Uncovering The Love

Welcome back, poetry people!

This week, we are delving deeper into what it has been like and what it has meant for me to accept my gender identity and sexual orientation. I grew up in places that are incredibly hostile to LGBTQ+ people and was kept away from what little information there was on this subject in general as a child. I had no idea what it meant to be Bisexual; I had never heard of pansexuality or being nonbinary. Most of these concepts as good as didn’t exist. They were undoubtedly never spoken of because people have questions as soon as you say the words.

I also want to apologize for the somewhat sparse nature of this week’s newsletter. I am having some issues with my computer, and I still don’t have them quite worked out, but I managed to get a few images attached at the last minute. Woo!

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Truth

Though there are many things I hold my parents directly responsible for, this isn’t necessarily one of them. Could they have been more supportive, sure, but so could almost everyone’s parents. Was my mother manipulating me and moving us around behind the scenes, with this being one factor?

That is a real possibility, but as an adult, I see how bad things are in the Midwest and Florida for LGBTQ+ people in general and youths especially. I can’t hold these facts against my parents; they didn’t create those environments. All I can do is hope they don’t contribute further to the world, feeling unwelcome and scary to others like me.

Acceptance

Growing up my first fourteen years in Missouri and then spending the next five years in Florida, making it to adulthood, meant that I was unwilling and, more to the point, unable to examine my feelings on my gender identity and sexuality. It was not safe for me to do so, so my mind created a shield around that information, just like it did around the abuse.

This means that I didn’t, even in the face of frequent bullying on the subject, recognize that I was anything but a cis straight female until I was engaged to my husband. This is a topic I have had to keep adjusting my understanding of on the fly, so to speak.

I am immensely grateful to have the support of a husband who still loves me for who I am in this aspect of my life and who is willing to navigate these difficult situations with me. He is much more knowledgeable about the subject than I am due to his upbringing. We have even been watching LGBTQ+ history shows so that I can understand and know more, and we can learn about this together.

Acceptance

Listen think respond
Hearing every word with love
Taking it all in
Reaching out, touching my hand
Giving room for my whole mind

K Team

The best friend I made once I moved to California was truly special and precious to me. I may not have known then how much she meant to me, but based on the extreme reaction I had to her moving off to start her life and the extreme response she, in turn, had to me doing the same even though she had already done that in my eyes, helps me realize that what we had was more profound and broader than I understood.

Although I understand and believe there are many forms that love can take: brotherly, romantic, and sexual love. Even the moral love one cultivates in their heart for everyone across the entirety of the world. Something that seems sorely lacking right now. Knowing there is a difference between these and believing I am capable of feeling them all doesn’t immediately identify which is which. Understanding truly took a lot of self-examination and being free of that fear.

K Team

The day you left
for your princess castle
by the sea
All hope
of a real-life
drained away
Dreaming of you
in the cloudy
marine layer
so high above
Your beauty
always shone through
so effortlessly
Driving around
eyes shaded
occasionally smiling back
Always there
to listen for free
I would go
anywhere
you wanted to be
we had to part
eventually
It wasn’t you
who broke the bond
now I see that
it was me
I don’t want to be
just a follower
if we aren’t the K team
We will just
be in my memory

Never Only In My Dreams

Many writers keep a dream journal; I remember so few dreams that I don’t bother with a special dream journal, but I do take notes as I fall asleep and head straight from waking up to the computer. When I have had a dream, this allows me to transcribe my thoughts and lingering feelings or any ideas or memories it leads my mind to.

Dreams are so mysterious and mystical, aren’t they? One primary function appears to be processing the latent information and minor unconscious details we aren’t consciously dealing with during the day. I am fascinated by this assertion because of the connection my dreams have always had to my trauma and how few I seem to have overall.

I can only understand this to mean that because I was never processing or dealing with it for all those years, my brain tried to process it for me but never quite managed. So I would have nightmares, sleepwalking, etc.… Once I brought all of these things up into my conscious mind and started processing them, I didn’t stop having nightmares at all, but They have become less severe and less frequent, and I have finally started having good dreams.

