I don't run on sand, really. Mostly, it's because I don't run--not for running's sake, anyway. Only if I'm chasing after something like a ball or a disc. Or a person.
You talked about running on sand like maintaining that solid friendship with an ex. Until now I could only nod along to your words with feigned understanding and false commiserations because I had never tried to do it. Don't get me wrong; I'm friendly with exes--friends, even--but never best friends like before the break-ups. This time is different. This time there is something about that friends'-girl-turned-romantic-interest-turned-girlfriend-turned-ex-turned-who-knows-what that won't allow me to just let go.
I mean, if she and I were honest with each other, or if we took the world's perspective as any kind of reflection of truth, we would say that we are more than just friends. But whatever we are, and regardless of my desire for more, I SO badly want to retain this friendship. I am afraid of what I am leaving myself when she moves out and on, but for the life of me I can't back away from this connection.
We have been through far too much together, and the Universe has said in Her many ways that she and I are meant to be together in some form. We dated through earthquakes, car accidents, flat tires, near deaths, and She showed us that we could move through these things unscathed. For me, though, the biggest sign came after the break-up. The end of my relationship with her knocked me off balance in my friendship with you, and at the time of your accident, I had decided to push her out of my life and to call you for a game of hoops. But She burned this from possibility.
For a while, I have reflected on this gut feeling that she and I are meant to be together. This feeling has been too strong to dismiss or reason away as mere infatuation or fantasy, but now I fear that I am holding onto something that she let go a long time ago. I have held it in my lungs for so long that it trapped some infection last week, and now my body needs to purge it in order to be healthy again.
I wish you were here to talk me through this. I wish you could advise me on what to do. I could really use some Mick and Rocky-style coaching on this one. I don't want to be chasing after anything anymore. I want to run on sand for running's sake and not because I hope that one day this relationship will work out. I don't quite know how to do that and I'm not sure if anyone but you could help me figure it out.
Today, like yesterday, I went to the beach and walked. I have to walk now because my lungs are too weak and my breath too shallowed from illness. While I was there, I remembered the days of sand tunnels, frisbees, and coronas that you and I shared last summer...and I remembered my first night with her. Wet-cold and warm blues and "letting her win" our race down the beach, and magic. She and I have run on sand together once before; I am gearing myself up to run again.
Showing posts with label Personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personal. Show all posts
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Memory
Today smells of
Autumn mulching
Turning over, rotting brown and
Orange. Playgrounds
And asphalt scraping knees. Stings
Crisply like autumn air.
Wet cold like
Dry heat. Like the chill of
Painted brick, like the harmony of
Ducks and of Union
Stations.
Today smells of
May. Of trapped musk and
Library. Samosas.
Fear, love, tears,
Death,
Mourning, healing. Soft
Words flowing smoothly through our silences. Strong
Words bellowing through the shelves of
Revolution. Raw
Words scraping
Away veils of protection. Exposing
Veins
Bleeding into one another like
The Missouri River when it meets the mighty
Mississippi. Like the parched crevices of
LA, and when wood soaks the
Smells of mildew and mold deep into its
Fibers, holds them there in
Memory.
Autumn mulching
Turning over, rotting brown and
Orange. Playgrounds
And asphalt scraping knees. Stings
Crisply like autumn air.
Wet cold like
Dry heat. Like the chill of
Painted brick, like the harmony of
Ducks and of Union
Stations.
Today smells of
May. Of trapped musk and
Library. Samosas.
Fear, love, tears,
Death,
Mourning, healing. Soft
Words flowing smoothly through our silences. Strong
Words bellowing through the shelves of
Revolution. Raw
Words scraping
Away veils of protection. Exposing
Veins
Bleeding into one another like
The Missouri River when it meets the mighty
Mississippi. Like the parched crevices of
LA, and when wood soaks the
Smells of mildew and mold deep into its
Fibers, holds them there in
Memory.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Notorious GOC
It’s still not real to me that you’re gone. I am under the impression that you’re just kinda elsewhere. Like, maybe you went to DC to see Michelle in action. In a few days, I’ll see your name light up on gchat, engage me in a heart-to-heart about the girls we miss, try to get me to play ball on Saturday; I’ll opt for lunch in 10. In a few days, I’ll run into you on the way back from Ackerman, diet coke in one hand, “Natasha” in the other. We’ll exchange stories about our weekends and move past the strain of the last month with such ease—the way we were about to. In a few days, I’ll find your newest post on the playground. One about the law schools that have accepted you, the thrill of building your future. In a few days, you’ll text me about the weekend: “truckstop fri? meet at my place at 10.” I’ll come for the sake of watching you down Long Islands and dance up on the ONE straight girl in the place.
I imagine that this month I’ll be a better brother. I’ll let you drag my sorry ass out of the house. Stop making excuses. I think that this month I’ll finally be ready to just let you see me cry, for fuck’s sake…if I can even find the tears. I’ll snap outa my shit and hit the beach with you. We’ll discuss the merits of chocolate labs to the brink of violence while tossing the disc, drink beers, shoot pool, avoid the 10 pound pets as we browse the sunglasses, sneak into the back alley store for samosas, and head back to my place for chai.
I imagine that this month you’ll be using your Berkley acceptance as a bargaining chip to get more aid from UCLA as I prep for my interview, and we’ll swap knowing glances of desi perfectionism. We’ll toy with the idea of moving in together. Cheaper rent, bigger place with someone we know and trust. I’ll question your taste in music, your singing ability, and you’ll turn it around on me in front of the cute girls so that you look sweet and innocent, I look like a douche, and they shower you with attention for the rest of the night. Sometime this month, we’ll celebrate our successes by taking some spot by storm with our “exotic” looks and mysterious personas—the sly smirks that turn straight girls gay.
It’s tough right now, you know? It’s tough to see your shadows in the Court of Sciences and not hurt from your absence. It’s tough to keep on moving through the routine of 9 to 5s like any of it matters half as much as the relationships we forget to nurture cuz we’re always tryin to handle some other shit.
I want to let go of the pangs of guilt and the what ifs and whys. I want to forgive myself the way you had already forgiven me, free my warnings from culpability, forget that I may have brought you to the place of your accident—holding on to these things obfuscates the vivacity of your spirit.
But it’s damn hard to let go. It’s hard to let go when it doesn’t even feel real. The best I can do is keep waiting for your voice to help guide me out of my foolishness and into your light.
I imagine that this month I’ll be a better brother. I’ll let you drag my sorry ass out of the house. Stop making excuses. I think that this month I’ll finally be ready to just let you see me cry, for fuck’s sake…if I can even find the tears. I’ll snap outa my shit and hit the beach with you. We’ll discuss the merits of chocolate labs to the brink of violence while tossing the disc, drink beers, shoot pool, avoid the 10 pound pets as we browse the sunglasses, sneak into the back alley store for samosas, and head back to my place for chai.
I imagine that this month you’ll be using your Berkley acceptance as a bargaining chip to get more aid from UCLA as I prep for my interview, and we’ll swap knowing glances of desi perfectionism. We’ll toy with the idea of moving in together. Cheaper rent, bigger place with someone we know and trust. I’ll question your taste in music, your singing ability, and you’ll turn it around on me in front of the cute girls so that you look sweet and innocent, I look like a douche, and they shower you with attention for the rest of the night. Sometime this month, we’ll celebrate our successes by taking some spot by storm with our “exotic” looks and mysterious personas—the sly smirks that turn straight girls gay.
It’s tough right now, you know? It’s tough to see your shadows in the Court of Sciences and not hurt from your absence. It’s tough to keep on moving through the routine of 9 to 5s like any of it matters half as much as the relationships we forget to nurture cuz we’re always tryin to handle some other shit.
I want to let go of the pangs of guilt and the what ifs and whys. I want to forgive myself the way you had already forgiven me, free my warnings from culpability, forget that I may have brought you to the place of your accident—holding on to these things obfuscates the vivacity of your spirit.
But it’s damn hard to let go. It’s hard to let go when it doesn’t even feel real. The best I can do is keep waiting for your voice to help guide me out of my foolishness and into your light.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
10th Annual Day of Remembrance
Today is the 10th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. I especially want to urge those of you who have been organizing for same-sex marriage in recent weeks to attend your local DOR event tonight...Because it's a question of solidarity. Because it's a question of intersecting identities.
