The Forest Inside me

This isn’t Epping Forest, but a pic of Muir Woods that I took on my visit to San Francisco in 2013.

Thanks to @DualityDreamers on Instagram for reminding me of this poem, written by several of my Alter Personalities: Forest Jacq, Larry, Munro, Shadoe, and Outside Jacq (me, the host)

This is probably the most open I’ve been about Dissociative Identity Disorder, and it’s no coincidence that this illness is one of the most demonised in mental health (along with Psychosis & Schizophrenia).  Before I was diagnosed with DID, I only knew about it through horror films by its old name (Multiple Personality Disorder).  People with DID are not the evil villains in life – if you want to see that, look at the people who hurt and abused us when we were so young.

Trigger Warnings in the poem: Mentions of child abuse, but nothing graphic or detailed.

The forest inside me

Speculative (and erotic) poem

(Image: Intersex flag)

After the great session at WorldCon on Speculative poetry, I was reminded of something I wrote a few years back – set in Chislehurst Caves, just outside London. Caves feature in my work an awful lot: I’m sure there’s something psychological about that, but I’ve never found any relatable meaning in my research.

This is a long rhyming poem, but one I love to reread often.  I hope everyone (over the age of 18) enjoys it too!

Stain upon the floor

Appearance is everything – a poem

I would like to be well spoken but I am not.

I would like an accent that says I went to a rich school and was raised in a rich way.

But my recovered voice reveals industrial North London, like an opulent velvet curtain swept aside beneath a crystal chandelier, mirroring the council estate where I was born, with cement walls the colour of Russian mink.

A little blackout poetry on being a recovering alcoholic, knowing how damaging booze is to me, but still wanting to drink.

This photo was taken by Barry Boubah to show how diverse New York is.  It was a celebration, however, a far-right group used it to mock them instead.  This in turn made people say that this is indeed the kind of future they want, where different people can exist in peace together.  I started thinking of the future bisexual people in the U.K may want, with all the silly/serious things that involves.  So I wrote a poem about it.

The future bisexuals want

By Jacq A.

Late night cake, biscuit and sex toy shops.

Gripping drama on tv where bi characters don’t get shot.

Cheesy discos around the clock:

The is the future bisexuals want.

For OKCupid to stop being so shit.

Bi’s of all genders on magazine covers looking fit.

LGBT organisations remembering bi people exist!

This is the future bisexuals want.

Bigoted lesbian & gays to stop being tiresome.

Straights to stop asking us for threesomes.

Constant Torchwood Seasons 1 & 2 re-runs!

This is the future bisexuals want.

We’re not asking for very much you know?

Just cake and sex and good sci-fi shows.

And basic respect – it should’nt be too hard to think of.

Cos that’s the future bisexuals deserve and want!

They don’t need to kill us, when we want to kill ourselves

They never think of me when they say LGBT.
They spy young and thin and so, so white
And if their vision widens to invite my body, big and brown,
I will never be named:
I am not one of the queer crowd.

My human shell contains a beating bisexual heart.
But my sound and my shape are scrubbed
Until only a white dream remains,
And bisexuals are left at the back of the Pride parade.
We will never be named.

Whose tears are these?  Whose dreams are gone?
Are questions never asked.
Bisexual erased right off this planet
Gay rainbows as a mask.
The very last thing to cross your mind
As darkness and silence puffs out my flame:
My identity is hated first and last;
A terrible mark of your shame.

Who will listen when I am gone,
To discover an echo on the microphone?
A smudge where a human might have sat:
Bisexual and alone.
My old words will form an image of me.
Incline your ear to my remains.
The silence is never ending now.
Marked in stone, yet never named.

Photo credit: @heardinlondon

The Golden Road to Hell

There are racists with good aim:
White folks who know how to throw a brick;
How to spit,
How to hit their mark
On my bloody back.
They’re easy to spot,
I can try to avoid
But their strong arms
Make my bones and my spirt crack.

