Why ...

Why is it that I wake up
And can already hear you arguing
Your voices implanted in my mind
Where no one else can listen

You control me
But I like to think you don't complete me
Because if you did
I'd be aggressive, mean, and everything I don't want to be

So I have to ask
Since I'm the only one that can see you
That can hear you
Why do you destroy me?

Your words affect me
You tell me how to dress
How to walk
How to talk
How to live

But I don't know if I'd call this living
Being stuck in my head,
You must not consider yourselves living either
Yet you have all the power

One day, you'll be in harmony
Rather than at war
One day we'll be a family
I just hope it's before you **** me

you don’t shy away;
that’s my favourite thing about you

you’re comfortable in your skin,
or under pounds of cake,
in your ripped jeans and cropped tops,
sneakers or wedged heels

handsome in dresses
pretty in suits
shades of pink and blue
gender norms have got nothin’ on you.

comfortable. safe. confident.
that is you.

I

THE REMARK

She scornfully remarked,
"Ha, Ha, men?.....
They are dogs,
all of them"
and then went on
and said,
"Most of my friends are men"

II

THE QUESTIONS

It was a casual conversation
but left behind nagging questions:

One:
Is woman really liberated?
For if that were so,
she would be free to sow
the seeds for a malice-free life:
A life that is
marked by sobriety
and unshakable fraternity –
A distinguished burden which principally she
can carry gracefully
till we all reach Goshen.

Two:
Has man been always liberated?
You may or may not agree,
I just say what I see.

III

THE VICTIM

Among the countless atrocities
on the vast womankind,
a hoarse, feeble voice thus pines:

Look at him;
He has been trained to ****
and be unflinchingly killed.....

He is:
an oblivious slave to his condition,
.....a victim of unmindful persuasions
by apathetic social conventions....
crippled....plagued...
by inherited apparitions
of our grand forefathers.

He has been brutalized too
on his way from a wobbly boyhood
to a hard-bitten manhood.

IV

SYSTEMIC SCARS

One could write a manuscript.
Instead I cite a sparse list
about how
he has been systematically marred
by the oppressive
socio-economic-political farce:

......of the defense ministry,
or salvation through insurgency...

......of the drug cartel,
or the liquor-tobacco lobby...

......of the boss's fancy,
......of female friendly courts,
...even sports!!!
......of the spousal gripe.....
and most of all...
....through the stereotype hype.

V

DIS-EMPOWERMENT OF MAN

Is man really enfranchised?
I am a man and I vouch otherwise.
........

Bully the other boy
else...
just play with a toy
solitary.....a *****.

You are born with a member,
Now, my goodness,
prove to be better
than your female opposite number;
An impossible task,
for no gender
is exclusively first-class.

Prove your chivalry;
find a nice young lady
or carry some forbidden
infamous label.

Hide your malaise,
pretend to be at ease,
do not brood,
or be doomed
as a sentimental fool.

Always be okay alone
wherever you are
whatever you are...
sickly or strong.

Feel guilty.
After all, all social malady
is solely your responsibility.

You are just the "unfair ***"
...an ugly accumulation
of grossly vile testosterone,
no match for the noble progesterone.

My unfortunate friend, do you see…
That radical crowd....so elite?
That is the "fair-***",
not ye.....not ye.

Apart from a backbreaking childbirth,
most other dangerous or physically stressful work
is a man's traditional berth.

Even the macrocosm
has been a scrooge,
depriving him
from the possibility of motherhood;
...the sensational miracle of natural creation.

Is man really free...?

VI

THE SLOG DOG

But yes,
as my good friend said,
there still remains
a thin little thread
of fragmentary credence,
hanging like a dire dog-collar.

It says:
Man is a two-timing slog-dog;
unfaithful to many
but loyal to love,
wagging the tail
for his lovely suffragette dove.

She can heap
his eating bowl
with puppy-love chow
and he will be forever hers.

She’s seen for what she wears
for what's beneath the fabric,
Nothing more, nothing less.
She can’t stop what's going to happen next,
But that's her fault.

