Axis

In het donker, weggekletst.

In heel veel woorden, uitgelegd.

Dat wat wij niet weten bestaat niet.

Want niets is voor ons onbekend.

Oren waar van alles tussen zit.

Dokters zeggen dat ik aandacht wil.

Er komt veel aandacht van vergeten worden

En de gebrek aan ruimte waarin ik mij bevind. 

Mijn adem is een verzetsdaad.

Ook mijn hart die nog steeds slaat.

Ik heb een doel gevonden voor dit leven.

Een doorn die tot ontsteking overgaat. 

Er zijn veel woorden die je nu kan zeggen, 

Maar ik ben te uitgeput om uit te leggen 

Dat mijn verlangen zich uitdrukt in daden

En de axis van de wereld te verleggen. 

Resist

Pt1

Let's applaud for our gay marriage, 

And then abruptly forget

The queer people barely surviving,

The trans women left for death.

Let's embrace the white picket fence,

And then no longer care

About the blood that watered the gardens

And the lives no longer there.

Why remember who gave us existence?

Who put their lives on the line?

Let's cut ourselves into pieces, 

So we can fit in just fine.

Pt2

Fuck your respectability politics.

Fuck your forgetfulness.

Fuck your willingness to sacrifice, 

Not bodies like yours, but mine.

Fuck your hateful words,

Fuck how you think that I fall short.

I'm going to exist out of pure spite.

I never knew how to be polite.

I won’t be hands held released quickly.

I won’t be pronouns swallowed down.

I won't hold my partners name behind my teeth.

I won't water myself down 

(until my flavour is lost).

I don't want to be accepted.

I don't want to copy myself into your image.

I rather break all of my teeth

Than do any damage

To the person I know I am.

Pt3

My body is a site of resistance.

Not made to fit in, just to breathe.

Scars that turn into leylines 

That turn into a map,

That turn into a history,

Of how my life

Is a form of rebellion.

Of how I hold the gun

Of how I'm still here

Beating the expectations, 

Not the allegations 

Of my queer existence. 

My body is a site of space. 

It needs to expand.

Lungs that need to take everything in.

Thighs that spread.

I am solely here to disappoint.

I can't be a carbon copy.

Nor a pasted version of acceptance. 

My existence is not about you.

Pt4

You just want cogs for your murder machine.

Blood to clean your dirtied streets with.

Empty veins to stash your stacks of gold in.

Unworthy of a simple remembering.

Existences so similar you won't feel regret

For those that are dying, 

you already chose the next

Person in line to be fed 

Into the dollars you didn't need.

Pt5

 

You can try to build your empire on bodies, 

But it won't raise you to heaven,

And it won't make your fall endless. 

Glory

Gun shots leave marks

On the soul of the people. 

You mock the tears

Of those that are grieving

The state of the world 

And the lives that they lost.

Protecting the world 

Shouldn't come at a cost. 

I want to remember all the faces

Of those the world displaces,

Falsely created enemies 

That were just living their lives. 

I want to hear their stories 

In all of their beautiful glory

Before the world erases

And replaces it with lies. 

Blue

It doesn't matter if it rains 

When you're staring at the walls.

If you notice anything at all, 

Only the sounds leak through.

It rains harder in my thoughts. 

Overcast skies and grey clouds,

Thundering words that are too loud.

A sense of cold that doesn't subside.

Overstimulating voices hurt my eardrums.

Quick hellos that cut like a knife

Every time I let the world into my life.

Another sense of normal fraying away.

I feel broken and disjointed. 

Once open connections are now disabled. 

For a small sense of being stable,

Loneliness will be the price.

Just existing, not alive.

Human being

Navigating a broken brain

Is like walking through shards of glass.

Little moments that are meant to cut.

Little moments that have you doubting yourself.

Am I me?

Am I real?

Am I just a moment in time?

I wish my feelings weren’t choking me

But they seem to have an iron grip

Because I can’t stop thinking enough

To even take a breath.

And my dreams have become so so sharp.

Nothing is what it seems 

And everything feels too real.

I'm losing my mind 

In the same way 

Romance novels write about love. 

A slow descent and then all at once.

My vision turned into a kaleidoscope

And I have broken down into 

Parts with no manual to put me back

Into a semblance of a human being.

Bottomline

You better pretend that you're healthy.

You better pretend that you're fine.

You better pretend that you're able

To March your ass right down that line. 

Cause your life is in production. 

Your life needs to be universalised

The same down to every single button.

Nothing is ever yours to decide.

Two and a half children,

That you can barely feed but that's fine.

You are working for someone’s pockets,

Unpaid overtime on that nine to five.

Health insurance that doesn't pay out.

Your entire life is build to decline.

Your back will not keep on carrying you.

Your heart won't make it out alive.

But there is no room for slowing down,

No room for the outliers.

It's a copy and paste way of living,

To keep up until the day you die.

So pop a pill to hide you're disabled. 

If they ask how you are, lie.

Tell them you have never been better. 

Tell them you have nothing to hide.

And if you see someone visibly struggling, 

Chose the words meant best to deride.

Just to make yourself feel better 

Than those who can't hide.

Tell them you can see that they are faking.

Tell them that you know they lie.

Tell them they cost too much money.

Tell them it's better if they died.

It's best to pretend life isn't broken,

If you can hide it being snide.

If you don't think too much about your life,

The things you needed, it denied.

We are all the same cog in the machine.

Yours isn't more important. They lied.

Your productivity doesn't matter. 

Only the bottom line. 

No name

I'm made of wants, not can do's.

Little sparkling baubles of joy 

That are hanging just out of reach.

I'm made of wants, not can do's. 

Desires that remain untouched, 

Like bodies under the hands of

A stumbling and uncaring man.

Never quite getting there.

Never completely satisfactory. 

Never listening to guidance.

I'm made of wants, not can do's.

Barriers, unbroken,

Fill my body up

To form a maze between 

The one and the other. 

A maze that I need to traverse,

That I need to run through

(With energy that I do not have),

That I can't climb my way out 

Because the walls keep on growing 

Higher.

I'm made of wants, not can do's.

Wishes and plans for a future

That I do not have my hands on.

That I sometimes fear I need to let go off.

Not that I can release 

The grip of my hands 

Because what if by some miracle I can?

What if nothing becomes something?

I'm made of wants, not can do's. 

I don't want to die, 

But sometimes I want to die.

Because isn't this already like death?

This isn't living.

It isn't sleeping. 

It is not resting.

And it never truly is healing this

Monotony out of me.

I die a little every day,

Rinse, repeat, anew.

I lie in the same bed

Withering away hoping like a fool.

I melt into the surroundings,

Into the seconds,

Into the dreams

That keep me out of the present, 

That make me dissociate,

That make me want, and…

Fuck.

I just want to live.

Have wants that become trying

That become cans that become

New things I didn't know I had in me.

Like the fresh air I know I haven't in me.

I'll be OK with the bare minimum. 

I'll make do if it's more than this stillness.

This unbreaking of things holding me down.

This chaining.

This stasis. 

This carving out of a perfect fit space and

I,

I just want to have the room 

To bleed out.