nonbinary poetry

October 16, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

the trauma was not good;
no amount of “things happen for a reason” will change that,
it was unfair, unfathomable, wildly wrong.
but how i choose to deal with the trauma,
how i have survived thus far,
and how i choose to keep on going,
that is where the beauty lies.

and i can adjust my own coping mechanisms;
make them healthier, make them stronger,
for nothing is truly “good” or “bad”
“positive” or “negative”
but there are healthier and not so healthy,
things that help me access my emotions
and perform acting in a real, vulnerable, and honest way,
and that is how i choose to keep going
(start going? this is technically all new to me…)

and, similarly,
there is no “recovered” vs. “not recovered”
there is in recovery and the levels therein.
but one level does not disappear once you move on to the next
they are uneven steps existing in a labyrinth
that sometimes require backtracking to continue on.
and if i can look at my own mental health
in a way
that is
Non-Binary
(just like me!)
then maybe,
just maybe,
i can make friends with my trauma
(and how i felt it initially/since)
and understand a little bit more about me
in the aftermath…

July 24, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

fuck dead names
give me the story of your living name;
the reason you chose it
(or it chose you),
tell me the person you knew with that name
who you always looked up to,
tell me the tv show you stole your new name from.
i don’t care what your parents gave you at birth,
it was a gift/a label/a force that didn’t stick,
(just like gender)
that doesn’t tell me about you,
your choices,
your wants and desires,
what draws you to certain characters/names/stories.
tell me your story,
i don’t care how long and convoluted it is,
i don’t care if you can only tell me half the story
because the other half is too personal,
give me the half you can give;
did someone give you a nickname that stuck?
did you wholly make up your name,
and that felt much more apt than anything pre-prescribed from society?
tell me about your living name,
because i want to know about
the living you.

July 13, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i have been filled
recently
with inspiration
true inspiration
flowing inspiration
from all over
and this morning
i had
*something*
i wanted to write about
to explore in words
to contemplate out loud
[on doc]
but it’s left me
dry
and i’ve hated everything i’ve started so far
so maybe a prompt is the way to go???

~~~

are poems of dreams
really more interesting
than a telling of that same
dream?

a prompt told me to write
out
a dream i remember
in as much detail
as i can remember

but here’s the catch:
my dreams
(like my thoughts)
are conceptual,
abstract
(at least in what i remember,
retain;
the dreams themselves are pretty mundane)

i remember
[maybe]
[possibly]
dreaming of the pants
i decided to wear today
deep pockets
large legs
flowing around
but still split
my nicknamed ‘gender euphoria pants’
because they are technically genderless
and anyone can wear them
it’s just a lot of people don’t
and i think my gender is not aligned
with the male or the female
the man or the woman
but instead
i’d call my gender
Cryptid.
(so anything that sets me
ever so slightly apart,
that makes you go “i think that was a human,
but i’m not entirely sure”
that’s me
that’s my gender
that’s my euphoria)
but i think i dreamed of these pants
reaching into the pocket
not finding the bottom exactly where i expected
and maybe there was something important there
and maybe i did eventually find it
and maybe there were other people/places/things inside this dream
but what i remember
are the pants
and the reach
and that’s it.

was that actually interesting content???

~~~

(i wonder if there are any of our animals
who are trans
and would rather be
“misgendered” by strangers
than have us
continually
“correct” them.
i think this might be why
i so rarely actually correct the stranger.
i’ll use the pronoun i know them as,
but not make a big deal out of it
(unless we’re at the vet
and it might affect the type of care)
but just in case
the animal gets some gender euphoria
every time a stranger
refers to them
by the “opposite gender”
than i know them as
i don’t want to come barreling in
with a correction
that is not
actually
correct.)

July 12, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i don’t know why
it never occurred to me
to use my “weaknesses” as strengths
in acting.

i always pondered using my
quick-to-cry
sensations
as a way to
trick
my body
into crying on cue

but that never worked

and i think the key word there
is
“trick.”

i consider my passions
my caring too much
my crying when i’m frustrated
as the “bad” parts of my personality
mostly because they do get in the way
of living a normal life

but i don’t live a normal life

i’m an actor
and rather
than trick my subconscious
into using the base reactions
of my weaknesses as strengths
what if i actually and fully used my whole “weaknesses”
as my strengths?

i’m passionate,
so passionate,
i sometimes can’t decide
on which side
i align
(i solidly stand on the side of progress and compassion,
but with so much wrong with the world,
it’s difficult to concentrate
on just one issue,)
so i so often feel
overwhelmed
and lost
and without an outlet to create actual change
and i often force myself to try to decide
on just one
but
i’ve always considered my social justice life
and my acting life,
while influenced by social justice,
separate
(unless i’m performing in a thing
that is aiming towards creating
social changing)
but, just like i need to stop expecting
neurotypicality
from me
i also need to acknowledge that
as a queer, nonbinary, trans person
my existence holds in it
social change,
and my performing
any script
holds the passion
for some of the social change
of which i seek

and i know what my body/brain/mouth/soul feels
when i discuss a topic
about which i care deeply
and i can take that
and bring it
to other topics,
and i can cater my auditions
to those where passion is forefront
not to change my weaknesses into strengths
but to acknowledge
that all the things i thought were weak
are in fact
so
damn
strong.