxiety had him in such a tight grip that he could hardly breathe.
Then there it was, those dreaded bathrooms.

“Are you a girl or a boy?”
There was not time to spend fifteen minutes or half an hour or all day standing between those two things. With his mind screaming MALE, and his traitorous body screaming FEMALE, he ducked into the women’s restroom and stumbled into the handicap stall.

It started then.
A barrage of everything that he had ever been asked because all that people saw were his body: *******, thick thighs, wide hips, a pear shape with curves in all the right places, and it made him sick.

“Since you haven’t had the surgery yet, aren’t you still technically a woman?”
“Butch?”
“****?”
“Are you a boy or a girl?”
“What are you?”
“This is my friend, he’s a transvestite.”

It’s too much, with the tomboy comment still rattling around in his exhausted brain.
And with each thunk of the back of his head against the tiled bathroom wall, he tried to shake them loose. But they wouldn’t leave. Why wouldn’t they leave? He knows that it isn’t true. None of those people know anything. Their questions are out of mostly out of ignorance, and not malice, but, gods, they all hurt so much.

He talks then, a harsh whisper making its feeble way out on the wave of each choking, silent, sob.
“I tried. I tried so hard. And I’ll tell you why I can’t ‘just be a tomboy’ because, ******, I was a tomboy. And you wanna know what that got me? Six years worth of scars on my arm and shoulder.”

He drags the remains of anxiously bitten-down nails down his arm now, over and over again, leaving angry red trails through the pale lines on even paler skin.
“I’ve know that I wasn’t a girl since I was seven. That’s pretty, funny, isn’t it? The not knowing, it almost killed me. I mean that literally, but sometimes swallowing forty pills speaks louder than words.”

The phantom voice, branded into his eardrums and stamped angry and red on the graymatter of his brain, speaks up again. “Why can’t you just be a tomboy?”

And he knows what the real question is now.
Why can’t you just be a girl?
Why do you have to be transgender?
Why can’t you just be happy as a girl?
Why can’t you just be a tomboy?

Getting up off the ground, scrubbing tear tracks from his cheeks and off his glasses, he presses the back of his throbbing head against the tiled wall, whispering to everybody and nobody, “SHUT UP.”
Last week or so, some ******* had the bright and transphobic idea to ask me why I couldn't just be a lesbian. Huh. Believe it or not, that was the first time anyone had asked me that. Sure, I've been asked lots of other uneducated and malicious questions, but this one caught me so off guard that it triggered an anxiety attack that had me hiding in the handicap stall of the woman's restroom, sobbing and banging my head against the wall. Yeah. That was fun.
Anyway, I turned that ****** thing into a school assignment/spoken word/rant/******* to the transphobes kind of thing. It is cathartic, and makes it easier for me to let this particular ****** thing go.
Nicole Oct 2018
Recently
The person I am now dating
Has come to terms with
His own trans identity
When we met he looked like a girl
But I could sense something within him
Something that resonated with
My own confusing feelings of gender
I asked him if he was trans
And at that point
He used the term nonbinary
I felt really excited about this
Finally there was someone like me
Who definitely was not a woman
But never felt like a man either
It was actually just a space in his journey
And he eventually came out to me again
It's my first time having a boyfriend
Since coming to terms with my queerness
And I love him deeply
But it has not been easy
Mostly because of the fact that
His transition has led me
To come face-to-face with
My own repressed identity
I have to address and recognize
All of my internalized transphobia
Most of which is aimed at the mirror
Fueled by years of denying myself
While I am definitely not a woman
And have never felt like a man
A lot of the time I feel like a boy
And hope that I will pass as such
I am finally ready to really listen to me
And the needs of my identity
To resume my rightful path
On the road to being myself again
E Jun 2021
my body is a topic that trails the mouths of a family at dinner
it is the trail of saliva that leaves shortly after breaking a heated kiss
always leaving a bitter taste

but when did you taste me?
when did I crawl into your mouth full of cavities?

existing as I am cements chains in people's root canals
a topic for discussion
my life to debate
trans people being the forefront
it is so inconvenient and sinful
and yet its the flavor on their seething lips

kissing one another trailing more saliva
knowingly trading hate with ones mind and lips
integrating more citizens and normalizing their behavior

transphobia is the topic for discussion
Previously unreleased from February of 2021.
Joshua Haines Apr 2017
It's dark and the light leaks out
like the change in my pockets;
like the blood from her nose;
like knowledge from my head.

And I can feel myself being
  swallowed by this systematic
long dark. I cannot remove myself,
  a gut-worm in the lower-mantle
belly. Watching video-cassettes of
  my birthday. I don't know what
happened to my birthday video.
  I don't know what happened to
my parents or what I did to happen
  to them.

The light leaks, again, and I
choke on my celebri-thoughts;
mentally-******* to the
waves I'd give on a book tour
or studio lot. Talking about some
movie that made some money,
somewhere in Santa Fe or L.A.

The news is channeling my president:
a swollen man that is the physical representation
that a lot of American people are parasitic;
lovers in racism, xenophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia,
homophobia; scared of everything except the 'straight-talking'
magnate they put in office. Not playing president; playing God.

