Lynne Jones – January 2025

This poem is a coming out story, and a story about gender violence.

When you know you know
 
If you think this will be an easy ride. No! 
It’s about when you experience something somatically 
you know that you know. 
 
That Being a girl growing up 
Is sometimes really, really rough. 
It’s so easy to feel not good enough, 
Scared to end up, up the duff. 
 
Like at 16 I first heard about the patriarchy, 
When I was doing A level sociology. 
Of course I’d always “known”, I’m not insane. 
But for the first time, it had a name. 
 
Wanna go to Uni but feel guilt. 
This is where inequality is built. 
Keep out of the kitchen if you don’t like the heat. 
Learn to dance to the sound of your own hearts beat 
 
You find that life has a knack, 
Of suddenly going off track. 
Pals go to Spain and one of them don’t make it back, 
Raped in a brutal knife attack. 
 
It’s safer to be in the company of men, 
When you dress and act Like one of them. 
Relax enjoy and feel content, 
BDSM Leather subculture values consent 
 
There are other sexual morality rules 
policed by the PTA Muffia at school. 
It’s absolutely not allowed, 
To side-step prohibitive marriage vows. 
 
Aspire to wear a big lace dress. 
Don’t let yourself or the house get in a mess. 
Fuck your boss and be his mistress, 
And the whole wide world will like you less. 
 
You drink alcohol because that’s just what you do. 
One day you realise it don’t work for you. 
That Christmas will break your heart. 
And Relationships fall apart. 
 
My sister refusing to break bread, 
Doesn’t approve of the life I’ve led. 
Says she just wants me to be “happy”. 
Judgementally inviting me to feel crappy. 
 
Sometimes think, Laura where are ya? 
Or the androgynous girl on the union sofa 
The winking women in the Moroccan Kasbah 
And the mermaid’s tits in my face, a-ha! 
 
On the hotel wall there was a picture. 
Portrait of a Duchess by Tamara de Lempika. 
The reason the picture was here? 
Says “Hon, you’ve always known you’re queer”. 

Self-dialogue:

My poetry illuminates my queerness and my bisexuality in a way I don’t fully embrace in day to day but would like to.  I give hints and clues, and my bisexuality is erased by the fact I am in a relationship with a man.  My queerness is shown in the non-monogomous relationship type, and this is also something that is opaque even to close family.  (Making me wonder if they are close if I can’t share parts of myself with them?).  And this is the crux of the situation.  The training, the fear of rejecting the towing the line of heteronormativity.  Hiding in full sight, even from myself.  I avoided adding the question about reflecting on my internalised homophobia.  My world view is my family was not a safe place to be me. In practice I can work with others and heal this part of me at the same time.  The illumination – “I am perfect exactly as I am” echoed from the song Rejections Pain.  And I always have been.  As I go through this study, I can connect with that part of myself in a fuller way. 

Reflexivity:

Do you have a coming out story?  Or multiple coming out stories?  Where can you be out, and where can’t you?   

If not, what experiences do you have that might have had the same felt sense of dread, fear, potential rejection, etc? 

How might clients’ relationships or environments, or cultures prevent coming out?