Never Only In My Dreams

A vision in my dreams yesterday;
You weren’t gone, and far away.
Like a mythical figure disguising your face,
only I saw your beauty and heard your voice.
Just waiting there,
next to my favorite painting.
Hanging in the Tate,
we engaged in true intercourse,
a lengthy two-way repartee.
Before I drift away,
you say every word that makes me stay.
Every silken lyrical rope,
perfect for binding me, heart and soul,
with each clear ringing beautiful note,
the most ecstatic sound to exist, playing directly to me.
Your melody merging spiritually into me;
I will always feel you hovering right behind.
Parted, we shall never be.

Frog for Toad

As my self-image changes and shifts, I have had to grieve the me I used to be, the me I created as a mask for all of those years, the me I planned to be and never came true. And those are all hard things to put to rest. I have also had to grieve all the friends I have left behind, all of the people I thought were friends who weren’t.

There is no going back to being any of those people now that I know the truth. All I can do is accept the changed world I see around me and try to build a life I can be happy with. I may never be the happy Frog I once was hopping around eagerly looking out at the world, but there is plenty of value in being one of the toads of the world. Sharing my slightly darkened perspective with the frogs I meet along the way.

Frog for Toad

I was just a frog
hoppin’ along
looking for my toad
I knew it would take a while
so I settled in for the long haul
The sky changed
from a relaxed robin’s egg
to a stormy grey
I went inside
to sleep it off
just for a few days
Instead of emerging
to find my toad
awaiting me to play
I awoke one day
I dragged myself to the mirror
Only to find
toad had arrived, to my dismay
He’d found me sleeping
Settled in the quietness
while I lay
Now I quietly pace about
grumbling to myself
Wondering about all the things
that haven’t gone my way
Thinking to myself
At least I know, one day
My frog will come searching for me
And that will be
my last boring day

Nuclear Bond

This was written in honor of my husband. We spend a lot of time together, and one of our favorite pastimes is playing Tabletop Role-Playing Games together. This sort of role-playing is one of the main ways I became comfortable enough to understand my internal feelings and share them directly.

Just like writing therapy, it allows the brain to work things out through images and metaphors. Letting you pour out feelings in whatever form you need at that moment, playing a tabletop role-playing game allows you to become whoever you want or need to be, either to enjoy yourself or to work through feelings going on in the background. All role-playing doesn’t have to be therapeutic, just like all writing doesn’t have to be therapeutic, but I believe it can have real value when done in a safe, comfortable environment.

Nuclear Bond

The eerie glow
of your curiosity
reels me in
Connecting our eyes
with a thin neon thread
It is imperceptible
unless the lights are dimmed
When we dance
to the humming beat
heat flows from our bodies
like spent rods
Plunging into the flowing rapids
it only steams and bubbles
it doesn’t cool our chemistry
We are in a radioactive
cloud of activity
a flurry of feeling
trapped in
a vacuum of
accelerated energy
A nuclear implosion
suddenly sucking us
into the quantum
container my memory
has been living in
Looks can be deceiving
we will both fit easily
There is an entire world inside
though mostly
inhabited by aberrations
I know you are the
knightly sort
to slay the dragons
plaguing me
and sweep me off
into a green-hued eternity
Living our apocalyptic dreams
until the lid is lifted
by a skulking tide
Releasing us from the
nuclear mind trap
Returning to
the impossible to achieve
dreams of normal life

Brutal truths can hurt, but do they hurt more than not knowing ourselves, than never knowing each other? I, for one, am glad to see myself when I look in the mirror finally; I am pleased to know who loves me and who is still standing across the street, watching from a distance.

Vast and cold, the endless cosmic expanse will be the brain-bending topic for next week’s newsletter. I am entranced and fascinated by the immense power of space and the spaces between. Keep your mind open and your eyes sharp.

Until Next week,

K.B. Silver