Bridge Darebin & Bridge Queer Gathering gathers, works and meets on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, and to elders past and present.
Rest my weary head in your hands
hold me like mother
hold me like lover
the greatest love story I’ve ever known
fill my cup with the nectar of your silence
sweep your dust off my chest
make me warm
keep me cozy
spread the leaves of your plants through my ribcage
storytell me the seasons through my dreams
bare with me
I’m busy
tell me to be less busy
take vacuum to your corners
your windowsill a piano I haven’t played in a while strip the bed of my yearning fill the laundry basket of my avoidance
I will clean you when I’m ready
You will clear me when you can
We will dance like this through apocalypse
Through recycling bins of calendars
across suburbs, continents
Beyond time or linearity
We will meet near the end
I will love you through incarnations
You will love me through mine
I find my pride in little things. In my earring collection, And my pancake-making skills.
The way my nails look when I’ve resisted biting them. The rainbow flags I see stuck to windows or billowing from a flagpole.
These make me feel bolder. They make me feel brave.
I’m proud of some medium-sized things too.
My friendships.
My capacity to love.
My thunderous voice, But not my laugh, Once mocked by a boy in my class for being too loud. It’s been years, but I am still getting over that.
I do not pick at the scab over my ribs, Where shame once festered.
Shame I picked out with tweezers, Strand by strand.
But I do run my fingertips lightly over the wound and remember.
I remember calling things ‘gay’ in high school,
As if it was synonymous with the word ‘bad’.
I remember being caught up in the language of my classmates before I knew better.
Before I knew who I was.
I remember my mother, after my sister came out to us,
Saying she’ll meet a nice man and settle down, before she too knew better,
And years later, when I came out to her, telling me she loves me just as I am.
And remembering makes me think all our wrongs are just ignorance.
And one day, when we know better, we will look back with regret.
But we can look at the distance we’ve travelled, from that place of shame to where we are now,
And be proud.
Colours in me, on me, colours everywhere.
They’re in how I dress, how I present myself to the world. Or the void of my room.
In the bobbled jumper my mum crocheted for me / in the merperson curls flowing onto my neck, the leftover dye still smudging my fingers even now /in the stripey funky socks slouching down my shins.
My colours sometimes do not come together like people think they should, but my colours do not exist for them.
They’re for me.
See me bounce wonder off the windows, drench the floor in my fun.
I’m tutoring myself in how to live colourfully / boldly / glittery-ly To choose my preferences over the opinions of others.
Colours in me, on me. I will joyfully continue dressing my world in colours.
I’m good at predicting the last time i will see someone again.
If i catch it before it catches me it will hurt less.
I’ve become good with practice.
I'm letting go of expectations, not taking "see you again" as a promise.
I've learnt to prolong time, taking in every last detail of their face, their expression, the colours and the sounds of stillness, i blink to capture a photo.
I revisit it again and again until the details fade.
A picture with a blurred face.
A time frozen in my mind capsule.
Maybe years from now rediscovered, a new meaning is found.
Lauri
I do not remember the first time I felt cold
The shock to my system let out through wailing infant lungs
Then, wrapped in a blanket, warm
Gifted to my mum for safe keeping
Now it is so normal to feel cold
My system still expresses its shock
Little goosebumps lining the surface of my skin
But I’m ok with it
I don’t really think about it much
I thought loss would be the same
That eventually I’d barely notice
The searing pain and devastation of it
I was wrong
I stopped myself getting too close
Kept people at an arms length
Clinging to the hurt instead A protective reminder
I cannot feel loss if there’s no one to lose
I know that now
To push away stops the healing
It makes all the old wounds hurt more
Even little losses become hard to bear
Now I am terrified
They are the first time all over again
But whenever I lose them
The time I found them will have been worth it
all poems must rhyme poetryhas tobeserious poemsmust haveadeep meaning
fyoumust ollowstrict grammarrules
poemshave tobelong
To the autistic joy of info-dumping
Because did you know Australian magpies are classified as songbirds, not intelligent corvids like European magpies?
An ode to sitting cross legged for 14 minutes staring at the most complete triceratops skeleton in the world and finally feeling like myself
Returning to passions long repressed as childish or silly
My love for frogs sparked at age 4 when I told a frog to open its mouth and it did
My awe when I first learned about archeopterix, the missing link between dinosaurs and modern birds
To days listening to my partner's infodumps about Metallica and wrestling
To nights spent reading together about the Beatles, listing all the reasons Ringo is the best
An ode to the happiness I feel when I identify a bird in the wild
And seeing native bees, who don't have hives or a matriarch but rather live in pairs and burrow into the ground
My growing collection of frog themed items and clothing
But most of all an ode to the special interests I see around me
To shrek and sharks and lightning mcqueen
To my happiness seeing other people being authentically themselves
And the bravery it lends me as I find a place in a new community
I'm happier than I've ever been
And it's thanks to birds and snails and bees
So an ode to special interests
And an ode to being me
