LGBTQ* Spoken Word You Might Be Interested In

Stayceyann Chin “Feminist or a Womanist”

*Warning: Lyrics NSFW*

“Am I a feminist or a womanist? 
The student needs to know if I do men occasionally and primarily, am I a lesbian? 
Tongue tied up in my cheek, I attempt to respond with some honesty. 
Well, this business of Dykes and Dykery, I tell her, it’s often messy. 
With social tensions as they are, you never quite know what you’re getting.

Girls who are only straight at night, hardcore butches be sporting dresses between 9 & 6 every day. 
Sometimes she is a he, trapped by the limitations of our imaginations. 
Primarily, I tell her, I am concerned about young women who are raped on college campuses, in bars, after poetry readings like this one, in bars.
Bruised lip and broken heart, you will forgive her if she does not come forward with the truth immediately, for when she does, it is she who will stand trial as damaged goods.
Everyone will say she asked for it, dressed as she was, she must have wanted it. 
The words will knock about in her head: ” Harlot, slut, tease, loose woman” – some people can not handle a woman on the loose. 
You know those women in pinstriped shirts and silk ties, You know those women in blood-red stiletto heels and short skirts. 
These women make New York City the most interesting place.
And while we’re on the subject of diversity, Asia is not one big race, and there’s not one big country called ‘The Islands’, and no, I am not from there.

There are a hundred ways to slip between the cracks of our not so credible cultural assumptions about race and religion. 
Most people are suprised that my father is Chinese. 
Like there’s some kind of preconditioned look for the half-Chinese, lesbian poet who used to be Catholic, but now believes in dreams.

Let’s get real sister-boy in the double-x hooded sweatshirt. 
That blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jesus in the Vatican ain’t right. 
That motherfucker was Jewish, not white. 
Christ was a middle-eastern rasta man who ate grapes in the company of prostitutes and he drank wine more than he drank water. 
Born of the spirit, the disciples loved him in the flesh.

But the discourse is not on those of us who identify as gay or lesbian or even straight. 
The state needs us to be either a clear left or right. 
Those in the middle get caught in the cross – fire away at the other side.
If you are not for us, then you must be against us. 
If you are not for us, then you must be against us.
People get scared enough, they pick a team. 
Be it for Buddha or Krishna or Christ, I believe God is that place between belief and what you name it. 
I believe holy is what you do when there is nothing between your actions and the truth.

The truth is I’m afraid to draw your black lines around me, I’m not always pale in the middle, I come in too many flavors for one f***ing spoon.
I am never one thing or the other. 
At night I am everything I fear, tears and sorrows, black windows and muffled screams.
In the morning, I am all I ever want to be: rain and laughter, bare footprints and invisible seams, always without breath or definition. 
I claim every single dawn, for yesterday is simply what I was, and tomorrow even that will be gone.”

Personal Note:  Over the last few weeks I have had many heavy heart and deep tissue conversations about things we push away and try not to talk about. I never repost from my personal page but I want to pass this on to many of you.

Please remember, if you are having a rough month, week, day, hour, minute, moment:

You Are Loved(!), You Will Be Missed(!), We Need You Here(!)

You are not the only person who has felt those infinite seconds of everything in a blender of nothing. 

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

The Trevor Project Call 866-488-7386 (24/7)

National Domestic Violence Hotline Call 1-800-799-7233

Keep On, Keeping On!

—Rebecca

knowrq:

Poem: Human The Death Dance by Buddy Wakefield

Gender Expression and Spoken Word You May Have Missed

Following text from YouTube:

Uploaded by ChasingDreams013 

LGBTQ* Spoken Word Artists You Should Know

Miles Walser “Apples” 

heartbreaking spoken word about dating within the trans* spectrum

LBGTQ* Spoken Word Artists You Should Know

Lacey Roop “Gender is a Universe”

While squatting down to take a piss I read

gender is a universe and we are all stars.

scribbled on the wall of a bathroom stall

I was so in awe by this that I went home and poured myself a flask

crawled on top the roof to ponder what I had read

I stared with amazement at the vastness of constellations just wonderin’ if God has become an angry drunk

because of the ignorance and intolerance he sees in us?

We like to stereotype, nitpick, criticize, and compare black and white,

judge each other because of hairstyles, and pant size

I guess that’s why everytime I go out at night I always get asked

Are you a dude or a dyke?

And all I wanna say is

Oh hi, dude bra’! Ummm, I don’t know, how ‘bout you ask your girlfriend since she was the one who went down on me last night.

But I refrain and say

Well, I’m a little bit of both and sometimes neither

Give him a hug then walk away while he stands there intrigued still trying to figure me out

and I’m not really offended as much as I am saddened by how it never occurred to this guy

that people’s sexual preference doesn’t diminish the fact that we are still human

It’s an atrocity to me that we still have to be reminded of this

Did you know that it took nearly 400 years after

the first American settlement before

the white man recognized that black people had souls?

And I wonder if it is going to take 400 more before people

quit telling me that they think it’s cute that I kiss girls

As if my lifestyle is some trendy fashion statement

gay ‘till graduation bullshit

curious exhibitionist

I wish my mom would quit telling me

this is a stage I’m going through

and recognize that this is a skin her daughter has finally felt comfortable enough in for me to tell her about girlfriends

‘Cuz from 2nd grade ‘till I was a sophomore in college

I camouflaged my feelings because the state of Mississippi

has it written that love can only exist between a man and a woman

as if a state has the right to dictate who you choose to spend the rest of your life with

But on nights when I’m sleeping next to someone soft

I can’t help but wonder about the ones still struggling in my hometown like

Mikey who had to put a silencer over his heartbeat

because it thumped too loud whenever Andrew was in the room

he was afraid that Calvary would condemn him.

