gender binary v1

[Todd]

Hi Aurelia, welcome to the site! I read the comments below so won't call out the typos. I think you have something good you're working with. Here are some comments for you:

You have an opportunity to mix this up a little you've got the color metaphor going. Pink, blue, rainbow are all good for a spoken piece, they are fairly loaded with social connotations (which is both good and bad) Good because they save setup time, bad because they can encourage you not to dig deeper.

I'd encourage you to consider slipping in some sort of other binary imagery just to layer the vignettes. We flip a coin think it has to be heads or tails. Sometimes it lands on the edge. Sometimes it just spins. (just an example of what I mean). 

Hello, everyone! I'm Aurelia, and (shocking, I know) new to the forum. It took a bit of searching to find someplace that offered solid critique instead of platitudes, and it looks like this is the place!

A bit of a preface: I'm a spoken word/slam poet, which is why my poetry seems very scattered and.....odd on paper. If it's easier, I can always submit an audio version if it helps the critique. Also, it's been four long years since I've written anything, so I'm a bit shit.

This isn't finished yet, I'm missing a couple stanzas. Ignore the purple, those are just my notes.

“The gender binary,” someone once told me,
“is not a binary at all, in that a)
a binary is a system composed of two parts, and b)
the rainbow has more colors that pink and blue.
If she is pink,
and he is blue,
every color in between is not purple.”

I have this friend who is orange,
not quite as red as pink, she tells me,
but just enough that it counts.
The days she wears dresses are special occasions, short skirts are a celebration, 
make-up is worship.--Maybe expand the priestly worship tone "dresses are vestments" etc
Most days, she wears jeans like battle armor; her binder is a bulletproof vest.--binder saying what she writes.
She is not girl enough to love,
she is not girl enough to marry,
she is only girl enough to fuck.

Yellow something something something
Primary colors not red or blue not anything in between
If a binary is a system of two parts,
he is writing his own code.

My other friend is green,
they don’t know what that means yet—--I think this should be moved down below purple. It works as a stark break before your final strophe.
Maybe flesh this out, I dunno, but they don’t know either and not everyone is certain about gender so???

My neighbor is purple,
some days she is magenta
some days he is periwinkle
Purple is not pink or blue,
no matter how much their mother tells them to just pick one.

I knew someone who was pink—
no, blue
no, pink
no, blue
Because that is the only color her father told her she could be
He painted it onto her nursery walls like a contract,--Nice simile. This should be a period instead of a comma.
He witnessed it in bruise blue, --These next three lines bruise to disgust would be stronger if you could make them more like the nursery line--draw them out a little more. 
neglect black,
disgust green,
her skin caves like drywall.--Nice image
When we were sixteen, she signed it in artery red.
Today, she isn’t pink anymore,
she is mental hospital white, and conversion therapy grey,
she smells like drying paint and her hands are so cold.--I think if you reverse this line it might thematically tie into the poem better. "Her hands are so cold and she smells like drying paint." Its debatable, but I think paint is the better end word.


Possible working title, maybe "Brushstrokes"

Ending about me?? Ending about them?? Ending???

I hope some of that helps. 

Best,

Todd