intersex valentines poetry

In honor of Valentines Day, I am going to showcase one of the oldest expressions of love, poetry. In this case poems written by intersexuals. These poems are obviously not about romantic love of another person, but of learning self acceptance, but I think they are still relevant because it is true that you have to love yourself before you can love another, and that goes double for those of us who are different. I hope you all have a wonderful Valentines day with that special someone, or with yourself if you are single or working on that self acceptance. Enjoy the poems.

Ode to a Life
Heidi Walcutt

A little child was born today,
whether it’s a boy or a girl was hard to say.
The poor, innocent mother they quickly sedated,
While the doctors and nurses stood around and debated.

One doctor said “The penis is too small,
this will never, never do at all.”
Another spoke up “No, the clit is too large,
we need a specialist who can come in and take charge.”

So the call went out across the land,
and when a group of specialists was at hand,
A series of tests was the first thing they did,
the result of these, from the parents they hid.

When all of the testing and probing was done,
the doctors said “We can never tell them of their son.”
So the parents were never told of their little boy child,
who by a miracle of nature was born to be wild.

So they sliced and they diced, a new woman to make.
“To hell with the consequences, we’ll fix Nature’s mistake!”

Counseling next became their obsession,
they hounded and pounded into the child their lesson.
“You are a girl, there’s no doubt of that,
trust what we tell you, a fact is a fact.”

So she lived in the shadows, without any life,
she was constantly battered by emotional strife.
Never voicing her fears, her hopes or her doubts,
until she found ISNA and let it all out.

Anger
Michelle O'Brien

I had to let the anger go.
It got in the way of everything.
It did not help.
It still can well up.
But the aftermath is often not good.
It hurt others, and it hurt myself.
I did not want to carry on with my life driven by anger.
It would have destroyed me.
This is the thing with this anger, it is not my anger.
Somebody else put this anger inside of me.
If I allow myself to hang on to that anger,
they are still there, inside of me.
By letting go of that anger, their power is broken.
Only by letting go of the anger could the true healing begin.
To accept the anger took half a lifetime.
To recover from it will take the other half.
I want to love, not hate, for I was born to love.
I will not waste the other half of my life on anger.

What Ails You, Hermaphroditos?
Testika Filch Milquetoast

each day is as a riddle
a giant game of twister
for I won't be your brother
nor shall I be your sister
I won't be your "disorder"
nor a "false" to what is "real"
I'm humyn, all too humyn
because that's the way I feel
your "science" won't define me
no matter how hard you try
nor shall your law confine me
as I breath a heavy sigh
your "faith" can not condemn me
for I have faith in my own
we will turn back your attack
'til we free your heart of stone