seeing my
[zombie]/[dead] name
doesn’t necessarily bring me pain
it’s really just the expectation of
family
or spam mail of each variety
[either way, i kind of just roll my eyes
and get on with my day]
nonbinary
January 12, 2023
if i write
what i always needed
as a child
what might that be?
because i was pretty satisfied
when i was that age
of the grand adventures
and imaginative natures
of many of the stories
with heroes who looked
a lot like
me
but what i need now
is to have noticed i needed then
a mix between girl and boy/
that any harsh division
is unnecessary/
and that i don’t/didn’t need to carry
the weight of an entire gender
on my young shoulders.
should i write
a protagonist
who thinks that?
or would they simply come off
as
your early 2000’s Mary Sue
(and since when has that stopped
any aging white boy
from doing
pretty much
exactly that?)
January 4, 2023
i’m not a boy
or a girl
or a human really
i’m just a chaotic mess
a bundle of sads and stress
stuck together
hiding
in a trenchcoat
trying to get tickets
to something
i probably shouldn’t see
you feel me?
December 20, 2022
ten years ago
i
was bored at my home
ten years ago
i
felt community thirty minutes away
(at a college i never attended)
ten years ago
i
called out to my friends to see
if anyone would be
excited for me
to come hang out that evening
ten years ago
i
happened to [re-]meet the love of my life
and this time we were both ready
available
and actually looking
pondering each other for
conquest
and connection
but
it is not this day that we count
as our official anniversary
ten years ago today
was a preamble
a flirtation
a stuttering step towards
a beginning
tomorrow
will be the actual anniversary:
that post-midnight
that coming together
that “end of the world”
that, even if it did actually end,
and this is all a simulation in someone else’s head,
at least we got a chance to meet and be together
ten years ago
the best thing that ever happened to me
was
you
and for the past ten years
that has continued
to be
true
November 20, 2022
i wrote a snarky poem
for Trans Week of Awareness
telling y’all to be aware of me:
my gender, chaotic
my joy, revolutionary.
and still i talked about our siblings who are silenced
through legislation
through societal constraints
through direct, abhorrent violence–
but for an act so violent
to be what wakes me up
on Trans Day of Remembrance…
it just feels too
too
too too
much
i have no conclusion to this poem
Stop
Killing
Us.
October 24, 2022
i wonder
if my mother
would have been great
at getting my pronouns
right
would she have stood up for me
at family gatherings
corrected people
when i wasn’t near
would she have been
the ally
i needed
to come out
with a bang
instead of this subtle
exhausting
whispered
coming out
over
and over
and over
again
every time
a ‘she’ is uttered
or a ‘ladies’ is announced
or any of those microaggressions
my gender dysphoria
insists
are actual aggression
i don’t know
i wish i knew
but i really don’t
she was an ally of all queer folks she knew
(I know 100% she’d have been to my wedding
would have celebrated like the world was ending
when she knew mine was just beginning
because that’s just the way she was)
but gender is somehow harder
and the in-between confuses even the best
of allies
and i don’t want to put her up on a pedestal
nor do i want to underestimate her devotion
to a me she never got to see
i only knew her for eleven and three quarters years
and i have memories of less
she is both the person i was closest to
and the biggest mystery of my life
and i just wish
i could guess
what it would be like
to have her
stand up
for me
October 19, 2022
had big enough feels
to feel the need
to express it
sans poetry
via prose
and who knows
how that ended up
but i might re-read
and edit
and submit it
at a later date
so folks who might not know
start to understand
how emotional labor
takes its
toll
October 16, 2022
a word
to those
who misgender:
if we stop correcting you
it does not mean
it’s all right
in fact
the opposite
is true;
it hits us
hard
each time
to the point
where
we simply
shut down.
the energy to stand up for oneself
drains more and more
each instance
July 26, 2022
Poetry is not a luxury
i did not know Audre Lorde was the one who said this,
but she did
Poetry is not a luxury
it thought it meant it was not just for the upper crust
but a necessity for those without means
too
to fulfill artistic desires
inherent in human nature
for both survival
and for thriving
Poetry is not a luxury
she meant it as something more
as a necessity for communication
for the entirety of human species
but one that comes from
femininity
ok, she didn’t break it down like i do—
hers was the solid break
from men to women
from thought-based to art-based
from one solid half to another
but i think, had Audre Lorde been aware of
and exposed to
the identities we now know,
i think she would have given to the world
even more nuance—
the mixture of male and female
in all of us
and how two halves
are not half and half
and forever split
down the middle,
but how we can hold
the wholeness
in ourselves
and become a luxury
all on our
own
~~~~~~~~~
note: i am only two essays into to my copy of Sister Outsider–there may be new nuance coming, or thoughts on masculinity/femininity in each of us in poetry of hers, i just haven’t gotten to it in my reading
yet
July 5, 2022
i’ll never think flags
are dumb
again.
while there are flags for every
little
sexuality
gender
identity
feeling
fandom
these days
(even the different states in america have their own flag!
and cities!!
it’s getting ridiculous, guys…)
and the ‘meanings’ behind the colored stripes
i often find
a little forced
but
i know of multiple
*multiple*
people
(some i knew personally,
some i only heard their story from their mouth
over a little known
‘clock app’)
who, being non-binary, never felt ‘trans enough’
‘yes’ they’d think to themselves,
‘trans means someone who does not identify
as the gender they were assigned
at birth,
but i’ve had no transition
social/
hormonal/
surgical/
how does that really imply
*trans*-gender?’
and then they’d learn that the white stripe in the middle
of the trans pride flag
is for non-binary folks specifically.
‘i see myself in the trans flag’ their faces of delighted surprise seemed to say
‘i am trans enough—
i mean, i’m part of the damn flag!’
and i recently learned about the disability pride flag
(it had a re-design so those with sight sensitivities
could scroll and not be assaulted by the
zig-zag making strobe effects on their screens)
and i’ve been trying to do more research into the disability community,
one i admired from afar,
and read about,
and wondered if any of my strange nerve pains are
an invisible illness sneaking up on me,
or if my glasses are enough of a mobility aid to think of them as such,
or, still, if my depression/anxiety interrupt my day-to-day
in this world built for neurotypicals
to even imagine them as disabilities.
but in learning about the disability pride flag
and what those colors mean
and that blue stripe
right there
calls out mental illness—
very
obviously
states
that mental illness
is part
of the disability
community
and i have never breathed such a loaded sigh
of relief
of pride
of protection
of fear
of the weight of what it means
to be disabled in a culture
that would rather pretend a global pandemic
is over
than admit that disabled people
are bearing the brunt
of the deaths and tragedies from it
so
even though
i take on most of my mental illness
in isolation
(except for some poems
here and there
in this here daily poetry blog)
i’m starting to think of myself
as one who has community
rather than one
without
kipventures 