Queen

It’s crazy how these threads,
Just happen to exist in your head,
About this time between being born and being dead,
Not enough time to learn and not be misled,
Because you’ve got to go out and get that bread.

No it’s not being lazy and making an excuse,
But even you know it’s crazy just watching the news,
The lines blending into gravy after they got more skewed,
No I don’t mean to be confusing or rude,
But it’s weird unraveling things to look at them almost nude.

Like, here, let me break it down for you,
Like, let’s just focus, take one single issue,
Like gender, and how the poison is in the culture, you know, in-situ,
People raging on both extremes too confusing for the kid who,
Was like, brother what did those who’d lived before us do?

The young kid I was raised by a woman, a queen,
I hit the point where I realized there’s a lot more to be seen,
Why were people constrained, with accumulated bias right through their teens,
I started to see and hear more and more screams,
Stuff that you couldn’t even imagine in your wildest dreams.

How do they ask you to be who you are,
And then tell you who you are is not what they stand for,
Some felt another way much to the others’ horror,
How would people in such a society be sober?
Look at how you were taught to look at gender?
The textbooks taught you binary and ignored the trans,
Like the ones other than the recognized two didn’t have a chance,

And soon I’d learn to speak with other genders and understand,
Learn about why they were different and where they stand,
Are they exotic or are they simple as us men,
It felt like the former for some damn reason,
Forgive me for I was being gravely mistaken,
Being in a boys’ school hindered this learning,
For it was not often that you interacted across the fencing,
And the teenage years made it more exotic for some reason,
I meant no treason,
I was just a confused little person,
One who had a whole new experience to learn from and have fun.

And so I grew older and interacted more,
The inertia from the stereotypical perceptions making me sore,
Why are they angry and mad at some things,
Why don’t they agree with the way we were living?

More and more questions for me to figure out,
The life of the women I loved made me ask more doubts,
Why were they obviously disadvantaged at times,
And why without questioning I partook in those crimes.
Was I just a person that hollow,
One who’d live in the past even if it’s tomorrow?
Now now, wouldn’t that be a life of sorrow!

But thankfully one person made sure that this kid would be growing,
Because she was there when he failed and was in pain moaning.
She didn’t advice nor did she crib,
She lent him her ears and showed him how she lived.

Trials and tribulations, some happiness to go,
Oh my mother was a warrior for sure,
But that wasn’t what made me just love her more.
It was how she just had love for all,
She accepted people for who they were,
And showed them love because love is for all
And so the apple didn’t fall far away from the tree.

And so I wondered if gender mattered to me,
And I found myself in a rabbit hole spree,
All these people with hues of red, black and green,
And a slew of other colors, not mentioning it would be mean,
Why did I question and why did I feel,
Educational influencers popping up on my feed,
Some said there’s two genders and some more than a hundred,
And soon I was witness to this battle of hatred,
Oh, we weren’t meant to be hated, unadored, and ignored,
But rather embrace their perspectives and be nice from your core.
Not everything is binary like black and white,
And so I went into the grey high as a kite,
Realized that it didn’t matter what gender they cite,
I don’t know their stories or their daily fights.
What I do love is that there were these queens,
Who helped me, hand-held me to outgrow my teens.

To not care if you’re a man or a woman,
Or for that matter if you were even a human,
What mattered was to live the way you wanted to and be free,
And hopefully hold with you, a touch of empathy.

LNER