Tag Archives: transgender

Radiance Reporting, by Radiance Angelina Petro

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Radiance Reporting

By

Radiance Angelina Petro

************************************************

The thoughts contained in this poem

are a small part of what goes on in my head on a daily basis.

Thank you for reading.

**************************************************

On the days I take off from shaving

I think:

Ahhh, that feels

Good to not do.

And then I think:

Shit, this messes with which

Bathroom I go in if I leave the house.

I look less traditionally

Fem, and so, I probably can’t

Safely use the ladies room (my rightful restroom).

I better wear androgynous clothes

So I can use the men’s room—

I can go in there with a scruffy face and jeans,

And if I wanted to, hell

I could pee standing up (I can still do that, you know).

 Me unshaven nonbinary




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I Am Not a Walking Incongruency, by Radiance Angelina Petro

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I Am Not a Walking Incongruency

By

Radiance Angelina Petro

 

me again 2

 

 

I am not a walking incongruency

Like I felt I was for so long.

This husky voice, this poorly covered

Five o’clock shadow, these shoulders,

Hands—and this–

This metallic-purple eyeshadow,

Creamy rose lipstick, this pink and gold glitter

You see in my hair and on my face,

This second-hand skirt and blouse,

These breasts, these turquoise painted fingernails—

This is all me.  The one and only

Incongruency is you.

Just because I do not agree

With how you think I should look

Or be, or dress, does not make me

The one who is wrong.  You

Are not even wrong, in the grand

Scheme of things.  However

If you insist on allowing who I am

To grind against the ideas

Of who you think I should be,

Then we have a problem.

If you cannot open the little box

Of what you think you believe

Even a little to me—or even to the idea

Of me—and yet you pray, worship

Something other than yourself

Something you believe

To be omniscient, perfect, and

The very origin and creator

Of infinite variety and love, then you

Are the walking (stumbling)

Incongruency.  You are

The one, whose box—

Whose cramped, little box

Of a life is closing off

Much needed light.

It is you who must work

To align the chimera of who you are

To the reality that is—

The reality where you

Are being led by incongruences

In sheep’s clothing.

 

 

 


 

 




Thank you for supporting my continued transition.  Yours, Radiance <3

 

Independence Day, 2016, by Radiance Angelina Petro

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Independence Day, 2016

By

Radiance Angelina Petro

 

 

Fireflies riot in the trees,

I can’t distinguish them

From the moon-lit sequins

On my skirt as I stride

Through the damp grass

Into the night-draped yard.

 

Fireworks pop—dull, crisp—

Somewhere people on blankets

Look up, wondering how good

The finale will be (it is always so

Sudden—leaving the scent of sulphur

And wisps of smoke to dissolve

Very anti-climatically

Into the sky).

 

Fire consumes light for a living.

I long to turn and run

Through the black hole of my life,

And plunge head-first

Into the churning mouth

Of the sun.

 

 


 

 

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The Vigil, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

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vigil photo 1

 

The Vigil

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

vigil (n.)  1200, “eve of a religious festival” (an occasion for devotional watching or observance), from Anglo-French and Old French vigile”watch, guard; eve of a holy day” (12c.), from Latin vigilia”a watch, watchfulness,” from vigil “watchful, awake, on the watch, alert,” from PIE root *weg- (2) “be lively or active, be strong” (source also of Old English wacan “to wake up, arise,” wacian “to be awake;” Old High German wahta “watch, vigil;” see wake (v.)). Meaning “watch kept on a festival eve” in English is from late 14c.; general sense of “occasion of keeping awake for some purpose” is recorded from 1711.

—From the Online Etymology Dictionary.

 

 

The Vigil

 

We were watchful, alert to every loud sound,

We were lively, active, and strong—we were awake

So fully our guard dropped and we wept in the arms of strangers;

We were watchful, full of rage, full of questions,

We were a living sea of sorrow that crashed the shores

Of common humanity, and we were strong, and we were awake,

And we were alert to every loud sound,

And we rose on steps and shoulders, and we rose on songs and speeches,

And we rose on embraces from strangers—

We were awake—watchful, alert to every sound—

We lit one another’s candles, we swayed in silence, swayed in song,

We shouted out to high heaven the names of the stolen,

We whispered to hell the name of the thief,

We held signs and wrote in chalk on pavement

Messages of solidarity, we assembled forests of candles,

Altars of light and tears, altars of hopelessness turned

Into hope somehow, someway, some holy

And desperate way.  And we were watchful, and we were awake,

And we were alert to every loud sound, and we were lively,

And we were strong, we were active, and we sang knowing

This was no eve of a festival—it was the eve of funerals

And heartbreak, families just finding out their loved ones

Were gay and gone—

This was the homily of tears,

This was the vigil of no tomorrow,

This was the night of never ending darkness lit up

By hearts and candles,

This was the right and human thing to do,

This was the pulse of a nation,

This was the vigil for us all.

