#transwriting

Why can’t gender be as simple as which state you come from? Like, no one questions if you were REALLY born in Oregon or Arkansas, they just trust that you know best where you grew up. A lot of the time I tell people I’m from New Hampshire but I’m REALLY from Maine. Some days I tell people I’m “from” both states, and other days I used whichever one best fits my mood and personality that day… for example, there are some days I am showing more of my traits I grew in Maine than I am which I grew in New Hampshire, and visa versa. Now I know that people who haven’t moved around much or people who have grown in only one place their whole life, probably don’t feel that. But what I’m saying, is that just as sure as you are from where you grew up, understand that others are just as sure as you too; knowing where they belong, even if it’s different than what you know to be true. When it all boils down to it, I’m telling you to be tolerant towards people’s genders the same way you’re tolerant about asking which state someone is from. Just as much as the next guy, I’m not getting caught up in silly things such as debating where someone is actually come from…if they match the name on the state ID, if they fit the criteria society has made up of that region- if they look the part, talk the part…have the parts. Accept that whoever you encounter is the master of their own story,  and frankly, you are no one to tell that person they are wrong for what truth they live in this universe. You are no one to judge. You are no one to object. You are no one to assume. Let gender be as light hearted as where we come from, because after all, hell, don’t we get a say in where we end up?

(Bricks)

The borderline bores breaking backs of bites

Resting after stressing and muscles tense in protest

The sweat is the skins bile that crawls in swarms

The echoes from the left cast shadows beyond light

The ringing from right ready shields for a rough ride

The nape of your instinct on the bricks

Advocation isn’t a cry for help, its making a scene

And surviving can only mean never being seen 

Love’s on our minds, but a touch isn’t fine

Showers with the guys would end our short lives

Glance to the right, this is a waste of time

Glare to the left, that would be a crime

Backs on the bricks

These ticks in your skin swell in a spin

Pull upward to breathe a final breath

Dive downward to see how grief and injustice met

Interlock a in-between squeezed tease of being incomplete

Pacing to the right without a place to hide

Spacing to the left to avoid a sudden violent rest

Teeth grinding and scraping on the bricks

Stones will break my bones, but they forgot the sticks

Multicolor blood stains the cold bricks

Gentle doves smashed against the bricks

A child's voice lost from swallowing the bricks

A boy caught in a braid beaten by the bricks

A girl caked in mud from the field limping on the bricks

The parade of warriors cheering for those of us who succumbed to the bricks

And an army of pride cries for the We who finally escaped the bricks

With a sigh in the wind for ones that are yet to be mauled by the bricks

- I am not a poet. I do not plan to ever really be one, but this is something that is on my mind frequently. As people of this community we all face our own round of the bricks. Homelessness, homophobia, isolation, loneliness, abuse, you name it. This piece was written outside of the boys and girls locker room one Monday morning a while back, a morning after I had cried myself to sleep (which is not unusual). Every day, for my own safety, I am to dress in the office so I don’t get assaulted or what have you. As everyone else gets dressed, I am stuck between the two doors, and both worlds feel unsafe to me. I know that they are. I see and feel how they look at me, almost in a challenge, and they want me to overstep boundaries so they can strike. Every day I just sit against this rough brick wall and wonder to myself when in Gods name will I feel accepted anywhere?

The day I quit seeking the approval of a man, I accepted myself as the one I’ve always been.

This was also the same year Christmas changed because it was my first lesson about learning that sometimes the box had nothing to do with what was inside of it.

And sometimes the box didn’t even exist at all,

every so often the gifts were things with just a neatly tied on bow…

And aren’t we the gifts, with bow ties and flower dresses,

trying to resist the movement that we must fit into a shoebox?

Like, my mother taught me that daddy’s shoes were too big,

like, the first time I tried them on she said “sweetie, don’t wear those, you look so silly” —

I am tired of caring about what you think looks silly.

The day I became a man, I let no one walk all over me,

no shoes too big to fill because I decided my path was mine; my life was mine.

You see, the thing about multiple genders existing in society is that it actually doesn’t exist at all,

they just need a place to put us.

And so I’m walking in these shoes laughing at who judges me,

because there was a time you swam in your shoes too,

dreaming of the person you might become,

growing into what fits you the absolute best.

Like a man,

I keep my head up.

Like a man,

I walk tall,

Like a man,

shoulders back,

Like a man,

‘cause I am a man,