The Second Question 

Mike Took

 

I’m a non-British resident, transgender working pensioner

I’m a means-tested, mixed race, unpaid contracted support-worker

I’m a non-white, gender fluid, single parent lesbian

I’m a child of Muslim parents, asexual, agnostic, churchgoer

 

Review my application

Process my claim

Specify my future

But struggle with my name

Confirm my entitlement

Deal with my request

Govern my choices

Decide what happens next

 

I’m an angry retired socialist considering private medicine

I’m a genius adolescent who’s been taught to hate society

I’m a childless unemployed father with some kids who call me Dad

I’m a dyslexic mature student filling forms in for a loan

 

Rejected?  Deferred?  

Your final word

Approved?  Denied?  

You decide

Adopted?  Non-practising?  Queer? Two mothers?

Just put “Other”

Tick the box

Be judged by a social paradox

 

Oh how I want to fit in

To be happy and successful just doing my thing

You ask, I answer

But what can I do

If the second question always means I have to justify myself

To you?

 

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Mike Took is a multi-optioned screenplay writer and performance poet. He performed his solo spoken-word show “Overpriced Zeitgeist” at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2018 and was part of the ‘A Poet’s Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse’ show in 2019. He organises and hosts various Scriptstuff Poetry events in the Midlands.