Accept me for who I am.
The masculinity of my physical appearance
Should not take away the fact of who I am.
Nor should I be forced to present my
Femininity to appease you.
My past is what thrusted me into the
Shackles of manhood.
Through the course of time and self discovery
I broke those shackles to live
Freely
As the person who I was born to be.
If the powers from beyond had granted
Me
My wish upon my breath into life
I could have fluttered through life
As I was meant to.
Being brought up in the shackles of masculinity
I battled through the drought of happiness,
Void from the rays of acceptance.
Nearly perished in the sea of self loathing.
I have finally found myself
Within the darkness I had endured.
I have learned to love myself above all
Found a rainbow of self-acceptance
After many dark decades.
While I have become the majestic redwood of pride,
Hatred of others can still cut me down.
Strip me of my bark,
Leaving bare,
Thrusting me back into the abyss of
Depression.
All I request from others is what every human seeks,
Acceptance.
Acceptance of who I am,
Who I have become,
And who I will continue to be.
Recognize me as I am, and shed the old skin of assumption.
When uncertainty plants doubts of my identity
Inquire
I am human before I am anything else
I still desire what all humans do:
Acceptance.
For who I am.
My way of life.
The person I will continue to
Be.
About the Creator
Iris Harris
An aspiring novelist. I enjoy writing ghost, horror, and drama. Occassionally, I dabble with some essays. You can find more of my work with the link below:
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Foot Bindings
I asked my grandmother how she knew she'd fallen in love. I am not sure I ever did love him, she said. This was before I met my husband. I was naive, a naked spring, a raw nerve of a thing. That cannot ever be me, I knew. Sadness swept in gently like a Moscow thaw. It is no simple thing, looking into a woman's vast soul and seeing its foot bindings. Now, in Italy divorced with my skin singed off, when I say I don't love him mean: I have succeeded at feeling nothing most days and it mostly works. Do you want the comfort of Nothing? Do you want Nothing, too? Be warned: you'll never be free, even when you are nothing. Here is what doesn't work: Accepting the stages of grief. Talking about it. Sitting with the feeling. Missing him—no, the person you were when you believed in death do us part. Writing poetry. That, too. When I say I don't love him I mean: I feel capsized in an endless, starved tide. What sometimes works: selective memory. You must forget ripe tomatoes and his beard and feeling perfectly sheltered in a big blue world. Forget coffee in bed, laughter watching TV, blowing out the candles on the birthday cake and the quiet all-encompassing knowledge that you are chosen. Remember only how love turned to a banal everyday survival act, a trapeze act unsure whether he will catch you, how the warmth stagnated and became sour, remember the foot bindings and remember the resentment boiling in your veins as you stick it out for the kids. Six-hour Netflix binges help, too. A man's fingers tracing your spine. Frozen pizza at 2 a.m. Random trips to the museum just to stand near things that last a while. The realization that crying won’t change anything. Seeing that life is just a dream, and refusing to participate in your own suffering. Bite your fist. Walk on eggshells around joy. When I say I don't love him, I mean he didn’t break my heart, he just stopped touching it and it forgot how to beat right.
By Ella Bogdanova2 days ago in Poets
He Never Asked Me to Earn His Love
I grew up believing love was something you worked for. Not something you received freely. Love, to me, was a reward. It came after you behaved, after you achieved, after you proved you were worth the effort. It was something adults gave in measured doses, like sugar—only when you were good, only when you didn’t ask for too much.
By Imran Ali Shahabout 8 hours ago in Poets
Public Announcement Challenge Winners
For the Public Announcement Challenge, writers were asked to work inside voices built for control. These were notices, warnings, and updates meant to inform rather than confess. The strongest entries committed to that form and didn't break from it. Corporate memos, formal government alerts, and internal policy language were held consistently, allowing emotion, fear, grief, or humor to surface indirectly through pressure rather than declaration. The following poems recognize the voice of authority, and let human feeling slip through despite all its rules and restraint.
By Vocal Curation Team4 days ago in Resources
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