We Have to Do Better

We have to do better
This is not a choice
It is not an aspiration
It is a necessity.

We crucify our  children on crosses
built with our expectations
and held  together with our own personal failures.
As their little hands and feet limply bleed
little eyes, tucked in to tear stained cheeks
seek us
and leak confusion
and desire to make us proud.
We justify our actions, and pound the nails in, with  a book
that was written BY people to CONTROL people.
Their screams and begging
are filed as prayers and Westeren Unioned
to a God horrified by what He is witnessing.
His tears fall upon their little heads,
because He knows we won't listen to His words.
We  call it baptism.
He calls it slander.
The book may justify this crucifixion in our minds
but God was never here.
we bury the light in their hearts
to " save" a soul that was probably the purest thing on earth,
but after given to us,turned gray and pitted
littered with out dirty finger prints.
The ghosts of our past circle,
waiting to drink the sweetness flowing from the stigmata.

We have to do better.

Our girls are waiting
to be saved
We line them up
and paint their bodies.
Paint by number hips and breasts
eyes with rose colored contacts
lips plump cherry red and super glued shut,
and a healthy dose of shame
shoved between the legs
to make sure the gap stays there.
After all,
that's why God made girls.
Someone has to wear the pretty skirts.

They DESERVE better

Boys.
Don't you cry
Don't you dare be soft
Don't you bend, don't you yield
Stay firm
even as  your muscles quake
and your jaw aches
from holding up societies expectations.
Swallow your shame
get your head in the game
you've got girls to save
tackles to make
beers to drink.
Do you hear me...boy?
Should I put you in a dress ?
Puff up your chest
we don't raise pussies around here.

There is a 75% chance that my son will kill himself if he turns out to be transgender...those statistics  are unacceptable.

HE deserves better.

When the crowning jewel of wisdom the world gives your girls
is that they shouldn't be lesbians, but they can be freaks though...but only
in the sheets..
and our boys are told that they won't amount to much without a
huge pick up truck..
where do we go from here?

Our kids hold these words as  truth
because they come from us
and their trust in us is absolute
because we ARE truth to them.
They take our words
into their hands
and watch them twinkle like pandoras box.
They drink them
They become them
We've poisoned them.
Innocence curdles into clotted
self-doubt
and the mirror becomes an enemy instead of a twin.
The old crucifixion wounds rip open.
The ghosts drink from them
and before long
the ghosts crawl inside
and we are looking into our own eyes
drinking our own poison
licking it off of our fingers as we wipe if off of the dirty mirror.
The reflection is an afraid child
in pain
just looking for a hug
and a voice to whisper
"I am sorry. I will do better."

I will do better.