Transcendence.

In Thebes, the origin story of Atum the Creator involved Earth and sky's division into Seth & Nephthys, a third gender; both non-binary, by nature.  

In Greek and Roman antiquity, 

there ruled a Goddess named Cybele, 

whose followers transitioned, famously, from male into females.

Ugandans, once upon a time, raged against restrictive gender norms, as priests and Teso tribesmen preferred prints made for the women in their homes

Adoration filled the eagle-eyed Indigenous tribes in pre-colonial times,

as they celebrated sacred two-spirits who  enhanced their lives.

Hijras have existed, in India, for as long as the festival of lights, 

but it wasn't until this century

that they earned economic rights. 

When Joyita Mondal was elected India's first transgender judge, bangles clinked in thunderous applause. Determined to aid her sisters, she abolished trans-exclusionary laws.

Throughout the his and hers-tory
of the world to date, 

our gentle, gender variant friends 

were visible, and loved.

It wasn't until religion won that 

they were forced into prisons.

What good is false piety,

if all it does is inflict pain?

Why can't these wicked men 

see their prayers are pointless, 

when their palms are stained with blood?

To this day, we sidestep around inclusion in our own communities;
safe spaces only for some,
as they centre on cisnormativity.
Like false apostle wrestlers
who rarely sit and listen,
we landed in a sea of thistles,
silenced like the 'T' in 'LGBT',
and 'whistle'.

Somehow, over the muffled screams, 

we have the nerve to call our cultures civilized, when just last year alone, the U.S of Assassination claimed twenty-five innocent trans-lives. 

When trans-people of colour were disproportionately targeted in these attacks, when will we learn to love instead of separating white from black?  

Until our politics are stripped of poisoned prejudice, 

gender nonconforming folx can only 

live in fear of further violence.

Unless our sisters have access to

healthcare, housing, and are gainfully employed, we cannot pretend there's progress until discrimination's been destroyed. 

Give them power through our platform;

lift them up so they can stand alone;

make them feel like mighty Marsha P.  

starting revolutions with a single stone.

We mustn't forget race and sex were never choices that we consciously made.

Let us fight for our most vulnerable, and

amplify their muted voices that fragile men forbade. 

Let us resist until they return to their rightful places next to us once again. This civil rights movement demands the overdue acceptance of our global trans-families and friends. 

We will not evolve until they can be seen without also being afraid. Only once their suffering will finally end, will we ever be able to appreciate their truth, and their transcendence. 

x

Homogeneous.

They often called me yellow—
marigold and mustard bellied.
Only my fear was ever apparent,
even after naked wars against the winter.

The cold burned like waxen candles—
it left my jaundiced skin searing all summer.

Gayness was a crisply-cool deathwish that
rippled right below the surface,
until I realized all I could do
was live my truth in earnest.

And in spite of my reserved nature—
this itch refused to be removed.
So there I was, this peacock,
with his coat of many colours,
wide open to assault,
that accosted me like splinters.

Inner-city youth turned circuit kid adorned in glitter—
I have worn many faces,
though the kindest ones appeared upon my sisters. 

Displaced, I lost many races
yet somehow still remained a winner;
I salvaged scraps of shrapnel
though society classified me as a sinner. 

I am me—the sum of my parts;
sexuality could never render me a victim.

Aurat.

Woman brought us to the Earth,
but man will take us out;
ruled by ego and insecurities, 
he shoots before he shouts.
The fourth world war will be fought
with sticks and stones, like in the past:
for the third will annihilate our home,
with one single blast.
If women ruled today, 
we would still have our humanity,
instead of this endless rage, 
that is often coupled with
unadulterated insanity.

when the dams burst, we will patch them up with words

"Tell me again, where is it you stop and the succubus begins? Why is it that once we separated we both ceased to exist?" A vanishing act, in two parts.

Act One: My pitiful proposal right in the middle of study circle was the first arrow to pierce your unfeeling heart. A feat more noble than neon on the periodic table. And you? If you were an element, it would be gangrene, the way you suddenly appeared and immediately created a crime scene. A biohazard more toxic and lethal than Fukushima. You radiated light, and at first glance I was blinded. Now that each individual shard of shrapnel has been plucked from my silver eyes, I see that you were nothing but nuclear. Once a dream within a dream, until you decayed and became a fucking nightmare within another godforsaken nightmare. Like those matronly Russian nesting dolls, but instead made up of demons, until there was nothing left but desolation.

Act Two: What happened to the wide eyed hopeful freshman that I met handing out pamphlets to save the rainforest or feed the world or whatever cause you'd attached yourself to at the time to make your human form seem believable. That same kid with the thick accent from East L.A. who arrived on a full scholarship to help inner city sweethearts avoid the inevitable—getting initiated into the first gang whose leader fell in love with her. I should've known the damage was already done and that you were the greatest con artist to wield a pen as a weapon. You seduced lovesick idiots from all walks of student life. Who knew future doctors, lawyers, and politicians could all be so easily swayed. Either way, you were a lost Latina princess who made men feel like one of your Latin Kings.

