poetry

I tried to write about my father, but…

I don’t know how to write about my father.

I don’t know why I don’t know how to write about my father.

I don’t know where to start in writing about my father.

 

Everything I write about my father comes out wrong.

I don’t know how to write about my father’s wrongs.

Everything I write about my father needs a disclaimer.

I don’t know how to write disclaimers about my father.

Every disclaimer I write about my father needs a disclaimer.

 

Everything I write about my father is true, but

Everything I write about my father leaves everything else out.

Every time I try to write about my father, I stop.

Write a poem about being Genderqueer: 30-Week Genderqueer Challenge Part 27

This post is part of my participation in the 30-day genderqueer challenge, which I have modified to a weekly exercise.

Today’s prompt: Write a poem about being Genderqueer

Oh dear. I don’t know how I’m going to do with writing a poem on demand. I usually only do poetry at random when things spring into my brain. I will try anyway, but first, here’s some poems I have already written about being genderqueer:

Singularity

I am genderqueer

Singular they.
Singular them.
Singular their.

People are quick to tell me

They are trying
This is hard for them
They’re doing their best

Plural they.
Plural them.
Plural their.

And
I am also trying
This is hard for me, too
I’m doing my best

But I’m always out-numbered
So they always win
And ‘they’ never will

Catch the rest of my 30-week genderqueer challenge here!

What do you see when you look at me?

When I spend too much time
Or when I get too close
To people who can’t
or won’t
really see
all of me

It is so easy for me to forget myself
To lose track of those pieces
and stop seeing them too

Or else, I deliberately take up residence
in the parts that feel seen
and abandon the rest of my self
let it all go fallow
just so that I won’t feel invisible

I try to be what they see in me
even if what they see
misses the point entirely

And this is why
so many times in my life
When I say goodbye to something old
an old identity
an old relationship
an old ambition

when I embark on something new
a new chapter
a new job
a new project

I find myself
finding myself
all over again

PSA of the Day: On sexual attraction and preferences

There is a world
of difference
between

realizing you tend to fall for people who look a certain way

and

deciding that you “just aren’t attracted to”
everyone in the entire world
who doesn’t have those traits

one is pattern recognition
the other is self-fulfilling prophecy

because

I say “I love you”
and “I love you”
and “I love you”
and “I love you”
and “I love you”
and “I love you”
and “I love you”

because
I have no other words

because
I can’t describe

because
I don’t know how to say

because
I love you

I say “I love you”
and I can only hope
that you’ll know
what I mean

Prose Poetry

A lot of the time, when I write a poem, I start out intending to do it in prose. I love prose poetry. But there’s just something about the particular kind of vulnerability I put into to poetry that makes it refuse

to stay
that way

When I write things down that are hard to say or express, it often comes out in

short bursts
of words

I can’t think the entire phrase at once
I can’t hold in all in my head
It is too big
too full
too much

And so I take it in small chunks
Because that’s
the only way
it filters
through my brain
at all

Some things just have to be said
slowly
and with
frequent
breaks

Even if what I produce actually is a paragraph, eventually. Like, if I’m writing a difficult email and not a poem at all,

this is
what it
feels like
in my head

What am I trying to say?

There are places
that words just won’t reach

I can’t explain myself to you
or anyone else
Not if all you’re paying attention to
is my words

Words can only
gesture vaguely
at what I’m trying to say

Words can cut a path through the woods
But you have to look up sometimes
look away, and around
stop, and stare into the darkness
beyond where the path can take you
or you’ll miss the point entirely

I tell the truth of myself
in everything I do
in all that I am
and words will never do justice
to me, or anyone else

Not really

I am a metaphor
a shapeshifter
a unicorn
a rainbow

Please don’t ever take me literally
I am so much more than that