Because I've got your back and I need to know that you've got mine.
DOR is about honoring the lives of the community members we lost in the past year at the hands of hate and transphobia. It's about celebrating their lives and acknowledging their deaths.
Today, I am 12 days away from beginning hormone therapy, and I feel a tremendous sense of displacement. In addition to the 23 years of work it's taken to get to this point, I've spent the last several months coming out to family and friends about my plans and process, assuaging people's fears about "who I will become" once more testosterone enters my system, about whether all of this is really necessary, about whether I'm bringing a stigma upon myself that could easily be avoided.
About whether I will be safe.
It's a real, legitimate fear--this worry over safety. And while there's something very real about the fear-induced hate towards visibly trans bodies, this body of mine has never felt safe. It's felt wrong, it's felt weighed down, it's felt surreal-ly unknown, it's felt painful as hell, it's felt numb, it's felt bigger than I can handle, it's felt freakishly foreign, it's even felt like the excruciating trade-off for dual insights.
But it's never felt safe.
And yet, I've made it work for me. I've dwelled here for 23 years, and I've made it work. Now that I'm finally taking a stand for myself and owning my right to feel at home in my skin, I feel displaced.
I think it's because this entire process involves so much uprooting. It involves tearing up foundations that really weren't ever doing much service to anyone, and in so doing, risking the possibility that a new framework may never be laid. This is the case with body, with family, and with community.
With body, I am letting go of what I've made work for so long, and I'm banking on the fact that the visions of self I hold in my mind's eye are about to manifest. With my family, I am letting go of the need for their approval and understanding, putting faith in the hope that they will come around as time progresses. With community, I am letting go of my pre-op, pre-t trans identity, of my woman of color public hologram (which depends heavily on the light, angle, and context in which I'm viewed). I'm leaping out and hoping that I will find a healthy trans masculinity and a community of folks with whom I can have a healthy, growing relationship.
This journey is a scary one, but the risks are not really new. At worst, I am opening myself up to ridicule, alienation, hate, and death. At best, though, I have a shot at freedom; I have a chance to finally be able to breathe.
Because I've got your back and I need to know that you've got mine.
DOR is about honoring the lives of the community members we lost in the past year at the hands of hate and transphobia. It's about celebrating their lives and acknowledging their deaths.
Today, I am 12 days away from beginning hormone therapy, and I feel a tremendous sense of displacement. In addition to the 23 years of work it's taken to get to this point, I've spent the last several months coming out to family and friends about my plans and process, assuaging people's fears about "who I will become" once more testosterone enters my system, about whether all of this is really necessary, about whether I'm bringing a stigma upon myself that could easily be avoided.
About whether I will be safe.
It's a real, legitimate fear--this worry over safety. And while there's something very real about the fear-induced hate towards visibly trans bodies, this body of mine has never felt safe. It's felt wrong, it's felt weighed down, it's felt surreal-ly unknown, it's felt painful as hell, it's felt numb, it's felt bigger than I can handle, it's felt freakishly foreign, it's even felt like the excruciating trade-off for dual insights.
But it's never felt safe.
And yet, I've made it work for me. I've dwelled here for 23 years, and I've made it work. Now that I'm finally taking a stand for myself and owning my right to feel at home in my skin, I feel displaced.
I think it's because this entire process involves so much uprooting. It involves tearing up foundations that really weren't ever doing much service to anyone, and in so doing, risking the possibility that a new framework may never be laid. This is the case with body, with family, and with community.
With body, I am letting go of what I've made work for so long, and I'm banking on the fact that the visions of self I hold in my mind's eye are about to manifest. With my family, I am letting go of the need for their approval and understanding, putting faith in the hope that they will come around as time progresses. With community, I am letting go of my pre-op, pre-t trans identity, of my woman of color public hologram (which depends heavily on the light, angle, and context in which I'm viewed). I'm leaping out and hoping that I will find a healthy trans masculinity and a community of folks with whom I can have a healthy, growing relationship.
This journey is a scary one, but the risks are not really new. At worst, I am opening myself up to ridicule, alienation, hate, and death. At best, though, I have a shot at freedom; I have a chance to finally be able to breathe.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Dream Girl(s) (3)
I apparently dream about girls a lot. I'm about to share another one with y'all.
This morning, I had this dream about a Trinity--the Mother (my mother), the Queen (my ex) and the Goddess (the woman I'm dating), morphed into one. One being with whom I have been dangerously vulnerable.
I know, I know, most people hate hearing about dreams-- especially when they're all non-specific and random, like "and then you said something I don't remember, and then you turned into a unicorn and pranced off into a field of blue watermelons, and stepped on one and it became a shoe for your unicorn hoof. What do you think it means??" Well, I'm writing about my dream anyway, so BACK OFF! Ehem. sorry. where was I?
Right. The Trinity. Here's what happened:
The Goddess and I were laying on my bed, my head resting in her lap, talking about nothing in particular. She commented on something and I responded with a gentle tease. And then she asked--"why were you such a loser growing up?"... The body was of the Goddess, but with the voice of the Mother, dripping with a venomous disdain for the person I've become. Though hurt, I received the words openly. I tried to answer honestly.
"Well, I was struggling to find home in my own body," I say. Raw from the rub of once again exposing old wounds to her (all three Hers, the Trinity), I turned over, hung my head over the edge of the bed, and watched my hands claw into the chalky earth below. I coated my fingertips in white, and I fathomed that this action could assuage the pain that swelled in my body.
Then the Goddess reached out to me. She was tender, caring, extending herself as a container to help hold my pain. In this moment, she walked the line between the Goddess and the Queen. And then, suddenly, she switched over...insisted that I sit properly supported, lest I injure myself. When I resisted her attempts to move me, the Queen broke. Fitful sobs of anger and pain burst from her heaving chest, and I, still open towards her, still honest, still loving, did my best to soothe away her hurt. Then, without warning, she morphed again--the Mother pushed me off, pushed me down, and spat disgust on my stomach, and then the Goddess pulled back her hair and swirled the disgust with her tongue, seeking sex where words had failed us.
I pushed her off. "I can't," I told her earnestly, "my body hurts." I sought compassion in her eyes (the Trinity), but they burned with anger. And suddenly, I knew that I had made a terrible mistake, that I had left lessons unlearned with the Mother, with the Queen, and that I had recreated that toxicity with the Goddess; I had once again entrusted my spirit to someone who would not/ could not hold it.
My openness filled quickly, suffocated each breath like sand pouring into my lungs, and I had to get away from Her. I slammed the bathroom door, fearing violence from the Trinity, and my own cries woke me--from vivid dreams to vivid pain.
There are too many layers of explanation that can follow. Indeed, I've been turning the sequence of events, the faces, the scents, the feelings of each moment over and over in my head since terror shook me awake. It was only much later--after arriving at work and sifting through the tasks that had piled up since Friday--that I realized the significance of today.
Today would be the three-year anniversary of the first time I kissed the Queen ("would be," were we still together). In many ways, this date marks the moment in which I gathered enough courage to stand strong in my manhood, and to demand to be seen. It's a signpost in my shift from "genderqueer" to "trans"--a shift that has fundamentally altered my relationship with the Mother. Despite countless efforts from both of us, she can't quite seem to feel and reciprocate the earnest love and tenderness I hold for her, because today, the Mother is still preoccupied with the concern that, in being myself, I am making a terrible mistake. And today, I am talking to the Goddess. I'm finding myself dropping more parts of me into her open recepticle, despite myself, even before I feel quite ready to trust again. I fear the safety and joy that I feel with the Goddess because, in the recent past, such feelings have been followed by the pain of rejection--by the Mother, by the Queen.
And what's deeper than this Trinity manifesting in my dream on the 3rd, the would-be 3-year anniversary of that first kiss? I know the Queen is feeling "3", too.
This morning, I had this dream about a Trinity--the Mother (my mother), the Queen (my ex) and the Goddess (the woman I'm dating), morphed into one. One being with whom I have been dangerously vulnerable.
