heyy i was asked to participate in a poetry event in my county and they wanted queer poets to write and perform about experiences as an lgbtq+ person and um im pretty proud of my writing and wanted to share it!! ive recorded myself reciting it since its a bit more powerful with a voice :) // cw for talking about transphobia, transphobic laws, past attempts to end my own life, and gender dysphoria you are valid and loved <33 if anyone need support and is experiencing similar challenges please dont hesitate to reach out or vent to me
the poem: must i pander and care for those who feel regret who grieve for the body i was not sad to bury, for the girl i was not sad to lay to rest? when i slide open my cold window in the warm summer darkness must i be reminded of a “girl”, wearing my skin, perched on the ledge of the roof attempting to convince me to jump? must i be afraid to walk across the street in fear that someone will see my chipped black nail polish and feminine curves and how they juxtapose my pronoun pin and accuse me of hiding a woman in my chest? must i always be an outsider to my own friends, never truly one of them, one of the boys, never not alone. must i fight to be a boy when every day so many get to be one without the pain without the fear and without the dysphoria must i always feel the tight suffocation of cloth across my chest, must i sacrifice self expression and comfort for a will to live? must i wear a baggy hoodie when i’d rather dawn a flowered shirt and skirt because i know being perceived as “she” hurts much more than not being “me” must i conform for the non-conformists version of normal must being trans be measured in pain and in change? why can't i be a feminine boy and still be a boy at all? must i kill every bit of femininity for you to see i am a man i am a boy must i live inside my small town bubble afraid of the outside world and never trusting someone i don't know? i know almost no one else knows how it feels to know that the nice stranger who said “hello” might wish me DEAD if he knew must i muffle the crinkle of a crinkled pad, afraid another man will realize it's not a candy bar wrapper and that i am sitting on the toilet seat instead of standing like him? must my outsides always clash with my insides? and must my grandparents miss their granddaughter more than they love their grandson? must i sit here, still a child, to hear adults thousands of miles away tell me that i am a sinner an abomination an attention seeker and must i listen to the people much closer much louder saying it to my face? must a grown man i have never spoken to tell me where i can and cannot simply pee? must i be demonized and misunderstood by someone who decided their “god” does not want them to understand? must you use your sacred god in vain? must the word “trans” seems to matter more to you than the word “child” that follows it? must i stand onstage alone reciting broken bedroom poetry just to help you wrap your head around something we’ve been trying to say for years? must my home be the only place that everyone sees me for what i am? and must my mother and father be considered special for simply loving and accepting their child? and why the hell can't you, too? wake up. i know it's easier to sleep. but we must not succumb to exhaustion not yet.
