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.