Exercise 1 - Abstract Poetry

It's been two hours (three? four?)

Bare walls dancing from gold, to peach, to lavender

Mesmerising, tranquil

Dull, desperate

The paint is chipped from hastily torn down posters, and beneath the white wash shines a little silver sliver

Across the room, and in my palm

Ten thin lines of all the same length

Relief, power

Shame, hurt

White walls now, no more silver

Tomorrow will be better.

Exercise 2 - Narrative Poetry

Tonight, we sit cross-legged in a circle on the ratty carpet of student accomodation. A ring of fire blazes in the centre and my right hand grips the last bottle of Lambs I will ever drink, waiting to end up on the bathroom floor before sunrise. Music that I'll only admit under penalty of death I don't know blasts through someone's shitty iPhone speakers, but I can barely hear it over the already pounding ache in my skull.

Someone draws a 4 — four is for whores — but only Tasha drinks because we didn't know Olive was a girl yet. When I draw the last King, she quietly, concerned, tells me I don't need to down the vile concoction of 5 different spirits. I ignore her because everyone is cheering and I desperately want to impress the boy with sunset hair and freckles so that he presses his lips into mine again (he never does).

We put some comedy on Netflix that no one is watching and ignore the way that Jack, who is not abusive because he's never hit anyone, yells at his partner because she bought chicken nuggets with batter coating instead of breadcrumbs.

I pass out on the bathroom floor, stomach empty, and wake up in Jack's partner's bed with freckled arms around me, overheating, and an aching sense of regret and resentment that I still miss 6 years later. At 7am, on maybe a couple hours of sleep, I shovel soggy, unwanted middle pieces of a greasy metre pizza into my mouth as we huddle over the box in disgusted silence.

I drop my phone 8 times on the walk home after abruptly being told to leave, and to avoid the stares of church-goers and dog-walkers. The disapproving glare of the midday sun is a spotlight while a pit of sorrow and fast-food lay heavy in my gut.

Exercise 3 - Lyric Essay

As I leaf through the books in a charity shop, I catch sight of a mother pulling an old doll in a pink skirt out of her young son's hand. She throws the toy back on the shelf and roughly drags him out of the shop, scolding him with familiar words:

"You can't have that. It's for girls."

A wave of nostalgia hits me as I consider my own history. At the faces of eager relatives on birthdays as I pull yet another Bratz doll out of obnoxious glitter-coated wrapping paper and I try, politely, as I have been instructed, not to let my disappointment show. I put the offending plastic imitation in a drawer, untouched for a decade, until I am finally old enough to get rid of it myself.

To all of the people who utter those familiar words. The teachers who ask for big, strong men to help set up the classroom. To the grandmothers who fuss over uncomfortable little girls in their best Sunday dresses. To those who say:

"Boys will be boys."

"That's not very becoming of a young lady like yourself."

"Isn't he such a little ladies man?"

This essay is for you.

When I was 15, I finally, politely, as I had been instructed, told my mother that I was a boy. Unspoken, a plea that would she still love me? If only it wasn't an inconvenience?

When I went to university, I told people, politely, as I had been instructed, that my pronouns were he/him, please, if it wasn't too much of an inconvenience?

When the gentlemen in the bathroom of a gay bar muttered that they didn't know that this was the ladies' room, I told them on my way out, politely, as I had been instructed, that I was sorry to have been an inconvenience.

When my ex-boyfriend told me he would miss my breasts after I had top surgery, I told him, politely, as I had been instructed, that I would reconsider — maybe — if it was such an inconvenience.

We live in fear, in a world that caters to anyone except us, of being an inconvenience. Of being too unusual; too weird; too demanding; too wrong. Of incurring hatred and wrath and mockery and disdain for something we cannot choose.

So we smile, politely, as we have been instructed, as we are pointed and stared at on the street.

As people roll their eyes when we wear badges with our pronouns.

As we are purposefully misgendered anyway.

As we have slurs hurled at us behind our backs.

As we lose jobs.

As we are victims of violent crime.

As we are labelled as perverts and sex offenders.

As we are disowned and beaten by the ones we thought loved us.

As we are victims of sex trafficking and fetishization.

As over 50% of us will attempt suicide.

As we are told that, actually, we are such an inconvenience after all, we will smile, politely, as we have been instructed.

Rik

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