I know, I know, most people hate hearing about dreams-- especially when they're all non-specific and random, like "and then you said something I don't remember, and then you turned into a unicorn and pranced off into a field of blue watermelons, and stepped on one and it became a shoe for your unicorn hoof. What do you think it means??" Well, I'm writing about my dream anyway, so BACK OFF! Ehem. sorry. where was I?
Right. The Trinity. Here's what happened:
The Goddess and I were laying on my bed, my head resting in her lap, talking about nothing in particular. She commented on something and I responded with a gentle tease. And then she asked--"why were you such a loser growing up?"... The body was of the Goddess, but with the voice of the Mother, dripping with a venomous disdain for the person I've become. Though hurt, I received the words openly. I tried to answer honestly.
"Well, I was struggling to find home in my own body," I say. Raw from the rub of once again exposing old wounds to her (all three Hers, the Trinity), I turned over, hung my head over the edge of the bed, and watched my hands claw into the chalky earth below. I coated my fingertips in white, and I fathomed that this action could assuage the pain that swelled in my body.
Then the Goddess reached out to me. She was tender, caring, extending herself as a container to help hold my pain. In this moment, she walked the line between the Goddess and the Queen. And then, suddenly, she switched over...insisted that I sit properly supported, lest I injure myself. When I resisted her attempts to move me, the Queen broke. Fitful sobs of anger and pain burst from her heaving chest, and I, still open towards her, still honest, still loving, did my best to soothe away her hurt. Then, without warning, she morphed again--the Mother pushed me off, pushed me down, and spat disgust on my stomach, and then the Goddess pulled back her hair and swirled the disgust with her tongue, seeking sex where words had failed us.
I pushed her off. "I can't," I told her earnestly, "my body hurts." I sought compassion in her eyes (the Trinity), but they burned with anger. And suddenly, I knew that I had made a terrible mistake, that I had left lessons unlearned with the Mother, with the Queen, and that I had recreated that toxicity with the Goddess; I had once again entrusted my spirit to someone who would not/ could not hold it.
My openness filled quickly, suffocated each breath like sand pouring into my lungs, and I had to get away from Her. I slammed the bathroom door, fearing violence from the Trinity, and my own cries woke me--from vivid dreams to vivid pain.
There are too many layers of explanation that can follow. Indeed, I've been turning the sequence of events, the faces, the scents, the feelings of each moment over and over in my head since terror shook me awake. It was only much later--after arriving at work and sifting through the tasks that had piled up since Friday--that I realized the significance of today.
Today would be the three-year anniversary of the first time I kissed the Queen ("would be," were we still together). In many ways, this date marks the moment in which I gathered enough courage to stand strong in my manhood, and to demand to be seen. It's a signpost in my shift from "genderqueer" to "trans"--a shift that has fundamentally altered my relationship with the Mother. Despite countless efforts from both of us, she can't quite seem to feel and reciprocate the earnest love and tenderness I hold for her, because today, the Mother is still preoccupied with the concern that, in being myself, I am making a terrible mistake. And today, I am talking to the Goddess. I'm finding myself dropping more parts of me into her open recepticle, despite myself, even before I feel quite ready to trust again. I fear the safety and joy that I feel with the Goddess because, in the recent past, such feelings have been followed by the pain of rejection--by the Mother, by the Queen.
And what's deeper than this Trinity manifesting in my dream on the 3rd, the would-be 3-year anniversary of that first kiss? I know the Queen is feeling "3", too.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Bad Poetry
I promised you some bad
Poetry, so
Here's where I
Give voice to those things
That words can't seem
To capture.
That beat of heart
Against ribcage, throat, and
If it didn't sound so gross,
I'd tell you that I keep my lips pressed closed
Because
The thump-thump-thump's
Got my gag reflex 'bout to make me choke!
It's a GOOD thing. PROMISE.
And then there's that
Quiver you've got rolling
Through my body, that rush
Of adrenalin pumping
From near kidney,
And these days, I stop
On ledge or high bridge,
Lean til my pituitary gland
Kicks in, cuz
That tickle of fear
Is so near to
What you do
To me when you
Slip hand in hand,
Touch skin to skin,
and I'm IN.
Girl, I'm SO IN.
It's that high school crush
That I missed in my rush to
Fit in.
But now when you brush
Your hair from eyes or
Revel in the magic of
Life
And try to surmise
The evolutionary benefits of certain plant phenotypes, I
Feel shaky inside.
I just wanna wrap you tight
In my monkey-arms and
Sit quietly, listening to water and breeze, or maybe
I wanna race you
Down the beach,
Climb trees,
Or hit up a club cuz you move SO
Sexily.
These days, you've got me procrastinating,
In the back of my mind, just waiting
For that next text,
The one that
Let's me know I'm not completely crazy
For thinking 'bout u, or
Even if I am, it's ok, cuz
U R, 2 :).
Poetry, so
Here's where I
Give voice to those things
That words can't seem
To capture.
That beat of heart
Against ribcage, throat, and
If it didn't sound so gross,
I'd tell you that I keep my lips pressed closed
Because
The thump-thump-thump's
Got my gag reflex 'bout to make me choke!
It's a GOOD thing. PROMISE.
And then there's that
Quiver you've got rolling
Through my body, that rush
Of adrenalin pumping
From near kidney,
And these days, I stop
On ledge or high bridge,
Lean til my pituitary gland
Kicks in, cuz
That tickle of fear
Is so near to
What you do
To me when you
Slip hand in hand,
Touch skin to skin,
and I'm IN.
Girl, I'm SO IN.
It's that high school crush
That I missed in my rush to
Fit in.
But now when you brush
Your hair from eyes or
Revel in the magic of
Life
And try to surmise
The evolutionary benefits of certain plant phenotypes, I
Feel shaky inside.
I just wanna wrap you tight
In my monkey-arms and
Sit quietly, listening to water and breeze, or maybe
I wanna race you
Down the beach,
Climb trees,
Or hit up a club cuz you move SO
Sexily.
These days, you've got me procrastinating,
In the back of my mind, just waiting
For that next text,
The one that
Let's me know I'm not completely crazy
For thinking 'bout u, or
Even if I am, it's ok, cuz
U R, 2 :).
Friday, August 1, 2008
How Women Make Me Crazy
Women.
Women drive me crazy, y'all...
In every possible way.
Like now? I got women makin my insides Flutter.
They've got my sympathetic nervous system so
Worked up,
I ran sprints up and down
The hall outside my office this morning--
You know, to use up that
Energy released by
Cortisol
So it didn't turn into
Fat,
Settle near my heart, and
Cause a
Heart attack, or something?
Man, oh man... Women.
So this one woman's got my Heart
still try'na piece itself back Together again... cuz see,
I was sure she was the one I wanted to spend Life with.
And now she's sure I'm not.
Yeah, she's the one who's got me believing Mariah's words...
Got me haunted by the Passion. There's no shame or Blame involved, but I'm still
Learning to let go.
Then there's the woman who's got my insides warm
like homemade
Ginger tea as it falls from esophagus to Stomach,
Spreading Comfort in its heat.
She and I've been had this thing
Brewing between us for a minute, and
While part of me would love to
Pull Pot from flame
And sip concoction,
Wrapped in the vermilion Glow of our connection,
Most of me feels like
That shit aint done steeping.
I long to
Taste the tangy, sharp, Spicy depths
Of a second boil, and I know that
No matter the end result, it's gonna be
Truly special.
Because for the first time in my life,
I'm patient.
Woman number three's got me ripping down Walls,
Despite myself.
Twenty-three years later, I find Myself
Cocooned near her Womb.
Once again in touch with the
Roots of my
Creation.
Laying down the Arms I was sure I'd need for
Battle,
Finally finding home
In her embrace.
And there's the one I want to
celebrate.
The one who's got more Power over me than she knows.
Cuz five years ago, we took
A long walk
Around the park
After dark,
(And by "park" I mean our college campus,
But Ms. Scott's words flow more
Poetic).
And she was the first woman to Share with me the Beauty
of mutual attraction.
For her,
I seek Peace and safety.
