Thoughts on being queer:
Growing up, my mother was always accepting of homosexuality, but she usually qualified her acceptance with the comment: but I wouldn’t wish it one anyone. (This is of course awful, but beside the point I’m getting at.) When I came out to my family member I think the general response involved: I still love you. Again, as if it’d be expected that they wouldn’t.
In conversations with my current therapist it’s come up that he thinks: no one would choose to be gay, it’s just a harder life.
Now- I am not really comfortable with this, because, I really genuinely like being queer, and not only that, I truly believe it’s helped me to become a better person. Being part of the queer community I’ve learned about privilege and oppression and internationality. I’ve been introduced to the trans community and met the most amazing people. I’ve learned that not only is there still “lingering” racism from close minded bigots, but institutional racism rampant everywhere. I’ve learned about classism, and ageism, and ableism and the struggles of these (and other) minorities from actual members of these groups. I’ve learned to stand up against heterosexism, ableism, cissexism, and sexism in my daily life.
I’ve met the most amazing person and parter I’ve ever known.
I’ve learned not to just accept things as they are but to question everything. To recognize that these “isms” and ignorance is pervasive through the media, and I like to think I’ve gotten the briefest glimpse of what some people have to deal with everyday. (by no means am I claiming to understand someone else’s experiences or oppression or pain, just that I can recognize it and realize how destructive it must be).
Without being queer and learning all these things, I wouldn’t know the difference between deaf and Deaf, or the problematic aspects of most charity/support groups for autism. I wouldn’t have known that penis =/= male or man and vagina =/= female or woman.
I would be a very different person if I weren’t queer. I would be a smaller, close minded, less understanding person, and I would like me a whole lot less I think.
(End ramblings- If you see anything problematic/ignorant/bigoted in my thoughts let me know so I can apologize and amend them.)
Marti: Promise not to read this unless you’re home and feeling alone/sad.
When I say “Hi” it means “I love you”.
When I say “How was your day” it means “I love you”.
When I say “You’re beautiful/gorgeous/stunning/pretty/entrancing” it means “I love you”.
When I say “Meow” it means “I love you”.
When I say “asdfjasdkjfhalskdjhf” it means “I love you”.
When I say “I miss you” it means “I love you”.
When I say anything at all it means “I love you”.
So I know this girl right, and she is, she is positively amazing. Just thinking of her now I can’t help but smile, and it’s no weak or smug smile, its a genuine warm smile (you can tell by the way my eyes crinkle and soften). We are similar, we think alike, but by no means are we the same person, and I’m glad about that- she’s introduced me to so much I never would have found on my own. She has a certain delicacy about her, fragility, most obvious in her dainty hands, one may not notice it in her motions and mannerisms, but I see it, and it is enchanting. She makes me feel safe, even when I’m scared, I know I’ll be alright if I can just see her face; why do I feel so safe? Because I know she won’t judge me, and wont hurt me, because I know she’ll hold me if I ever need it. This girl is- she is my everything; why? Because she cares about me, and understands me, and we have all the time in the world to get to know each other. This girl, this girl I met at camp one summer, is the most amazing girl I know; she’s come into my life and changed me, and I love who I’ve become.
Every once in a while I wake up first, one of those mornings where you inexplicably wake up at half four, or five. This time, in between the day and the night, when the day is yet undecided, and the sky glows a colour that as humans we can barely see, this is the time I cherish. I can smell the dewy air, it smells cold, and of a near by sea or ocean; perhaps the slightest bit saline. I have to pull my arm into the blankets, my body is warm, but the air leaves my skin cold. Growing up, I’d wake shivering amongst my blankets, but now warmth radiates from my left. I hold myself perfectly still and listen; at first there is nothing, my ears begin to adjust, picking up your night sounds. I hear your slow inspiration, followed by the faster expiration. I can hear the bed shift, ever so slightly, with the rise and fall of your chest. My hand crawls under the blankets towards your body. I quickly find your hip, my anchor, and I burrow through the blankets until I am flush against your back. Your night shirt has slipped off the shoulder, and I cannot resist kissing your smooth fair skin that’s been revealed. This little patch of skin always seems to intimate to me, who else but myself see’s where your neck meets your shoulder. As I begin to drift off again, breathing in time with you, I feel your hand reach mine. Whether you do this naturally in your sleep, or if I’ve woken you; I don’t know, for I am already gone from the mysterious half world where it it not yet day, but no longer night.
I’ve decided to not let insecurities fuck with me. I shall just read the words you’ve left me, and trust that they are still true.
Though, should you ever
lie to me about how you
feel, I won’t make it.
I would marry the
sea, I only must wait til
her shore reaches mine.
My head likes to play
cruel games with my feelings, as
if you don’t love me anymore.
‘Twas an accident,
my little finger touching
yours; I’m not sorry
Three little pennies
in the floorboard, one day, I
will buy you the world.
When I cry for help
no one knows the language
that I cry out in.
As a sunflower
lifts it’s face to the sun, I
turn my smile to you.
Three seconds is a long time:
The burning pain explodes across my stomach. All I can see are the backs of my eyes. The heat travels to the ends of my extremities, and I can barely feel any more, nothing other than an all consuming agony which makes me cry for death. I will death into a tangible being to save me, but she is nothing but shadows in the back of my mind. The pain subsides, and knowing that I will lose my nerve if I wait, I snap my eyes open. It was a mistake. Before me is a nightmare, matted hair, an elongated jaw full of teeth, long dulled from consuming bones, and eyes, eyes that have a horrible sentience to them. If it’s eyes were dull, I could pass if off as a monster. But those eyes knew; they knew I was burning from the inside out, and they showed and showed a disgusting intelligence filled with a sort of wretched enjoyment. I can see the light flashing across the eyes, momentarily masking them as dumb. Light catches on the slick liquid sliding over my body, and coating the coarse fur of the beast. I once considered the full moon to be romantic, yet now it illuminates my nightmare, bringing to life impossible horrors of the night. I don’t think I will make it much lo—
(This was inspired by my own fear of werewolves. When I was 7, around Halloween time, my classmates all said that werewolves were real. I didn’t believe them, and to prove them wrong I asked one of my teachers- unfortunately, the joke was on me, because she said they were real, that they’d been on the news, and I should lock my windows just to be safe, “you never know who they’ll go after next”. Anyway, I believed her completely. For almost a year following the incident I would beg and sob to my parents to let me stay up later or sleep in their bed. Each night, I’d wrap my neck and stomach in blankets and towels, because I knew that if one came, it would go straight for the jugular, and rip out my neck. From that I got the idea of the stomach being ripped out (it’s not like one can see their own throat being torn out). I slept perfectly and completely still, (and if I had to go to the bathroom, too bad) because I was sure that any movement I made would be a secret signal for the werewolves that they should eat me. It was cruel of my teacher- and she supported her story as often as she could.)
Reactive species;
known as free radicals. Are
hippies a species?
Come, gather round I
have a secret to share, you
see, you’re all I need