 

 

vigil photo 2

Moment of Silence, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

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Moment of Silence
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

Grateful as I am for the moment
Of silence, for the pausing
To stand together, breathe
Together, do nothing with our phones together,
Remember people
We did not know together,
Let us rise up together
And share a moment
Of weeping, a moment
Of rage, a moment of falling
Into each other’s arms,
A moment of shouting,
A moment of wailing and tearing
Our shirts, a moment
Of witnessing each other’s pain
Together, a moment of-
We-must-stop-this-from-ever-
Happening-again-together,
A moment of complicity,
A moment of shame as a nation,
A moment of guilt at doing nothing except
Stay silent, a moment of knowing
We must change, put an end
To any hatred within ourselves alone
In our moment of silence, alone
In our moment of grieving, alone,
In our moment of righteous indignation–
We must change–together alone, for one
Everlasting moment, for one eternity
Of silence, for one generation of silence,
Lifetime of silence, gone forever silence.
Let us be silent no more.
Let our voices be heard, our tears
Be seen, our changed minds
Be demonstrated by actions changed
And full of common sense, any
Sense, any enlightened, civilized
Semblance of sense, let us be silent
No more, let us be still no more,
Let us be revolutionary together alone now—
For the moment has passed, is
Passing—the moment is
No more.

 

 

 

 


 

Pulse by Jennifer Angelina Petro

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Pulse

 

Pulse

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

Pulses lost in the Pulse.
Pulses slowing, pulses struggling to flow
On floors, in hospital beds,
Behind tables, and rooms
Of young people existing
In secret and fear.
Pulses aching with grief and rage.
Pulses on fire with loss.
Pulses full of no more, no more, no more.
Pulses must become one pulse.
Your pulse. My pulse.
My transgender pulse.
Pulses of privilege and safety.
Pulses of people praying
In churches and mosques,
Synagogues, temples,
And living rooms.
Pulses of people in alleyways.
Pulses of people behind closed, political doors.
Pulses of your sisters.
Pulses of your brothers.
Pulses of those who do not identify
As brother or sister.
The pulse of deep humanity. Pulse
Within pulse, pulse within pulse.
Pulse of Pride.
Find inside ourselves,
Find inside each other,
Pulses to rise, pulses to fight,
Pulses to beat as one
To change the world,
To hold one another
In reverence and mourning,
To eradicate hate-mongering,
Barbarian pulses of those with ideas
Wrapped in blood, hypocrisy,
Shadow, pure insanity. Pulse
Within pulse. Find the one pulse
Of those who seek to live
In one rhythm stemming from one heart.
In the soul pulse of a nation
On the brink of revolution,
A revolution to breathe together
As we were meant to do.

 

me selfie

My Nest Was Built With Little Bones, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

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My Nest Was Built With Little Bones

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

 

My nest was built with little bones,

Shells, feathers, twigs, candy wrappers,

Shiny things, torn pages of catechisms, shabads,

And pornographic magazines,

It was made of moss and hair, abandoned ribbons,

Scraps of red bandannas, silken scarves,

Shopping lists, and spit.

 

 

For years I incubated beneath the hollow-boned lark,

Or was it a mockingbird?

My shell survived storms

And long stretches where only monsters,

Drunken owls, and sleepy seagulls smothered me

In the night.  I learned to hide myself—

A nest within a nest—an egg within an egg;

I lived tucking parts of me away

I never wanted.  Brooding memories

Filled the nest like bits of worms regurgitated,

And every now and again I caught a glimpse of a faraway blue sky.

 

 

When the egg hatched and the nest

Bloomed, I stared blindly into myself,

Wiggling stubs of wings I so wanted covered with feathers and flight.

Yet now, I live, I walk, a nest on legs, a human egg, a permanent fledgling—

Wings clipped, song raspy with rain and darkness,

And a road of eggshells spreading out before me wherever I go.