But she gets me worked up with this
Hot-then-cold, close-yet-distant Veil she throws out,
Matador,
Tormenting me with doubt about if
Or when
We'll next make contact.
There's also the woman
Who's knee-deep in it.
I mean, she's got some Shit goin on. And
She's got me yearning for a Lake
And grass
And a patch of Shade large enough to shield us both from the heat of Noon,
As I sit behind her,
Pull her in,
Hold her until she feels the sheer Magnitude of her own
Strength. She's got me try'na channel Energies and send
Positivity over hundreds of miles so that
"Home" and "employment"
Find her before she loses the Conviction to
stand tall in Herself.
Finally, there's the woman who's got me
Wiggly. I mean,
She literally has me grinning. And I'm the guy who
Leans on a sly Smirk.
She's got me caught up in that giddy feeling of
Newness.
And I'm slipping into ignorance the fact that
we met
through a Friend
who wanted More with Her.
Cuz she permits me safety to
re-explore flirtation,
Nestled in soft Botanicals,
Lapping smoothly at our ankles
In twilight's Tide.
Women, y'all.
Women got me one big
Hurting loving
Aching burning
Tender bare
Yearning grinning giddy
Mess.
Women drive me crazy, y'all...
In every possible way.
Like now? I got women makin my insides Flutter.
They've got my sympathetic nervous system so
Worked up,
I ran sprints up and down
The hall outside my office this morning--
You know, to use up that
Energy released by
Cortisol
So it didn't turn into
Fat,
Settle near my heart, and
Cause a
Heart attack, or something?
Man, oh man... Women.
So this one woman's got my Heart
still try'na piece itself back Together again... cuz see,
I was sure she was the one I wanted to spend Life with.
And now she's sure I'm not.
Yeah, she's the one who's got me believing Mariah's words...
Got me haunted by the Passion. There's no shame or Blame involved, but I'm still
Learning to let go.
Then there's the woman who's got my insides warm
like homemade
Ginger tea as it falls from esophagus to Stomach,
Spreading Comfort in its heat.
She and I've been had this thing
Brewing between us for a minute, and
While part of me would love to
Pull Pot from flame
And sip concoction,
Wrapped in the vermilion Glow of our connection,
Most of me feels like
That shit aint done steeping.
I long to
Taste the tangy, sharp, Spicy depths
Of a second boil, and I know that
No matter the end result, it's gonna be
Truly special.
Because for the first time in my life,
I'm patient.
Woman number three's got me ripping down Walls,
Despite myself.
Twenty-three years later, I find Myself
Cocooned near her Womb.
Once again in touch with the
Roots of my
Creation.
Laying down the Arms I was sure I'd need for
Battle,
Finally finding home
In her embrace.
And there's the one I want to
celebrate.
The one who's got more Power over me than she knows.
Cuz five years ago, we took
A long walk
Around the park
After dark,
(And by "park" I mean our college campus,
But Ms. Scott's words flow more
Poetic).
And she was the first woman to Share with me the Beauty
of mutual attraction.
For her,
I seek Peace and safety.
But she gets me worked up with this
Hot-then-cold, close-yet-distant Veil she throws out,
Matador,
Tormenting me with doubt about if
Or when
We'll next make contact.
There's also the woman
Who's knee-deep in it.
I mean, she's got some Shit goin on. And
She's got me yearning for a Lake
And grass
And a patch of Shade large enough to shield us both from the heat of Noon,
As I sit behind her,
Pull her in,
Hold her until she feels the sheer Magnitude of her own
Strength. She's got me try'na channel Energies and send
Positivity over hundreds of miles so that
"Home" and "employment"
Find her before she loses the Conviction to
stand tall in Herself.
Finally, there's the woman who's got me
Wiggly. I mean,
She literally has me grinning. And I'm the guy who
Leans on a sly Smirk.
She's got me caught up in that giddy feeling of
Newness.
And I'm slipping into ignorance the fact that
we met
through a Friend
who wanted More with Her.
Cuz she permits me safety to
re-explore flirtation,
Nestled in soft Botanicals,
Lapping smoothly at our ankles
In twilight's Tide.
Women, y'all.
Women got me one big
Hurting loving
Aching burning
Tender bare
Yearning grinning giddy
Mess.
Friday, July 25, 2008
...Living in the memory of our song.
Okay, so this post might get me banned from the playground, but I'm really feelin Mariah tonight....
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Let's talk about Sex
From Wednesday to Wednesday, May 28-June 4, 2008, The Playground will be participating in the Fourth Youth Media Blog-a-thon hosted by YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia and WireTap. Youth bloggers– along with any bloggers dedicated to writing about youth issues and youth media – will address the topic of sex.
I'm a punk. The topic for this month's youth media blog-a-thon was sex and I slyly sidestepped the issue by writing about dating. There are plenty of reasons for my topic evasion, but I think it's futile for me to make excuses at this point in the game. I've got to own this—I'm shy about putting my shit out there. So now, in my true drop-and-run fashion, I'm writing my real sex blog at the session's closing. I guess you can consider the last blog foreplay…
Ain't nothin sexier than mutual respect. The best sex I've had was with my recent ex. When I say "best," I mean GOOOOOOD. Like lung straining, earth shaking, leg slamming, vibrating, can't tell which way is up— GOOOOOOD. We were together for 2.5 years, plenty of time to discover each other and ourselves and the rhythms we made as a single unit. Together, we discovered our own sensualities and sexualities; we became one through fingertips, through skin on skin, curve in curve, brown melting in the heat of brown, chocolate and cinnamon and so delicious love.
So why am I talking about respect? Well, what was a home run for us, most would consider 3rd base. Our sex never involved a phallus—no dick or dildo or even digits played that role. Yes, survivors of different gender-based traumas, we made penetration-free, passionate love night after night to soulful heart-beats and the melodies of our breath.
And it was the BEST I've ever had. Respecting her made me feel sexy as hell: suave and caring and so completely in tune with her body that I knew she was climaxing before she did. And she respected me, too. She learned to caress my female figure, mold it into "gentleman" through kiss and touch. She helped me feel the parts of me that had for so long existed only in my mind's eye; she made them flesh. And Flush.
I was bashful about writing this out of fear of who might read it. I was worried that my friends and I wouldn’t be able to look each other eye to eye again, or that she might read this post and be triggered by its contents; to be honest, I still am. But I wrote anyway... because I'm still overwhelmed by the passion between us. And because I need to give voice to the beauty of mutual respect in sexual relationships.
I'm a punk. The topic for this month's youth media blog-a-thon was sex and I slyly sidestepped the issue by writing about dating. There are plenty of reasons for my topic evasion, but I think it's futile for me to make excuses at this point in the game. I've got to own this—I'm shy about putting my shit out there. So now, in my true drop-and-run fashion, I'm writing my real sex blog at the session's closing. I guess you can consider the last blog foreplay…
Ain't nothin sexier than mutual respect. The best sex I've had was with my recent ex. When I say "best," I mean GOOOOOOD. Like lung straining, earth shaking, leg slamming, vibrating, can't tell which way is up— GOOOOOOD. We were together for 2.5 years, plenty of time to discover each other and ourselves and the rhythms we made as a single unit. Together, we discovered our own sensualities and sexualities; we became one through fingertips, through skin on skin, curve in curve, brown melting in the heat of brown, chocolate and cinnamon and so delicious love.
So why am I talking about respect? Well, what was a home run for us, most would consider 3rd base. Our sex never involved a phallus—no dick or dildo or even digits played that role. Yes, survivors of different gender-based traumas, we made penetration-free, passionate love night after night to soulful heart-beats and the melodies of our breath.
And it was the BEST I've ever had. Respecting her made me feel sexy as hell: suave and caring and so completely in tune with her body that I knew she was climaxing before she did. And she respected me, too. She learned to caress my female figure, mold it into "gentleman" through kiss and touch. She helped me feel the parts of me that had for so long existed only in my mind's eye; she made them flesh. And Flush.
I was bashful about writing this out of fear of who might read it. I was worried that my friends and I wouldn’t be able to look each other eye to eye again, or that she might read this post and be triggered by its contents; to be honest, I still am. But I wrote anyway... because I'm still overwhelmed by the passion between us. And because I need to give voice to the beauty of mutual respect in sexual relationships.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Piecing Shit Together
I've never written about this before. I'm not really sure if I've ever talked about it, either.