I'd hate to get political, though. I'd hate to ramble on
and on about something I don't know enough about to
**** myself over. I can feel myself picking up steam.
I can feel myself getting redundant but embracing the
bruised ego and poor technique. Loving the entrails
spilling out of the splits of my fingertips;
more beautiful than the brains I bashed on the sidewalks
of old Morgantown. Morgantown, a town so kind you
are gently destroyed by its over-crowded masses,
dying to be different or drunk -- I suppose that's not very
different than most places.

But let's get back to these trees that I haven't even talked about.
Let's get back to the kitchen table with the hollowed hard-drive,
with wires and cords flopping to the sides, like a
gutted spaghetti eater with poor stomach acid.
How terrible. I'll never forgive myself for that last line.

I feel so rudderless. So cynical with a touch of cliche.
I keep pushing back that age for success, thinking
that I have the luxury of choosing. My vocabulary is
limited. My intelligence is assumed; probably a void,
where delusions manifest and asian **** rewinds and plays,
  rewinds and plays.
Orion Rosemary May 2021
I'm just trying to live my life
Like any other human being
I get on the bus, sit on the guys side
I go through my day-to-day

I get called down to the office
I'm told I have to sit on the girls side because I'm in the system as a girl
I tell him I'm not a girl and the heteronormative system is ridiculous
I didn't do anything wrong and sit by myself anyways

He says he will see what he can do
In the hallway not long after, after school ends, going down stairs
I group of kids scream near my ears
I mumble to myself and they touch my head

I said stop
They didn't stop
I turned around
And for the first time in my life I lower myself to violence
And punch one in the leg

I break down
I'm lucky to work with such wonderful people in theatre
I just want to live my life
I just want to be left and not harassed

Im told I can sit on the boys side
I have to sit alone
I can only sit in the front or back
I have to tell the stranger next to me he can't sit there

I want to tell him why
I don't want to out myself
I have to give up the ounce of validation of being treated like a normal guy on the bus by the other guys, who are unafraid to get in trouble for sitting with me cause they don't know what I am or care

I wish...
I wish I was born right just like he and every other guy on the bus

But if I was I would not be me.

I could not understand my own struggles
Or sympathize so much with others

I could not learn and adapt the way I do now
Could not have taught myself to be brave in the same way I am

I could not have the experience of having kids with my spouse the way I want to

I would not have needed to stand up for my rights or that of others

I would not have addresssed my lack of understanding and my internalized transphobia

I am stronger for who and what I am.
My gestalt.
For learning to come to terms with the harsh truths of what I am to the world.

If that wish came true, I would not be me. I would not be
Orion.
An improv prompt from my theatre teacher/director. My group decided to do a funny skit but I wanted to answer it in a heartfelt way on my own separately.
Petra Jun 2021
Your opinion shouldn't be more important than my reality.
- Jul 2016
You said, in small text:

<p>OKAY. Let’s talk about this. </p>

<p>✨CW: transphobia, mental health stuff, strong language✨</p>

<p>[Reblog the hell out of this post. It’s about to be important].</p>

<p>I woke up this morning to my girlfriend, my partner-in-crime, my best friend, my favorite bean, sending me this photo. She couldn’t believe that it was real and thought that I was playing some sick joke. </p>

<p>Good ******* morning. </p>

<p>Listen up, whoever you are, you entitled little ****. Your opinions, attractions, desires, whatever they are - they DO NOT MATTER. Assuming, based on the context of your post, that you identify as a guy, let me just say this: </p>

<p>You are a small man. You’re using the guise of anonymity to objectify a radiant woman whose depth and breadth you can’t ever begin to comprehend - and I’m not just saying that because she’s mine. You’re also transphobic as **** - and clearly don’t understand that trans-ness and genitalia are actually (and often) far removed from each other. </p>

<p>I’d like to think that I don’t need to explain why the comment “your girl ain’t a girl no more” (in addition to being grammatically terrible) is NOT acceptable, but in case I do, here is MY two cents on the matter of MYSELF. </p>

<p>I fought for this body. I bled for this consciousness, I shined light into places in me that I didn’t know existed and found depression, dysphoria, trauma, and loads of anxiety. I nearly died for this body. If it hadn’t been for a select few people who saw me for the love I was worth, I wouldn’t be alive to write this post. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s a fact. </p>

<p>I’m telling you, stranger, this because there is more behind your words than you know. Each time you take your privilege and cishetero advantage for granted and allow misguided, bigoted words to fall out of your disgusting face-hole or fingertips, you’re reminding me of how I almost died for this body and consciousness. How my girlfriend and countless others like us have been subject to vast physical and mental torment for our queerness, our trans-ness, our SELVES.</p>

<p>I’m addressing you not as you, but as the mass of people you represent. I’m posting this on behalf of the 22 trans people who were murdered last year because of ignorance like yours. I’m posting this on behalf of feminine-identified people everywhere who deal with the wrath of objectification, sexism, and violence that your very actions embody and permit. </p>

<p>
Number 44.

This is a coded copy of a draft written awhile ago, see the previous poem for context.
Boaz Priestly Mar 2016
I've got some of these, too!

Here are my two favorites: It's okay if you change your mind.
It's okay if SHE wants to come back.

