My identification card?
But why?
Surely I could tell you everyt…
Well, all right.

Here is my card of concrete
categories
and labels
which teaches personality through
ethnicity-gender-age-race-sex-orientation-name.
Look at my card.
Do you know me better, now?
I thought so.
Tell me, then… who am I?

Surely you know my annoyance-terror
being stopped in airports
when I have never even
jaywalked

The hours spent straightening
nappy hair
in an effort to become one
with society's toddler demands

Or my eyes, forever horizontal to you
a gasp at my low math grade
and when I tell you I hate
Classical music

You didn't know?
But my I.D. is right here..
It tells you everything, wouldn't you say?
Oh. Only facts.
I see.

Well, then, you should know the facts.
For example, how every two seconds,
someone needs blood.

And you should know that
their transfusion
can never come from me.
It's on my card.

I'm sure you understand
that I can be fired
for being
myself

Or the constant comparisons
to cigarettes
or drainage trenches
You should know.

It's on my card.
No? It's not, you say?
Well, lets go even simpler.

How about that twenty-five cents I will never make
per hour
because of a single letter

or the high insurance premiums
I pay
because of a single letter

What about religious texts
that promote my abasement
Or the draft that I was forced into
Because of F
or M

I'm sure you understand those facts.
Look at my card.
Do you know me better, now?
I didn't think so.