top of page
Untitled design - 2.jpg

closet

Writer's picture: yannick-robin eike mirkoyannick-robin eike mirko


this poem can't be read aloud.

not by me, not by siri.

we're both busy listening to sad music today...sorry.


*the calming sounds of Bob snoring and a garden singing*


every time i come home, i rummage through this closet

looking for myself.


i usually find more of you than i would like,

more of me than i can comprehend at one time.


we always pass the hospital you were born in,

the one you gave birth to my sisters in,

the one i'm not from.

when i opened up about being called the 'gringo/american' of the family

during the summer of the black instagram squares,

you harrassed me and called me a liar, because you were ashamed of your actions.


i was never a liar, in the same way that you are not an artist, anymore.

you stayed frozen, en pointe, in El Morro, sometime in the 90's.

i write poems to get over you, as of today.


-


i know everything about you, now. the things you would've kept

hiding from us, if it wasn't for someone else ratting you out.

you probably hide these things because you know if we knew, you would've

held no power in that house.


i cannot forgive you for what i know. no one would.

what i can do is forgive myself for every fight we had.


people shouldn't apologize for being on the right side of history.

when we fight for the right thing, we never bend.


even when it means losing you.

Comments


yannick-robin, is a Manhattan, NYC-based Biawaisa/Yamoká-hu/Maorocoti multidisciplinary artist and activist with a rare disease.
He began working with nonprofits in 2020, most notably working for Imara Jones (one of TIME Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2023), owner of TransLash Media, where trans stories are centered in order to save trans lives. While under her wing, yannick-robin was nominated for a Webby Award as an associate and digital producer for the TransLash Podcast with Imara Jones, worked on The Anti-Trans Hate Machine: A Plot Against Humanity series as a producer and fact checker, and wrote obituaries for their TGNC siblings lost to violence in the United States and its Territories (more on this here). They have since then written for TalkDeath (read Racial Disparities and Discrimination in the Death Care Industry), focusing on Queer and BIPOC end-of-life preparations and equality, as well as making strides as a disability activist within the performance space, being Off-Broadway in the first TGNC Theatre Festival in the professions history, + being the first wheelchair user to perform in several iconic regional theatres of the US while advocating for accessibility for trans and disabled performers and continuing on with activism as a freelance writer and advocate/consultant. They were recently added to the University of Minnesota’s Tretter Transgender Oral History Project for his contributions to the progress for trans rights in death care and theatre. Now offering obituaries, death doulaship, and bereavement counseling for TGNC decedents and their families as well as trans people lost to violence, people with rare diseases, and the disabled. 

for commissions, death care, speaking engagements and more, press the contact button.
_____________________________________________
yannick-robin eike mirko is represented by Arise Artists Agency

© 2024 yannick-robin eike mirko

bottom of page