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abvpoetry · 1 year

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i'm not sure

The one thing I’ve ever been sure about in my life is that I love art, the rest has always been iffy.

May 2013, Blue Sky Studio’s Epic releases in theaters.

I am six years old and in first grade. I do Ballet, Tap, and Jazz, I don’t like Ballet, but my mom won’t let me quit. I like to dance and sing and draw and laugh. I watch Powerpuff Girls and Veggietales with my brothers and sister. My favorite colors are pink and purple, because they go together. I like to make cookies with my Mimi in her kitchen and sit next to her by her green chair while we clip coupons in the family room. My sister goes to college at UTA and when I sleepover at her apartment we play on her Wii. I like Donkey Kong, but we play just dance and Wii sports too. It’s cool having a big sister but it’s weird because when we go to the mall people think she’s my mom and nobody at school knows what half-siblings are.

August 14, 2014, Robin Williams passes away.

I am eight years old in third grade when I first experience death. I walk out of my room on a Monday morning and see my cousin in the hallway. I don’t know why I’m not in school yet but I’m not one to complain. Later my parents pull me into their bedroom and sit me down on their bed. When they tell me, I feel something guttural escape me. I block out most of my memories from that week. In the limo after the service, my aunt pores over a small gold cross, Jesus stretched across it. I don’t go back to school for the next few days, but when I do, I do not feel welcome. All I want to do is look away and stare into space, but the moment I enter I see the check in board. Absent – Grandmother passed away. Immediately I am bombarded with questions from people who I was sure hated me. I feel sick. I spend the next three months isolating myself in the counselor’s office.

November 3, 2016, Donald Trump is elected president.

I am ten years old in fifth grade when my “best friend” tells me she hopes Donald Trump wins the election. When I ask her why she says it’s because of the economy. But what about the horrible things he says about women and minorities?

“Well obviously I don’t support that part.”

If it’s obvious, why do you have to say it? And how do you value economics over people’s lives? How can you live with yourself when you do that? I don’t understand, but I have to stay her friend, it’s not like I have anyone else.

June 28, 2019, the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots is celebrated.

I am thirteen and just finished seventh grade , and I think I like my friend. We met in theater and she’s cool and effortless and funny, but most importantly, she doesn’t think I’m weird, finally, somebody doesn’t think I’m weird. I want to tell her, but I also want to never see her again, so I won’t have to.

March 11, 2020, the WHO declares COVID-19 a pandemic.

I am thirteen years old in eighth grade and my birthday is in seven days. My boyfriend just broke up with me and when he tells me why it doesn’t sound like the whole truth. It seems like the worst week of my life. No birthday party because it’s spring break, everyone else is at home because of this “COVID” thing, and lately I just feel empty. I call up my friend Mabel to see if they can come over, and we drown out the pain with green splat hair dye and bad pop punk.

By the end of 2020, 44 trans people are murdered in the United States.

I am fourteen years old in my freshman year and as I open my phone, I see more notifications pop up in 10 minutes than I think I’ve ever had in my life. A barrage of apologies, condolences, sympathy. I’ve never talked to this one girl, I think she’s new, but somehow, she has my number. I’m not complaining, but I never would have thought these people would have cared about transphobia. I never would have thought these people would have cared about me. Weirdly, the same people telling me how bad they feel that someone called me that word are the same people whose friends still say it.

July 2022, Rep. Glenn Thompson attends his gay son’s wedding days after voting against legal codification of protections for same sex marriage.

I am seventeen years old in my junior year and I am excited for the future. I am scared but, for once, I have friends, a passion, and will. I plan to double major in psychology or adolescent psychology and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, with a minor in Spanish. I want to work in counseling at an LGBTQ+ youth nonprofit. I want to help other people cope with what I am feeling right now. With college, I mostly worry about free time and art, depression, burnout, and money. I can feel the burnout coming soon and I’m going to take a gap year, but I’ll have to work full time, then keep working at least part time during school. I’m sure I’ll make time for art somewhere – I don’t know if I could live without it. It’s brought me to nearly every friend I’ve ever made and taught me how to be a person.

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This piece is inspired by and written in the format of Genderfuck by Madison Hoffman

#poetry #politics #trans poetry

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abvpoetry · 1 year

Text

for t

"Love is a disease and disease knows no laws." -Ivan Turgenev

This year I fell sick by your hands

Days spent wishing you could help me

Days spent trying to hide any possible sign that I needed help

Nights spent pretending the pile of snotty tissues were a sign you felt the same

Nights spent grieving the loss of something impossible

Weeks spent trying to make myself acceptable for you

Weeks spent longing to be adequate, to be valuable, to be enough.

Months spent dry-heaving, anxious, at home alone

Months spent watching you dance: joyful, frolicking, happy.

One year spent deluding myself into falling sicker and sicker for someone who would never do the same

When I see you, I get nervous

Nervous you think I'm gross

Gross with my weird folds and lumps and runny nose from hours of sobbing

Sobbing about all the things I wish I could change on my body

My body that in the back of your mind I pray, in a twisted way, you think of as a woman's body

Because if you don't think of me as a woman, then that means the only flaws you see are actually mine.

the only remedy I've found has been time

and I am praying that your absence will cure me

#poetry #love #heartbreak #longing #trans #trans poetry #gay #lgbt

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