These stories and poems by bisexual+ youth were collected by Bisexual Women of Color (BIWOC), a Bisexual Health Awareness Month (BHAM) campaign partner. BIWOC is an organization whose mission is to provide emotional support, resources, community, and a safe space to discuss intersectional issues that affect bi women of color. They welcome all with multi-gender attractions, including but not limited to: bisexual, biromantic, pansexual, queer, fluid, and questioning.
Maz
Age 22
Bi afab agender femme
British-Nigerian
This is a poem I wrote around a year ago about growing up a bi girl in denial
I wish I could reassure you
In the way that you want to be reassured
But no amount of praying
And no amount of kneeling
Until you fear your knees might break under the pressure
And your mind might go numb from all the silent screaming
Will change a thing.
The way they make you feel
The way they make you turn your head
And dream of warm summer nights spent
Watching disney films in your pyjamas
And planning your years
Is not going to change
You are angry now
You hate your mother for birthing you
You hate God for making you
You hate them for tempting you
You can barely think for rage and hatred
And the fact that nobody can understand
So you cry
You weep and listen to Evanescence
And then you pray.
You pray that you may no longer be disordered.
You pray that this cup may pass from you
You don’t want His will but Yours
You don’t want to share in a Calvary
Of wedding dresses and baby names.
You tell your priest
Weeping in a confessional
That you might be a monster
You can hear the compassionate smile
In his thick Spanish accent
“God creates no monsters” he tells you
“God created you in his image and likeness.
This is a phase,
A sign of confused adolescence and it will pass.
Pray for guidance and peace
And it will pass.”
You still kneel
More chanting than praying
You are not queer
You are not sick
And you still love men
You hold white men close to your chest
And pray that they see you like you want to be seen
So you take sickly joy in the stray hands
That prove you are not invisible.
You are broken now
Shattered mirrors and bloody feet
Screaming for someone to see you
Because you can’t see yourself any more
I see you.
And I can reassure you.
You are pollution.
You are the stain that no amount of bleach will get rid of
The annoying song that gets stuck in your head
The splinter buried deep in your foot
You are climate change
You are something big and dangerous
That everyone knows is there and no one wants to address
You are invisible.
You have the power to corrupt everything you touch
You are not a safe option.
You will learn to embrace that.
Stain the world pink and blue and purple
Be the chant that no one can forget
Be big and dangerous and entirely unstoppable.
You will not fade into the background
You will infiltrate their worlds
And make yourself visible
You are not a safe option
You are so much bigger than that
God made you to be so much bigger than that
Do not cry
You are a monster
You are disordered
You are corruption
And that is perfectly OK.