lgbtq+
Learn more about other poetry terms
I hate how glamorized being transgender is in the media.
It’s not all sunshine, and rainbows, and butterflies.
Well, it is rainbows, but that's not the point.
Sometimes I’m fine.
Sometimes I’m just a little tired. You know?
I know you get what I mean.
1. Silent. Keep walking. This is not worth my attention.
-
2. I don't have the energy for this. If you're gonna try something, just do it, or leave me alone.
-
January 8th 2009, a beautiful baby girl is born into this world. She’s 7 pounds and 15 ounces. She’s 20 ½ inches. She is the perfect bundle of joy. Everybody loves her.
A lot of people take it for granted.
But I wouldn’t.
Give me what I want.
Give me what I need.
All I want to do is live in the utopia everyone says this is.
I want to be a boy in the way they are.
I want a round chest because it’s so muscular.
Not because my body needs a place to hold milk for a child that’ll never exist.
The rules to passing as a man to the general public.
Step 1
Cut your hair.
Your long gorgeous thick hair.
Yeah? You love it?
I wish I felt like a girl.
I wish I could enjoy having long hair, hip dips, my lovehandles , a big butt, and perky breasts.
I wish I liked being seen as a girl.
Do you think I chose this?
Why would this be a choice?
Who chooses to pay thousands of dollars in medical debt?
I could never write love poems til I met you.
Could never describe how it felt to love
To love as deeply as I do
As I have
I could never write love poems without them becoming tear drops on the paper
I never told my parents I was gay.
Never mentioned that I would not be giving them grandchildren.
An eleven year old’s mind, full of insecurity, but eleven year old’s will listen.
Listen to the news that you watch
Indeed,
you would love her too
if you would only see her
sitting in a sun-saturated kitchen
with a flower in her hair
and a lyrical smile.
I find her in my bedroom, grinning,
Messy and mischievous, her dark hair down
“I just needed a kirby grip.”
She stiffens up, stands straight,
All lives matter.
LGBTQ+ lives matter.
Black Lives also matter.
Asian, Mexican, and Native.
you ask me, over and over you ask me. but why, really why, does it matter? even if I cover my ears and yell, and shout and scream,you raise your hands and tell me i'm being dramatic. I act out and ignore what you try to pry from my hands,something
Hidden away I am.For if I came out,I'd open the dam.Would you feel glee and dance about?Or deny and slay me for finding myself?Amongst the public I fear for my safety.But with my kind, I become my true self.I hope that you will sitll love me.And o
we have rejected every single form
of rules we were taught to obey
my soul feels different when you are around,
like hands being held together
thats what love is, against all odds
LGBTQ+ Rights
The time for people to stop.
Should be now.
Aren't we all equal?
Aren't we all human like you?
Can't we all get along?
I've triedAnd I've triedI've even broken down and criedYes I'm still tryingAnd I've finally stopped crying
There’s this place I call home
And I don’t know why but it seems to me
That this place isn’t as simple as it used to be
I was a little girl - Their little girl, she her she her
As I stand at this gateway
I think of heaven
In my head it is framed
As a world with no enemy
A world with a perfect God
A world colored gold by faith
The black sea on the backs of my hands,
The rainbow above my eyes,
A sharp outburst of color
Dims covered, muffled cries.
The questions of which I yearn to answer
You say my sexuality isn't valid
You say I'm "confused"
"Going through a phase"
"Wanting attention"
"Don't have enough experience to know"
"Not sure yet"
"Too young"
"Faking it"
Who decided that this was our world ?
Who got the say in who is treated what way ?
I've truly never understood how people can hate other people
I believe NO one is born with hatred for anyone,
I am a rare and wild virgin flower in a field filled of poison ivy.
The kind of poison that's been infecting my life and trapped inside me.
And as I become wilted no longer able to get up, my family has been by me.
stomach flutters
out of fright
out of nervousness
out of might
butterflies churning all around
waiting to burst out
making a rainbow across the sky
as she says "yes"
to the girl she loves
Though your "different"
though your "unusual"
though you like different people than others,
doesnt mean your evil,
or you hated,
it means your you,
you can take me for example,
Don’t tell me I’m not gay.
The “phases” are phrases you like to throw out
When you’re angry face goes to the riots to shout.
How dare you call me out on a “fault”
Like there’s somebody I am going to assault.
