Workshop piece 9/2/16 This is a performance poem written in response to a current event in the U.S. right now. A couple of weeks ago Virginia lawmakers introduced a bill that would give teachers permission to verify the "anatomy" of a student suspected of using a bathroom opposite of their "birth gender". This bill would be designed to target transgender students. Additionally a student found using a bathroom not approved by the staff can be fined $50. This includes students from elementary to high school. I wrote this poem in response to this injustice in the voice of a transgender student.
In the break between period seven and eight
my stomach begins to tighten and lurch
in that usual way you come to expect
when you’ve half drowned yourself on diet coke.
I make my way to the second floor bathroom by Lab B,
ready to relieve myself, when the algebra teacher,
Mr Doyle, latches onto my shoulder.
His talon fingers gripping hard like
I am a field mouse, and he is a bird of prey.
“Hey!” he says. “I know what you were about to do.”
It’s a bathroom Mr. Doyle, how many things
could I possibly have to do in there?
“You think you’re funny?” he asks.
You would think after twenty
long years as an educator he would know
that if you ask a teenager a rhetorical question
you will get a rhetorical answer.
I do think I’m funny Mr. Doyle, but
that wasn’t meant to be a joke.
“You know what I mean,” he says.
Grip growing tighter, buzzard eyes fixed,
of all the places he could look, squarely on my groin.
“That is the girls’ room you are headed for.”
What is your point sir? I have to ask.
I am crushed under the weight of his hands.
“Young man,” he says. “No amount of fabric
sewed up in those skirts could ever disguise
what is hiding underneath.”
Sir, I say, if I could pull out an X-ray,
I would let it show you the true shade of my insides.
If I could paint the mirror to reflect not the flesh
between my thighs, but the colour and shape
of the soul behind these eyes I would.
But this is Virginia, where school kid’s privates
are made into public property.
House Bill 663 would have me prove my anatomy.
Bathrooms now barricaded with border patrol,
stripping down students in the hallway as if
their identification is really something
that can be found dangling between their legs.
The colours of the world are changing.
What was once only seen as black or white in hue
is now categorized girl pink and boy blue.
This is what we’ve come to.
Children are appraised like automobiles.
School boards pulling us over for inspection
verifying that our pre-approved design
matches the sex of our undercarriage.
They never think to check inside.
They neglect our interior finishes.
Even now as we leave our doors unlocked,
the windows rolled down, our lights
flashing, sirens flaring, screaming
there is more to me you cannot see.
I am genderless and free.
No comments:
Post a Comment