I am going to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you guys again. Hi. My name is Boaz Priestly Stout. But I mainly go by Priestly. I am a transgender male. My pronouns are he/him. And, I have felt this way since I was 7, so I can assure you I will not "change my mind."

Because, even saying that implies that being transgender is a choice. Well, news flash: IT'S NOT! I mean, do any of you honestly believe that I would choose this for myself? The constant dysphoria, not being able to pass as male, the misgendering and dead-naming, and general transphobia are hell. I would not wish this on my worst enemy. This is not a choice. It is who I am. And, I have fully embraced it, because, it is better than the alternative of living life with this big secret that eventually destroys me. I am not going to be a statistic. I will not be one. I will not.

I am a boy. My name is Priestly. I am a boy. I AM.
http://www.glaad.org/blog/glaad-launches-trans-microaggressions-photo-project-transwk
Meg B May 2020
Dear America,

I’m really disappointed in you. It’s a harsh way to start a letter, I know, but that’s truly how I feel.

Our leadership (if you can call it that) has unveiled the deep rooted White supremacy and sexism that this country was founded upon. And that means that there are enough people in this country that feel this way that a man like Trump was able to get elected, that a man like Mitch is able to run the show in Congress.

America as the land, it isn’t your fault. You would’ve been happy to never have been invaded, carved up, forced to be witness to slavery and war and watching your beautiful indigenous people die and be culturally erased (in many ways still today). You are beautiful, with your mountains and trees, your beaches and oceans, your rivers and streams.

You are ugly, though, with your systemic oppression, kids in cages, Black people shot by police, housing segregation, gentrification, fatphobia, mass incarceration, capital consumerism, transphobia, misogyny, lack of mental health and addiction support, no healthcare for all, no equal right to education without stock piles of debt, and you always make a way for the wealthy and White,  but you box out anyone Brown without extra expectations or attempted White washing. You pave ways and repave them, neglecting potholes and broken bridges for those that need, deserve, should have them more. You are the birthplace of internal wars, internalized sexism, colorism, homophobia, racism; you’ve made us hate ourselves as much as you hate us.

America, I expected better with the version of you I read in textbooks. But then, that version of you was written by those whose roads were paved with gold, and they profit from its retelling.

I don’t like you, America. I don’t know what hope there is for us, but I do know that I love my brothers, sisters, siblings of all genders, colors, and creeds who too want to unravel you, America, and build you back up into something better, something equitable, something for all of us.

Maybe there’s hope for you, America. Maybe there’s hope in your (r)evolution.

-Meg
Mediation prompt: Write a letter to your country of origin and express how you feel.
Graff1980 Jan 2017
There is a true fear,
a throbbing ache,
that I hear clear
in my inner ear,
a pounding
sounding
trouble.

The drum beats
racism,
sexism,
xenophobia,
homophobia,
and transphobia.

But in the
presence of patterns
I’ve seen so many times
I become numb.
I am not surprised.

The tears only
wet my eyes
when I spy
good guys
painting over the lies
with peace
chanting
to all,

“Be calm,
because you are loved
and no matter what
we walk with you.”

The drum beats still sound
but my numbness fades
with the rise of hope
for more humane days.
Cause like those loving hearts
I too am with all of you.
Graff1980 Jan 2017
They say let’s make it great again.
They say they are American
but I don’t think it’s true
cause I’ve seen our stories
and our histories
and they don’t match like
they’re supposed to.

Seen better men then me
working shifts so long
that their eyes look like
they’ve been cut red with lightning.
At the end of the work day
they strain to stay awake.
Back stiff and popping
but there is no stopping.
They make it home
to see their kids
and do a little playing.
They do a little praying,
hoping that their work today
makes their children’s future better.

I’ve seen immigrants struggling,
learning a language
that is not their own
so, they can work
to buy their own home
and start a little business.
It’s not a dream I would pursue
but I respect the struggle.
Seen that Chinese family
move out and up
working hard and raising children
and in that circle, there is love
cause it’s family that matters.

I’ve seen liars spouting off about
family values
but they do not know
what real families value.
I’ve seen single moms
struggling to escape
the shame of
that so-called welfare state.
I’ve seen a mother of three
working, going to school,
and still making it home in time
to spend time with her kids,
to play and laugh,
to accept and celebrate their strangeness.
I’ve seen a mother staying up late
to hold her troubled daughter
to ease the pain that caused her
beautiful child to do
harm to herself.
I would not trade this truth
for any soft cloth, patriotic symbol.

I’ve seen strangers helping strangers
seen groups of people
putting sand in bags
and bags on top of bags
not to stop the floods from coming
to where they are from
but to give others a chance to live.
I’ve seen
pictures of people who rush into danger
not with guns a blazing
but with bottles of water and blankets,
with food, and shovels,
with hands to move the rubble
digging up the bodies of some
while unburying lost
sisters, fathers, mothers, and brothers.

I do not believe in your America
but if you claim that you do
then you would not do
what you regularly do,
lying about trying to make it great
while your just creating hate.
so, **** making America great again.

I have seen the America you are trying to make
and it is grating.
It is made for flag waving,
bible belt thumping,
poverty, child-abuse, neglect
electric shock conversion therapy
eugenics, lynching, segregation
slavery on plantations,
sexism, racism,
xenophobia, transphobia,
flat Earth creation,
climate change denial,
evolutionary denialist,
police brutality, corruption,
pollution, prisons for profits,
a war on drugs, and
a war on terrorism,
while war profiteering.

