The Airedale Centre,

Keighley.

91.

You walked the tiled aisles

Tramped.

I remember you as short.

Hunched over.

Overcoated.

Sockless feet

Scabbed and scarred and ingrown 

Wedged in slip-on sandals.

Well meaning, condescending 

Charitable ladies

Would offer you a pound.

A chocolate bar.

A cup of tea.

You snarled:

“Don’ need. Don’ wan’.”

And tramped

Away

Leaving them clutching their rejected guilt.

And suddenly you’d gone.

The local paper featured you next day:
“Banned! A familiar figure.”
It was clear  they’d tried to interview you

Received the same responses
You gave to coins and sweets and cups of tea
“Don’ need. Don’ wan'”
They speculated you had come from Poland.
Your name was Janek, Polback, maybe Kosz.
The manager, the villain of the piece

Had said you put off paying customers 
And banned you from the centre.

Days later you were back;
Your scabbed, carbuncled feet encased in new, blue, woolly socks.
I wondered who had got you to accept them. 
What bargain had been struck.

  
The beast still roars
Red-faced and raging.
Uncensored, uncompromised
Always upstaging
The slick and the sly
Meeting every evasion
With blunt force truth.
This war he’s been waging
For forty six years
No nearer cessation.
Old comrades long gone
And his body is aging
But the beast still roars,
Red-faced and raging.

This was inspired by today’s episode of Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4, which seemed to be endorsing a rather odd narrative about the large increase in referrals for assigned female at birth trans children and young people.

Personally I think it’s to do with the fact that this demographic never used to get referred for treatment, and in many cases still aren’t, due to parental and GP ignorance and the children themselves not having had a vocabulary to explain their situation.

But that’s just me.
____________
At 12

I was cutting myself.

I didn’t know what was triggering those feelings

But I came to the conclusion:

Things would be easier if I were to be male
I saw:

The GP

The psychiatrist

The Tavistock
I don’t know why I thought it would be easier.
More suited to who I was.
I associated being a man with

being happier within myself.
Connecting with the person

I felt as though I was.
On an instinctual level it felt right
Hormone blockers helped
Testosterone masculinised me a lot.
I wanted chest surgery
But nothing involving the bottom half.
And now?
At the moment I identify as non binary
Neither male nor female.
That’s quite different to the time

When I was very keen to be a man
Looking back?
I would never say that I regretted it
The decisions I made were right for who I was.
But there were things I didn’t quite pick up on at the time
I wish I had considered non binary gender.

I’m happy with the physical changes but
I wish I’d taken things a little bit slower.
The interviewer sighs her relief.

Soundbites achieved.

Point proven.

  
For Liz

_____________

Some people speak in fairysong.

Dance widdershins, their heads thrown back.

Flap sequinwings but never fly.

All rainbowheaded, sparklyeyed

These flowerchildren: how they try,

They check the glass to see how high

They never fly. They’ll never fly.

But you were born with tinselwings,

With streetlamps shining in your eyes.

The magic found in common things

Ridiculous and warm and wise.

You shone so briefly, flew so high.

A supernovabutterfly.

I will not cry. I will not cry.

You paint works of art
In miniature. Layer upon

Layer of lacquer.

With delicate strokes

You create disposable 

Images, tenfold.

A bored brunette soaks

Last week’s masterpiece away

In tepid water.

For family Friday, here’s an awkward poem for Carol.

———–
So. This is awkward

But. We are awkward.

And because we know 

That we are awkward,

(And we are awkward)

We can talk.

Talkward.

That’s the first quarter done! 

This Thank you Thursday poem is for Annette, with gratitude.

___________
You say you think we’re quite alike

You try to buy the things I like

You want to drive us everywhere

I know you care.
You pay for things we can’t afford 

You pay for bras and trips abroad 

You’re waiting for us in the car

I know you are.
I don’t know where to put my face

How to accept these gifts with grace.

It always leaves me feeling scared

And unprepared.
You say you think that I’m like you

So maybe you feel awkward too.

You said you’d read my poems so

At least you’ll know.

She was my year 2 teacher and this is the only thing I remember about her other than that she didn’t like us to write our names on the front of our paintings. I can remember her shouting “THIS ISN’T A PICTURE OF “ANDREW”, IS IT?” at some poor kid who signed his painting of a Viking long ship a bit too ostentatiously.

—–

Miss, wants upon a time

I asked you how to spell

A word.

You tried to help me but

It seemed to me you had

Misheard.

I knew at wants the word 

You’d spelled was not the one 

I’d said

But you were scary so

I wrote it in my book

Instead.

But when you saw my book

You laughed and marked me down 

As wrong.

Nobody once to fail

Or feel as if they don’t 

Belong.

I knew it wasn’t right 

I wish I’d asked again 

But now

I know that once is once

And wants is wants – so take

A bow.

In Memoriam

(And shame, as always, on the Daily Mail)

__________________

There’s nothing wrong 

With “porn star”. 

It’s a badge 

You wore with pride. 

And it made you

No less deserving

Of the support

Belief

And love

We show survivors.

And it made you

No more deserving

Of the censure

Disbelief

And hate

We show survivors.

There’s nothing wrong 

with “porn star”

But your epitaph

Should at the very least

Have included

Your name.

Amber Rayne

Amber Rayne

Amber Rayne.

i worry about 

the way you talk so happy

but you look so sad