On this, the last day of pride.
The day the highest court in the land declared, in the same breath used to name the constitution itself “unconstitutional, that trans women are not equal under the eyes of the law.
In the same month trans women were declared terrorists and sentenced to decades For ZINES! They’re being thrown into a prison system which will strip them of thier hormones, before using them as intentional rape targets, it’s called v-coding. Kamala “Follow the law” Harris’s tenure as the state’s Attorney General was rife with it. She also defended the stripping of healthcare from trans prisoners. We still held our fucking noses and voted for her.
It is also an election day here in Colorado.
And so, do I dedicate this poem, to the woman who inspired it.
A pollster for, and who claimed to be the sister of, Iris Halpern, Democrat primary candidate for Colorado’s 6th house district, who interrupted our picnic and had the temerity to tell me “as I understand it, discriminating against the trans(sic) is already illegal…”
Tgirl Picnic
“Abandon Hope all ye who enter here” - Dante Alighieri
“I know more than you!” - Nick-Offerman.meme
Quisling Canvassers, trawlers o’public parks
Would’s that you perceive your warnings
old and new
they’re for your benefit
I know “it’s pride”
I know your hierophant is “one of the good ones”
I know you assume our “suffrage”
I know you think you’re “helping”
I know you
You saw happy girls, enjoying a picnic in the park
You saw trans girls you could influence, to toolify “for their own good”
You saw, an easy target
The warnings were for you
Heed them, or not, at your own peril
no, they may not all know more than you, but I do
there is always one, at least one
we take rotations, there’s always one of us on call
the extra-political trans girl
the one who will question your hierophant
demand the illusive HOW behind pretty words
the one who will demand:
explain what they’ll do about our genocide?
the Palestinian genocide?
ICE’s concentration camps?
the federal agents kidnapping, torturing, raping our friends, our family, our neighbors?
I know you saw happy girls enjoying a picnic in the park
It was
our moment of joy
slight against torments and terrors
the ones you ignore
or know nothing of
or deny exist
The Warnings Were For Thee
Abandon Hope All ye who canvas here
Heed The Warnings
bring not the terrors
your collaborator lord
into our fragment of bliss
I will flense the flesh from your frame
I will use your guts for my garters
I will sew a dress of your sinew
I will use your grey matter for grout
I will make broth from your bones and stew of your sweet breads
purely metaphorically
you understand
I’m odd, and just like making these image versions of my poems, even if I’m going to end up writing the whole poem out in the post too. I just figure, might as well make an easily shareable version myself, but I’m going to make you read, or at least scroll past, a conclusion and a thank you to get to it.
Thank you to my lovely patrons and supporters, I haven’t shout y’all out enough while I’ve been on this weird semi-hiatus, especially April, Fragile Paper, Manfred, Pinball Witch, Pimento, Robin-Autumn Marsh, Rose, Writer Princess, and Yalc.
I’m not going to say you have to survive.
Stop that.
You have to live a life worth living.
That’s why we all came out.
- Everything I do: https://phenn.gay/
- Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/phennoflore
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@PhennofLore
- Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Phenn
- Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/phenn
- Discord: discord.gg/tc3dawkGwa
PS. I even managed to work this one into my silly Fibonacci obsession
