Lockdown

[Guest SamIThinkIAm]

Despite what the radio would have you believe

This is not a love lockdown

Do to so I would have to have the love which I do not

And I aim not to deceive

No this is a spiritual lockdown it seems

One where in order to congregate amongst who would have me

I must not divulge

Must not speak

And I’m crumbling inside from the pain

Of their rebuking silences

The ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy that is unofficially in vogue

That keeps my mouth shut tight

I cannot share my love as they can

Cannot sing songs and write poetry to exclaim

To mountaintops and roaming skies and every open ear

The love of life and life of love which I live, which I have found

I did not ask

For this

A soul confined into a woman’s shape wrongfully placed

And a burning hunger for breasts, lips and soft hips

But somehow still I am at fault

For still they treat me as a sinner

As the guilty party

Dampening my newfound happiness

I tried for years and years

To be like them

To fall into their constricting black and white lines

When I was full of rainbows and colour

I dressed in grey

In order to please them

Underneath my heart was thundering floral

Marking me out as pretender, traitor

So they cast me out

I find no haven

Even in the arms of my loved ones

There’s nothing but the icy cold truth

I am not one of them

Of this

I will never be

Can never be

It becomes a question then

Of can I withstand the winds howling outside

Am I strong enough to bear this burden

Love this gift despite all its curses?

Some days I cannot

Want to run shrieking back into the herd and hide

Pretend, and slowly rust away unsatisfied

If only for the chance on the surface to belong

Some days I know better

And try newly feathered wings

Edging closer to the void with nervous eyes

Knowing one day I will dive off into the world and fly

It’s hard to keep going sometimes

Sometimes I just don’t want to wake up

Ask myself what is the point of another day?

Except to tick down another moment of my life

So many questions and confusions

So many problems with no solution

So many journeys stopping and starting without destinations

And I have to teach myself to love it

For this is what they call life

This is the stuff that causes ballads to be sung

Epics to be written and preserved for thousands of years

This is the stuff that people wouldn’t trade for anything—even relief

And I don’t understand

Don’t comprehend the tiny spark that rages to a flame

Inside when there’s nothing left

When every possible equation spells failure—so logically I should give up

Hope I think it’s called

Don’t understand why it’s here

When I’m surrounded by so much ugliness and darkness

So much hatred and pain

Fed by my outsider status

It forces upon me the sight

Opens to me the reality of suffering

That others cannot see

Hungry eyes reach out to me

In South Africa they rape my sisters for their crime of loving one another

Albinos are tracked down and butchered like cattle

In France they extinguish diversity under the name of tolerance---it’s easy to love when you’re all forced to be the same

In Montreal a young man curls up on the streets cold for the last time

His funeral songs are sung by strangers and his kin

Get a job you bum! (Like it’s so easy)

You’re an abomination you’re no daughter of mine!

I hear them

And it kills me

So tired but there’s so much work do to

I can barely help myself…how can I help you?

Eyes resigned to focus skyward

Trying to see over the boulder

That I’m trying desperately to push up this hill

Everything down to my bones ache

Sometimes gravel shifts under my feet

And it slips

Crushing another bone, ripping more skin

Pushing me perilously close back to that null and void blackness

I’m tired of toiling at what seems to be endless

If it’s not me, it’s them

But floating in that void is worse than anything

Because it is nothing, no one, nowhere

So as much as I want to

Just lie down and be along for the ride

To just turn a blind eye

I can’t give in

For the first time in a long time

There’s something to lose

For the first time in a long time

I feel like I can win

-Sam

[Flint]

Wow.

[Sally]

I started to go with a Wow and a but instead I will answer with a post longer than your poem - ready?

Here it goes, very good!

Love ya,

Sally