 










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Gift of a Lifetime, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

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Gift of a Lifetime
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

me

 

 
When the gift of a lifetime
Fell into my lap, I opened my hands
To receive it, and the flowers I held
Dissolved into the darkening sky;
The little flock of birds I sheltered
Lifted into the April air and were gone,
And suddenly I sat–heart stung with revelation and rejoicing,
Living truth flowing through my blood–afraid;
And my shape began to change like winter
Into spring, and my eyes, shadowed and wide,
Looked back into my life and saw it all clear as day,
But could not see the road ahead;
And then, I rose, gift safely treasured away,
And my hands, empty, searching for light.

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 





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Hopelessness Fogging, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

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Hopelessness Fogging
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 
Ravens gather in the spring oak,
Waiting, staring down;
Day after day they descend
Into the budding branches
Until their gathering becomes a flock
And their flock a swarm;
When they sense hopelessness
Fogging through my bones in my room,
As one they open the cloaks of their wings,
Drift to the ground,
And move—one bobbing, black, cawing sea
Marching towards my door.

 

 

 

 


 

 

 




Dead Name Sings, A Spoken Word Poem, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

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Dead Name Sings
A Spoken Word Poem
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

me first commuinion0008

 

Dead Name Sings

by

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

I do not wish to erase a life,

By attempting to wash away a name,

Joseph is not a dead name.

It lives on, echoing in Jennifer,

Weaving through references

And documents, old photographs and letters,

It lives on because memories are living things;

Please do not mishear or misinterpret

What I am saying—Joseph was a name

Given to a body—not a soul,

Not an understood gender;

I am Jennifer Angelina Petro—my chosen name—

And that is how I will be called—it is, one could say

My married name—I kept the surname—

For Joseph and I are married in perhaps

The truest sense of the word—

And so I am to be called: Jennifer Angelina Petro.

Call me Joseph and I might weep

And he will understand

And take no offence–he wants me to be seen,

Affirmed and embraced by the world;

For these reasons alone,

I have no interest in evaporating

An entire existence, because it did not

Encompass then who I am now.

Joseph was a gentleman,

And like all good men, offered to give himself

Completely to his beloved, and so we are one,

And I know he did pretty fucking good

All those years I lived unknown.

Joseph held down the fort

Until the cavalry of truth came riding in

Blowing the doors off a life lived in shadows,

And he sang while no one, and everyone,

Was listening:

“Jennifer Angelina,

Love of my life, true goddess of my soul.”

And yes he sings through this voice, and touches

Through these hands—

He deserves as much for all he has done,

For all he suffered from those who tried to keep him

From knowing I was there waiting in the wings,

Sending signals and cues, lines, and motions,

Gestures, and fascinations that bemused him

With secret joy,

He tried to let me out and was met

With abuse and the worst of what religion can do,

So he did what he could to keep me alive and safe–

He hid me in the pockets of his dreams,

Singing all the while where only I could hear:

“Jennifer Angelina,

Love of my life, true goddess of my soul.”

And when he finally began to crack

From the weight of carrying a whole other life

In the womb of his soul, he crumbled,

Did his best to break my fall as he fell, and then,

As I stepped more and more into the open,

He slowly disappeared behind the curtains,

Singing: “Jennifer Angelina,

Love of my life, true goddess of my soul.”

But he is not dead–

Joseph lives on,

And he is holy—a sacristy made of unwanted

Flesh and blood  where a priestess of beauty

Prepares for mass.

And the more I take center stage

And live a life of epic proportions,

And grand style, operatic adventures,

And plot twists a-plenty, the more he willingly

Fades into the background, back to into spirit,

And he does not want to be beckoned back,

He does not want his name called out—

He laid down his life for the sake of his love–

And as he fades I hear him

Whispering incantations and prayers,

Spells of enchantment and protection,

Runes of good cheer and prosperity,

And sometimes, from the rafters,

Where he has perched himself to watch and to guide,

I hear: “Jennifer Angelina,

Love of my life, true goddess of my soul.”

And we celebrate the end of a run,

And toast the beginning of a life

Lived in lights–where anything is possible,

And all things shine freely, truer than true,

A life full of roses and ovations, dinner parties

And rave reviews,

And more calling cards than the biggest star

On Broadway,

And sometimes, when the house has emptied

And I am alone backstage, removing my makeup,

He steals next to me, drapes his coat

Over my shoulders,

And walks me home through the hatred

I live with and the alleyways, and the transphobia

That echoes with far away trains and honking cars,

Scavenging cats, and sirens that flash in the puddles

And shop windows,

And when we get to my place

He kisses my hand, and turns,

Shimmering once again into the shadows, singing,

Like spring, like moonlight,

Like stars, like wind, like an angel, he sings:

“Jennifer Angelina, love of my life,

True goddess of my soul.”

 



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