Have you always been a writer/performer? How did that manifest?

I have always been a reader, my first taste for words was through Jacquline Wilson, but  the writing part of my journey came all by accident through a fight with my parents and the only release that was genuinely affective was writing “ a poem” which wasn’t even intended to be a poem.  My mum had always through my siblings in the arts and we all had a love for being on stage so when I accidentally applied for a international poetry slam when I was living in Indiana and I got introduced to the world of performance poetry/spoken word it all just fitted together. Like I had been preparing my whole life for the moment unknowingly.


Was there a certain era in your life when you started sharing your work?

Era. With that I would call it the new discovery. I had moved to my second high-school in a year, in a new town, I had to re come out to new classmates. It was a lot.  It was definitely unchartered waters.

You refer to yourself as the local dyke. How does reclaiming a historically derogatory term give you power?

 LOCAL DYKE. Yess my new favorite way to describe myself. It the fact that words are defined by man and I am able to mold word to suit me,  I genuinely don’t believe my existence is to uphold cis, white patriarchal terms. Of anything I exist to break and bend them. So it’s more me stepping into my purpose of being a walking complexity  that most don’t understand. Also DYKE, for me is just so freeing it like saying the f word when you mad.

Since coming to terms with your authentic self and presenting yourself in a more masculine way, how has your state of mind changed?To be honest I had quite a bit of internalized transphobia and homophobia.  Before coming out, but the minute I came out to my mum I obviously had found a new understanding of myself which I allowed me to extend my experience and feel for others without self hating. Not to say I was actively homophobic to anyone but it was all internalized.


You say the word dyke connects more to you than manhood, why is that?

DYKEHOOD, is for me one of the truest ways to describe my growth as a masc individual. “Manhood” has so many weird/ gross connotations with it, from the praise of high body counts and the judgement of a man has a low body count, the disposability of femme bodies, the lack of emotional care for “mans” own body. When I think of my existence it’s more complex and I want it to be more healthy than how “Manhood “ is displayed to us. Also FUCK the patriarchy. That I don’t benefit from!


What or who is sacred to you?

My mum is sacred to me. All the women who have raised me, loved me. Put up with my shenanigans, Throughout my growing. But family in general is sacred. Chosen or blood related family is everything.