My mom tried to leave us when I was 4 years old. I stopped her.
Truth be told, this is might be my earliest vivid memory. One of the few that I know has not been re-constructed from photographs or oral recountings at annual family get-togethers…because we never talk about it. Ever. Finding words to describe the event is difficult, as I didn't live in words then. I lived in images. And sounds. And tastes. And smells.
I sat crouched, unseen under counter top, playing with Legos as she spat anger and rage towards my father. I couldn't make out the words; they were in Kannada—the language my parents publicly wished I'd learn, but privately horded for their own personal use in such "adult" conversations. His voice sounded the same way it did when he talked about his day or evaluated our report cards or threatened to discipline: loud enough to silence, and steady enough to let us know that he could not be riled, rattled, or shaken.
It was that immovability that broke her. The complete ease with which he deflected; he could not be bothered enough by her issues to take his hands out of his pockets and get mad, hurt, sad—anything more than condescending. And so she reached for things to throw as I plucked the final 2x2 square from the brown carpet and snapped it into place. She grabbed the Yellow Pages from a stack of his clutter and hurled it over the counter top towards him through screams and gasps. And he was called to action enough to sidestep the flying book as it dropped squarely on my head, forcing me to smash my freshly-constructed Lego truck in the process.
Then, he used me as leverage. As a way to turn her pain back onto herself. As a sort of "now look what you've done in the irrationality of your anger" silent statement. He played me strategically, and I sat silent and searching the floor for lost wheels and headlights.
And then she left. Grabbed her purse, her keys, a bag and left, slamming the door with a force that shook the heirlooms in the cabinet three rooms over. Legos still clenched in fist, my legs propelled me after her. Slowly at first, then picking up speed as my voice crescendoed with urgency, "mom…Mom…MOM???" I opened the door to the garage as she started the engine.
"MOM??" She turned to me and burst into tears.
That was the first time I saw her cry. One of five times I can recall in 23 years. And it's always a burst. Always an explosion. She doesn't get the privilege of letting it out slowly, and almost always, she must force herself to suck it back in before shit gets too messy.
I jumped from the doorway of the house and opened the driver's door to the Camry—an unconscious yet meticulous move that forced her to stop the car, slumping across the steering wheel to hold her sobs. "Mom, where are you going? Are you leaving? Where are you going?" I didn't know the right question to ask, just felt compelled by fear to say something. "Mom, don't go!"
She lifted her head from the steering wheel, and I saw the shift. I watched something get put away. Compartmentalized. Stuffed back. Beaten down. "No. No, I'm not going." She scooped me onto her lap and I sat with her, taking in the "ding, ding, ding" of the door ajar warning and the faint scent of gasoline until she was ready to go back inside.
Walking with her through the doorway from garage to kitchen, I was so sure that I had saved our family from something bad that day. Today, I write because I am less sure. So much happened in those moments between opened doors. An Indian woman stepped out to carve space for herself in the gaps between America and the Motherland, only to be tripped up by the tethers of familial obligation.
The really tough part is that I've spent the years since fighting my own battles at the edges of my family, constantly standing with one foot in and one foot out, weighing whether I will be good to myself or to my Indian roots. To be my own man or a woman of the family—that’s the constant struggle. More and more, I’m choosing to be me.
It's selfish as fuck.
And yet I plow forward, holding my intentions as clearly as possible so that she might see that I’m doing this for both of us, that I’m doing this to be happy, and, most of all, that I’m not abandoning her in my process.
My mom tried to leave us when I was 4 years old. I stopped her.
Truth be told, this is might be my earliest vivid memory. One of the few that I know has not been re-constructed from photographs or oral recountings at annual family get-togethers…because we never talk about it. Ever. Finding words to describe the event is difficult, as I didn't live in words then. I lived in images. And sounds. And tastes. And smells.
I sat crouched, unseen under counter top, playing with Legos as she spat anger and rage towards my father. I couldn't make out the words; they were in Kannada—the language my parents publicly wished I'd learn, but privately horded for their own personal use in such "adult" conversations. His voice sounded the same way it did when he talked about his day or evaluated our report cards or threatened to discipline: loud enough to silence, and steady enough to let us know that he could not be riled, rattled, or shaken.
It was that immovability that broke her. The complete ease with which he deflected; he could not be bothered enough by her issues to take his hands out of his pockets and get mad, hurt, sad—anything more than condescending. And so she reached for things to throw as I plucked the final 2x2 square from the brown carpet and snapped it into place. She grabbed the Yellow Pages from a stack of his clutter and hurled it over the counter top towards him through screams and gasps. And he was called to action enough to sidestep the flying book as it dropped squarely on my head, forcing me to smash my freshly-constructed Lego truck in the process.
Then, he used me as leverage. As a way to turn her pain back onto herself. As a sort of "now look what you've done in the irrationality of your anger" silent statement. He played me strategically, and I sat silent and searching the floor for lost wheels and headlights.
And then she left. Grabbed her purse, her keys, a bag and left, slamming the door with a force that shook the heirlooms in the cabinet three rooms over. Legos still clenched in fist, my legs propelled me after her. Slowly at first, then picking up speed as my voice crescendoed with urgency, "mom…Mom…MOM???" I opened the door to the garage as she started the engine.
"MOM??" She turned to me and burst into tears.
That was the first time I saw her cry. One of five times I can recall in 23 years. And it's always a burst. Always an explosion. She doesn't get the privilege of letting it out slowly, and almost always, she must force herself to suck it back in before shit gets too messy.
I jumped from the doorway of the house and opened the driver's door to the Camry—an unconscious yet meticulous move that forced her to stop the car, slumping across the steering wheel to hold her sobs. "Mom, where are you going? Are you leaving? Where are you going?" I didn't know the right question to ask, just felt compelled by fear to say something. "Mom, don't go!"
She lifted her head from the steering wheel, and I saw the shift. I watched something get put away. Compartmentalized. Stuffed back. Beaten down. "No. No, I'm not going." She scooped me onto her lap and I sat with her, taking in the "ding, ding, ding" of the door ajar warning and the faint scent of gasoline until she was ready to go back inside.
Walking with her through the doorway from garage to kitchen, I was so sure that I had saved our family from something bad that day. Today, I write because I am less sure. So much happened in those moments between opened doors. An Indian woman stepped out to carve space for herself in the gaps between America and the Motherland, only to be tripped up by the tethers of familial obligation.
The really tough part is that I've spent the years since fighting my own battles at the edges of my family, constantly standing with one foot in and one foot out, weighing whether I will be good to myself or to my Indian roots. To be my own man or a woman of the family—that’s the constant struggle. More and more, I’m choosing to be me.
It's selfish as fuck.
And yet I plow forward, holding my intentions as clearly as possible so that she might see that I’m doing this for both of us, that I’m doing this to be happy, and, most of all, that I’m not abandoning her in my process.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Sidelined
From Wednesday to Wednesday, May 28-June 4, 2008, The Playground will be participating in the Fourth Youth Media Blog-a-thon hosted by YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia and WireTap. Youth bloggers– along with any bloggers dedicated to writing about youth issues and youth media – will address the topic of sex.
In the interest of full disclosure, let me just put this out there from the start: I've got no game. Despite plenty of charming Gemini in my astrological chart, I've grown accustomed to striking out with the femmes I find so alluring. Now, certainly, I carry some baggage about straight girls/gay boys wanting "real" men and lesbians wanting "real" women, but on good days, I consider myself a pretty decent catch--intelligent, sensitive, thoughtful, possessing a sense of humor, good-looking in a quirky sort of way...and humble. Did I mention humble?
Anyway, the point is, I'm definitely more dateable than a burlap sack. So how is it that I end up spending night after night watching crappy television shows on my laptop computer with only a quart of ice cream to keep my company? I don't blame it on the sunshine, the moonlight, the good times, OR the boogie. I blame my politics.