Intentional confusion,
dire delusions,
your America is
this paper white illusion.

But we are part of the race
that invented the wheel,
the steam engine,
the radio, the telephone
the tv, the computer,
the cellphone,
the printing press,
the spaceship,
that went to the moon,
put machines on Mars,
that learned to express,
great things in writing,
and painting,

You say let’s make America great again.
I say let’s start the enlightenment again,
start over as a world of friends and kin
hand and hand with grand ideas.
Till we can all feel connected,
and do the unexpected.
Let’s make humanity great again,
Harry Roberts Nov 2017
LGBT
We claim we want acceptance,
But how can you fall under this umbrella
If you hold Hate towards
Your community.

Transphobia, your prejudice
Makes your insecurities transparent.

Biphobia, your intolerance makes
You what you can't tolerate. Hate.

Homophobia, like Biphobia
Love is love
Not preordained
From forces above.

Discrimination could never
Build a nation,
Just change the narrative
To fit the occasion.

Those in Power
DIVIDE AND CONQUER,
You've heard that so why so
Divided.
A small poem expressing how I perceive a division within my "community."
Love to all, Live and Let Live.
julius Jan 2022
this isn't a callout since he's a minor
but we wanted to warn you of his past actions
we do not believe he will change anytime soon

Trigger/Content warnings:
emotional manipulation, suicide, self harm, r slur, n slur, d slur, r//dsk//n slur, c//ntb//y slur, death threats, grooming, violence, racefaking, blackface, disrespecting boundaries/triggers, misgendering, deadnaming, abuse, sexualization of minors and abusive relationships, cheating, antiblack racism, racism against indigenous people, racism against Asian people, Japanese imperialism, alcohol, underage drinking, transmisogyny, transphobia, intersexism, antisemitism, ******

proceed with caution

happy went to a psych ward when he was 12
he has always struggled with [himself]
i knew he was hurting but not until he lashed out
every year he spent christmas away from home with a basket of clothes
i know he he he he i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i

how much could change in just one year
Kole J McNeil Mar 2020
This face I see in the mirror
It doesn’t belong to me
This long hair
These pale blue eyes
Whos are they
They are not mine
They do not belong to me

The people at school do not understand why I hide my body
I hide with baggy clothing and short hair
But everyone can see through this mask I wear
I smile and say I’m fine but they can see every word I say is a lie

So I tell them why I do these thing
“ But why you're such a pretty young girl”
I say not girl and they say woman
I say Boy
They say Girl
I say Kole
They say Maggie

What did I do to deserve this
Whats wrong with my name whats wrong with who I am
I don’t judge people for who they like or who they are of who they want to be
You don’t judge people for dying their hair or changing their nose
But as soon as I say I want to be called a name it’s histarea

Whats wrong with one name
They say “ what next? Do u want to go to the boys locker room and hang out with them.”
Yeah so I feel more comfortable
But no I must fit society
I must be what i'm perceived as
I must be this robot that follows every command

Were fed this false information that anyone who is different is wrong or bad
We must hide from different
We must cage it
As soon as we are perceived as different we become a mouse in a cage full of lions
We get attacked

There are those few how will jump into the lion cage to save the small mouse
But then you get stolen away from your savoir and put in a cage for inspection
They scrutinize every part of you

Im a rainbow in sky full of clouds and I’m all alone
I know there are others but until you come out you are who they made you to be
Then when you do finally say how you feel you get rejected and hated and told you are not valid

I am here to tell every person who has ever felt this way
You are valid and loved and strong
Don’t listen to them

And to those of you who disregard their pronouns or hate them for loving who they love
You are wrong you do not understand everything they could be going through
Take it from someone who knows transphobia and bulling first hand you bullies never win
The small mouse in the cage of lions out smarts all of you and escapes through the bars while you stand stunned and stuck in that cage with no goal now I’m gone
This is for my school talent show and I'm so exited and nervous.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2019
well... i'm happy to say,
it's good to find
something
   that doesn't have
made in china
       written all over it...

joke:
                     a schizophrenic,
a melancholic
and a trans-
   walk into a bar...

yeah, it's funny how
depression is now...
either Norman for Brian...
trans- is all furore...
a zeitgeist fashion show
contra vogue...
  
         ****** ***** bunny
-esque...
               "thing"...
i sampled the vocab.
and i'm like...
    can someone give
me a ******* map for
this labyrinth
of gymnastic benders
and squats
        and backflips?

when the lie is successful,
and i forget to think
about all things
regarding genitals...

  then... akin to blaire white:
you find yourself,
having just found:
           a ******* unicorn!

they say that pain defines
reality,
   but also a potent lie...
a lie that convinces you...
i think that's called
a blue pill moment...

but blue pill moments are
rarer,
and there is no shattering
foundation for "reality"
to reorganize itself...

hence the title:
made in thailand...
because, this can't be some,
european invention
when it seems to date
back to thailand
where it's pop,
          just, plain Norman...

it doesn't help,
that even with the anglo- prefix
to my suffix of -slav
   is still...
somehow, morbidly curious...

