My Gender is a Campsite on an Infinite Plane

My gender is a used car
It’s not fancy
But it gets me where I need to go

My gender is a cracked statue in a quiet corner of the Louvre
Beautiful in its own way
But not what people came to see

My gender is every colour of the sky
In that there is blue involved
But also so much more

My gender is like art
In the same way that you can’t define art

When you label a thing you create a box
You trap it within the confines of definition
There’s a limitation to how language surrounds an idea
Boils it down to fit within the edges of a mouth
Why choose such a small space for oneself?

I see gender not as a small and distinct box
But as a wide open field stretching out
And out and out
And I’m not sure these days where the edge is
And when a new field of grass begins or ends
Or if there even is an end

Is gender just a camping ground we choose on an infinite plane?
Is it just where we find warmth momentarily in life?
And can be picked up, moved, taken elsewhere, snubbed out, ignored

Gender is a home we build for ourselves
And we don’t need to listen when the blueprints
Suggest four walls and a pink or blue roof

My gender is a traveller
My gender hasn’t quite learned how to set up a tent
And is wandering this infinite plane in search of nothing in particular
My gender is trying to give a unique name to every single flower it sees
To push the limits of language further and further
Until it doesn’t feel so constrained

My gender is window shopping the campsites of other genders
It’s leaving pamphlets about the tyranny of brick houses
It’s rustling the nearby bushes
It’s making sounds in the night to scare the other genders

About the author

David Cox is a neurodivergent poet, photographer, and educator living on Whadjuk Noongar Country. They are a spoken word poet who has performed on stages in Australia and the USA, and has been a WA finalist in the Australian Poetry Slam three times. His passion is teaching people how the Australian political system works and hopes to one day finish the dozens of novel ideas in his head. 

Photo by Todd Trapani on Unsplash.