Let me just give you an example before I delve into an explanation. Last week, I saw this GORGEOUS woman working at the campus post office. She helped me mail my letter between coy smiles and batted lashes, and if I were anyone else, I probably would have summoned the courage to make a move. But I did nothing. And do you know why? Not because of a lack of self-confidence, but because of an intense understanding of what it’s like to be on the receiving end of uninvited advances. She may have been flirting, or just being herself, and I was NOT about to inadvertently become the cause of another horror story of harassment or violation through questions or comments that seem innocent enough, but whose impact could not be predicted when put in the context of a larger society. I wanted to tell her “you’re really beautiful,” but I stopped myself because she was at her workplace, trying to earn a buck, and not really asking to have her looks assessed by her customers.
See, the thing is, I have a tough time "playing" the game when I know how badly it hurts to get played. I know how painful it is to get fucked up by patriarchy time and time again. So when I see a woman I think I might want to ask out, I don't. I get stuck on the sting of sleazy advances and objectification and struggle to find the path that allows me to be her respite from that world.
I know that even with the best intentions, I can’t escape the system; I’m a part of it. Presenting and being read as male can make me dangerous, and my politics would rather I stay dateless than risk perpetuating that insidious pain and fear that seems inevitable in our culture. So I do nothing.
OR, alternately, I enter into the friend zone, get to know her better before saying anything, and end up past the point of casual dateability. I get to that spot where we already care too much about each other to risk the friendship for a bit of mutual fun, and end up with an inner circle of ridiculously good-looking friends.
So my politics sideline me from the dating game. I sit on the bench in my warm-ups. A little frustrated with my lack of playtime, but trusting that it’s for the good of the team. And holding on to a glimmer of hope that if I'm patient enough, maybe one day she’ll find ME and pull me on the court.
In the interest of full disclosure, let me just put this out there from the start: I've got no game. Despite plenty of charming Gemini in my astrological chart, I've grown accustomed to striking out with the femmes I find so alluring. Now, certainly, I carry some baggage about straight girls/gay boys wanting "real" men and lesbians wanting "real" women, but on good days, I consider myself a pretty decent catch--intelligent, sensitive, thoughtful, possessing a sense of humor, good-looking in a quirky sort of way...and humble. Did I mention humble?
Anyway, the point is, I'm definitely more dateable than a burlap sack. So how is it that I end up spending night after night watching crappy television shows on my laptop computer with only a quart of ice cream to keep my company? I don't blame it on the sunshine, the moonlight, the good times, OR the boogie. I blame my politics.
Let me just give you an example before I delve into an explanation. Last week, I saw this GORGEOUS woman working at the campus post office. She helped me mail my letter between coy smiles and batted lashes, and if I were anyone else, I probably would have summoned the courage to make a move. But I did nothing. And do you know why? Not because of a lack of self-confidence, but because of an intense understanding of what it’s like to be on the receiving end of uninvited advances. She may have been flirting, or just being herself, and I was NOT about to inadvertently become the cause of another horror story of harassment or violation through questions or comments that seem innocent enough, but whose impact could not be predicted when put in the context of a larger society. I wanted to tell her “you’re really beautiful,” but I stopped myself because she was at her workplace, trying to earn a buck, and not really asking to have her looks assessed by her customers.
See, the thing is, I have a tough time "playing" the game when I know how badly it hurts to get played. I know how painful it is to get fucked up by patriarchy time and time again. So when I see a woman I think I might want to ask out, I don't. I get stuck on the sting of sleazy advances and objectification and struggle to find the path that allows me to be her respite from that world.
I know that even with the best intentions, I can’t escape the system; I’m a part of it. Presenting and being read as male can make me dangerous, and my politics would rather I stay dateless than risk perpetuating that insidious pain and fear that seems inevitable in our culture. So I do nothing.
OR, alternately, I enter into the friend zone, get to know her better before saying anything, and end up past the point of casual dateability. I get to that spot where we already care too much about each other to risk the friendship for a bit of mutual fun, and end up with an inner circle of ridiculously good-looking friends.
So my politics sideline me from the dating game. I sit on the bench in my warm-ups. A little frustrated with my lack of playtime, but trusting that it’s for the good of the team. And holding on to a glimmer of hope that if I'm patient enough, maybe one day she’ll find ME and pull me on the court.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Protect Yourself
From Wednesday to Wednesday, May 28-June 4, 2008, The Playground will be participating in the Fourth Youth Media Blog-a-thon hosted by YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia and WireTap. Youth bloggers– along with any bloggers dedicated to writing about youth issues and youth media – will address the topic of sex.
After that first time sex became something I had to have. It was exciting and new and since we couldn’t just go in our rooms and close the door together we had to be creative about where we did it. Now I have a great list of places I’ve had sex that I can pull out during games of ten fingers.
I learned a lot about sex that first year. What I liked and didn’t like, what to do and how to do it, but I still wasn’t careful. I trusted my boyfriend completely and he later proved to be less than trustworthy which left me with more than just emotional pain. I vowed then to always use a condom even if I trusted the person. That vow was broken the very next time I had sex and the time after that. The fourth person I was safe with but only because he made it a point to use a condom. I convinced myself that since I knew the people I was sleeping with I didn’t have to worry about using a condom.
Each time I didn’t use a condom I would think in the back of my mind, “Why am I doing this? Why am I putting myself at risk?” but I didn’t stop. I would later get scared and get tested and find out that I was fine and again vow to always use a condom. At times I did it and I would feel great for asserting myself as a strong woman but other times I would just let myself fall captive to male protest. Then I would question why I was sleeping with someone that didn’t want to use a condom.
It took me a long time to figure out why I wasn’t more assertive and serious about using condoms. Most of the time I would just try and push it out of my mind and pretend like it wasn’t a big deal. Then I realized that the reason I didn’t use condoms was directly related to my fear of talking about sex with my partners. I could always talk about sex with friends with confidence but with my partners I got nervous and worried about what they would think. So if they didn’t use a condom or suggest using a condom then I didn’t either. Once I came to that conclusion and acknowledged my fear I was able to take control of it.
I recently ended an almost three year relationship. We started off using condoms but as things became more serious we stopped and that was ok with me. I truly trusted him and knew that we were committed to each other. Enough time had gone by since I was burned by my first boyfriend for me to recognize when someone was actually trustworthy.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Today
Today, I’m overwhelmed. Worn seams bursting with hate
And love. disillusionment
And care.
Today, I feel tired of pain,
Of my own, and of others’.
Soaked denim weighing heavy with what this world has us believe about
Ourselves.
Today, I wonder how many times I will pray for death,
Before I will be free to live.
How many times the queer ones and brown ones will shed tears as blood
Pours from self-inflicted wounds,
Dying ivory cuffs crimson, spreading
Through fibers like so much hate we’ve learned to feel towards who
We are.
Today, I am missing
Her and him and you and we.
Longing for the false togetherness of complimenting outfits in family portraits,
Because at least, being together, we haven’t completely lost each other.
Not yet.
Today, I actually want to go back to
Where I came from. In more ways than one.
I want to lay there, touching soil to skin to
Root myself in
Something.
Today, I want to share
Tenderness, placed gently on shoulders to cut the
Cold.
Because it’s been so long since I’ve felt it.
And longer since I’ve given it to
Myself.
Today, I want to wrap women in my arms and hold them
Tight.
And safe.
Secure, protected, they can cry or
Scream or
Laugh or
Sleep,
Enveloped in the warmth of undefined
Love.
© The Playground, 2008.
And love. disillusionment
And care.
Today, I feel tired of pain,
Of my own, and of others’.
Soaked denim weighing heavy with what this world has us believe about
Ourselves.
Today, I wonder how many times I will pray for death,
Before I will be free to live.
How many times the queer ones and brown ones will shed tears as blood
Pours from self-inflicted wounds,
Dying ivory cuffs crimson, spreading
Through fibers like so much hate we’ve learned to feel towards who
We are.
Today, I am missing
Her and him and you and we.
Longing for the false togetherness of complimenting outfits in family portraits,
Because at least, being together, we haven’t completely lost each other.
Not yet.
Today, I actually want to go back to
Where I came from. In more ways than one.
I want to lay there, touching soil to skin to
Root myself in
Something.
