Author Archives: FindJamesAvery

About FindJamesAvery

James Avery Fuchs is a transgender writer, podcaster, artist, spoken word poet, activist, educator, and public speaker in Arizona. He has been selected as a featured performer for Bisbee Pride, interviewed on KWSS 93.9 FM in Arizona, and his events have been written about in a variety of online magazines. James performs poetry at least once a week at a variety of venues and festivals.

Solar Flare

I tumbled off a cliff into your arms.
You swore you’d keep me safe from harm.
Twenty steps away: the ocean spray.
I’m so ashamed of my choice that day.

I held you, burying scars
from all the promises of our previous wars;
every false laugh an arrow to the heart,
but I just wanted a fire to start.

I wanted to feel the burn;
the flame and warmth a way to learn.
It was so cold. I just needed relief.
I forgot solar flares do more than just heat.

You burned me to ash. I crumbled to dust,
my old life gone with a single touch.
Everything stopped, even my heart.
There’s a little bit of glory in all new starts.

But glory doesn’t stay amidst bitterness and decay,
and every time my heart raced, it was anger, not grace.
You danced a great dance. Oh, so light on your feet!
But every dance ends, and ours did in defeat.

There’s no such thing as destiny.
We weren’t “fated” or “meant to be.”
Still, there’s grace in the effort; in building a dream,
but our grace was more drunken tragedy.

I tumbled off a cliff into your arms.
You swore you’d keep me safe from harm.
Twenty steps away: the ocean spray.
I’m so ashamed of my choice that day.

Addicted to Your Sin (Poem)

From Seven Ways to Break a Heart | James Avery Fuchs


I didn’t know love could taste like teardrops falling.
I didn’t know I could feel this kind of alive.
I only knew romance as a plot in a story;
cardboard pages, flimsy as goodbyes.

I didn’t know the ups and the downs:
the rewinds, redrawn parallels, the rebounds.
I didn’t know bleeding out felt just as invigorating
as the first blush of sun in the morning, waiting.

You taught me a whole new melody,
a red-lined, redacted symphony;
more than a chorus, less than a cacophony
early morning mid-range rhapsody.

And yeah, maybe I’ve forgotten the songs I used to sing,
but misery makes for terrible harmony.
I’ve spent the last four years trying to forget my memories,
and even if I break, at least I’ll feel what I bring.

The match burning beneath my skin,
filling me up with fire, every breath a thrumming sin,
tells me there’s more to this play we perform in;
a drum beating down my spine, 4/4 time in rewind.

Allegretto to prestissimo,
my heart races until I crumble.
I’ve forgotten my name. All of life has been so tame
until you tumbled my fortress into a stream.

All past-tense assumptions fade.
I never knew it could be this way.
In a life spent between 0 and 10,
This is what a thousand tastes like.

Exhilarating, heart-breaking;
so much intensity I’m afraid of breathing:
If this is just chemicals in the brain,
it’s a high I never want to go away.

Crash and burn; hit the ground:
seven steps from here to heartbreak.
Nerve endings jagged, breathing ragged,
I remember the way you taste.

You’re the song I adore, and I’m panting for more.
These highs and lows won’t quit.
I’ve spent the last 12 days recalling the ways
your touch could make my breath hitch

And when the beat drops and the rollercoaster stops,
I’ll be lining up to ride again.
You’re the music in my brain I can’t quite place,
and I’m addicted to your sin.

Orlando

When I first found out about Orlando, all I could think was, “It’s happening again.” There was no shock at the fact the murders happened. They happen, on a smaller scale, every day. Dread, yes. Crushing grief, yes. Fear, and a sense of how frail any perceived security is in the face of everyday hate, yes.

As the day has gone on, however, that fear and grief have strengthened, and with them has come anger and exhaustion. Every day, violence hits minorities in our communities. This senseless act of hate was inspired by nothing more than sexuality and race.

How many more tomorrows like this must hit before we learn to accept those who are different than us? How many more body bags will be filled with gay and POC and trans lives? How long until a body bag closes over my own head?

Still, I will shine. I will shine for the lights that were cut short in Orlando. I will shine for my dead brothers and sisters of every hate crime. I will sparkle so fucking bright that all the people who follow me into the bathrooms with threats and fists will be blinded. I will shine with the fierce love we all deserve, until the whole world shines along with me.

