Stifling Someone's Essence Is a Form of Violence - Model #1 - Intersectionality

I am not simply one
I say to myself in the mirror
Contemplating the different layers
That form the whole of my being
The different intersecting identities
Borne from struggle and discovery
Invisible to the outside world
Yet so integral to the world inside

A friend of a friend told me that his
friend's roommate came out to him the other
day
Gathered up the courage needed to tell him he was
gay
His roommate said - Can't you just not be that way
Can't you just ace the gay away?
Better asexual than homosexual
Better me feel comfortable
And you feel marginalized
Adjusting yourself to my heterosexist tendency

The problem with intersectionality is that people
Always want to censor some part of you
Turn you into a shifting microcosm
of adjustable identities
They always want to change you

Part Two - A girl from my hometown
Has an aunt who used to be her uncle
Aunt Lily used to be Uncle Hawthorne
And like all flowers, bloomed when the time
Was right and the bud was too tight
She tried to explain this to a friend
But the girl wasn't all that good at botany
Didn't understand the struggle of transit
The struggle of a woman beating her face up
With make up so people will stop calling her a boy
The struggle of slipping into heels sharp
as daggers arrayed against the slurs of people
who would call her a man to stifle her essence

The problem with intersectionality is that
people will always try to stifle your essence
and keep you from radiating it.
Stifling someone's essence is a form of violence.

Part 3 -
I know this girl from Lambda Alliance
that everyone keeps calling greedy
She's bisexual
Apparently she can't pick a team
Apparently she can't pick a side
She can't just be bi
She's always only "bi for now"
Always bisected by people with
No concept of spectrum
No concept of fluidity
No concept of the damage that's done
When you force a person into two closets

The problem with intersectionality is that
You often find yourself running in and out of closets
Trying to justify the permutations of self
That make up who you are
That people fail to understand
That intertwine so delicately
Like a piece of art
A carefully crafted figure
Forging self into reality.