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We Forget to Breathe By Starr
We forget to breathe
So I took a breath; as if for the first time
The air was polluted I could feel the dirt
In my lungs
And it occurred to me I remember my tongue; the nape of your neck
The snake of the hip bone; NO
I don't recall breathing
But I remember all the feelings
So when I breathed the air and I knew I would die here
I remembered the back of your head leaving.
We forget to love
I am certain of nothing but the loneliness of the heart's affection
The self-destructive attraction of missing something
Like nothing's ever missed anything before
And while we have lips to be kissing with
Our hearts lay dormant in our chest with
Nothing to re-invent summer with.
We forget our way
While I should be asleep I trace
Outlines of you in my bed
Remembering you in sections
I am certain of nothing but the pain of your selfish heart's affections
Don't forget every day that fall
Don't forget my ink-stained fingers somewhere
Here across the world
Don't forget to breathe; you can see me plea
Remember everything but me.
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A Song for Ruth By an Anonymous Friend, 03/06
I was born a Jew.
Born from the womb of my Gentile mother
But of His Chosen Few,
Through good times, through death times, you I call brother
For I was born a Jew.
My path back home may be longer
than yours,
but Home is common ground.
I hail no g-ds from those cold distant shores
At Sinai I AM found,
I was born a Jew.
Don't you look here at me
Stand and call me a "ger"
We don't need to go there
Can you count every hair?
I was born a Jew.
Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel, Leah,
Keturah, Ruth, Tzipporah too,
Ignore them, and what are you?
David's mother, Moishe's wife.
Don't judge my blood; look at my life!
And when I exit the mikveh
Proudly call me your sister
Because I was born a Jew.
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My Body is My RevolutionBy Jessica Napa-Siegel, July 2004
My body is my rebellion against fatphobia and the diet industry.
My biggest revolutionary act is to love my body in every way, just as it is.
My fat belly and my big tits serve as a tribute to pregnant womyn, fertility,
and earth mama sexuality.
If I love my body, then the only people I allow to touch it must love
it as well. As a sexual abuse survivor, this is revolutionary.
When I walk down the street as a fat dreaded bearded lady, I challenge
people.
Those skinny, classicly pretty girls who hate their bodies regardless
must think, "damn, if she can love her body, then so can I."
As a woman in this world, it is revolutionary that I don't spend hours
painstakingly removing the hair that grows there naturally.
My overgrown bush is a forest, protecting the sacred jewels beneath
it.
I no longer carve it up as an offering to the gods of depression.
Once upon a time, I cut myself to shreds because I hated my body and
I hated my SELF.
My scars remind me that if my arms are tough enough to withstand the
hatred spewed forth from myself and the world, then they are strong
enough to wrap around me for self-love and protection.
They've healed and so have I.
Once upon a time, I filled my body with any drink or drugs I could get
my hands on. I couldn't stand sitting with my thoughts and I needed
some respite.
Now, my respite is to sit alone with myself quietly and just let my
thoughts flow.
My body and my mind were once so unacceptable that I allowed electric
shocks to course through me in attempts to be "fixed."
ADD, ADHD, bipolar, borderline: these were the names given to my body,
my mind
And I revelled in them, because I thought they explained the way I didn't
fit in in this world.
Now the words I choose are more like:
fat, radical, dyke, woman
poet, activist, lover, fighter
Those are the real ways that I don't fall in line.
If I want to work for peace in the world, I must first find peace within
myself. The best tools we have to fight hatred are love and acceptance.
And we must use them on ourselves first.
My body is my revolution and this revolution is only beginning.
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Ode to my Uterus By Blade, 01/19/03
Refrain (between each verse):
O Uteri, one day you will die
And I shall live on without you
Organ of mine,
some call you divine
But we have never been friendly
Together we were born,
But never was I so forlorn
When I discovered what having you would mean.
A girl so they said,
And so with some dread
I tried to live up to this apellation
It never felt right
So only at night
Alone could I dream of being otherwise.
My adolescence tormented
Resistance fomented
Against the implications of being a female body.
Not joy and elation
You brought me only pain and affliction.
Every month wracked by a torture indescribable.
Trying to be something I’m not
Thirty two years I have wrought
Making my way as a stranger in this world.
I saw no way out
Only to weep and shout
And resist the world’s efforts to shove me back in that box.
At every opportunity
You would be there to remind me
Of the semantics written on this body.
"This space is not for rent!" I cried
When the discussion implied
That the reproductive urge would come also to me.
I was revolted Horrified and disgusted
Of any part of me I wanted you gone most of all.
Some think that you define me
But I dreamed of hysterectomy
Anticipated joy of being freed from that word, ‘woman,’
that I could never bend to fit me.
Saboteur of my senses
Hormone cycle and menses
A monthly assault that would drive me
Out of my mind
Homicidally inclined
Poisoned by your productions and expulsions of oestrogen and blood.
Near psychosis
And possibly endometriosis
I was not pleasant to be around In this stranger of a body
That produced nothing but horror in me
I was not able to keep living like that for much longer.
Transition! Bliss!
How long have I ached for this
To find a way of finally being the person, the man I truly am
Body modification
Rather than demonization
Of the flesh from which I had dissociated and denied.
Testosterone
With this I can finally start feeling at home
In this physical form that used to entrap and torment me
And its true
I can be rid of you
Uterus, and no coathanger or barbed wire needed to mutliate.
One last hurrah
You tried to mar
My new found presence of self and contentment
That blood I found
Has not ground me down
But strengthened my resolve, my masculinity and my cock.
O Uteri, one day you will die
And I shall live on without you.
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Untitled By Richard Timonera, January 1998
The past doesn't matter.
The present is now,
The future is ahead of us.
We'll make it through somehow,
No matter how hard life seems to be
You'll always have a friend.
This friend is non-other than me,
I'll do the very best I can.
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Till the End of Time By Naomi Vanderzyl, 1993
Best Friends,
they are for life.
You trust them,
with all your will.
You care for them,
like family.
You end up being
like very close sisters.
You never feel the urge
to be separated.
Your feelings are
always the same.
You feel pain and
anger together.
You are two people,
who are best friends.
You are two but,
you end up feeling
as one...
...till the end of time!
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