But it still won’t bring the dead back.

Doorbell Ditch: The Young James Chronicles

When I was a wee tyke of 3-4 years old, I used to love to play doorbell ditch. Doorbell ditch is a game where you ring someone’s doorbell and run away before they open it.

I thought it was lots of fun, and played it constantly. Looking back, though, my grasp of the concept was a little weak. If I could go back in time, I think I’d give younger me these three valuable tips:

  1. Don’t always pick your own doorbell to ring and run. Though they may pretend otherwise, your parents are used to it and know it’s you.

  2. Don’t hide in the same place every single time. Your hiding place has been discovered. Run for different cover.

  3. Silence is a virtue, at least when it comes to hiding. Hold the giggles in until you’re found. Then you’re free to fall over laughing as many times as you want.

Sadly, I was not as innovative at terrifying my parents at that age as I became in the ensuing years. On the bright side, time teaches all.

Seven Ways to Break a Heart

I can’t fall in love like memories merging.
I only know how to intertwine limbs, not lives.
In your dreams, I was your miracle unwinding:
your favorite glimpse of the afterlife.

I don’t believe in heaven or gods or forever
just in the moments when our touch ignites.
I don’t know what romance sparks in you, darling
I only know I’m watching you say goodbye

I remember the first time we fell together
but not as well as the first time we matched minds
Still, you don’t want friendship with a side of good times
You want me, and I want my own life

I can’t pretend that I won’t miss you
But I also can’t pretend that I can change
I don’t know what this merging is you speak of
But I’m happy enough as me each and every day

If that’s not enough, don’t stay.

Eight Things Coming Out Has Taught Me

As a polyamorous grayromantic pansexual genderqueer gentleman with a large social circle, I’ve come out of more closets than most. As a public speaker and trans educator, many of those coming-out experiences have been on a stage. Whether I’m coming out to a crowd of strangers or one-on-one with a person I’ve known my whole life, though, every “coming out” has taught me something.

Here are eight of the most important things I’ve learned from coming out:

Lesson #1: Only keep people in your life who are good for you.

This lesson is one of the first, and most important, ones I learned. I learned it the hard way, by allowing my life to unravel at the hands of people who weren’t so much bad people as bad people for me. I justified the friendships or relationships continuing with the good qualities I noticed in the individuals, whether there were few or many. I wasn’t willing to give weight to the fact that while they weren’t necessarily bad people, our interactions were bad for my mental health, well-being, self confidence, or ambition.

When their doubts started impacting my own confidence in my identities, though, making the confusing and often terrifying experience of coming out even more difficult, I realized I needed to be just as quick to disconnect from people who interacted in damaging ways with me as I was to reframe my own thoughts of self-doubt and recrimination.

Lesson #2: You are not alone.

Seeking community was one of the best, and most transformative, decisions of my life, and when I couldn’t find that community locally, I sought it online. When I felt lost and afraid, or unsure of what to do, talking with others who had walked the rocky path I was traveling was a blessing, and so many were eager to help.

Their advice wasn’t always perfect, but knowing that others had been where I was and survived was invaluable. Taking that step to reach out to those I admired was usually rewarded, too, and gradually I became a person others reached out to as well. My own wanderings were now a vehicle to help others, and that has been the most rewarding part of building community.

Lesson #3: Educating others is important.

While it can often seem like the world is teaming with people who hate me simply because of a community or communities I fall in, especially when looking at the news, I’ve learned that there are at least as many who just genuinely don’t understand. Even some people who were staunchly against identities I hold have learned to be more accepting when I approached them in a non-confrontational manner.

Knowing me as a person outside of the identity they struggled to accept allowed a personal and positive connection to be made, and often helped to open doors to discussion. Approaching people with patience resulted in being more likely to be heard, and that lead to many of the people later coming up to me to tell me of ways they have begun to advocate for the community I spoke to them about, whether it was to propose a gender-neutral bathroom or to be more supportive of their child.

Lesson #4: Self-care is essential.

While speaking up and coming out are important and transformative experiences, they can also be exhausting and emotionally taxing. Scheduling time to care for myself, whether it is watching my favorite movie or listening to a song that makes me happy or staying away from the internet, is just as essential to making a difference as anything else I do. I cannot help others as effectively if I am burned out or bitter.

