gender

Identity Struggle

~ distilledvoice ~ 2 Comments

We wear our race like a heavy cloak

Painting our skins with uncomfortable ideas.

We wear our gender like lead boots,

Stumbling in discomfort proclaimed as ease.

We wear our sexuality like a brightly

Coloured mask.

Our religion and politics

We wear as indomitable rightness.

Our point of view

Is an impenetrable stone castle

Fortified until the last soldier is killed.

Our countries are emblems

For which many will die.

So many are the dividing lines,

The fractious ideas,

For we are tribes

Of a broken mind,

Switching allegiances

Like a fickle tide forgetting the moon,

Changing our image to suit,

Gritting our teeth

In gripped identity

Held as a fist

Shaken at the world.

Are you for or against?

⁃ the what does not matter

In this politics of imagery.

Is it possible we are mistaken

In our hell-bent

Desperation to be somebody?

Could we be

Loose in all the periphery

Of our difference?

Could we see that we one in our being

And the rest is but a jumble of ideas

To wear, not for the war of it

But for the fun of it.

Where is even rightness in this?

Perhaps nowhere

But within the expanse of our boundless self

Containing nothing but the infinite.

All Of Us

~ distilledvoice ~ 2 Comments

I am the black man

And I love my skin

And the life within the body.

And yet I am the white man,

Pale as the purity of snow.

And still I am Asian.

And so too am I mixed,

With all the races blood

In lattices twisted up in the

Ages DNA, conjuring diversity,

Bringing beauty and ugliness

Time and time again.

But I too am a woman

For there is joy in that form,

As there is joy within the masculine.

And the body of a child is mine.

And sometimes I am sexless,

Indefinably between

The boarders of mapmakers

And nationality.

And I am every class and cast

There ever was.

All this I have in me.

And as I am,

So too is other,

Not one

With jurisdiction

Over emotion, attribute or worth.

Not one less than

And not one more than.

All of us

Looking upon the world

From the same different place,

Infinitely capable

And with equal potential

To be all things.

Am I A Woman Or A Man?

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

The masculine polarity is lorded

In my mind.

The feminine principle is subjugated.

Am I a man or a woman?

I deem certain characteristics

As female attributes. Certain others,

I assign to the realms of the male.

Am I a woman or a man?

I raise my children

To view the world as I do,

They believe nearly all I taught.

Are they male or female?

My thoughts are riddled with bias

And unconscious design,

A rigorous conditioning.

Am I female or male?

I am a part of society,

Constructing the ‘how is’

In my action and inaction.

Am I masculine or feminine?

Am I a woman or a man,

A man or a woman,

A female or a male,

A male or female?

Am I jointly responsible?

Am I equally responsible?

Am I free of constraint

Or bonded to the ideas I believe?

Toxic Femininity/Masculinity?

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

The angry mind and the put upon

Seeks its justice.

Who better

Than your polar self

To carry the ills

And the blame

So you may remain innocent

And put upon still.

Who raises the boys?

Who raises the girls?

In whose mind

Are the toxic stereotypes?

Who carries the bias?

Is the domination occurring

Out there or within the framework

Of mind?

Who perpetrates,

keeps the system going,

Passing it through the generations?

Who are the parents of our collective Psychology?

Who is the mother?

Who is the father?

Are we not all children, osmosing

The faults that came before,

Then offering them

To our children

And the children to come?

Who is responsible?

Who is responsible?

Who is responsible?

You are responsible.

You are responsible.

You are responsible.