Two Poems by Jaxx Davis

Jaxx Davis

Jaxx Davis (they/them) is a trans fat queercrip writer, artist and activist. They often combine those elements and create around their live experiences as well as the state of the world. Jaxx unfortunately has multiple experiences around sexual assault, abuse, domestic abuse, and incest, so those themes regularly pop up in their work. Being mostly bedridden due to their disabilities, they mostly create from their bed.

Healing

Whoever said that

healing was a line

was wrong.

It's not a statistic.

It's nothing so clinical.

It's

before and after.

Life moving into new normals,

like life always does.

It's almost unexpectedly assuring

and jarring to realise

that time didn't stop.

It's

fitting on a new identity,

and finding everyone knew your size,

but no one knows

your skin is not the same.

It's

finding out the worst part

isn't during, it's after.

~ *~

I'm not just a survivor,

I'm a victim,

and there's nothing wrong with that.

Let me reclaim the narrative

that my worth only hinges

on strength

or the ability to move past.

Let me reclaim the idea

that I need to be the perfect victim.

As if my rape is shaped

by the way I act,

even after.

Do not make me measure myself

by the ability to forget

just because that's what

all of you want to do.

I will not be silenced.

I will make you remember.

I will make you uncomfortable.

I will make you see how this shaped me.

Until you stop inserting yourself unwanted.

Busy hands

Two busy hands

on the side walk,

scraped.

You ask me

about the taste

of yours.

I just like their shape.

“While you're

down there, you

can chalk your fate.”

I already know

it, babe.

It is other days

spent on my knees

on the sidewalk

praying you away.

I still remember

the way

you looked at me

like it was yesterday.

But after 20 years of learning

how to feel safe,

I can honestly say,

that most of the time

I'll be OK.