It’s just a regular day for you and everyone else like you.
Just something to do and forget about later.
You can act impulsively,
But it's her and everyone else like her who has to live in fear about that.
Not you,
Nor the ones who make the rules.
The ones without a care in their minds about this are the ones who are in control of her decisions.
The ones who don’t need to think about what they wear,
Where they are,
Or who they’re with,
Are the ones making her think about them.

She’s living in handcuffs and its as if this is a mockery of her.
Are you just testing her to see if the handcuffs are secure?
That they’re fully locked?
Don’t worry.
They can’t come undone.
You won’t let them come undone.

And that's just how it works.
We need to hold your hand.
We need to follow you, the leader.
We need to change ourselves because it's our problem.
We are the scapegoats to the polluted minds of the animals in control of us.

It's our skin, our body,
That we will have to live the rest of our lives with.
But since it's our body, it's our fault.

Can I unsubscribe from gender?

We are told what a tiger is
From the moment we can listen:
Picture books, poetry, songs and stories,
A thousand ways to show this thing
That few of us will ever see.

We grow older, the stories darker:
The tigers will hunt us, beautiful, terrifying
If we dare to step outside borders
Set by those from a time where they were inevitable,
A promise, guaranteed, that someday they would come.

We dream of the day that they find us,
Make a meal of our fragile bodies,
Leave nothing but bones and torn-up cloth,
Vanish into the night to sleep us away.
We tell ourselves the only way to live,
Is to be meat in the stomach of a predator,
The way it is and always will be.

If we had not been told of tigers,
Would they be as real as now?
Or would they remain nothing
But an amber-striped thought
Stalking the edges of our cities in the dark?

Prompt: Explain the story behind a picture from your camera roll
(date of picture taken: August 30th, 2019)


The picture is a simple mirror selfie, but the story has more to do with what I was wearing.
Earlier that day, I went to the mall to shop for my homecoming outfit with
my friend, (REDACTED).
It seems trivial to someone else, I guess, but to me, it was a big deal.
It was because I could drive and because we were at the mall against
my dad's wishes that added to my nervousness of it all.
I went to the boy's section of the clothing store because I'm really short,
and (REDACTED) helped me pick out a suit.
My first suit.
Just wearing the suit jacket, I couldn't help but smile like an idiot.
It was so....right.
I don't know how else to explain it.
It was as if all those little pieces just fell into place and everything felt
all right.
For once, everything in that moment felt good and perfect.
I didn't care about the curious looks from the middle-aged moms.
I felt....euphoric?
Euphoric.
Gender euphoria.

What is it, how can we tell?
Are we forced into it, a cell?
A trapped enclosure, a set of ways
Dedicated to telling one how to be.

Not inherently bad,
But dangerous,
When we talk about
Dreaded gender.

Keep your codes for morals
Let me wear my skirt.
My dressed all lay dusty
Because I was afraid I would be
Looked at
As lesser.

No longer,
For I am truly,
Not akin to a single
Form of gender.

The one true way
That of self-realization
Comes from the acknowledgement
That I am me
Male, female, none, both.
I am Bede.

When I stare at my face,
And look deep in the mirror,

It's never the love that creeps in,
Always the 'horror'

I see a girl standing there.
An average looking girl.

She's not to tall,
But also not short.

She has brown hair up to her shoulders,
With blue and indigo streaks in it.

She's wearing pants that are a little bit too big,
Because her disorders make her lose weight.

She's wearing a red and black 'lumberjack blouse'
It's a little too big, it's from the men's departement.

She has a pretty small mouth,
But her lips are pink, and kind of plumped

She has bushy eyebrows,
But not in an ugly way?

She has beautiful grey, blue, green eyes.
It depends on the day and her mood.

She has a little bit of a crooked nose,
That a tiny bit too big for her face.

She has a chubby face, not so much
But she's a little chubby over all.

She has braces on her teeth,
But that's pretty common these days.

She has a pretty normal body,
Normal figure, a little on the "fat" side.

She has an arm full of scars,
But they have always been there, so it's fine.

And all of the above,
Every day that's what I see.
But what I see in the mirror,

She's a girl.

She   is   not   me.