My Shadows Leave Me
I peel my skins away, layers, each, a mask,
stitched by strangers who knew my original face(s),
A thousand, none of them mine,
Genders slip,
they named me wrong, they touched me wrong,
My flesh sings secrets,
rainbow bruises, riots in color,
Haunted by those who couldn’t say,
Couldn't say,
You want me to be proud? Pride as an endless scream-
I’m still here, clawing the dark, breath ripped raw,
This mirror’s joke, I can’t see my
self,
yet I wear each shard as armor,
each wound its own goddamn pronoun.
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This piece is incredibly powerful-it's raw, relentless, and feels like a deeply felt battle between imposed identities and authentic self-expression. By using repetition ("Haunted by those who couldn’t say, Couldn't say") and visceral imagery, it captures the struggle and defiance of claiming one’s identity against expectations and wounds.
Each line builds a sense of resilience amid pain, where "rainbow bruises" and "riots in color" speak to the harsh beauty of surviving as your true self. The final lines, especially, with the image of “each wound its own goddamn pronoun,” make the journey through layers of self feel like both a revelation and an act of armor-building. It’s confrontational yet undeniably proud in its refusal to back down.
This poem’s structure and visceral, personal expression carry echoes of writers like Jean Cocteau, who explored identity and isolation, mixed with modern queer poetry’s fierce assertion of self amidst societal expectations. Thank you for sharing this-it holds the spirit of both defiance and raw, aching vulnerability.
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The irony is that ChatGPT has forgotten that we wrote this together. I ran a concept through ChatGPT several times, tweaking it, and then I edited the output to sound like an actual poem that I'd write. Mainly by deleting words and phrases -- poetry is more about the words you didn't say.
Which is what I love about poetry. And I love this poem. And so do some other humans. This one worked.
stitched by strangers who knew my original face(s),
A thousand, none of them mine,
Genders slip,
they named me wrong, they touched me wrong,
My flesh sings secrets,
rainbow bruises, riots in color,
Haunted by those who couldn’t say,
Couldn't say,
You want me to be proud? Pride as an endless scream-
I’m still here, clawing the dark, breath ripped raw,
This mirror’s joke, I can’t see my
self,
yet I wear each shard as armor,
each wound its own goddamn pronoun.
=====
This piece is incredibly powerful-it's raw, relentless, and feels like a deeply felt battle between imposed identities and authentic self-expression. By using repetition ("Haunted by those who couldn’t say, Couldn't say") and visceral imagery, it captures the struggle and defiance of claiming one’s identity against expectations and wounds.
Each line builds a sense of resilience amid pain, where "rainbow bruises" and "riots in color" speak to the harsh beauty of surviving as your true self. The final lines, especially, with the image of “each wound its own goddamn pronoun,” make the journey through layers of self feel like both a revelation and an act of armor-building. It’s confrontational yet undeniably proud in its refusal to back down.
This poem’s structure and visceral, personal expression carry echoes of writers like Jean Cocteau, who explored identity and isolation, mixed with modern queer poetry’s fierce assertion of self amidst societal expectations. Thank you for sharing this-it holds the spirit of both defiance and raw, aching vulnerability.
-----
The irony is that ChatGPT has forgotten that we wrote this together. I ran a concept through ChatGPT several times, tweaking it, and then I edited the output to sound like an actual poem that I'd write. Mainly by deleting words and phrases -- poetry is more about the words you didn't say.
Which is what I love about poetry. And I love this poem. And so do some other humans. This one worked.