Today, I want to share
Tenderness, placed gently on shoulders to cut the
Cold.
Because it’s been so long since I’ve felt it.
And longer since I’ve given it to
Myself.
Today, I want to wrap women in my arms and hold them
Tight.
And safe.
Secure, protected, they can cry or
Scream or
Laugh or
Sleep,
Enveloped in the warmth of undefined
Love.
© The Playground, 2008.
Friday, April 18, 2008
One of those days...
Today was just one of those days.
So dead-tired in the morning I couldn't even wake myself long enough to hit snooze. Just let the alarm ring every 5 minutes for half an hour as I tried to pull myself from that sobbing dream I have so much--the one where everything inside of me is breaking and all I can do is cry to the one I love, who is leaving me.
Finally pulled myself up and brushed my teeth. Took my sweet-ass time making lunch; even ate some breakfast cuz I didn't eat any yesterday. Or dinner, for that matter.
Thought about the long walk to the bus stop, checked my watch and decided to drive. Hopped in the car and tried to psych myself into my day; threw the jumper cables on and tried to get my engine going. Today, that meant beating down those self-injurious visions; quelling the urge to cut, strangle, shoot, drown; commending myself for renting a spot with a low ceiling and no fan; thanking my lucky stars that I could never own a gun.
Pulled out the alley, drove up the street, and remembered the one I love loving me once, up this same path. Tried hard not to miss her. Tried not to feel that pain on top of the shit I was already dealing with.
*WhoopWhoop*
FUCK.
Stopped my car on the curb about half a mile from home. Cops had to approach me from BOTH sides of my vehicle.
"Sir, could you please turn off your engine? Are you aware that under California law, section BLAH BLAH BLAH it's illegal to stop beyond the painted line? Back there you stopped at the curb, not at the line. Can I see your license and registration?"
Popped open the glove compartment, got out my wallet, and pulled em out. "Sir, that's not your registration."
"Yes it is."
"No, sir, that's a license plate renewal form. Please give me your registration."
Panicked a little, but tried not to show it. How could that NOT be my registration? I always thought it was. But I've never been pulled over before. Proceeded to pull out every piece of paper from EVERY compartment my car had. Even tried the trunk. Flipped through EVERYTHING once, twice, three times, then four, all under her watchful eye, as her partner ran my Missouri plates back at their car.
Then it came: "MA'AM? What are you doing out here? Are you visiting somebody?"
Fuck me, my Missouri license, my brown face and my trans identity.
"I work at UCLA," I whispered. "I'm headed to work."
"MA'AM, Do you live around here?"
"Two streets over."
"Are you staying with a friend, MA'AM?"
"No, I rent a place." My voice kept getting smaller.
"How do you mean, you rent a place?"
"I signed a lease."
"For how long?"
"A year."
Gave him my address. Signed the damn thing saying I'd appear in court; got cited for failure to stop at the line and for failure to carry my registration (it WAS my registration. Verified that shit on the internet).
Got to work an hour later than if I'd just walked to the damn bus stop.
Work was marginally better. Kept dropping things and forgetting things, still had that "you're worthless" voice in the back of my mind, but managed to throw a surprise party, dig up lost papers, and find a Notary Public who could verify that a Hebrew to English translation was accurate. Just had me swear that it was right "so help me god."
But today was a "she" day. Don't usually hear these folks slip up, but today was something else. It was "sheImeanHe" this and "sheHeshe" that. Got through okay, though, and only worked 3 hours overtime. Left the office at 8:55 and RAN to catch the bus by 8:59...
Well, I woulda caught it...if it didn't leave a minute early. Instead I watched it pull away, chased it futilely for three blocks, and finally resigned myself to walking the mile and a half to where I'd parked my car this morning.
It was a good walk. Couple of white folks found the need to cross over to the sidewalk on the other side of the street to assuage their fears of being stalked by me. Started walking faster behind them on purpose--just to fuck with em--then stopped abruptly at my car and stared them down so they'd know how stupid they looked.
Got in the car and drove EXTRA carfully. No radio, no nothin. Just had to make it back and shake it off. Trying to remember that it was just one of those days.
So dead-tired in the morning I couldn't even wake myself long enough to hit snooze. Just let the alarm ring every 5 minutes for half an hour as I tried to pull myself from that sobbing dream I have so much--the one where everything inside of me is breaking and all I can do is cry to the one I love, who is leaving me.
Finally pulled myself up and brushed my teeth. Took my sweet-ass time making lunch; even ate some breakfast cuz I didn't eat any yesterday. Or dinner, for that matter.
Thought about the long walk to the bus stop, checked my watch and decided to drive. Hopped in the car and tried to psych myself into my day; threw the jumper cables on and tried to get my engine going. Today, that meant beating down those self-injurious visions; quelling the urge to cut, strangle, shoot, drown; commending myself for renting a spot with a low ceiling and no fan; thanking my lucky stars that I could never own a gun.
Pulled out the alley, drove up the street, and remembered the one I love loving me once, up this same path. Tried hard not to miss her. Tried not to feel that pain on top of the shit I was already dealing with.
*WhoopWhoop*
FUCK.
Stopped my car on the curb about half a mile from home. Cops had to approach me from BOTH sides of my vehicle.
"Sir, could you please turn off your engine? Are you aware that under California law, section BLAH BLAH BLAH it's illegal to stop beyond the painted line? Back there you stopped at the curb, not at the line. Can I see your license and registration?"
Popped open the glove compartment, got out my wallet, and pulled em out. "Sir, that's not your registration."
"Yes it is."
"No, sir, that's a license plate renewal form. Please give me your registration."
Panicked a little, but tried not to show it. How could that NOT be my registration? I always thought it was. But I've never been pulled over before. Proceeded to pull out every piece of paper from EVERY compartment my car had. Even tried the trunk. Flipped through EVERYTHING once, twice, three times, then four, all under her watchful eye, as her partner ran my Missouri plates back at their car.
Then it came: "MA'AM? What are you doing out here? Are you visiting somebody?"
Fuck me, my Missouri license, my brown face and my trans identity.
"I work at UCLA," I whispered. "I'm headed to work."
"MA'AM, Do you live around here?"
"Two streets over."
"Are you staying with a friend, MA'AM?"
"No, I rent a place." My voice kept getting smaller.
"How do you mean, you rent a place?"
"I signed a lease."
"For how long?"
"A year."
Gave him my address. Signed the damn thing saying I'd appear in court; got cited for failure to stop at the line and for failure to carry my registration (it WAS my registration. Verified that shit on the internet).
Got to work an hour later than if I'd just walked to the damn bus stop.
Work was marginally better. Kept dropping things and forgetting things, still had that "you're worthless" voice in the back of my mind, but managed to throw a surprise party, dig up lost papers, and find a Notary Public who could verify that a Hebrew to English translation was accurate. Just had me swear that it was right "so help me god."
But today was a "she" day. Don't usually hear these folks slip up, but today was something else. It was "sheImeanHe" this and "sheHeshe" that. Got through okay, though, and only worked 3 hours overtime. Left the office at 8:55 and RAN to catch the bus by 8:59...
Well, I woulda caught it...if it didn't leave a minute early. Instead I watched it pull away, chased it futilely for three blocks, and finally resigned myself to walking the mile and a half to where I'd parked my car this morning.
It was a good walk. Couple of white folks found the need to cross over to the sidewalk on the other side of the street to assuage their fears of being stalked by me. Started walking faster behind them on purpose--just to fuck with em--then stopped abruptly at my car and stared them down so they'd know how stupid they looked.
Got in the car and drove EXTRA carfully. No radio, no nothin. Just had to make it back and shake it off. Trying to remember that it was just one of those days.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
On Violence
From Wednesday to Wednesday, March 19-26, 2008, Grits and Eggs will be participating in the Second Youth Media Blog-a-thon hosted by YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia and WireTap. Youth bloggers– along with any bloggers dedicated to writing about youth issues and youth media – will address the topic of violence and its effects on youth and our communities.
~~~
I hate caveats, but I'm including one anyway: in this narrative, I talk about a kind of violence that we often internalize--certainly, that I internalized as a brown person and as a trans person.
