I look at your arms covered in dark shades of burgundy and I'm suddenly urged to ask you
Does he take testosterone?
I push the question to the left and time decides for all the things left unremained
I put my faith in the moment of all that is unknown and unanswered
whether the importance is the very fact that nothing I wanted came from that topic but it's so broad and under the umbrella
we remain sheltered and comfy and spralled out "in queers i trust"
I think as i linger in the unforsaken trust i've granted for you are receiving my words
I talk and talk and reveal and you revel and we hardly mumble
we speak.
could this be the reverse? could i be reversing the code of things past
locking into place the notions of real romance, patience.
our secrets we lay down and all but
one hour i've know him
I lay out on the floor where we were siting eating pasta and staring
into the nothingness of what we are goes the rest of it i know
my story from the get-go your songs of glory protesting the hate
you proclaim to me better times and together we're rewriting histories
reclaiming our identity as tides rush in towards us and winds screamed surrounded we surrender to the darkened night sky while i stare into nothing
sketching image after image of you, cartoon
you, with out a place in my memory
I can't locate you but imagine you are here before me
with a mischievous glace we catch on
I see sparks and real change, i see glitter for your eyes.
Covered Red and Gendered Neutral
For instance, there is no necessary connection between the word "red" and the color we perceive as red. -Riki Wilchins
When I say that we could fall in love with anyone I mean that, in my experience I fall in love a little bit everyday. It's true that I see in bodies and that I just like people. Whether it's that I look like this or, or that you care enough to call after me, "Freak," I can't walk but one block of this cities streets without wondering. It's crazy and I'm not sure which seems crazier. It doesn't matter what you actually think because in my minds eye I'm dressed up my insides in all the colors of the past. fuchsias
When I say that we could fall in love with anyone I mean that, in my experience I fall in love a little bit everyday. It's true that I see in bodies and that I just like people. Whether it's that I look like this or, or that you care enough to call after me, "Freak," I can't walk but one block of this cities streets without wondering. It's crazy and I'm not sure which seems crazier. It doesn't matter what you actually think because in my minds eye I'm dressed up my insides in all the colors of the past. fuchsias
not much
we eat breakfast from the same plate. for the first day in hours i haven't questioned this i have with him. we share a bed and a table and we tell each other stories and we wonder out loud about the way we touch and i know the way he looks at me complicates our understanding of that we discuss. we talk and talk sometimes about each other, often about ourselves, mostly we coexist and this makes it so easy. i am vulnerable, he is insecure. i am worried and he is nervous, but i calm him and when he leaves i feel my heart start to break, i brace myself for a quick recovery then he finds me. for the first time i get out of the house and we rediscover eachother with impeccable timing, we find the serendipitious and he comments that we look romantic and i shake my head and seem distracted and it's because i really really am. in my head i am considering all the wonders and wreckages that have made this and after registering 100 different thoughts within the minute i conclude at the end of that moment that this conversation leads us home to bed together again or apart - whichever frame we sleep we are left to answer these questions alone without having together come to any better understanding of what is between us. everyday the same thing, predictable, riviting, anxiety-causing as sexually stimulating and we wait, and everyday more deep than the one before. i take cues from his calls, my body melts, my muscles are relaxed and i realize that my entire being has following suit, i have completely given him my weight trusting that enough to look into his eyes when i talk 3 centimeters from his face, lock my arm with his when he holds his elbow out to cue me, creep finger by finger into that large hand of his until our hands are tightly interlaced.
try to remember
I want to share something with you. I need to tell but the sky to hear myself in conclusion. I need not wait for anyone and need not prepare for I was born, preparations come from all the days I've live prior to today. But I am unprepared. "Freak," they scream on what I thought was an empty corner before hearing this, the pavement stays sturdy below me. Shaking. My body is trembling, my thoughts are racing for answers until I'm settled. I think of what's next for me but I can hardly see the dim street before me - I can't foresee the evenings ending nor the invitation to the entrance way of my building. I reach my keys to open the padlock welcoming me to safety, home. I don't know what's more absurd. I am processing now for at least one conscious hour and it's brought nothing to the forefront while everything rushes past me crashing now at once.