but nowhere is schizophrenia
Norman...
         for the Brian...
in current day England...
as long you exfoliate,
dear one,
   as long as...
            
       so what's up with this
cue for the epidemic
      of premature depression...
schizophrenia was called
premature dementia
back in Estonia where
it was first observed...

             but... luckily...
it still remains,
       in the verbreitetsprechen
(common talk)...
   a metaphorical allusion...
splintered ego...
   what if r. d. laing were alive
today...
     clearly the exploits
of crafting a hierarchy
                       of misery...

well... in england i'm used
to it...
    bilingualism is the new
schizophrenia...
   the point of integrating
into this society...
sure, learn the tongue...
and forget your native tongue...
can't i keep it?
  no! no!
   you have to shed it!
well...
       couldn't two tongues
come in handy...
like... going back "home"
  and translating a business
transaction for you?
no! no!
   **** me... that's harsh...
so why don't your people
learn... fwench?

a schizophrenic
a melancholic
  and a trans-
   walk into the bar...

what a day...
                  1 to 100?
really... that's the ratio possibility
of schizophrenia?
  thank god this condition
cannot be normalized...

      depression
    is just too common
already...
       as a phenomenon
affecting youth
                  i'm worried...

but this whole thai surprise?
i would have spent
a more productive two
hours watching a washing machine
go through
  the cycle of washing
bath towels
    and a paraphernalia
     of underwear...
      than having to listen
to a leech vocab. / boa vocab.
complex...

    i have mine too...
            but... i'm only adamant
about having one,
in order to become:
  spelling-fluid...
                   what?
   i'm not going to just give
up...
              an investment
of my time, to how words are
communicated...

sure, call me a grammar ****...
but i don't do emoji...
   never have, never will...
ergo?
   i think i'm sort of a quasi-Levi...
take on inscribing
this be Latin
         text on a modern variation
of hieroglyphs...

again, blaire white...
   if the lie doesn't sell,
and the person in questions
comes off as... silence of the lambs
style buffalo ******* bill...
what is, "transphobia", exactly?

short-circuit...
   what, the, ****, are, these,
people, talking, about?
         you want me to compare
a ******* gucci product
with some Vietnamese pirate
spin-off fake?

short-circuit...
              i can't do that...
                        people have this
concept of forgery,
associated with art paintings...
you're telling me...
the same cannot be applied
to humans?
            
                 there are standards,
and there are categories,
for the simple purpose of
                   a per se "manifesto
of manifestation...
no one likes a ******
magic trick...
             if this is magic...
it's a the sixth sense type of
magic trick of the shaking
of the hands and the moving
penny...
                 it's macabre...
       no one tells a bad magician...
short-circuit...
      how can anyone...
even begin...

         even begin to...
            i'd pay for a good
magic trick...
                      but to simply
be sold a cheap magic trick...
there's no in-between
relating to man or trans or woman...

blaire white
    can says she's trans...
   but my head is already
doing the automated "thinking"
in engaging a doubt
   that borders on negation
of what she's saying,
given what is before my eyes...
that's soothing...

       on a minor note:
yeah, the mannerisms are...
               so-so...
                     maybe i haven't
watched enough teenage girl
videos with the whole:
flick of the hair...
              and no,
i'm not planning to...

               but,                come on...  
you're talking
to Norman who's talking
to Brian
   who's looking at...
     less in your face criticism
and more,
having once ******-off
to a Bronzino...
    the subtle eroticism
of the shy emerging tongue
from Venus' lips...
    in venus, cupid,
       time and love
...

trans- is already a counterfeit
of a woman...
   but there's also a counterfeit
of trans-,
   and... i can't entertain
digging a trench into this
ideological circus...
        by coining up a name...
for... whatever happens,
as life shows,
                whenever
a counterfeit of trans-
               is to be taken, seriously,
outside the cabaret voltaire
agenda of a drag queen;
which is what the current
   "trans-" agenda has proved...
the nepotism of drag queens...
      despotism, blah blah, whatever...

or there's just wishing
having spent 2 hours
watching a washing machine
go through a cycle.
Mateuš Conrad Jun 2021
i shouldn't be writing this... it's too mediocre: or, rather: just ****** obvious... i have to elevate this impromptu with higher thoughts: this bottle of cheap wine just finished has given me a sinister, wry, teenage girl sort of a smile: where ha ha deafens since you're laughing inside your own head... it's hochnacht... only yesterday i raged with a silent scream... i'm not going to wake the neighbours up... when the writing flows freely and it feels good: once upon a time... the howling and the laughter... i have come to the realisation that i require restraints... the silence scream almost dislodged my jaw... a bottle of wine and i'm all squinty eyed... absolutely content, thinking about tomorrow's dinner... what will i conjure... well... i haven't had prawns in a long while... a prawn carbonara... 2nd bottle of wine or take the shorter route with a night-cap of whiskey? ah... decisions decisions... if drinking doesn't **** me: let's just say i'll be midly irritated: but most certainly disappointed...

