Aubrey Phoenix 

I didn’t like myself
When I was acceptable to others.

My family would tell you
That I was most successful
When I worked for Sexes-
A seemingly stable 9-6,
Hardly above poverty pay
Relative to the tech-forward
Norcal SF Peninsula…
But it came with an apartment,
Health insurance, for the first time in my adult life,
And a little bit of walking around money-
Sure, I can see how it would all seem ideal
From the lens of a society built on accepting
The absolute bare minimum…

That is, until anything went awry,

Then it all went to the vet,
To the doctor,
To my car,
To the government.

I ran that hamster wheel because
It didn’t look like one
Until you get inside.
I put on the business casual monkey suit,
Adhered to all the corporate rules
That meant I was no longer
An individual.
Not at work.
Not in my employee housing.
Not even in therapy;
Hidden in the fine print,
Sexes could ask for any/all of my secrets.
I desperately tried to hold it all together
The façade, the pleasant face,
And the tone of voice to keep customers,
Management,
Friends and family all at ease.
Everyone, but me.
Only at the end of the day
While I stared into the void
Of my ever-growing list of tasks
I was too drained to complete-
Only then could my brow crease
And my mind spin-
I was no longer human,
But a confused animal,
Chained to the confines of my cage,
Groomed to fit the image
Of the corporate zoo.

My mind and body fought continuously,
Spilling out of the mold that wasn’t made to fit me-
As a born woman,
Nonbinary by design;
As a bipolar autistic with PTSD,
Too spicy to be typical.
Eventually, my body rejected everything I put into it.
Caffeine and cannabis were the compulsory cocktail
That kept me from total collapse
Until it didn’t.

Something in me, all the while
Refused to be tamed
My differentness, my voice.
They tried to silence it,
But I never could.
Instead, it brewed within me
Demanding to be seen, heard, expressed-
Until it was so loud it screamed, sobbed, and pleaded
To be let out.
Stridence deafened everything else
Until my delicate, glass life
Shattered around me
And left me sprawled in the wreckage
With pieces too small to reassemble.

So, rather than try in vain to refashion the frame
I made myself into a rather queer mosaic.

This poem appeared in Record of Dissent: Poems of Protest in an Authoritarian Age — Summer 2025, published by The Chaos Section Poetry Project. We’ll be featuring each poem from the collection individually in the weeks ahead. You can read the full collection or download a free PDF of the chapbook here.

Aubrey Phoenix is a twenty-six-year-old nonbinary, neurodivergent, alternative artist struggling to survive in America—but surely not the only one. Raised in a self-help, toxically positive “it’s all in your head if you get sick” household, they hastened away from adolescence into adulthood, naively trusting that the world would welcome them on a path to their destined success. Their rose-tinted glasses shattered when their existence and truth proved time and time again to be something they would have to fight for. Their first book, All The Things I Left Unfinished, shares poems from some of their rawest moments of self-discovery—harrowing accounts of parental trauma, heartbreak, and struggles with bipolar II disorder in early adulthood. Five years, lots of lore, disowning, and some domestic violence later, they continue to scream out loud—still trying to make sense of their life and their place in a society that would prefer they stay quiet or cease to exist. Healing, growing, and humbling are lifelong quests—but Aubrey carries on sharing their story in hopes of reaching others who have been forsaken by a family and a world that they once hoped would make space for them, or at the very least let them be. You can find more of Aubrey’s work on their new website, aubreyphoenix.com