happy coming out day! (raw draft)

queer.

she is small frames on the 14th day of wearing the same pair of 2 week disposable contact lenses. when i look at this face i see it's full and functional, abrupt and paranoid, enraged and on fire, or most lately, inspired and distracted but always, always - this face is alive as though it was always born today with the dawn rising reason, giving me home. this is kate i'm referring to. most day's she is entertained as he calls the shots and corrects my bigotry and i boast onward as though it never matters, i got her -  my best friend in chicago. if someone told me that this would be the one person i could count on everyday, in anyhow, at anytime- that i would practically be living with her, breathing the same night air, stepping into the same freezing lake at the end of september, 10 minute walking distance in either direction home.

 i could ever imagine knowing now, caring for, the complexity of what i felt for what i couldn't deal with at the time really derailed me. my sense of belief for relationships had withered person by person,  the she's of that time we strung along the waste lines for a good while. the urgency i felt to confine and define our relationships is was made that split in the first place. over time the rigid boundaries that separate the present and the past, we are distanced further from the actual event and suddenly all that's left are snippits that we use trace over blurred edges in our minds what was describe from memory as a means to call the ends. the enemy, immediate friend, soul mate, straight-ally, cisgendered male, female born male identified, transguy, he-she, prospective lover, genderqueer, queer, I try now to assume I know none of these are neither correct nor uncorrect each time i meet you.

we are not translucent, fixed, individual, apparent people. our identities are fluid and therefore completely transparent to the naked eye. we have many options and see our choices differently. open to this and this will make you queerer.


i remember the first time i felt something for someone that i was not suppose to feel something so deeply for. i remember this so intimately now because queerness so close to everything I've come to know and have and am to just be - it invades the best of friendships and now binds me in to form the most relentless and mutual relationships. this jars me because it is constant, i am not use to consistency alone but now i am spending my days living, the queer surround me all the time, i bring queer everywhere i go because that is what i demand of myself and this i do to survive queer life with out restraint. i have to put myself and my words out so forcefully or it creates a mess of things later to gut out. i conditioned myself to fit in, to mold, to map onto the ways i thought i had to be in order to be loved by somebody. this always failed me- this method always fails.

in the past my loves ate me, chewed me up, spit me out, sniffed later at the curiosity of my distortion and walked on with or without me should i choose to get up and continue or let them leave. i did not respect myself. over the years in relationship to relationship onto the next failed anything that wasn't worthy of calling a relationship. i learned to let my head get away from what was actually happening with me, the actual events i experienced and live in my body - i reconciled the events of things past, present, i recreate constant illusion. i came to feel the things that i loved that i had completely, single offhandedly made up and that, was a lot of work. keeping it real was tough because i was never really alive for myself in this way.

i've always been queer but god how to begin to define this - it is not so simple. and it's not simple to live queer either but it's faith, it's consistent, it's real, honest and sensational. to me queer is obviously as the term finds vague understanding in the mainstream and that's exactly it. it is not mainstream it is marginal, it is not popular it is outcast and outcast and living on the outskirts of what "normal," meaning- mainstream people who live by the law, by the cut outs predetermined to their hetersexual partners in there neatly crafted life. it fits, it's known, it's comfortable, it's so not queer. this is fine. several people live their lives forever happy and in love with that they've been handed or what they were driven to achieve and do fine with that are deserving of what they've received - but i don't know very many mainstreamers out there that are comfortable or satisfied in that. i know a lot of queers and they're always satisfied or working through it and getting to it - we're never just sitting, waiting, obligating ourselves or society to define us. we're too busy living, or trying to at least. it's not easy being queer because it means going against what we're traditionally taught to become and that forces us to recongize and reconsider ourselves in relationship to every single other. it's the actual going against it that takes courage, you can know something you're whole life and not do a damn thing about it but that's not queer and it's no fun.

i guess i'm coming to losely define queerness as openness. it means to me living freely in what seems unconventional, it's a life that is practical - i say that's queer and i mean that's a lot of love for a lot of difference and in this i notice, for my immediate family, as we like to call ourselves (i am refering to my queer family here) life is oddly different, struggle is a large part of our functioning and i mean consistently. we are always processing, always voicing, always challenging, always always always. we go through it together, we're queer. we love each other and we trust that - something it is enough. there's little need to cut out the shapes and circles of ourselves because growing up and surviving normality already did that to us until we found ourselves here, scrapped together and misshaped as hell, we came from all angles at ourselves and pieced what we could of what we've recovered never knowing if tomorrow it will work but we respect that. we say hey, you want to come in, come come be in this space, share with us, talk, help, love - family. it's queer, it's really really queer but let's not get too far from the purpose because this really isn't all that radical. it shouldn't be radical, respect, courage, love, trust, these are all included in my relationship to each one of these relatives - apart or together, it's there and we talk about that. it makes loving yourself and knowing love exists accessible. it turns away from the restraints that objectification and unreal subjects of which as humans we've socially trained thoughts and ourselves to co-exist as follows. but we don't follow suit, not ideologically. we certainly wear all types of suits, nevermind you what gender says our body says what your teacher explained to be true about sex because that's irrelevant really. from the inside to the deepest depths and beyond anything outside because even with that you are familiar, it is queer - to live outside of anything and love anyone and trust in the possibility of all that's existing. it seems so boring but it's true and it's exciting to wake up every morning, i have reason to look forward now knowing i'm queer and share in this ambiguous acceptance with and of other queers.

i watch the hand that strums. and see the ways necessity reconciled all that for me, time and trust gave me room to accept and adjust accordingly. i gave myself permission to ask, to tell, be real, we continue coming back individual, with love unconditional and a sincere hope, this go we're in it together. ballad after ballad i watch both hands working, i retrace our history across all that song records. in the voice, the words chosen long ago, and chords once picked carefully come now effortlessly against the past of life with which fingertips and heartache brushed and pushed away in us. yes this is my friend who held my hand intimately and knew better than to keep holding on, briefly i held tight before letting go and now we've let go of all of that, the broken and weighty, the heavy of history are stuck in the past for me today the symbol for us is not clearly laid down or easily defined. i did not imagine four years later this would be a hand hold, a friendloverfriend, the partner with whom i've made a family, a queer centric relationship alas, my everyday wake up all, my reminder of what wasn't what i won't know will ever be unless there comes the words of family, encouragement and worth pursuing.