this is the original:

at least while in Russian i didn't have to spend
the time bothered about totalitarian democracy...
mob rule... however authoritarian
the Russian model is... no political ambitions:
beside the ambitions to live a simple life:
political correctness: but i'm not a politician...
to live among people politicised to the point where:
every second person might be Babushka doll tyrant
with micro-pet-peeves:

i can't actually improve on it...
unlike drink-driving...
drink-writing is... jumbled up with:
the deed of Pontius Pilate:
i was my hands clean
i drown my tongue...
   the much needed lubricant i always claim:
plus... i can claim...
what's that legal term...
gross negligence?
         it's not ****** it's manslaughter...
i'm not going to stand trial:
by any mob...
i was drunk all the way through: me Lowd...
i could be held accountable
if i had a sober: hard-on for what i was
writing... perhaps i'm writing without
conviction... or rather: the drink allows me
to decorate my "conviction" with
floral patterns of digression...
i really don't see how someone sober
can treat a drunk's words seriously...
but it's there as a lubricant...
again: to reiterate...
writing is not driving a car...
i can't be held accountable on these
being sober convictions...

coming back to Russia...
well... hasn't democracy reached a pivot
of its history that makes it:
lacklustre?
democracy is status quo...
democracy is more bureaucracy than
   it was a democracy when the barons
came together and attacked king John...
it was a democracy
during the years of electoral monarchy
in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...
i veto: i never vote...
i tried once... but the paperwork
suffocated my interest to do so...
if everyone is involved in: "democracy"
then sooner rather than later
it degenerates into political correctness...
i'm not a politician: or for that matter
a rhetorician: why should i care what words
might: words get things done...
words allow being to do and be...
things will never be equipped with words...
i lie: i can arm a knock on wood
with a terrible onomatopoeia...
besides the point...

               in Russian i wouldn't expect to find myself
in a quasi-Stasi curriculum...
my fellow citizen leaves me: as i invite him
as suspect?!
that's not fair on the project: citizenship:
civility... oddly enough politicians are
hardly involved in matters that truly bother people...
wait... wasn't i supposed to recount
the *** i've had: let it drag out for a few
more entries before fizzling out
while i might return to my eclectic tastes?

all of a sudden... there's no: "oh... suddenly"...
that Walt Whitman reference...
prove your point...
that i once went to a gay bar with my cousin
that i allowed my *** to be groped...
that i allowed a man to put a tongue in my mouth...
that i have kissed men with tenderness:
of note... Ben... Tristan's friend from Bristol...
one night of all nights:
Hogmanay...              i'd steal pieces of Paris
and give it unto Edinburgh...
Paris first... Edinburgh second...
and there was St. Petersburg and Moscow...
Venice and Amsterdam... Stockholm...
Warsaw... Athens 3rd... because of the strip-club...
there was Barcelona and there was also Mombasa...
eh... Paris 1st... Edinburgh 2nd...

otherwise? oh... did you watch the France vs. Swiss
match? i missed the Spain vs. Croatia game:
i was watching some Whim-Bled-Don...
never mind...
it's good to see a plateau...
the ol' David vs. Goliath...
   or how... kylian mbappé became: fully human...
i don't like schadenfreude...
it must be a trait of the Germanic people...
even if they later dilute their blood with the Welsh
and the Celts and become Anglo-Saxons...
it's not that i fear: c.c.t.v. karma...
i just find pleasure in the sensation...
but it was beautiful to watch a talented,
aspiring footballer come against his first
proper: hurdle... like the rest of us...
almost as beautiful as the whole match was:
come on... after the missed penalty...
then 1 -1, 2 - 1, 3 -1... ending up being 3 - 3 and
unresolved in extra time...
then the roulette of penalties...
rarely can a football match be this: beautiful...
truly... as much as i love the soloists in
tennis... it's impossible to compare:
chalk is cheese... some might say...

- why are so many national anthems:
anaemic?
i only have a few national anthems that i like...
not via bias: the ****** Mazurek Dąbrowskiego...
the H'American: the Star-Spangled Banner...
Russian "The Internationale"
the French La Marseillaise
hell... thrown in the Shvabs
und zee Bavzarians with their Uber Alles...

oddly enough not the English anthem...
isn't it enough that Auld Lang Syne
beats all the above, songs?
i don't like international football:
sure... too much money in club sport
but i never want to feel as part of something
greater: bigger... not from the confines
of a football match...
no... sure: to be part of something bigger...
but not from the starting point
of a football match...
     i watch the game for the sake of it being
a game... how some people arrive at
a conclusion that it's a religion:
how they procreate and later
come to passing on their support allegiance to
club (let alone country) to their children?

well... something had to fill the void
if the original religion wasn't up for proper scratches:
so much for secularism...
i don't underestimate the value of said: new
religion... but we're still "talking" about sport...
hence my love for the underappreciated sports
at the Olympics: classical Greek wrestling...
table-tennis... archery...
and all the solo sports that also pay well:
like tennis...

bringing a flag of the individual to an event
should be seen as a faux pas...
it's a shame that it sometimes happens...

