Isaac E J

Isaac Asbury (pen name isaac e.j.) is a queer, disabled writer in Leeds, U.K. Their work can be best described as the space where left-wing politics meet personal confessions, documenting their lived experiences as a transgender and neurodivergent individual.

"I wrote this when I reached a peak of frustration and hopelessness directed towards the U.K goverment's treatment of trans people. After years of medical gaslighting and the agonising wait to be seen by a gender clinic, I found myself waking up each day to headlines about trans siblings being killed, finding myself lost scrolling in transphobic comment threads. This poem was the accumulation of that."

IG: @isaacejwrites

The UK government and helathcare system failed me

Not quite work 

                  but stretched far from play 

I could never be loud enough

                   – I know that now

My misfortunes are Nothing 

in opposition to contortions

and fruitless testimonies

Convince me I’m wrong!

about the thoughts my mind concocts 

like he did 

when he felt bad

because he did bad

but didn’t want to admit it 

yet 

That I could never be fluent in my native tongue. say I pause

too often and mispronounce 

the simplest phrases; It’s not personal 

just a war

on my intelligence, my body, my very being.

Chastise my hurt

and prove my point time and time again 

with those careless slurs 

and thinly veiled arguments 

If you’re going to kill me, 

I suggest that you stop boasting 

and get on with it 

Do I take you by surprise? 

                      Don’t mistake my apathy for acceptance 

I’m used to fighting for survival 

so forgive my armour for rusting