Roaddawgz Youth Artists

Queer Issue 2011: Scenes from the road

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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