What happened to our heroine who refused to be branded like the cattle that would never be found on her plate. She was skilled in every recipe from cookbooks of anarchy. Who knew sometimes even soldiers sold out and became the same sheep they swore up and down 'til kingdom come that they would never be. The very sheep who required shearing and saving from a slaveowner who would rather refer to himself as a shepherd.

Behind the scenes a heavier battle was brewing...a conflict that was as deep as canyons grand, that had way too many layers. Our waxen eyed protagonist met his Waterloo in a spicy Puerto Rican seductress. Together, they personified academia, every interaction either ended with evacuated lecture halls or underneath ramen-noodle-stained-thrift-store-bargain-basement sheets. Spectators sighed at the sight of these star-crossed young lovers like modern day Montagues and Capulets. Together, they were an unstoppable machine.

Lovestruck or love's fools? The line between their overlapping identities faded with each day. They put blood, sweat and every last teardrop into the resistance. A revolution like no other, they claimed, that was the brainchild of their brilliance. As they grew closer, their separate clumsy heartbeats merged into one single thunderous rhythm. Surely nothing could come between a love that was united in humanitarian efforts.

By the time graduation robes neared, and colours reappeared across campus, the string that bound these altruists had started to come undone. Consumed by consumerism, a worldly woman in designer threads stood in place of our former rebellious lioness. As she appeared to be a phoney, her subjects rightly labeled her a fraud. Soon, her expensive appearance was a liability to their cause.

One black Friday between thunderstorms was when this War of the Rhodes' came to a halt; she turned away in anger only to be struck by his left lightning bolt. Electrified, and hurt as we reach the final breaths of real love, as it often ends. Only fairy tales wrap in happiness, why else would they appeal to us heartbroken humans.

What about healing, like we planted trees? What of the hospitals, where we pulled smiles out of the broken and the weak? What about the prisons, the detention centres unjustly holding refugees? Where did we stray, where did the love go? When did our own silence need to be bought with violence? What about orphans, widows left to starve in the streets? Where did we go wrong, to get here today? What about love, sweet love that doesn't end up settling in court? When can we return to peace and harmony? Unless we turn back, we won't have a pretty planet to watch on TV. If Satan's greatest con was convincing us he doesn't exist, isn't it time for us to accept we got ourselves into this mess?

Virulent.

As the first fleecy snowflakes fall to the ground, 
then disappear, in winter, 
it floats through the skies on the gentlest breeze, 
as quiet as a whisper. 

Blink and you will miss it—it is smaller than a sliver. 
Delicate as crystal and nearly twice as brittle,
one misstep and it will shatter;
decorating the ground like shrapnel. 

Feeble as a fleece slipper 
sliding across a cotton floor;
it has become as frail as origami

made of candy floss, sold by the seashore. 

Programmed to roar although 
all it can muster is a single pathetic mew, 
striving to be bold 
but it is only the lightest hues. 

Dainty like the breaking dawn 
and its glistening, gossamer dew, 
it secretly dreams of being steel 
but is soft as stained glass over pews. 

Society is to blame 
for this fragile masculinity, 
that brainwashes boys into 
becoming men who are afraid to feel. 

This misunderstood manliness 
is more timid than the shrew, 
as it tells males their ideas 
are best expressed through abuse. 

"Boys don't cry," we're told, 
encouraging us to be aggressive, 
until our repressed emotions return, 
with a vengeance, as depression. 

Being masculine is not 
the opposite of being feminine, 
all it takes to be a man 
is to simply identify as one. 

Unless we refuse to accept their opinions, 
nothing can ever change. 
We must rally together and reject 
their toxic masculinity that reigns. 

Birds Of A Feather.

She walks with her head held high, with the majesty of birds of prey. With her hips swinging rhythmically, she commands any room she enters, turning heads for different reasons. Her gait emulates American bald eagles, yet society solely see her as a peacock.

A woman can only be pretty, they say her beauty is all that defines her. These double standards are restrictive, and prevent girls from becoming hawks; it forces them into a brand, then keeps them locked up in a box.

Pigeonholed by the age of three, young women are being programmed to believe they can only be desired for their looks.
They are discouraged from being bold, ridiculed for being brave but males—they can be anything and are supported by their peers.

For a female to be confident like a crow, or as self-important as a snowy owl is demeaning. She must possess the grace of a crane, or like a bird of paradise, she should be aesthetically appealing.  

Some of her sisters even keep their distance, choosing to side with their oppressors who coop them up like chickens. What they fail to see is that these false concepts were created by frightened men in suits in conference rooms, and board room meetings.  

They were designed to keep women inferior, and confined to lives centred on their wombs which they cannot even control. Unjust ideals invented to prevent equality, to ensure that daughters of Eve stay in their lanes that lead to dead ends on one way streets. 

For a sister or a mother to aspire to fly is laughable to men who have never even attempted to take flight. They think their superiority is innate, because their fathers tell them lies that are then corroborated by heads of state.

Whether equality is ever achieved or not, I still believe it is more admirable to be a bird with clipped wings who is determined to soar, than a cowardly ostrich with his head buried deep in the dirt.

