that smile only covers over aversion the verity of tightly-pressed teeth the saying one thing when you mean another is as simulated as it seems all the faces you don’t realize you’re making betray false security if you took a moment to realize you’re acting well, maybe then you would see that your carefully chosen words are equal to the sight of your well-pressed clothes it is a forced + contrived standard of normal you insist is good for us both but if all that’s accepted is your sole perspective and my life incomparibly loathed then i’m calling out your supposed distinction begging you to break the bloody fourth

[lana wachowski, human rights campaign visibility award acceptance speech, 2012] “invisibility is indivisible from visibility...it can be the difference between life + death.”

opposer / a poser of your blood, sister + bro / if you think you’re better of your kin, sister + brother / if you consider them “other”

are we so very different, or could it be we’re the same our alikeness – unmistakably red – courses unseen through our veins consanguineous comrades on an artificial stage we all end up unavoidably breathless trapped together in this same cage