Behind This Closed Door: Masculine

Behind This Closed Door: Masculine by Yas Necati


Behind This Closed Door is a series of two spoken word poems (Femme and Masc) by Yas Necati, exploring gender presentation.
Link to second video (Feminine):    • Behind This Closed Door: Feminine  

POEM:
I pointed out where I was from to my ex girlfriend on a map once. I got it wrong.

My grandfather once said “Erkek olacadi, kiz da oldu”
They were supposed to be a boy, and they turned out a girl

Our family’s village lives on a border. My relatives carry “what ifs” like old trinkets, they’re not odd to us

Where am I from? I am from a question mark.
I am from the times I got asked to leave public bathrooms
I am from healing
I am from becoming

I am also from a place that has the biggest vine tree.
They charge a lot of money for stuffed vine leaves in the UK

When I was younger, I watched the river dry up in our village as summer came
When I was younger I got beaten by some boys who didn’t like that I wore the same clothes as them.

I was a child who learned to stay quiet when the army jeeps drove by
I was also a child who played boxing with my reflection in the mirror, topless,
Throwing punches at myself.
I bound my fists with bandages that years later, I would wrap around my chest
Trying to compress what grew there
I drew a line down my centre
Labelled it border

Phyll was the first person who called me handsome.
I didn’t realise how much I wanted that word until someone said it to me

Downstairs, my grandmother watches gay conversion therapy shows on Turkish TV
She is afraid more than anything of snakes
And I am afraid more than anything of myself and how I will limit my becoming if I try to be a more acceptable version of other
I have been unlayering my body and observing it in jars. Sometimes travelling home is getting on a plane, sometimes it is undressing myself, sometimes it is dressing myself.

When I was younger, I watched the river dry up in our village as summer came
When I was younger I got beaten by some boys who didn’t like that I wore the same clothes as them.
They made a playground and a junk yard of my body
And I haven’t painted the swings since then
Did you know they banned sack racing because of health and safety?

Trauma is generational, it passes between bodies long before they are pushed out into the world
Conflict is generational too
I hope when we can find peace, we will pass it down.

Downstairs, my grandmother makes dolma,
Wraps vine leaves round rice so tight,
Places the little parcels between us
This is her offering
Food from her childhood
I wonder what it feels like to carry recipes for more than 70 years
When I am trying to wipe away my past already

People look at me and ask me what I am.

Do you see my gender?
It is practiced
Sharp as an insult
Tender as an egg shell
Curated

Do you see my family history?
It is fragmented
Followed by war
Mapped out in the food we eat and old pictures full of wounds

Can you remember a time you were brave?

Do you remember your softness, leaking from your pores and between your fingers?

What does it feel like to catch?


This is a Homotopia Commission, supported by Arts Council England