It is still preferable to see these young ladies rallying together as ravens, instead of conceding to defeat from their counterparts, cackling geese who have become complacent. 

Comfortable with the idea of spending their existence as common pheasants instead of daring to be different.  Wrens whose wings were rendered obsolete, toucans who traded in beaks for pressed white dress shirts, higher wages, and a false concept of masculinity that is so weak.

They are threatened by free women, like the huntress lioness who provides for her hungry children. Men are emasculated by matriarchs who are self-sufficient as their existence relies on feeling needed.  A woman who prevails without a male unnerves them to their very core.

Without the women they marginalized, upon whom they are still dependent, these daft dodo birds helplessly become endangered. They are then sentenced to death by the same double standards they delivered, a fate more bittersweet than it is sour.  

Even the most explicitly misogynistic males transform into mourning doves once they are deprived of their subjugated swans' direction. Suddenly, there is no evidence of their strength and they are lost without the guidance of the quetzal queens they counted as mere possessions. 

Orlando Gloom.

There is no humanity 

when hatred prevails and reigns supreme,
when we are divided by our faith, 

dogma, race or community.

Our focus should be on 

the forty-nine innocent lives that were lost,
instead of whom to blame 

and which group we must accost.

When hatred takes over, 

ego is the sole reason a louse could feel like a man, 

arrogance ignored results in fools 

acting out their wicked plans.

Anyone who instills fear in others 

should be labeled as a terrorist,
it should not be reserved exclusively for 

that religion from the Middle East.

What difference does it make 

when families are bereaved, 

no amount of bleach could ever erase 

these tears or this blood from the streets.

Who would have thought a city filled with Disney magic 

could experience ugliness like this, 

if Mickey Mouse is not even safe 

then no one really is. 

The world is awash in mourning;
there is no humanity.
So we must look to the helpers to save us 

from being eaten alive by insanity.

Inhumane beasts like this creature, 

the byproduct of a corrupt society, 

are proof that ignorance untreated 

results in a false sense of piety.

For centuries, the battle between 

good and evil has been fought.
Today we learned acceptance is not innate 

and needs to be taught.

Take away their guns and weapons, 

let them wage wars with words;
it's said sticks and stones 

can break one's bones but never verbs.

It's evident now how desperately 

we need to make a change,
exclusion is not the answer 

as it only creates more rage.

Unless we learn to love 

and accept our fellow man, 

we will always be two steps behind, 

unable to accomplish all that we truly can.

Come together, right now—
as we mourn this immeasurable loss. 

When our safe spaces are targeted, 

everybody pays the cost.

He expected to put an end 

to the global community's pulse but failed.

All he accomplished was for our hearts 

to beat louder to show we have prevailed. 

Let us pray for the victims, before we ensure 

evil of this scale never occurs again; 

love will always be victorious
for only it can win.

Rape Culture.

The day she learned to talk, her mother cautioned her to listen.
Moments after her first steps, mama showed her how to run.
Preparing young Sylvie for the inevitable day, 
when she caught the attention of a man who refused to go away.

Sylvie knew all about the monsters under the bed,
she was well-versed on the boogeyman, who filled her with dread.
She could describe the Wolf-man, Dracula, and even Frankenstein,
but her mother warned her the wickedest creature of all was mankind.

She said, “This world was not built for us, we are merely trespassers here.”
Determined to protect her daughter from the same predatory men she feared.
Why do we teach young girls to keep themselves safe,
without teaching little boys not to hurt or maim?

We desire to build our daughters up to believe they can do anything,
to raise them to be confident, and devoid of suffering. 
But what good is it when society just shoots them down,
laughing at them for thinking it were any different now.

The prevalent culture today treats women like objects;
it teaches them to avoid late hours, and even polices how they dress.
When a man finally lapses, and commits insidious rape,
excuses are made in courtrooms, to prevent justice from taking place.

There is no such thing as justice when athletes and celebrities 
are let off with less than a slap on their wrists. 
How are our sisters and daughters to feel valued like this,
when all the evidence proves their cases will only be dismissed. 

It is as though their pain is meaningless,
like a woman’s worth is nothing when compared to her male counterpart’s. 
The system is made up of ripped stockings, scars, and broken hearts. 
How are we expected to compete with the corrupt patriarchs who are in charge?

Imagine the pain of having your innocence stolen from you,
the agony of being penetrated by someone you never knew.
No amount of counseling could erase the tears that come at night,
the sole consequence of being used then tossed aside, and left to die.

Rape is such a malevolent act, it robs victims of their entire lives;
the futures they could have had are tarnished, their dreams all fade to black.
Anxiety rushes to the surface, signaling another oncoming panic attack,
paranoia collaborates with post-traumatic stress creating never-ending flashbacks.

There cannot be change until even privileged rapists are made examples of,
justice will fail to exist until every criminal understands the severity of their actions.
We can pretend equality exists all we want, that will not make it so,
I stand with survivors and I’ll fight for their cause until faith in my fellow man can be restored.