Trophies We Didn't Want

I didn't want the trophy, Karen.

Who gave them to us, Karen?

We never asked, not once, for you

To hand them out.

A little golden mockery

Of what we couldn't do.

You can do anything! Was shoved down our throats

The first words we heard,

The first words we spoke.

I couldn't even get a goal,

Couldn't dribble a ball or multiply

But I was gonna rule the world

Or so you said as you handed out

Little golden trophies we didn't even want.

And now you cry, and bitch, and moan,

At what we have become, 

At what you made us and released 

Upon the world.

Now I sit stop a pile

Of little golden trophies while

The pendulum of debt

Swings ever near my neck.

Maybe if you'd paid attention to

The rotten politicians and 

Fixed the banking missions

So our economy didn't rot

Leaving us with only

Participation trophies we didn't even want.

On My Belly No More

Devour the patriarchy and spit out
your broken teeth, grinning through
the blood and pain. Hike that dress
up, woman, to better lift those
combat boots and stomp the glass
ceiling to itty bitty shinning bits.
Then glue the beautiful shards to
your tiara and march on the Bull.
Grab him by the horns and yell
with all your voice, "No, I will
not submit!" Stamp your high heels
on those pipelines and stem the
flow of toxins on your reservations.
Grab hands, raise your fist, and tell
them all that you, my beauty,
matter.

We will not crawl on bellies any more.

If You Loved Me

If you loved me, you wouldn’t use that word

If you loved me, I think I would feel it more

If you loved me, you would have heard

If you loved me, I wouldn’t run for the door

                Every time you start that rhetoric again.

If you loved me, you’d compliment all parts of me

If you loved me, I think I’d be able to just be

                But I am missing whole parts of myself and then,

If you loved me…

You think you do, you think you’ve accepted

Everything that I’ve become, every smile I smile.

But you’ve been left out, your lives projected

On what mine has blossomed to over the miles.

If you loved me, you’d do more than say it. I would feel it.

                The jokes, the votes, the slurs,

                The smiles when I put on makeup

                “You’re progressing” and “It was just a phase”

But can’t you see?

This is me.

If you loved-

If you just loved the person I really am, not just “That daughter I bore and have responsibility to.”

I am not your daughter.

                I am Shane. 

                I am genderqueer. 

                I am pansexual. 

                I am polyamorous. 

                I am happy.

I want to love you, but you love only parts of me.

I cannot hold on to societal imprinting much longer, so

If you love me, love all of me or none of me.