Dear Maria,
New Years Eve
We were apart
I felt the cold ache creeping in, as it so often does,
And I was scared that you were feeling the same
And the tears threatened to spill
Maria,
My darling girl, I dedicate every song to you
Every sunrise and every sky full of stars
All the colors of the rainbow
And the gold leaf on the painitngs you so adore
dear Me in the Closet,
imagine a sunrise that goes on for forever,the radiant colors staining every inch of the sky you see.beautiful, right?
Fickle Lady Luck has turned on me and run.
A game well composed, well played upon
But despite all my foresight, my tale's undone
And whatever love you had for me is gone
Fickle Lady Luck has turned on me and run.
A game well composed, well played upon
But despite all my foresight, my tale's undone
And whatever love you had for me is gone
Dear my dysphoria,
You may seem invisible to the rest of the world, but I see you.
You’re always there in the corner of my mind.
On good days, you stick to yourself, just staring me down.
I needed basics:
Respect, compromise, patience, compassion.
Bare necessities to hold what was already crumbling
It was wrong to ask for them.
I won’t tell you that i am trapped in a body that isn’t mine
that i was born in the wrong body
because whether i have a chest or a dick
this body is mine
this body is mine and always will be mine
Because I love you...
I'll support your decisions,
Stand by you during your transitions,
Be on your side in the hardest times,
Give you hugs even when midnight chimes,
“Oh Rapunzel, Rapunzel! Let down your hair.”
“Since that is the ladder, I will climb it, and seek my fortune.”
Sure you could climb up halfway,
Your boyish valor shining brighter than the sword at your hip,
There once was a princess that did everything right.
She didn't lie,
she didn't swear,
and said her prayers every night.
She kept up with her studies
and aced every test.
"You'll always be my baby girl."
A joke I've been told too much.
Let me tell you why it's 'funny-'
Why it drives me completely nuts.
Since my first little hiccup,
From my first copper curl
Can you imagine going out with friends one minute, but then planning a funeral the next?
Can you imagine a mother, sitting at home, getting a call, telling her that her child was shot?
Laughter is all I hear.
I hear the cruel whispers as I walk down the hall.
I can hear you.
I can hear their silent voices, smirking at the girl who walks -
six letters.
one word.
Faggot.
two syllables that make any queer kid in-or-out of the closet feel nothing less than
unwanted
unloved
America the free, America the brave
America where I am looked down upon for the cadence of my name
America where my people are slaughtered in the streets
America where murderers with a badge walk free
Soldiers of rainbow uniforms
Marching for freedom
Fighting for their existence
Trading closets for caskets
Skeletons no longer a metaphor
Everything was closing in.
The things around me were blurred as if the world had suddenly gone out of focus.
And then I saw her.
She was wearing a purple dress and was laughing with a friend.
I used to spread hate
But now I preach acceptance
I always judged people for the things I never understood
But I never tried to understand
I once viewed discrimination as an outsider
Bound now, but not forever
In this vessel I once called me
Betraying my soul whenever
Mocked by society
Liberation will come
Her touch is all I seek
With a kiss so powerful
Her lips will set me free
i just want to be. to be anything i choose. to be a doctor. to be a lawyer. to be an artist.
but to be anything i choose, i am forced to change. to change who i am. to change what i stand for.
I was born in spring
the season of birth and rebirth
when flowers bloom
and birds start to sing
I have a wish I will always blow out my candles for
my wish is acceptance
my wish is love
Forgive me,
but I have such a hard time believing that you're being sincere.
I feel my fingers rattling—
tapping other bones,
nervously checking my phone,
Desire thrives best under pressure.
Examine, for instance, the fragmented poetry of Sappho:
for how many years did those tattered scraps of Papyrus survive?
Why, what is it so hard to understand I want to be called as they and them. Why do people insist on being so ignorant. Refuse to believe there are genders outside of the binary. Even when we are living proof!
You are either a girl or a boy, and that's it, right?You can be one or the other, not both and not neither.That's what I've been told, and I try to believe it with all my might,But I know how I feel, you don't.
we look for safe spaces and find this instead
words once tossed as a stuttering defense thrown back
to the unfortunates entering a labyrinth of identities
they need comfort, the promise to be understood
when you were little, did you ever play hide and seek? there’s always one kid who hides in the closetif it was you, you know whythe closet’s warm and dark and quiet and as long as you stay silent, no one can tell you’re there
I rearrange my personality and fix my face,
Tuck my curse words and laid back cool college kid demeanor
When my seventh grade self,
Riled up over the excitement of having a girlfriend,
Came out to my mom I said,
Gender
Who are they to say
You must act and dress a certain way
“Ladies knee length skirts, guys suit and tie!”
When gender is more than meets the eye
Both, neither, one, or what fits