Also, while risks are a necessary part of living, don’t feel guilty if you don’t speak or come out. Your safety matters.

Lesson #5: Celebrate firsts.

Whether it’s the first time I used the men’s restroom or my first date with someone of the same gender or the day I changed my name, I’ve learned the importance of celebrating firsts. Being queer can be hard, and celebrating the steps I take toward authenic self-expression helps me deal with that.

In a world that is so resistant to who I am, every first takes courage and deserves celebration.

Lesson #6: Use your anger as a propellant for change.

I’ve learned that anger is not always a negative emotion. It’s how I choose to use it that determines where it falls. If I let it burn me it can do damage, but if I use it to fuel the fire of my passions, I can achieve great things.

Many things that are happening to me and others I love or relate to make me angry, and they should. I just use the anger I feel to try to change the things that make me angry. And whether it’s one life or a million, I know that I have made a difference.

Lesson #7: Discrimination is real…

I have been threatened or confronted in both male and female bathrooms ranging from a library to a bar. I have almost been fired from my job for wanting to use the bathroom I identified with. I have been shunned and cut out of friends’ lives for my sexuality. I have cowered in bathroom stalls until my would-be attackers gave up and went away.

Discrimination is real. There is danger in being out, and some of the greatest backlash is when progress is being made.

Lesson #8: …but taking action makes a difference.

Despite the discrimination and how easy it is to be afraid, both my own experiences and research have shown that speaking up and speaking out about my identities, especially when done in an approachable way, makes a difference. In a humanist community I’ve become involved in over the past year or so, there were a number of people who didn’t understand and often couldn’t empathize with the things trans individuals went through. As I began speaking up and being vocal about my own experiences and those of others I know, however, their perspectives changed, their empathy deepened, and they themselves often began to be not only allies, but activists as well for trans issues.

Eventually I gave a Sunday lecture there, and over 100 people showed up, wanting to learn more. There was standing room only, and while there was half an hour of questions, none of them were attacks or threats. Just by being there, being open, and not being too afraid to speak up, I created a more understanding community who actively seeks to make life better for trans individuals, both in and out of that community.

Speaking up and standing up for issues has also allowed others a safe space to come out themselves. I have known many people, some young, some older, who didn’t feel they had the community support to step out of the closet, and my presence and refusal to be pushed aside has often created avenues for others to live their truth.

Each person has the ability and responsibility to change the world. Don’t leave it to someone else.

We grew up two blocks
from a lifetime of regret,
and though it never claimed us
I can taste it on your breath.

With every deep inhale,
every silent scream,
I know that I am losing you
and it rips me just to see.

But perhaps it is better.
Dreams don’t build a heart,
and we’re both so miserable, dear
every time we start.

Love takes hard work:
devotion, not just dreams;
so I’ll carve my initials
into my own damn arteries.

We grew up two blocks
from a lifetime of regret,
and though it never claimed us
I can taste it on your breath.

Razzle Dazzle

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I recently had to put a pet down for the first time. I’d had Tazzle for 7 years, since she was almost a year old, and she was a loving, loyal cat who got rapidly and inexplicably sick, losing much of her body weight, her ability to walk, and her ability to control her bladder in a matter of days. I made up a little ditty as I drove her to the vet, and sang to her the whole way there, then petted her until the light left her eyes.

I don’t know that I believe in an afterlife, but I do know that she was loved, and she’s no longer in pain. I can’t really ask for more than that.

She used to love being called Razzle Dazzle Tazzle, and I’d call her over to me with that and she’d come running, purring up a storm. This poem is for her.

Razzle Dazzle

I’d like to say I remember a day
when scattered hopes are gathered,
but the pounding in my head
leaves me far too bruised and battered.

You’ve been gone for two days
and already I’m a haze
of bad dreams, restless sleep
and a numbness I can’t beat.

I search for happy endings
whenever I try to write,
but tonight tears pour too free,
water drowning my sight.

Tazzle, you were far too young
to be given to the Reaper.
He laid his claim just the same,
no longer here to suffer.

Razzle Dazzle, dance on stars,
but remember me someday.
Find me when I leave this life,
old and wizened gray.

We’ll tumble down a rainbow
together that day.

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