Amusing

If I had to describe 

the way this panic tasted

I would have described 

the taste of randomly plucked berries

I don't know the names of.

Ashes and smoke

and the iron taste of my bleeding lips

after a sober brawl with a stranger 

that called me a faggot.

Either way I'm describing memories.

With the way my lips are currently cracked,

you would think that I was still fighting strangers.

In a way that might still be the case.

Because the ease with which you are able to aim

your punches downwards is astounding.

No worry about getting the angle just right 

to make your fist land harder. 

My bottom lip, a bottom line and dollar sign.

I tried to knock you out for

setting me back in my healing journey 

even though I had no chance of winning.

The only thing I broke was the skin

on my fingers and the computer screen.

Do you like to tell yourself

that those bloodstains are yours?

That you beat me down?

This thing that you have done?

It doesn't make you the winner though,

or morally superior.

You didn't do it for a great cause.

Just money and fear.

Do you truly think you got me?

You're just an efficient loser with a full wallet

who knows how to climb upwards using 

the bodies of women

just to peek right through our Windows.

Never going higher than low hanging fruit.

You never go higher than seeing the ground. 

One day you will be the one dissected.

One day you will be whose chest they pry open.

Hacking away at me isn't going to stop that,

or do anything, actually. 

I am not made out of numbers or any type

of binary code, and I am not made of taking 

your punishment lying down just because 

I can hide my pain behind flowery language.

I can use a metaphor for every boundary 

violation but they aren't meant to hide you.

This is me fighting strangers.

At the end of the day

I know you but

you don't know me.

You know my numbers,

and how they placed 

the alphabet in a certain order

to describe me.

No matter my fear, that's still pathetic. 

Femicide

Ik ben een statistiek.

Niet uniek.

Zonder naam,

Zonder faam.

Je kent mij via de dader, en dan

Was het toch zo'n aardige man!

“Doet geen vlieg kwaad.”

Nou ja, behalve mij en nu is het te laat.

Ik wou dat ik een mens was voor jou.

Wield

You wield the word queer like

your tongue cuts flesh, and expect

it to faze me. But even if

you sharpened it on a Dyke,

it doesn't draw blood. It is 

more there for you than for me

to be honest. To make you feel

an undeserved sense of superiority.

If there are worse things to call me

I've used them. If I'm honest,

I have invented spectacular curses

to put on my name. Pain spread sadistically 

like it's pornographic. There is

nothing less I will settle for. You 

and I are not on the same level. Excuse 

me, I got better things to do.

I finally felt safe.Was that a mistake?

That feeling of being watched.

It starts at the top of my head,

Moving slowly down my spine,

Growing in sensation 

But never settling.

It set me back to being 5 years old.

It is that same sense of insecurity,

Like eyeballs growing out of my shoulder blades

And me just hoping I will notice,

This time,

The moment things will blow up around me.

I can't believe that pen on paper 

can have this much effect but

The blanket of comfort is now

Rudely ripped from my body

And my sense of privacy was violated.

And I can't do nothing about this.

Maybe wait for clarity

But that never feels like enough, does it?

So I watch the page with glaring persistence,

Press refresh every 5th second,

Set camp underneath my mailbox

And forget to eat.

Every ring of the doorbell has become 

A test of my trust in humanity again.

The truth is that I don't know you.

Or you. Or you.

The truth is I no longer know myself. 

How do you mourn someone who is still alive?

Step 1. Repeatedly.

Step 2. Wake up every morning wanting your mother like you're 5 years old. Shatter.

Step 3. Try forcing yourself to stay asleep. Wake up fully anyway because nothing stops for you and closing your eyes means little when reality is imprinted on your eyelids.

Step 4. This is where people start the day, maybe have a coffee. Why you ordered bedrot and tears for breakfast, no one will know. You already have 4 cans of it in the cupboard.

Step 5. Think that you finally understand the senselessness of whatever is happening. Then understand you don't.

Step 6. Find new things to mourn. There is always something to fill yourself up on.

Step 7. Forget for a moment what happened. It's a peaceful thought. Feel guilty immediately. 

Step 8. Panic attack time. Choke on your teeth as the change wraps around your heart. Don't forget not to breathe.

Step 9. Watch everything you have known come apart as you try to stitch fast enough. Unravel along with it.

Step 10. Start back at Step 1. No get out of jail free card. Life doesn't come with those.

Spite

You can compare me with orange

and tell me my shape is wrong.

That doesn't mean you're right

and we both know that. 

You just want to make sure 

we all know you're more important.

Your money already explained this.

It has never been about my wrongness,

but my existence.

The fact that I dare 

to be emboldened enough

to be myself. 

I should have known I was meant to hide myself.

The only harm I do to you

is not reacting to your pearl clutching 

with the deference you think you deserve.

A shocking assault to your entitlement. 

Sometimes I wish 

my transness was born out of spite. 

But at least it's still why I can paint my hair blue.

I want you to never forget I'm here.

Painsomnia

I am too tired to sleep.

My mind is rejecting any sense.

In silence I weep,

The pain feels like violence.

Digging for scraps of rest,

Has my anger rising.

As the caged feeling set,

I cannot stop the drowning.

In despair I laugh,

As my brain no longer regulates.

Committed to the clock,

And the hours ticking away.

The hopelessness sets in.

A feeling like scabs on my teeth.

As daylight starts to float in,

I finally fell asleep.

Only to have to wake up again.