07-05-2015, 10:46 AM
Hello, everyone! I'm Aurelia, and (shocking, I know) new to the forum. It took a bit of searching to find someplace that offered solid critique instead of platitudes, and it looks like this is the place! A bit of a preface: I'm a spoken word/slam poet, which is why my poetry seems very scattered and.....odd on paper. Also, it's been four long years since I've written anything, so I'm a bit shit.
This isn't finished yet, I'm missing a couple stanzas. Ignore the purple, those are just my notes.
I've pretty much finished it, and uploaded an audio version as well. The audio quality is a bit terrible because of the location I was in, and the recording made my voice MUCH more monotone than it had actually been (this was recorded off a performance). Hopefully it still helps for critique.
gender binary audio v1
“The gender binary,” someone once told me,
“is not a binary at all, in that a)
a binary is a system composed of two parts, and b)
the rainbow has more colors than pink and blue.
If she is pink,
and he is blue,
every color in between is not purple.”
I have this friend who is orange,
not quite as pink as red, she tells me,
but just enough that it counts.
The days she wears dresses are special occasions, short skirts are a celebration,
make-up is worship.
I watch her line lipstick rows on her vanity like candlesticks on the altar
of the perfect girl she never wanted to be.
Most days, she wears jeans like battle armor; her binder is a bulletproof vest
deflecting catcalls and whistles with a chainmail made of cotton and elastic, because
she is not girl enough to love,
she is not girl enough to marry,
she is only girl enough to fuck.
My classmate is yellow,
he likes to say that he was there when the prism created the primary colours,
third wheel on the colour wheel when red and blue fell in love
he has no place in their family tree.
If a binary is a system of two parts,
he is writing his own code.
My other friend is green,
they don’t know what that means yet—
My neighbor is purple,
some days she is magenta
some days he is periwinkle
Purple is not pink or blue,
no matter how much their mother tells them to just pick one.
I knew someone who was pink—
no, blue
no, pink
no, blue
Because that is the only color her father told her she could be
He painted it onto her nursery walls like a contract
in limited edition colors of
bruise blue,
neglect black,
disgust green.
When we were sixteen, she signed it in artery red,
her skin caved like drywall.
Today, she isn’t pink anymore,
she is mental hospital white, and conversion therapy grey,
she smells like drying paint and her hands are so cold.
If gender is a rainbow,
then I am the rain,
the prism,
I am transparent,
refracting your glory
smearing your variety across the sky.
I am structured,
crystalline,
a means to your end
but I am not welcome in your illusion.
This isn't finished yet, I'm missing a couple stanzas. Ignore the purple, those are just my notes.
I've pretty much finished it, and uploaded an audio version as well. The audio quality is a bit terrible because of the location I was in, and the recording made my voice MUCH more monotone than it had actually been (this was recorded off a performance). Hopefully it still helps for critique.
gender binary audio v1
“The gender binary,” someone once told me,
“is not a binary at all, in that a)
a binary is a system composed of two parts, and b)
the rainbow has more colors than pink and blue.
If she is pink,
and he is blue,
every color in between is not purple.”
I have this friend who is orange,
not quite as pink as red, she tells me,
but just enough that it counts.
The days she wears dresses are special occasions, short skirts are a celebration,
make-up is worship.
I watch her line lipstick rows on her vanity like candlesticks on the altar
of the perfect girl she never wanted to be.
Most days, she wears jeans like battle armor; her binder is a bulletproof vest
deflecting catcalls and whistles with a chainmail made of cotton and elastic, because
she is not girl enough to love,
she is not girl enough to marry,
she is only girl enough to fuck.
My classmate is yellow,
he likes to say that he was there when the prism created the primary colours,
third wheel on the colour wheel when red and blue fell in love
he has no place in their family tree.
If a binary is a system of two parts,
he is writing his own code.
My other friend is green,
they don’t know what that means yet—
My neighbor is purple,
some days she is magenta
some days he is periwinkle
Purple is not pink or blue,
no matter how much their mother tells them to just pick one.
I knew someone who was pink—
no, blue
no, pink
no, blue
Because that is the only color her father told her she could be
He painted it onto her nursery walls like a contract
in limited edition colors of
bruise blue,
neglect black,
disgust green.
When we were sixteen, she signed it in artery red,
her skin caved like drywall.
Today, she isn’t pink anymore,
she is mental hospital white, and conversion therapy grey,
she smells like drying paint and her hands are so cold.
If gender is a rainbow,
then I am the rain,
the prism,
I am transparent,
refracting your glory
smearing your variety across the sky.
I am structured,
crystalline,
a means to your end
but I am not welcome in your illusion.