dyke !

[Images ID: an original poem titled 'S/He':

faceless thing, boots roots through the earth, locking twisting seeking to grab onto anything that might know them. to fall means death, to be alone is to fall, but I have only known the alone, the undeath, the fading to transparency.

faceless thing, a woman without makeup is without a face. your breasts curve under that wife pleaser and yet and yet

your hair is a quiffed wave catching the sun, your sides too close to the skin to grab at. you wear your father’s eyes, his lips, you do not hide nor distort them. your existence, your broad shoulders, your persistence is all too too much like like

you wear a belt like a husband. but no woman waits for you at the end of the rainy night. it is you, wearing your alone like a raincoat, walking the wet iridescent Brixton roads. you left those Old Compton bars without a single word said to you, all looking through your faceless head. you are a woman without a face, a man without a cock, a bull without a matador – and an ageing bull at that. you are floating in this space an anomaly, an inconsistency, an incongruity

not the right dyke for the bars and not the right woman for the streets. you melt through the gutters with the waterlogged fags and wash up in the pile of night’s collections to be forgotten about.

young boi, pick your self up. no-one is going to wring you out, no matter how long you wait. baby butch, pick your self up pick your self up, your vulnerabilities are showing – you have to always be on your guard. slick back your hair and face the streets, your face is the streets, own them or succumb to them.

catch the first early train back out to the suburbs, away from the greying queens and overpriced drinks, extending back into your tory town where even a dyed head could make the news. past your local pub, Sovereign of the Seas, but you must be sovereign of these streets. men watch you closely, you must hold your own in their gaze, one little fumble and you’ll fall under the seas where the lighthouse can’t reach you. you’re no more alone than you were in Soho

maybe even less so. your lonely shadow unwraps from your shoulders and extends to its full length, uninterrupted by the hope of bodies.

the other week, two girls got off the bus at my ex-council estate. dressed in all black, one wearing an I love my girlfriend shirt. I hope things are different for them. I hope they don’t need to learn to stand on broken legs.

-Ren H.