- yeah... why are so many national anthems:
anaemic... forgettable?
the Spanish and the Italians have ****** anthems...
suppose the Norwegians had a decent anthem:
oh, just because Norway produced a Grieg...
but Norway didn't produce a Grieg:
Grieg produced Grieg...
that's my problem with the lasso of:
national ownership of the people that stand out...
i'm not going to bombast this dear reader
with a quote by some ancient Greek philosopher
living in a city-state who was quoted as
saying: i'm the citizen of the world!

the current vicinity is my world:
i sometimes extend it when i cycle towards St. Paul's
cathedral...
how people become so... engrossed in their
football teams... that they pass on the banner
of support... allegiance to their children:
i don't think smart people reproduce...
i don't see the point of passing on my...
   shortcomings...
added the fact that i can entertain myself:
just pretty **** dandy well while...
seeing demon faces in clouds at night...

or faces in trees... pareidolia...
but they're not human faces...
i'd cite pareidolia  if someone accuses dear reader
of transphobia: whereas arachnophobia is
tingly: real...
well... what can one do:
if something is relocated into the crab-bucket
of shared-experience: a phenomenon...
anyone with a questionable sanity will
still pursue finding himself: his self:
via establishing working parameters of
the noumenon: the res-per-se... Kantian:
i wouldn't settle for a phenomenological
answer... i guess that' my "original sin"...

to state oneself unique...
not spaz-y'all... special...
  it's a conundrum to be and not be...
unquestionable dictations that repeat themselves:
like the years and the seasons that rummage through
them... the tides of the seas
and the burdens of earthquakes that
rumble like the sounds of a starved stomach...

i still fall asleep to...
christopher young's hellraiser II: hellbound
soundtrack most of the nights...
horror music: done proper...
the only romance...
the wine helps... he's no Prokofiev with
that Lt. Kije Suite... but...
i never seem to get bored:
i'd love to be this grand architect of dreams...
i fall asleep and fall into the abyss:
i'd imagine dreams to be...
             obstructions...
i'm almost glad since that one great adventure
of death is: tilting given the years...
i'm yet to make my own...
well... concerning the dead:
it takes nine months of mr. tadpole...
and several more to get memory functioning
before consciousness is arrived at:
memory comes prior to imagination...
memory is cinema:
a welcome cinema: if you can honestly account for
yourself:
the odd nights when you were found drunk
in public somehow don't matter:
asking for a police escort because you were
immobilised: m'eh...

ugh... such anaemic anthems...
of all the people in the world: the Italians have
an anaemic anthem...
a spaghetti bundle of murmur and morose...
how?

good to know: an interlude of a shot of ms. amber
between all that's: in vino veritas etc. etc.
in vino: vivo!
life: blood the bundle of hopes...
i might be deemed cowering into a corner
****** by shadows and succubus delusions...
i stated it felt cold while cycling through
the heat of cement of central London
wearing an 1813 t-shirt with a depiction
of the EISENKREUZ...

my ******* were hard and pinched...
it wasn't cold...
was i a breast-feeding ***** of a dog
or something?
i noticed a stare or two...
i started to blame it on the fabric...
later on the detergent...
how do we begin to fathom: dreams?
not the content of dreams: but dreams per se...
i have one memorable dream:
although i have so little...
running on an abstract that was a *****
while men imitating sheep were rolling down
chased by demons chopping their heads
off while i was... saving them from...
falling into the depth of nothing...

i was a teenager back then...
eh...
     so much for Freud and the altar of metaphor-objects...
insinuation-objects: or whatever the hell
you want to call a cucumber "if" it "isn't"!

- i know how alcoholics operate...
ooh! oh! suddenly the outbursts of "amnesia":
i call it a moral hangover...
they never bother to trace their deeds while
in the process of drinking...
what am i doing, while drinking?
i write...
i've seen at least one of my grandfathers
succumb to the drink without ever producing
some depth to his drinking...
unlike my father the near teattottle (****... 23
google result... tease me... add one more
obscure word...

teetotal on the topic of alcohol consumption:
well... it's probably genetic...
he had sleeper genes... the grandfathers worked
in the metallurgy industry...
not drinking would seem daft...
but seeing how my maternal gran-
managed to break my grandmothers hand...
most alcoholics will not account for their deeds:
drink and write: what drinker writes?
perhaps this is why i suspect all that's
ever written within the framework of
sobriety?

chevalier: mult estes guaritz...
i drink and listen to medieval songs...
why wouldn't you?
hell: if the moon is the right blue:
i'll swerve toward listening to an Adhan...

hey presto! teattottle rag... a googlewhack...
teattottle dig... another...

but i drink with accounts...
       i'm not going to... stumble into:
quasi-narcolepsy...
ingest some neuroleptic (anti-psychotic)
drugs: yes... yes...
the agitated soul (the sigma of animation)
disgruntled with a body: per se...
transgenderism can take a back seat
when it comes to: being disgruntled with
the body... eh... merely the focus on ***...
is... base... pointless...
the body is rock...
the mind is water... the posit for
consecrating oneself with animation is air...
gender-"confusion" is still bound to the quote:

to angels - vision of god's throne -
to insects - sensual lust...

to be this entombed with the ownership of this
carcass... to elevate ***-change therapies
over... cancer-treatment...
selfish *******: don't you think?
oh... wait... in a "democracy": i'm not supposed to judge...
the minority holds the sway: swerve...
argument...
and why is it that i drink?
sober people with all their self-aggrandizing
posturing...
they don't believe: half... halve the half and halve it
some more and more...
they still won't believe it...
their fellow citizen... comrade has been endowed
with powers that might make them:
buckle... or stipend themselves with
taking a knee to some ghostly authority...

again: i can't enjoy the suffering of others:
i've delved too much into the mime language of
animals...
there's no pleasure in seeing something
expected of civility be reduced to:
this heap of dung and bleeding *******...
it's no fun... if there was ever the noble savage...
i imagine myself the antonym:
the savage civilian...
oh how the subversion gummy squad of
pink breeding brine and brown
how they come at words...

what's next? i replace letters with...
chopsticks imitating Morse code? tap tap tap...
tap tap... tap... tap tap tap tap... tap tap... tap?!

