Editor’s Note: This blog post is cross-posted with permission from Cris’s blog Go the Way Your Blood Beats.
Preface: This is an older poem that addresses street violence and harassment. As a gender non conforming person of color, street harassment is an everyday reality. It always astounds me how much the violence increases when I am traveling with a perceived “femme.” I can write some of the violence off as patriarchy, homophobia, fear, but intellectualizing it still doesn’t take away the after effects of violence, my body literally tenses up.
I am constantly thinking about negotiating space, when not to hold hands, which group of cis-men I should avoid, I constantly think about my safety and my partner/lover’s safety. I also think about how as queer people this effects our interpersonal relationships. When the outside world DOES creep into our beds, how do we take care of ourselves? How do we empower ourselves in a world that strips us of dignity and attempts to make us feel ashamed of who we are. What psychological and physical effects does this have on our community as a whole?
I have done searches online on safety planning specifically for street harassment for Queer folks and I’ve yet to find any. 
Most resources are centered on intimate partner violence (straight & queer), but what about stranger violence? If you have resources please share. I will repost.
be safe.
-Cris
Cris Izaguirre is a Latin@, queer, poet, farmboi, producer, wanderer, lover of green things. Raised in Brooklyn, NY, born in Nicaragua. Follow Cris on twitter @criswordsmith. Check out their blog.
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We Leave the World Outside
for M
Beneath my red, pink, yellow stripped sheets
trace your flushed
cheeks with my thumb
kiss the corners of your mouth
Leave the world outside
See, outside in the world
our kind of love
is met with purple bruises
crimson splatter concrete, fists and broken teeth
bones split so easily
words shatter sternum
“Bitch! Dyke! Faggot!
You wanna be a man?
I’ll show you what a man is”
Inside, we mend love
suture muscle and flesh
using lips and tongue
“Saturate me” you say
I let the tears fall
heavy as sin
onto your collarbone
Leave the world outside
Lover, I fear
my skin and bones
aren’t steel
aren’t enough
to protect you
To risk a kiss on the Q train
to risk touching your face
on Ocean Avenue
before the change of a traffic light
to hold your lifeline in mine
At night I dream
the world is trying to get inside
underneath our sheets
onto our bodies
I wake up gasping for air
You pull me by my chin
Pull the red, pink, yellow stripped sheets
Over our heads
“Leave the world outside.”