And then there are well-meaning racists,
With soft words
And good intent.
And silence as your life goes down the golden road
To hell.
They make you hurt.
They leave no mark.
And they smile at you all the while.
How can I avoid
What I can hardly see?
So many of them in alternative communities.
And when I bleed
The pain is on the inside
My lungs fill with blood
From their two-faced lies.

Must I choose
Between a kick, a bruise
And those who dismiss, withhold and use?
I can dress physical scars
With bandages and gauze.
How can I soothe?
How can I heal?
The disdain they hold me in their eyes?
Never being seen as human
By an enemy who smiles.
It makes me doubt my own mind.
But racism is a tool to keep folk like me down
Whether a punch to my face
Or destruction with a smile.

North

 

 

Let Yorkshire and Lancashire bicker and wail;

Their rosy conflicts all do pale

Against the county oh so grand:

The edge of England. Northumberland.

 

Southeners poke at each other in jest and fun,

These cockney rebels and Sarf London.

But the Thames can’t compare to the mighty Tyne’s span;

And my one and only: Northumberland.

 

If Scotland were to go it’s own way,

Would Geordie and Makem people stay?

Or would they too become an independent land?

An angel of Europe: Northumberland.

 

Watch the North Sea swell and crest.

See the Stadium of Light, where football’s the best.

I want to escape to Berwick, at least that’s my plan.

And shine like my sparkling star: Northumberland.

 

 

Photo: wikipedia

Bible bashing

 

 

Placard reads “Thank God for Bisexuals”

Ignore eating food like pork and shellfish.
Ignore your tattoos because you love getting inked.
Ignore wearing clothes made with two different fibres;
Just misquote the Bible, and then call me a liar.

Ignore keeping prisoners as your slaves.
Ignore all the things you don’t like on the scripture’s page.
Ignore cutting off your right hand if it offends you.
Just misquote the Bible, then behave far worse than I do.

Conveniently forget to love your neighbour.
Forget the might of God’s great power.
Forget that he forgives us all.
Forget the hurt behind the names you call,
When you’re cussing me straight to hell.
I hope your memory serves you well.
All those things you haven’t said – The love you’ve failed to mention.
It’s available to all, no matter the sexual orientation.

I’m out and proud as a bisexual.
I guess that’s enough to make you so hostile.
If you love the Bible so much, and want me to heed it.
You best take some time out of your day to actually read it.
Because David loved Jonathan, he told him when they kissed.
And Ruth and Naomi’s love for each other was well and truly epic.
But your passages are select I see.
You’d rather ignore bisexuals in the Bible,
Than have love set anyone free.

Remember Jesus healed the Centurion’s beloved slave.
Remember it was Jesus, whose life for us he gave.
Remember God made us all, the queer folks too.
We are his children. He loves us.
Just as much as you.

I Am Not An English Rose

 

English rose

As a flower I grew thorns to protect

All the years that I have spent

Waiting for a dream man to appear;

A perfect man with sweet blond hair.

Would he even want a flower so dark?

Would he deign to seek me in my corner of the park?

Or would he run to the greenhouse bright,

Where English roses are always white?

These thorns of mine are a defence from thieves:

One unwanted touch, and I  make them bleed.

Those racist men who once forced me to fight,

Are the ones who now say I don’t look right.

But my roots are black, my foundations are strong.

So I stopped waiting for the perfect man. I’d got it all wrong.

And when my petals fell out, my head was bare.

The cold revealed how the men just didn’t care.

I grew wild and free, with roots so deep;

My tendrils stretched out.  I increased my reach.

The White roses shook when they at last could see

This dark, bald flower had grown into a tree.

I am an English Oak, magical and brown.

No racist man can cut me down.

I shelter the other flowers in the park:

The beautiful blooms that grow around my bark.

I don’t know how this overlooked dark flower

Became a sturdy tree with so much power.

I have not forgotten my  lowly birth,

As a mighty Oak, I tower upon the Earth.

The White roses have faded, some of my sisters have died.

This Oak reigns queen in the forest.

From the humble earth, to the endless sky.