Sinking

Sinking

Darren White

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Staff member

Sinking


he still knows every pin
in the frilly dress he used to wear
so white on his dark skin
the ribbons in his afro hair
how he kept his fear in

he sees the camera, hears the sound
eyes open wide, but shut within
he's nowhere to be found
they want the husk, the empty grin
and don't care that he drowned
 
Because you post this piece on this website, we have little difficulty understanding exactly what is happening. It is chilling Darren, as are most of the poems you share with us. Most of us drowned in one way or another. How could it be otherwise? I guess for someone drowning, finding a life preserver like Male Survivor is a relief. Together we can tread water long enough to actually learn to swim...
 
Visitor, I know my poems are not easily understood. They are often heavy in metaphor. But whatever they are, they tell about my life in the only way I can.
This one is quite literal.
But anyway. I decided earlier not to write poetry here anymore. I just can't expect men here to appreciate what I do. And I will have to find a different way to talk. I came back, wrote one or two. But it's better not to post anymore.
Thank you for the comment Visitor :)
 
You made reference to the fact you are posting some of your work elsewhere and that you have a website for writing that you curate. Would you feel comfortable sharing links... if not here, then in a private message? I've come and gone a bit lately but your writing, including poems are things I watch for. Sorry you're choosing to step away from this forum. Yes, it is rather slow and I've no doubt you have your reasons for leaving... but I feel the loss.

Be well and stay safe my young friend.
 
I was speaking about missing your poetry. I didn't interpret your comment as meaning you are leaving MS. Although I haven't spent much time on this forum... I understand how poems distill the essence of some uncomfortable truths we come to out of our trauma experiences. It is a bit like taking photos and making the choice to convert them to black and white. Stripping the color from the scene allows us to see line, shadow, nuance that is often lost in the profusion of colors.

Thanks for the links. I bookmarked both and will take a closer look. How wonderful that you have such a creative outlet. I'm doing some graphic design for a non-profit where I've volunteered for the last 23 years... their annual newsletter. I love doing the creative work, but one newsletter a year is hardly enough to say I have a creative outlet. Photography has been that for many years, but diving into trauma work has diminished my enthusiasm for picking up my camera and kit of manual focus lenses. Perhaps this winter I'll get out and do some black and white work.

Thanks for being here Darren.
 
Photography is wonderful. In a way this poem of mine is a photo too. It's a still. It's a description of what you can see in the photo, and its interpretation.

About not posting poems anymore. It's sometimes difficult to post poems that are going to the heart of what happened to me. It takes courage to post those. It's a lonely art form.
 
Yes... and looking at your other websites, this forum and the Male Survivor website as it exists right now, is a pretty lonely place. It definitely is much slower than a few months ago when I took my sabbatical. I commented on the cross dressing thread I created two years ago that there were 67 people on MS at the time and over 300 on one forum at a cross dressing website. This is not a happy place or one in which we celebrate our lives. It is important, however, and I really feel a need to be here.

Regarding photography, I started a thread on an excellent photography website 11 years ago on the subject of Nikon manual focus lenses that is still going on despite my absence the last two years. It is wonderful sharing enthusiasm for something meaningful in our lives... writing... photography... whatever.
 
This is an important website. The writers site and the magazine are not at all about healing the way we do here. It's about the art of writing only, and that is fine. But this place here is for us, for ourselves and our innermost pain and problems. The poems I post here, I don't post on my writers site. I write in so many different ways.

But here I go through the horror I came from. It's just in a way not everyone understands.

I made friends here, that does make me happy :)
 
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....But here I go though the horror I came from. It's just in a way not everyone understands.

I made friends here, that does make me happy :)

That says it well Darren... even a world away, we can make friends with people who do understand.
 
I check this site every day. And the poems are often the first thing I read.

A distillation of the ugly truth in a few beautiful words.

Thanks for sharing them
 
Thank you @Toad
I promise I'll keep posting. Sometimes I doubt myself.
 
We are your fans Darren... don't doubt that. You speak the unsettling truths of sexual trauma.
 
he sees the camera, hears the sound
eyes open wide, but shut within
I appreciate this line.
I would disassociate and be gone often while it was happening. Or looking at pictures of me at that time there is a certain blankness in my eyes. They are open but my mind is shut.

Thanks for this
 
I would disassociate and be gone often while it was happening. Or looking at pictures of me at that time there is a certain blankness in my eyes. They are open but my mind is shut.
I did dissociate too. Like you I wasn't there at all.
 
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