Redundancies
It’s like
Technically I’m free, because
I’m not in prison, but
I’m imprisoned by money, and the society that makes it.
I wonder what it is
That makes people think the way things are
Is acceptable, I wonder why
So many years, so many generations
Justify such dramatic inequality
Such class atrocities, and yet
At the end of the day
I know, that I am an American, and that
I could travel to any class I want to
And no one would ever believe
I was anything except for the body
I am also imprisoned in. I wonder if it is
Healthy to see it as such and yet as a transgender person
This perspective seems to crop up often
Before top surgery I felt imprisoned in my own body and now
I am less, I am more free, and yet
I am still imprisoned by the rules of society, the judgements of others
The fact that when I take my shirt off I am
A shiftless fat woman who had a double mastectomy. This reality
Is not lost on me, and yet
I am free
I am a man.
I wonder who else knows exactly what it is
To be free in such a way where
The thoughts and opinions of others matter so little that
My identity and my body are truly a living, breathing artwork
A house I was born with.
I used to think it was odd to see yourself as such a thing however
Much like houses
The more you renovate
The nosier your neighbors become.
When you renovate your own body you make it susceptible
To other’s judgements
It’s not how things should work but it is how they work.
Anyway, I have never felt
More free in my whole life
Since renovating my house body
I am so blisteringly free people just
Want to talk to me, everybody just likes
My energy. It’s weird as hell.
I keep bursting from place to place
Exploding all over and I meet
More limits than I’ve ever found
It’s like
The free-er you get
The more boundaries you find, the more
You start to get a lay of the land
The more you see the jail cells.
It’s like our whole society is a prison
That you can’t live without, by punishment of law
Else you might be sent
To the society’s prison
Redundancies and all.