Author: Ken Kaneki

by

Not Your Poster Child

CONTENT WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS DETAIED DESCRIPTIONS OF INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIA & INTENTIONAL MISGENDERING

“Transsexual embodiment, like the embodiment of the monster, places its subject in an unassimilable, antagonistic, queer relationship to a Nature in which it must nevertheless exist.”  – Susan Stryker

A human is born
A life has begun
Is it a boy or a girl?
You must pick one

“It’s a girl!” they exclaim,
Teeming with joy.
But what if that human
Is really a boy?

“Sit like a lady” they say,
Your knees must touch;
“Just put on the dress” they said,
“Stop making a fuss.”

Tomboy! Tomboy! Tomboy!
It’s all she hears.
Losing her femininity
Is something she fears.

Fear of losing the attention,
The praise and the love,
So she puts on clothes
That fit her like a glove.

She grows her hair out
Year after year,
Because deep inside her
Is the fear

That one day they’ll call her
A tomboy again,
And she’ll lose her femininity
Before she really can

Grapple with the fact
That she’s not a girl,
And that this gender façade
Makes her want to hurl.

Until age fifteen,
She puts on an act,
Until she knows
For a fact

That this act
No longer works.
Inside her,
This feeling lurks.

But he knows his body
Will never conform
To social ideals
And so he’s torn.

Does he put in the effort
To be seen?
(And what does that
Even mean?)

It means he struggles
Day in and out,
And his mind
Is filled with doubt.

Transness is beautiful,
Transness is great;
But as a trans man,
I’m filled with hate.

I’m tired of keeping quiet
With nowhere to speak up,
I’ve hereby decided
I don’t give a fuck.

Political correctness
Gets you nowhere in life;
I’m not a poster child,
I don’t determine what’s right.

I’m allowed to be human,
I’m allowed to make mistakes.
I’m now living my life,
And I refuse to wait.

by

The Body at Work

“That the body plays a central role in work is perhaps an obvious statement, yet it is easy to lose sight of human labor in a capitalist system centered on service, global outsourcing, and automated assembly…laboring bodies experience ailments and annoyances that are often hidden because they are experienced in isolation” – Ed Slavishak

When the worker is asked
To complete the task,
The body slaves away
For a measly pay.

In the big blue store
With the bright blue vests,
17 year old
Ken Kaneki rests.

School then work,
Day and night,
Week after week,
He does everything “right”.

He’s the star employee,
The best on the team,
But what does that
Truly mean?

His feet are aching,
He can barely walk,
But yet to every customer
He must talk.

Work through the pain,
Keep up your pace,
And never ever
Let your smile leave your face.

7 miles a day,
He walks across the store.
Pulling carts, stocking cases,
And watching the door.

Up on the ladders,
With boxes half his size,
His balance unsteady,
And dust in his eyes.

Down on the floor scrubbing,
He’s on his knees.
His body is screaming
“Help me please!!”

Work through the pain,
Keep up your pace,
And never ever
Let your smile leave your face.

Now in the present,
His joints are weak.
And every now and then,
The future looks pretty bleak.

Countless hours spent
To prove your worth,
But where’s that “family” now,
When you are hurt?

You are replaceable
Like a cog in a machine,
And in the end,
Your efforts were unseen.

4 years in a place
That worked him to death
And now his sanity
Is all he has left.

With the job of 6
And the pay of 1,
After 4 years
He’s glad to be done.

But when he looks down
At his physical form,
He can plainly see
That it is worn.

His body shows signs
Of labor intensive times,
And he bears the scars of physical labor.

Now that he’s free,
He can clearly see
That the odds were never in his favor.

He must push on
In his tired state,
He must succeed
Before it’s “too late”.