Original spoken word poetry about gender dysphoria and growing up in the 1970s.

1976 NANCY BOY

Smoke. Industrial smoke. Chimney smoke.

Thick smoke from un-serviced motor cars.

Smoke from life-long chain smokers, roll ups,

Cigarettes of a thousand brands,

Filled with rubbish shared by dirty hands.

Rubbish in filthy streets piled so high,

Swarms of houseflies don’t have to try.

And bile, darned socks, and untied laces,

String-tied shorts, hand-me-down unwashed shirts,

Kicking cans with dirty washed faces.

Laughing at a dying cat, trampled, kicked,

Not even left to scream its last breath.

Furless tail, passed round, a party piece.

Tossed like trash into the old canal,

Stones and sticks, a welcome grasp below.

Finding splice amongst shopping trolleys.

The wail of sirens pierces laughter.

The merry group, off to school, to learn,

Of things, their brief lives, will never use.

The furnace awaits, smoke and fumes.

Cheap cigarettes at the school gates,

Under the headmaster’s watching eye.

Cane in hand, face or hands, he doesn’t mind.

Teachers leave the quiet kid alone,

Circled by captors standing on thrones.

Taunting the Nancy boy, he submits.

Bruised, crying, the shrieking school bell sounds,

And he, accepts his fate, floating down.

Beyond hope, into the dumbed down depths,

Holding breath, in the classroom canal.

Finding splice with dead bugs in his desk.

It is better than the place called home.

A painful whack wakes the escape.

Smirks, and pain, and taunts, his classroom friends.

A Nancy boys life, so she must wait, and hold her breath.

(c) Jay Rose Ana

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