THAT'S CRAZY! You think I'm a freak? I look like a freak?? Do you see me? Oh, wait. That- she, I, this is crazy I start thinking, analyzing this - but I'm wearing a collard shirt, but it's purple and it's- it's a girls clothing dept shirt and doesn't it matter that - you don't care. You're unprivied and priviledged as I and you, you will taunt me, rattle and bang at my glass house, spit as you wait for your first sighting at my doorstep, on my corner, on the sidewalk, in the mall, at the club, in the middle of the night, coming out of the ally way, navigating through the city, in a gay town, I am not safe, I think to myself - I am safe, I am strong, I am ready. Admittedly I am a liar as I compare myself to not one person, place or time in particular. I am not sure if I should present this way suddenly aware that I am uncertain of my presence - in this outfit it's hard to be sure whether it is me. What motivated this look? And perhaps it wasn't motive based at all, perhaps I was driven by inspiration and that's why this was chosen. This starts to destroy me from the insides out and I am picking my brain for answers, no closure however. It doesn't matter what you're thinking, I'm thinking in visibility's terms you either see me or you don't see me. I choose to engage with the world or I don't. I don't have straight hair from ironing out the kinks, I don't have hours to prepare for the big party and I don't have one-gender-conforming-identity, I don't have any reason to conform - I am only concerned at the moment for safety's sake and otherwise, I can't honestly say I give two damns. But I give it more than a thought - whether I want to reflect this, I don't actually know. Whether I care about choosing one-gender-conforming-identity? No. But you see, I do - I care because I am choosing to exist and need to live. Inside this body my words are trapped - I am confined to language. Restrictions are placed inside of me and they come from without me, yet I must choose you identity to speak for me - I must be grown to stop and think of all of this. I was taught nothing and everything at once, I was learning how to love before I gendered you and words fell upon me, my lips and kissed almost everything. But there's hope for me, there is hope in this community and you remind me by staying by me, honest with me, and I - find myself surrendering to the argument. After all why protest - you queers surround me and surround me and I can hardly get around without asking what it means. Can you see me??
I overheard "FOR THE BOY,
It takes but a moment, a matter of milliseconds, a shift from right to left - the result of body intelligence, the transference of weight we learn to walk at a young age without thinking about it further in life. And YEEEEEEAHHHH!" spilling out of the drunkards mouths and carrying through the streets gripped like chills to the flesh ofthat separates my insides from your
I'm walking down the street and I'm trying to remember if I've ever felt safe.
THAT'S CRAZY! You think I'm a freak? I look like a freak?? Do you see me? Oh, wait. That- she, I, this is crazy I start thinking, analyzing this - but I'm wearing a collard shirt, but it's purple and it's- it's a girls clothing dept shirt and doesn't it matter that - you don't care. You're unprivied and priviledged as I and you, you will taunt me, rattle and bang at my glass house, spit as you wait for your first sighting at my doorstep, on my corner, on the sidewalk, in the mall, at the club, in the middle of the night, coming out of the ally way, navigating through the city, in a gay town, I am not safe, I think to myself - I am safe, I am strong, I am ready. Admittedly I am a liar as I compare myself to not one person, place or time in particular. I am not sure if I should present this way suddenly aware that I am uncertain of my presence - in this outfit it's hard to be sure whether it is me. What motivated this look? And perhaps it wasn't motive based at all, perhaps I was driven by inspiration and that's why this was chosen. This starts to destroy me from the insides out and I am picking my brain for answers, no closure however. It doesn't matter what you're thinking, I'm thinking in visibility's terms you either see me or you don't see me. I choose to engage with the world or I don't. I don't have straight hair from ironing out the kinks, I don't have hours to prepare for the big party and I don't have one-gender-conforming-identity, I don't have any reason to conform - I am only concerned at the moment for safety's sake and otherwise, I can't honestly say I give two damns. But I give it more than a thought - whether I want to reflect this, I don't actually know. Whether I care about choosing one-gender-conforming-identity? No. But you see, I do - I care because I am choosing to exist and need to live. Inside this body my words are trapped - I am confined to language. Restrictions are placed inside of me and they come from without me, yet I must choose you identity to speak for me - I must be grown to stop and think of all of this. I was taught nothing and everything at once, I was learning how to love before I gendered you and words fell upon me, my lips and kissed almost everything. But there's hope for me, there is hope in this community and you remind me by staying by me, honest with me, and I - find myself surrendering to the argument. After all why protest - you queers surround me and surround me and I can hardly get around without asking what it means. Can you see me??
I overheard "FOR THE BOY,
It takes but a moment, a matter of milliseconds, a shift from right to left - the result of body intelligence, the transference of weight we learn to walk at a young age without thinking about it further in life. And YEEEEEEAHHHH!" spilling out of the drunkards mouths and carrying through the streets gripped like chills to the flesh ofthat separates my insides from your
I'm walking down the street and I'm trying to remember if I've ever felt safe.
Daily: I walk the city without direction, cross roads with intention, find solace in the setting smile in that strangers face. When we meet eye to eye at the CTA I panic. The last thing I want is to see you and know that you've seen me, I don't want to know that I've shown myself. I'm spoken for and it humbles me, the silence angers me, the answers - they punish me. But who am I to say "Excuse me./?/!" Definitively and definitely not trusting, "I'm not very trustworthy," I think and admit only once to myself I am living a lie and I am not combatting it, not ready, not strong enough, and not yet willing to sink into it - I am sitting quietly. It is the act of violence - PART 1, that disturbs me.
I send her a message from the 76 in response to my discomfort. I knew only the name of the street which prepared me - inside I prepared myself by getting to know myself as foreigner, acknowledging quietly how little I knew the direction in which I'd be traveling and quieting my eyes so as not to tell the stranger anything.
