Eager to include the voices of queer youth in our 2011 Queer Issue, we asked the artists at Roaddawgz, a Tenderloin homeless youth creative drop-in center, to submit art that addressed the realities of being young and queer today. Here’s some selections from the amazing works they sent in:
Corner Skills
By Levi
Not all queers are queens… not that anything is wrong with it
I am the dude on the corna,
doin what I wanna.
Learnin to hone my skills.
A faggot such as me must learn to be an anomaly
moving through the crowds with no heads turnin
don’t need some angry motha-fuckah burnin
want’n to teach me what a man should do when a bitch brother is in your presence
Gotta learn to blend and defend;
haftah strengthen my core and my soul
because nobody cares if ah gay boy goes.
“Battle To Love” by King Virgo
Meat Market
By Levi
I am a piece of meat and every man wants some.
I walk to the grocery store in the heart of the Gayborhood and men look at me like I am a steak, posturing as if they can take a grab at me, put me in their shopping cart, whisk me away to their abode and after they have their dinner throw away the leftovers.
I am the dark meat, the black meat, men shun in daylight but troll after at night. Wanting the swwweeeeettttt cream in the center. I am the boy they still wish to be, the youth they envy, the looks they wish they could hate… but don’t. I am the homeless person that is hidden, who passes off as the moneyed and do my best not to look helpless because nothing is hotter for some men than sexploitation.
I am a series of images, a composite. It’s much easier to see me as an object, a sex toy, a piece of ass or dick. If they were faced with who I was, the juxtaposition would make them re-evaluate their whole view of me and make them wonder “Maybe he is a human?”
“Bleeding Heart” by Lisa Myaf
“The View From Here” by Insomnia