Unfinished Daddy Issues Poem

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My father says I can’t be a man because I express too much. I’m a slave to my emotions, and I’m using a gender transition to stuff my trauma. 

I feel. 

I sit. 

I process.

and everything I make is steeped in emotion, every drip of paint or drop of ink or flash of flame or cut or weld or arc is sacred feeling encapsulated in a single moment on canvas or metal but then 

I feel.

I sit. 

I process.

and I abandon those loving harsh moment of truth in closets because they are past truths and they are therapy and they exist for me. 

Human Contact

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d2101730-fc48-41f1-8e93-2c780a95d6a8I need 

human contact

as if I was 

a person 

or something

it’s a 

radical idea

I’m not 

used to it

I’m so 

used to 

these pits 

and cages

and walls

and institutions 

that I 

forgot I 

was ever 

Really

Meant

To Be

A Person

I dunno anymore

where the edges are

I can’t find what I’m

still holding onto 

and I’m grasping at

the tears 

and the frays  

and the holes

and the grays

and I am 

very much 

alone 

inside 

myself

but then again, 

so are you

and maybe 

perhaps

it’s possible 

to reach 

across the divide 

of the 

human consciousness 

and 

simply

…

Touch

Growth Work

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I’m learning a lot about both making art and processing trauma. 

You have to trust the process above all else. 

It won’t look pretty at a lot of stages but you are doing the work and that’s what counts. 

It’s the layers of tiny details that build up to make a whole image. 

If your system doesn’t account for mistakes, your system is broken, not your work. 

At any moment you may see what you are working on and declare it beyond repair, but ultimately it is you who decides when you are finished so the only way for it to stay flawed is to stay unfinished. 

Don’t give up until the work is done. 

Did you think the work was done? Think again. There’s fresh ideas to be had. 

You will never be pleased and nor should you. The brilliance of growth is that it is unsatisfied. 

Pride in craftsmanship shows and people are drawn to the light of vulnerability. 194A6857-7BE9-4736-9E94-AEDC26DB9D60

Shameless Self Promotion

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Please check out my Kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iamzine/i-am-who-i-am-becoming-who-i-am-lgbt-zine

If as my friend you’re counting on me to get published copies of the zine and planning on throwing me cash sometime, instead of supporting the kickstarter, I would like you to consider that every purchase on the kickstarter will directly buy me more copies that I can hopefully sell for more income. Additionally it helps me with my planning for how many copies I need. Your dollars go further as an investment this way.

Also it’s a little above fully funded right now so there’s a good chance I might be able to add another set of pages.

I guess to put it another way, if you buy on kickstarter you’re also helping buy copies for two strangers. Sort of. Or you not taking away a copy from a stranger. I dunno. I’m bad at this.

A Poem for Dr. Ford

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“I feel like I should be imaginary.”

I stop myself before I send the text. I can see that it’s not a fair thing to put on someone else and besides, underneath the words, I feel something else stirring.

Some people like to say that some emotions are secondary. As an example, you may feel angry that your cat knocked over your grandfather’s ashes, but what’s really under there is sadness and a feeling of guilt that you hadn’t put them somewhere safer.

Oftentimes this is illustrated with an iceberg. We can see those secondary emotions in the visible portion of the iceberg. Behaviors that come from it are obvious. But the true emotion is lurking underwater, invisible to the naked eye.

So in this vein, an emotion that gets expressed by “I feel like I should be imaginary” is like a klaxon alarm for the ship captain. There are big things coming. Listen to these feelings.

The void is calling.

As a trans man who has been raped, during this battle over Kavanaugh I feel like my voice is needed but I also feel obligated to pass the mic to women.

Every day my emotions eat my insides into a raw goo. and I find I’m held together by spite and optimism.

So I will listen to my voice, and I will listen to the void, for they give me warnings about what I need to work on next.

I will not fear speaking, for one more voice among millions is how the world is shaped by the resonance.

Here is a poem for Dr. Ford.

Viscerally
in the mucosa
of the brain stem,
somewhere in the
lizard brain,
I get it-
and I hope
she finds peace
from the memories
while we all
get to live in
the retraumaery
and the harsh grim reality
that speaking her truth
barely slowed
them down
except now
more of us see
and with
that knowing
comes action.

Words of Wisdom

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My Very Wise Friend said 

“If your family 

demands you perform 

what they perceive 

as your You-ness 

in order to be 

part of the family, 

that’s not family 

and that’s not love.”

My family has struggles. 

Every one does. 

I think we battle 

more about 

my You-ness. 

See I can’t restrain my me-ness 

and all they seem to think about 

is imaginary penis 

while my brain attempts to run from all 

of these problems with expert fleetness 

but really could I be less

Worried

Ashamed

Real

if I wasn’t truly here 

or am I pretending that my absence 

is a problem solving algorithm 

when the question posed 

by the riddle was always

“How do you have your best life?”

and the answer to the system 

was never supposed to be

“Tap out, give up, it’ll only get harder,”

but instead the lesson was

“FIGHT. Fight and YOU’LL GET STRONGER.”

Taste

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All the glass 

you’ve ever touched

to your lips 

comes cascading up, 

a facsimile of 

bad decisions 

made into sharp flesh, 

and you’ve 

never wanted anything 

more in your life. 

You touch your mouth, 

gently, 

to your silica doppelgänger 

and you taste your sins 

and lick your lips 

and beg for more. 

The glass begins to crawl inside, 

chunks cascading around 

your reaching tongue. 

Sucking air, 

running it over the 

crumbled bits of 

tempered glass 

that have taken root 

in the sockets 

where your teeth 

used to be, 

you wonder how 

everything will all 

fit together with 

this new reality. 

Inadvertently, 

you CHOMP.

Feel

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I don’t feel inspired to write. 

But here are words, 

evidence of slogging. 

A pace of clacking 

set to the the 

music of numbness. 

I don’t feel inspired to write. 

I feel a clog in the 

underside of my chin 

and above my left eye 

and probably somewhere 

in a ventricle. 

My therapist once told me

 that these are called emotions 

and I am to sit with them 

and name them 

and feel them. 

They are leaden 

and mucus slimed. 

I don’t feel inspired to write. 

But suddenly I am allowed to feel. 

Pure Sterling

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My mother told me

that God is the potter

and I am a cup

but I’m trying to

become a plate

but what she

doesn’t understand 

is that I was 

never meant

to be so simple

and utilitarian

in the first place

and it’s much 

more likely that 

I’m an abstract sculpture 

out of precious metal clay 

and this is my trial by fire 

in the kiln of cruel expectations 

burning away impurities 

and anything less 

than what I need 

to be pure sterling.