Be Something Else, Too
Survival tip No. 1
For anyone queer
Is to be interested in something else.
Find salvation in queer artists, find
Inspiration in queer entrepreneurs, find love
In your own thoughts, find passion
In your dreams and aspirations, and
More than anything I can recommend–
Just care about something bigger than your identity.
It’s important to be in touch
With who you are, and what it means
And it difficult to go through it, trust me
But the things that helped me along the way
More than any trans role model
Or any trans resource–
Is my own self-made life vest, custom made
By a lifetime of finding silver linings
Collecting them, and trying to make
Anything out of it.
A coat of many colors, so to speak.
If all you are is gay, lesbian, bi, pan
Kinky, fat, queer, nonbinary, trans–
You name it–
If that’s all you are
You are vulnerable to anyone
Coming up and defining you
For you
Which never ends well
Don’t risk spending your whole life
Staring in the mirror, wondering
How to best express your identity–
When you don’t even know
Who that fucking is yet.
Find yourself
In all the ways we all have to
In all the ways you need to
In order to survive, and then
Tell us how you did it, that way
Somebody else expressed themselves enough
Ani, Tracy, radiohead
Other people being brave enough
To make me feel cowardly enough
To get sick of it, and live my life
To the fullest.
You need resilience, and the best way to have that
Is to be something else, too.