A Journey Through the Binary

16+ for the F word. This is a personal poem for me, but I hope others enjoy it as well.

I keep changing the title while talking to people about the poem. LOL. it's the only part that is unstable right now.

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A Journey Through the Binary

21 years of misdiagnosed
self understanding and culture-forced delusion
and I found myself in a box too small
for all I have to offer the world.
I collected my make-up, dish soap, and vacuum
and took residence with motor oil, chest hair,
and unspoken privelage.
There I was too small, too not,
too much what I've always been
but not enough me, either.

There is no place to call home
when the house is built by the Other.
Who am I to say they don't know me
better than I know myself?

I even tried living outside,
but rather than being free
I saw the shadow of walls I never knew existed,
a coffin for all free-thinkers and liberal fucks.

I passed by the store fronts
of society's label makers.
Others shopped, bought, and sold
self-worth and purpose
while I stared into a muddy puddle
on the sidewalk of life.
There I found the answer no one else could see:
my own eyes stared back and I watched myself smile.

So, I love you. But you knew that.

I absolutely love your first stanza, but for one teeny bit -
I collected my make-up, dish soap, and vacuum
and took residence with motor oil, chest hair,
and an unspoken privelage.

So, if "an", then you need to finish your thought. I'm not sure how it works grammatically, but in my head, throwing "an" in there makes "unspoken" transitive, which means you need something more than just privilege in there! I'm pretty sure it technically works, but yeah. Anyway. "And unspoken" sounds better, in my opinion.

Beyond that! Generally, I like. I'm not sure where you're going with the use of Other, or some of the more abstract ideas following - this may very well be me. My brain is muddled with management theory right now ^^ But, on my first couple of reads, I'm having trouble grappling with what you have packed in those two middle stanzas. Anyway. Maybe it's using "home" against "Other" - with "home" being something that can be built. In my head, you can build a house, but not a home; so while you can have Other attempting to build a home (specifically use in the second line), they could never succeed in the endeavor. Yet, you state home as something built by Other, which jars. Well, me, anyway. Like, it would have made sense in my head (always a scary place/thought!) to say:
There is no place to call home
when [the house] is built by the Other.
Thus, differentiating between the idea of home/house. But, I'm not sure that's what you meant in the first place, so this is all just conjecture on my part.

I have absolutely no idea what to do with "a coffin for all free-thinkers and liberal fucks." The rest worked, but with this, I was left scratching my head a bit. I'm not sure how to take it? Yeah. I think that's what isn't making sense.

Your final stanza I also love.

Anyway! If you want me to go back when I'm slightly more conscious to take a look at those middle stanzas, just bug me! Otherwise, I quite like what you have here, and I demand you write more (and then tell me about it, of course!).

<3 Bek

Bek: Thank you so much. I like your two line changes, and they're not big enough that I should argue about them. I actually like the house/home thing, because those are different things so it'll help add to the imagine... I'm not sure if you'd understand it more if awake or not, but I can message you some explanation if you want.

I happen to know exactly where you're coming from, but even so, I can rate this poem as a well constructed piece of free verse rich with evocative detail and a very nice flow, despite capturing no particular metrical rhythm. Meter isn't necessary, nor the usual poetic music I require in excellent pieces, because this is here to tell a story. What you have here is just obscure enough to retain intrigue and just clear enough to draw the reader into what you're laying down. If I were to be oblivious to the actual meaning of the narrative, I would be pleasantly engaged and possessed by this, wanting to write, remark, and ask for more details to what feels like a very real and personal tale. While I'm totally failing to discard my fore-knowledge of your meanings and symbolic significances, I can step back well enough to admit that I find no syntactical or semantic snags upon reading this, and tip my hat to your communication of clarity and depth.

I don't know. It's okay, but it doesn't pack much of a punch. It is intensely personal, and I think the fact that I can tell from reading it may be one of its weaknesses. Part of it is the point-blank self analyses in the first stanza, its the difference between summary and scene. You've packed 21 years of this into 10+ lines. I feel as though I respond better to specificity than I do to broad, sweeping, general summary. I get lost in all the self-reference and I think there are too many too's. Same with the second stanza. It rolled off my brain like a raindrop off a windshield. But that's okay because the next stanza shook the whole car, the first three lines really hit me. The shadows of walls I didn't even know existed. THAT is the moment, I think, the poem should focus on. Its great because you don't even see the walls, you just see their shadows. That is the sort of revelation that can cause everything, I guess I just wanted to know... what happened that caused you to see them? How did you react? The last stanza seems to indicate that you've given up, or found some sort of enigmatic conclusion that I failed to grasp. I guess what I wanted, what I think would make this poem stronger, is more specific, immediate, real-time detail.

best,