This is my collection of poetry. Please enjoy.
10 things they never tell you about the mistresses children
- She has two sons, ages 14 and 18, and they are inseparable, nothing has or ever will come between them
- The youngest boy has a bright future ahead of him. He likes building computers and fixing cars. No one doubts he’s going to be someone one day.
- The older boy is a bit softer, he likes all things creative. He hopes to be a graphic designer if he can make it but he has learned from experience not to ever want anything too much. The let down is simply more than he can handle.
- They have both learned a specific set of skills over the years. The youngest has the power of invisibility. He’s learned how to slip away into the safety of his bedroom when things begin to escalate. The oldest has learned to become the parent. When fights break out it’s the oldest who’s takes care of his brother. When mom isn’t there it’s the oldest who helps his brother to do his homework.
- Their world is split into so many pieces it can be hard to pick apart the lies and the truth. They have a world at school, a world at home, a world with family, and a world with friends. Every day they can feel the gravity from each world trying to pull them apart but as long as they have each other things will be ok. Right?
- They never approved of the lifestyle they live. They never wanted to feel their mother’s shame. They never wanted to listen to her scream his name into the phone as he drives home to his wife. Sometimes the homewrecker isn’t just the mistress.
- They recognize why their mother keeps that man around. They know that she truly does care about him. They just wish they could believe he felt the same way. In the meantime, they will let him pay the bills in exchange for their silence. They will let him buy the best of the two worlds he wishes to live in. Like an unspoken contract, they abide by his rules, so long as he abides by theirs.
- They imagine what his family is like. They hear the stories of his own sons. They hear about their perfect lives with their perfect wives and their perfect jobs. He’s proud of them and they know this.
- One day the oldest will watch his mother get hit. Apparently it’s okay to hit a woman but then again she’s only your mistress isn’t she. The boys will watch their mother run back into his arms before the bruises have even healed. They will look on as she lets him tear her down. They will see him takes every oz of sanity she had. They will watch as he expertly extracts every tear from behind her eyes as if he were a surgeon. And they will hate every second.
- We, the mistresses children, pray that the next time we hear your name, it is in the obituaries, because we would rather hear our mother cry over your dead body then watch her shed another tear for you alive. My mother once said The boys who make you cry are never worth your tears and the boys who are worth your tears will never make you cry. If only she could take her own advice.
A Public Announcement
Dear public,
This is an announcement
I’m here to announce that our children are suffering,
I’m here to tell you that our students are afraid to go to class,
They are risking their health to avoid ridicule, and why you might ask,
Because they were born just a little bit different,
See they were born transgender,
And it’s of no fault of their own,
But unfortunately, they will suffer anyways,
They will fear for their lives while walking down the street,
They will sweat at the thought of introducing themselves to new teachers,
And their health will suffer because they will avoid their school’s gendered bathrooms every day for At least eight hours,
To someone on the outside, this may not seem like a big deal,
But it has great effects
See according to the book Transgender people, by Tamara Thompson
41% of transgender individuals have attempted to commit suicide,
That’s almost half,
To put that in perspective only 1.6% of the general population attempts suicide,
Trans youth do not feel safe in schools,
Maybe it’s because 78% of us, grades k through 12, have reported harassment,
Or because 35% of that harassment is physical and 12% is sexual,
There’s your logic or logos for the day, but if that’s not enough
Let’s try some emotion, some pathos
So I employ you,
Please tell me how we are supposed to learn when we’re so distracted by the glares and discrimination around us we can barely catch our breath,
Tell me how am I meant to receive good grades when my syllabus looks more like a death certificate ensuring my unwelcome in this binary setting of black and white,
Good and bad,
Boy and girl,
Here I quote a wise woman by the name of Denise Fromam,
As she said in her poem, “Dear Straight People”
“Dear Straight Bullies,
You’re right. We don’t have the same values.
You kill everything that’s different, I preserve it.
Tell me, what happened to
Jorge Mercado?
Sakia Gunn?
Lawrence King?
What happened to the souls alienated
in between too many high school walls,
who planned the angels of their deaths in math class,
who imagined their funerals as ticker-tape parades,
who thought the afterlife was more like an after-party.
Did you notice that hate
is alive and well in too many lunchrooms,
taught in the silence of too many teachers,
passed down like second-hand clothing
from too many parents?”
End quote
It’s been written time and time again,
The levels of hatred and non-acceptance in schools is just too damn high,
and the only way to combat this issue is to lead by example,
We need teachers and staff to speak up,
We need you to show your support for human rights,
We need you to do what you do best,
To teach us how to be functioning citizens,
To show us how to be productive adults,
And to protect us so we are capable of receiving the best education possible,
I am one of the lucky ones,
My school has gender-neutral bathrooms,
My teachers and family do support me,
I am so lucky in fact, that I had my first shot of testosterone this past Monday on April 17th, 2017,
And for these things, I am forever grateful,
But there is still much work to be done,
And therefore I repeat
Dear public,
This is an announcement