- i like writing during the night: because...
i'm comforted by the... "image":
reality... of other people being asleep
while... the same people later wake up
and have to... succumb to a formality of language...
i never liked formal language...
language of the: "expected":
at times a misnomer "..."
other times a metaphor... with gagging rights
to shoot with bullets of ridicule...

not when the minority hold sway over
the majority:
with each chance to vote: i veto my right
to vote...
there was a time when
the majority held values to uphold the status
of minority: but since then
the minority wants to sway
the argument of the majority:
have your whittle rainbow gimp ****...
without me!

no! nein! nein! nie! niet!
i admire Russia...
if the people require a leash and a muzzle:
the thrills of freedom get in the way
of keeping **** together?!
so be it!
   these ******* westerners and their
"concerns" of "freedom":
**** me... what good is "fweedom"
when it becomes oppressive in the hands
and tongues of the many?
it's one thing when it holds its finicky sway
in the hands of the few
but among us everyday greyish folk?

once upon a time...
the king and the democratic barons...
now... the Russian tyrant
and the piggish suckling at the ****
oligarchs...
hell... if i owned a dog... and i was drinking:
the ****** "thing" would probably bark
at me as it barked at my grandfather...
thank god i own a cat...

i drink and just show it more tenderness...
a bit like i do with prostitutes...
i'm no Jack the ol' Ripper...
i give us much love as can be allowed...
and give some more... to sprinkle some salt
on the already available wounds...
i'll love and love more until it starts to ache...
i don't want to understand women:
i love them too much in their freedoms:
working from some previously gained
or otherwise...

i don't want to understand women:
hence? i chose to delight myself on some stumbling
block of clarity...
now... if they can't understand this:
to hell with being loved:
to be feared! as a man...
i fizzle through the static and watch myself
become: potential... the ugliest potential
i've already cited...
perhaps my words will agitate someone to
do a synchronised bidding?
you never know...

  blah... blah... and more gagging: blah.
Graff1980 Dec 2023
Straight out of the gate
if you’re standing with hate
then you are my nemesis,
so vacate the premises
because your premise is
parallel to white supremacists.
Your weakness is obvious.
Our problems can’t be solved
by ignorance that abolishes
any semblance of human decency.

Life’s strange variety helps society
overcome unforeseen calamities,
create new works of art
and science that moves us
from here to where we could be
traveling universally,
whilst expanding intellectually.

Your violence
doesn’t help human beings;
It loosens the strings
that tie us together.
Defining a stranger
as a danger
because of their color,
imaginary borders,
or gender identity
doesn’t serve to
strengthen our foundations
but turns earth to rot
as those who have a lot
use the wealth they got
to disseminate hatred,
and take more and more.

I know you love it,
but take your Sexism,
Transphobia, Racism,
and discrimination
and shove it.

-2022 December
Brandi the Brave Feb 2022
Well you readers knew everything about my church now. My friends and all of the drama that has happened in my life.
Clearly I haven't brought up my Christian/Catholic community. My church is one thing and the society is another.
The patriarchal system in my town is the worst. The sexism is rampant here. I mean in this town has homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and xenophobia happens. Most people in my town are raised in the churches here. There are many queers but no pride parades in my town.
Being mentally disabled, bisexual and liberal meant my thoughts on this town aren't popular then again neither was I.
I like to think I broke the mold because in middle school since being a nerd who loves music and books didn't make me fit in. The popular kids wanted me to fit in but I didn't as hard as they tried.
My edges couldn't be dulled and my intelligence came with my snarky attitude.
Tanzim Ahmed Sep 2018
Dear Poets,
We are enough broken shards of a heart
To give pieces of our self to a room full of strangers.

We are sell-out poetry halls and protests;
Last pages of the stashed notebooks
and lines of poetry found missing in the trash via ****, racism, misogyny,
transphobia, mental illness
and bruising everyday beauty with stillness.

We are part confessions,
Part of ballroom whispers rehearsing the lines of our broken homes behind the two closed doors of our cozy streets.

Amidst hopes and tear streams,
We are found muffling our own screams.

We talk to the mirror as if we want it to respond.
We hold tight to ourselves,
We do not want to be lost.

We are blasting furnaces of anger
and castles of calming ice;
Ripping our chest open and screaming,
"I'm hurt,
I'm breaking,
But I'm breathing.
And this is where I am beautiful,
And this is where I will breathe."

Dear Poets,
We behold our existence into the dark of the day
And bright of the night.

We do what we do
Because we know it's not wrong,
It's right.
My love to all the poets out there

— The End —