A Joke

A Joke

Do you hear that?
The sound of pearl necklaces hitting the floor;
The showgirls don’t make it to the shows anymore.
I was at a party in my hometown
And I heard a straight boy make a joke,
It went like this:

“What does Pennywise have in common with Trannies?
They’re both called ‘It’.”

Poor humour and ignorance
Spilled out of cigarette smoke in their laughs,
The trans kid at the party went quiet,
And I decided to write my own:

What do trans people have in common with dogs?
They both die in their teens.
238 trans people walk into a room in 2018
That room is called heaven
They got there early, full of scars, holes, burns and stones
Ripped from bodies they never actually got to own
What’s the funniest thing about a trans person’s funeral?
Nobody is crying.
Do you hear that?
The sound of pearl necklaces hitting the floor
And the showgirls don’t make it to the shows anymore
Drag culture has become a straight girl novelty
But RuPaul didn’t throw the first brick at stonewall
Do you know who did?
Marsha P. Johnson, she was HIV Positive, a woman of colour, a sex worker, a drag queen and a trans woman; we owe her our lives

But people like Trisha Paytas use their body rights for likes
Like a YouTube video about being trans and the truth are anything alike.
Do you hear that?
The sound of pearl necklaces hitting the floor
And the show girls don’t make it to the shows anymore.
This year, a trans woman named Kira was skinned alive and burnt
And Twitter has already forgotten her name
Like a like and a life are anything the same.
Remember their names: where is your humanity?
If you have empathy, just find it
Kira, Dana Martin, Zoe Spears
Did you hear them? TERFs have turned the media quiet
Turn their ashes to eye shadow now is the time to riot

I am real, and I don’t feel like a boy.

But when the news tells you ‘you aren’t real’
You tend to feel like a ghost.
The media puts trans people on roast
And TERFs eat that shit up-
I’ve had enough.
It’s spitting honesty at ignorance, at this point I give up.

I’d go back inside to hide
But my mouth is too small to swallow all of my pride
What’s the funniest thing about being transgender?
You are the joke.
Your pronouns are smoke
People say it and choke
So, the showgirls do coke and blow
They don’t want to make it to the show
They hide at home instead
We only wish we saw them
When all the showgirls are dead.
Trans women are getting shot
Their pearls scatter on the floor
We aren’t making it to our own shows anymore.
Trans bodies have become doors to a cisgender society
But if we don’t lock ourselves in, we’ll never be free.

Do you hear that?
The sounds of trans people losing it all,
These are the sounds I will hear

No more.
Here’s what I think to your fucking jokes.