Or Irene who used to dye her hair bright blue to distract

people from staring in dismay at her and Shay’s interlocked fingers

As if homosexuality is a disease instead of just another form of loving

I just hope that when I go out tonight I won’t get asked

How do lesbians do it?

As if heterosexual missionary position is the only type of sex there is

because that would be fucking boring

I think I might just crawl on top my roof and get drunk with God again so he can hear me when I ask him to keep an eye out on

Irene and Mikey or anyone else who is being taught

to be ashamed of themselves for their feelings

because tonight I don’t wanna have to explain myself.

I’m tired of having to explain myself.

I don’t wanna be distinguished as gay, straight, lesbian,

queer, dude, or dyke

just human

because gender really is a universe

and we need to accept that we are all but mere stars

a part of one great galaxy.

———————————–

LGBTQ* Spoken Word You Should Hear

“The Nutritionist” — Andrea Gibson

Andrea Gibson’s response to suicide, mental health, physical health, and what it means to breathe in each day.

The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables. 
Said if I could get down thirteen turnips a day 
I would be grounded, rooted. 
Said my head would not keep flying away 
to where the darkness lives. 

The psychic told me my heart carries too much weight. 
Said for twenty dollars she’d tell me what to do. 
I handed her the twenty. She said, “Stop worrying, darling. 
You will find a good man soon.” 

The first psycho therapist told me to spend 
three hours each day sitting in a dark closet 
with my eyes closed and ears plugged. 
I tried it once but couldn’t stop thinking 
about how gay it was to be sitting in the closet. 

The yogi told me to stretch everything but the truth. 
Said to focus on the out breath. Said everyone finds happiness 
when they care more about what they give 
than what they get. 

The pharmacist said, “Lexapro, Lamicatl, Lithium, Xanax.” 

The doctor said an anti-psychotic might help me 
forget what the trauma said. 

The trauma said, “Don’t write this poem. 
Nobody wants to hear you cry 
about the grief inside your bones.” 

But my bones said, “Tyler Clementi dove
into the Hudson River convinced 
he was entirely alone.” 

My bones said, “Write the poem.” 

The lamplight. Considering the river bed. 
To the chandelier of your fate hanging by a thread.
To everyday you could not get out of bed.
To the bulls eye of your wrist
To anyone who has ever wanted to die.

I have been told, sometimes, the most healing thing to do-
Is remind ourselves over and over and over:
“Other people feel this too.”

The tomorrow that is coming, gone
And it has not gotten better
When you are half finished writing that letter 
to your mother that says “I swear to God I tried
But when I thought I hit bottom, it started hitting back”
There is no bruise like the bruise of loneliness kicks into the spine

So let me tell you I know there are days 
it looks like the whole world is dancing in the streets 
when you break down like the doors of the looted buildings

You are not alone 
and wondering who will be convicted of the crime 
of insisting you keep loading your grief into the chamber of your shame

You are not weak just because your heart feels so heavy
I have never met a heavy heart 
that wasn’t a phone booth with a red cape inside
Some people will never understand 
the kind of superpower it takes for some people to just walk outside
Some days I know my smile looks like the gutter of a falling house

But my hands are always holding tight to the ripchord of believing
A life can be rich like the soil
Can make food of decay
Can turn wound into highway
Pick me up in a truck with that bumper sticker that says 
“It is no measure of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society.”

I have never trusted anyone 
with the pulled back bow of my spine 
the way I trusted ones who come undone at the throat
Screaming for their pulses to find the fight to pound

Four nights before Tyler Clementi jumped from the George Washington Bridge 
I was sitting in a hotel room in my own town
Calculating exactly what I had to swallow 
to keep a bottle of sleeping pills down

What I know about living is the pain is never just ours
Every time I hurt I know the wound is an echo
So I keep a listening to the moment the grief becomes a window
When I can see what I couldn’t see before,
through the glass of my most battered dream

I watched a dandelion lose its mind in the wind
and when it did, it scattered a thousand seeds.

So the next time I tell you how easily I come out of my skin, 
don’t try to put me back in,
just say “Here we are together at the window aching for it to all get better
but knowing as bad as it hurts our hearts, made of only just skin, 
knowing there is a chance the worst day might still be coming —
let me say right now for the record, I’m still gonna be here
asking this world to dance, even if it keeps stepping on my holy feet
you — you stay here with me, okay?
You stay here with me.
Raising your bright against the bitter dark
Your bright longing
Your brilliant fists of loss”

Friends, if the only thing we have to gain in staying is each other,
my God that’s plenty
my God that’s enough
my God that is so so much for the light to give

each of us at each other’s backs whispering over and over and over

“Live”

“Live”

“Live”

(thank you Emm in Sem for supplying the lyrics)

LGBTQ* Spoken Word, Performance, and Voices

“The Butterfly Effect” —

DelaWhere? youth poets Adam Alexander and Hilde Rose perform their group piece, “The Butterfly Effect” at the 2011 Brave New Voices team.

“Apathy is hate crime and we should have seen that sooner. — Wearing purple for one day won’t stop another kid from slicing open his neck to see if he really bleeds rainbows.”

LGBTQ* Spoken Word Artists

He Swallowed - Written and narrated by Xicano Sol

“When society influences you to act in ways that are not authentic to your true self, you end up swallowing a lot more than you think.”