Gone Home

It was not long ago that I felt the pain of a narrative  ---   assigned female, my life has been a race for my body parts, to raise me beyond any heterosexual identity means to abandon this lifestyle and gendered roles that were ascribed to me at birth.

It was not until leaving New York for a fresh start in Chicago that I found a community that I belonged to without conforming. I was able to take ownership of my past, history and fears that still haunt me today as I tread through these snowy New York City streets. As I begin reflecting on my relationship to New York and my history that since leaving I've found less painful to dismiss, I realize that New York has the same potential for me, for anybody really and I must, if I will, confront this city as mine own if I am to ensure that others like me forge courage to build community.


On Friday I went to the bar. woah heterosexual. woah. Here goes, I think as I wonder how I will ever make a vacation out of this week.
 
flash back, get back, you can't go back to what were then- who are we now?
the questions go further but it's just been futile.
i've just been cruel and relinquish all control
chose escapism, and alcohol and pills, bet
you won't recognize me now
but you look at the mess i made
for who am i and how are you-
ever going to forgive me? i must, if i will maintain this and i must come, honest with
you, watch
as you fight for your stakes in this, claim me, yell about how i failed you
i already believe you
like i have been
ruined, irresponsible, guilty as charged
hurt in betrayals
what was this anyway i cry
but your sex isn't enough,
couldn't you have mentioned that?
you love me. before quitting this,
you realized how long ago you began
quitting me
hearsay tells me words are going to sting, bite at the temptation
lustful, desire me to take a knife in my back for what rings true,
to you, who say you could have loved me if i hadn't
but you don't, and i did
now i'm just wrapped in plastic and dumped
down the garbage shoot where i smell all the revenge
i didn't get to taste, that i'll never get back.
if i never get there -
back to the place of this play that tells me, i am unsafe,
i am invisible, i am unworthy and worth less each day. so he did it, he traced me, made me believe, in warmth of small hands and arms shorter than the length of embrace, in love, in co-existing both types. scripted sculptures of which i imitate with the gendered body that is not my own but belongs to you now and in the morning, i will wake to regret him. i will regret to inform you and i will be brave - i will protest what is at stake, my life. i will hate myself for spoiling anything that remains safe, quiet but these are things we create that we're willing to risk livelihood for. This is one love that I won't take and i grant you peace in silence though the solace of our existance as fluid bound is ruined in what the truth of it necessitates-
that i tell you even if i believe you hate me, you will not be back for me but you love me so i believe we will make it, and together re-build a mountain of trust
we cannot climb haphazardly.