There are names for the girls like you.
There are names for the men you knew.
Everyday words, casual and indifferent,
Flung with accuracy or ill intention
If it is ever known they were flung at all.

Jump in the deep end; attack the attacker.
Destroy those who seek to destroy you
And pause.

I left my life behind and exchanged it
For circles in the grass in a wintery park
Under a tree that had shed its leaves
With other people like me. We shared the same
Secret that wasn't secret here.
We ran away from the same things; we knew
The same fears and anxieties
And we slung the same words
That we didn't like before.

We attended a party, early on, and a friend
Wrote my identity on my back in black.
Etched the colours on my arm
Photographed a kiss that my homeland
Would have screamed about.
She called me the same word they did
But something was different.
The barb had been removed, the sting was dead.

In the park, under the tree, a conversation.
"Your whole degree is practically queer studies
Isn't it?" And the man I didn't know
Laughed and nodded.
One of us replied, one of us had spoken.
We slung our own words and they were nothing.

Words are my tool; words are nothing.
Words are everything but for their use
And secret smiles that follow
And the relaxed calm of knowing
That no words are needed.