So, it's got to start somewhere. If not here then noway in my lifetime will I conquer this. My ability to kiss fear upon meeting for the first time is better. I was just introduced to this and...I had a thought. What if I told you. What if I welcomed you like I welcome fear - what if I am right deep down inside and I let myself actually act on the impulse my heart beats, forgetting this whole reality thing existed, never exists again. Suppose it's that easy. Really I think it is. I think we learn a lot of bullshit and I think time did a finite job, an abstraction perhaps of what I now sense as something else, other. The other person I am chatting with is sitting adjacent to me, his face looks at mine without falling out of place, maintaining the lines and shape as though perhaps this is not the first time. Maybe. Maybe is some version of our collective response to the person who is leaving and from my back I can sense their eyes on me, hear their words reflecting "I look like him and he looks like me," no that's not right. I swear they just asked if we were twins and I almost screamed. INstead I laughed insincerely at this question that was more of a statement since this person seemed to have no question in their mind about how this in so many way was wrong. Since we had nothing but the same hair to call short and sweaters that matched in darkness in color, similar in the neckline that was cut in a "V" and restricting, limiting, like nearly everything else. Our layers of chosen clothing are covers for the anatomy that presupposes us invisible but intimate. Our differences push beyond anything I own or wear like he does but then our insides didn't relieve us. The moment confronted us individually, attacked from the inside and a far stretch but we're reminded the premises of our first engagement - outlaws. Gender fucks, that reminded us. Reunited at the self that steps outside of the self to get back to that place where it's ok in light of the situation, in the company of other men challenging the civil right to live and breathe within the rights of humanity. And in my experience the humans existing within this society could use to lose a few fights and really can't stand the truth. When all alone I can't remember the strength of walking with members of this other body, the power in numbers when we get together to discuss the binaries and misses of living on the outskirts of the gender-non-conforming, tiptoeing and hushed whispers to subvert yourself and what's worse the body to conform and days like to I can't help but be angered at the plain injustice of groupings - we have our own story man (you might refer yourself as "woman" but it really doesn't matter for the sake of this I'm writing) get it right or leave it, let it go on or fight with us. Come take every other one's place, stand next in line to the boy I'm aligned to here in power and outlaws within the constraints of gender and recognize us - we look nothing alike. See us and move forward like you would with most anybody. See: we have our story. But we're tangled in two and- I can't find my own.
I send her a message from the 76 in response to my discomfort. I knew only the name of the street which prepared me - inside I prepared myself by getting to know myself as foreigner, acknowledging quietly how little I knew the direction in which I'd be traveling and quieting my eyes so as not to tell the stranger anything.
So, it's got to start somewhere. If not here then noway in my lifetime will I conquer this. My ability to kiss fear upon meeting for the first time is better. I was just introduced to this and...I had a thought. What if I told you. What if I welcomed you like I welcome fear - what if I am right deep down inside and I let myself actually act on the impulse my heart beats, forgetting this whole reality thing existed, never exists again. Suppose it's that easy. Really I think it is. I think we learn a lot of bullshit and I think time did a finite job, an abstraction perhaps of what I now sense as something else, other. The other person I am chatting with is sitting adjacent to me, his face looks at mine without falling out of place, maintaining the lines and shape as though perhaps this is not the first time. Maybe. Maybe is some version of our collective response to the person who is leaving and from my back I can sense their eyes on me, hear their words reflecting "I look like him and he looks like me," no that's not right. I swear they just asked if we were twins and I almost screamed. INstead I laughed insincerely at this question that was more of a statement since this person seemed to have no question in their mind about how this in so many way was wrong. Since we had nothing but the same hair to call short and sweaters that matched in darkness in color, similar in the neckline that was cut in a "V" and restricting, limiting, like nearly everything else. Our layers of chosen clothing are covers for the anatomy that presupposes us invisible but intimate. Our differences push beyond anything I own or wear like he does but then our insides didn't relieve us. The moment confronted us individually, attacked from the inside and a far stretch but we're reminded the premises of our first engagement - outlaws. Gender fucks, that reminded us. Reunited at the self that steps outside of the self to get back to that place where it's ok in light of the situation, in the company of other men challenging the civil right to live and breathe within the rights of humanity. And in my experience the humans existing within this society could use to lose a few fights and really can't stand the truth. When all alone I can't remember the strength of walking with members of this other body, the power in numbers when we get together to discuss the binaries and misses of living on the outskirts of the gender-non-conforming, tiptoeing and hushed whispers to subvert yourself and what's worse the body to conform and days like to I can't help but be angered at the plain injustice of groupings - we have our own story man (you might refer yourself as "woman" but it really doesn't matter for the sake of this I'm writing) get it right or leave it, let it go on or fight with us. Come take every other one's place, stand next in line to the boy I'm aligned to here in power and outlaws within the constraints of gender and recognize us - we look nothing alike. See us and move forward like you would with most anybody. See: we have our story. But we're tangled in two and- I can't find my own.
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