~~~
“What’s going on?” he asks, glancing from road to me, then back to road. I’m leaned over in the passenger seat, gripping the cane he’d carried from this morning’s rehearsal, doing my best to stare out the window. But still, I can feel his eyes.
I want him to know, but I’m afraid to speak. I’ve found that I can’t trust my masculinity with my emotions. I’d rather paint my feelings. I trust color more than words, sight more than sound. I’d rather pour this stuff from chest to fingers to brush, sculpt paint on canvas, and let the image speak for me.
I’d rather have him draw the shade to my soul and peer in, without needing me to excavate the bricks and boundaries I’ve worked so hard to lay. This façade is strangely handsome, I know, but there’s so much inside that no one ever sees. And today, I can feel it boiling over again. Quaking.
It vibrates in my chest, then throat. I shift my weight forward in the seat and dig the cane into the scuffed heal of my boot. Fingers shake as I kneed my palm with the cane’s horse-head-handle, hoping that the pressure will keep me from exploding. It rumbles up my windpipe and I try to cough it out.
The feeling passes.
“I don’t know.” I lie and let my mind’s eye wander as I wait for him to call my bluff. Squint at the gray-hazed palm trees crawling past us in LA rush hour. If I do it right, they morph the same way that did the Bradford Pears, which lined the road outside my parent’s house in St. Louis. Riding back from school with mom, I’d try to make them blur and stretch as far as I could—a task as elusive as meditation for my 8th grade mind. In the moment, the impossible was possible, but as soon as I tried to witness my own mini-marvel, I’d snap to—fixated on trunk after trunk.
It was the task I took up to distract myself from mom’s questions, to avoid accidentally finding myself vulnerable in front of her. “How was your day?” “Fine.” “What did you do?” “Stuff.” The call and response never changed.
Except once.
“How was your day?” “Fine.” What did you do?” “I tried to slit my wrist last night.” My eyes kept their soft-focus on the treetops as fear burned the tips of my ears and threatened the muscles in my jaw. I hadn't wanted to tell her, but Mr. Jacobi had given me no choice. My “friends” had told him by lunch, and by sixth period, I was in his office, watching his Adam’s apple bounce in his throat as he chewed the words with yellowed crowns and llama tongue. “You’ll need to tell your parents. I’m going to call home at 7.”
My face was hot with embarrassment. Home, I thought it rang distant, but familiar like the Lord’s Prayer I’d picked up from West County Basketball League. This word that was supposed to give with comfort struck rigid like a taunt. Maybe he could see through me--through my fitted jacket and scratchy plaid skirt--maybe he could read my mind through my eyes like some Buffy villain; maybe he knew that I’d never been home. That I dressed this flesh in pink and pearls the way my family strung Christmas lights each winter--self-conscious performances. Empty rituals to keep the neighbors happily believing that our insides matched the exterior. I watched him only from angles, just in case.
Mom didn’t speak. For the remaining three blocks, as the trees swirled into sky, into brick, into muck I held the ache firmly in my throat. Door popped open; slammed shut; keys scratched each other and lock; strip of light seeped from beneath kitchen door, and I watched it in silence.
“Talk to me, Thambi.” He tries again. I can feel it cracking in my chest now. Collapsing in. Pulling down from center and stealing back control. My mouth opens despite contrary instruction, and air pushes through.
“I’ve just been feeling sad.” I confess. As the words come, I try to divorce myself from their truth. I attempt the mental calculations--maybe I can let it out, just a little. Just enough to relieve this pressure from my lungs. “I don’t know what it is,” I say deliberately, forcing a steadiness back into my voice. I’ve lost my jaw to the quaking now and try to will it back with deeper breath and pressed lips.
I refuse to turn towards him, instead dropping my eyes to my thumb which moves along the cold brass contours of the horse-head cane. Its teeth catch the orange light of the setting sun, summoning its features into familiarity. I’ve seen this face before in a memory. In a hallucination.
Two years prior, locked in a room without shoelaces, or belt, I had seen this face. Outside, there were nurses, pills, and a humming TV set. Beyond that were lanyards of fake evergreen and fat, colored lights lacing the corridor; they began at a slab of windowless steel that could be opened only from the outside, and ended at double glass doors that swung out to the sharp winter air.
I’d seen it there, inside the glass doors, inside the slab of steel, inside the belt-less, shoelace-less room as I lay awake again and praying for sleep or death to find me. Over on the tray by the shatterproof window, I had seen it rise from a rag, dripping with blood from its severed neck, eyes bulging as it turned to ravage the strange woman in the bed next to mine. I knew it wasn’t real, but I had wanted to believe my eyes. And I had hoped that when it was through with her, it would come for me.
The night before that, I had lay awake in my parents house, witnessing evening turn to night, turn to morning again, haunted by a different set of images. A body hanging limp from the ceiling fan; one floating face-down in the tub; corpses sprawled and pale—pills scattered— blood pooling on the beige carpet. The bodies were mine—all of them. “Home” for only two nights, and I felt more a stranger than ever before, wanting my family to know me, and fearing that they would rather not see the truth.
I had tried to remove my breasts earlier that week. Snipped them like the skilled surgeon my parents wished they’d raised. I had hoped to make this body more hospitable for the young man that I was becoming.
Today, in the car, my breasts ache. Not from cuts or scars, but from the weight of existence.
“Can I tell you my theory?” he asks. When I don’t respond, he continues, “I think this is about your move. New job, new apartment—you just need to get settled in. You know, creating a home space is a big deal. People don’t always realize”—
“I feel so alone.” I tell him, looking out the window again, pressing my tongue against the ridge of my tooth to keep the tears from falling. “I feel like I can’t do it anymore.”
He reaches out to squeeze my shoulder, and they fall anyway. “I’m trying to be the best man I can be,” I pause to stop the tears, but they keep coming.
“It’s alright, Thambi, I gotchu.”
“I just”—
“It’s alright.”
“I just can’t do it in this body.”
“I feel trapped.” I start again. “I want to be strong. I want to be brave and giving, and I want to do right by my family. I can’t afford for my mom to need me and to refuse to see me.” As I speak, I remember this past winter when she was in the hospital. My father couldn’t even feed her. He had approached her like a child does a lamb at the petting zoo, moving food gingerly, body turned and guarding chest. I ended up taking over and feeding her tenderly, the way she had done for me as a child.
As the car slows, I still can’t face him. I want to tell him that I’m not ready to say goodbye. That I’m not ready to lose my family but that I can’t keep living in this skin. That I want to slice it open sometimes because I feel so trapped inside. That I fight myself to keep living and breathing and moving every day. That I’m tired of fighting and that I feel like giving up.
But instead, I swallow it. Instead, I worry about preserving my manhood, worry that he sees me as weak. I feel myself crumbling, melting, discombobulating, and I need to be held or I will fall apart; but I don’t tell him. Instead, I dry my eyes.
~~~
I hate caveats, but I'm including one anyway: in this narrative, I talk about a kind of violence that we often internalize--certainly, that I internalized as a brown person and as a trans person.
~~~
“What’s going on?” he asks, glancing from road to me, then back to road. I’m leaned over in the passenger seat, gripping the cane he’d carried from this morning’s rehearsal, doing my best to stare out the window. But still, I can feel his eyes.
I want him to know, but I’m afraid to speak. I’ve found that I can’t trust my masculinity with my emotions. I’d rather paint my feelings. I trust color more than words, sight more than sound. I’d rather pour this stuff from chest to fingers to brush, sculpt paint on canvas, and let the image speak for me.
I’d rather have him draw the shade to my soul and peer in, without needing me to excavate the bricks and boundaries I’ve worked so hard to lay. This façade is strangely handsome, I know, but there’s so much inside that no one ever sees. And today, I can feel it boiling over again. Quaking.
It vibrates in my chest, then throat. I shift my weight forward in the seat and dig the cane into the scuffed heal of my boot. Fingers shake as I kneed my palm with the cane’s horse-head-handle, hoping that the pressure will keep me from exploding. It rumbles up my windpipe and I try to cough it out.
The feeling passes.
“I don’t know.” I lie and let my mind’s eye wander as I wait for him to call my bluff. Squint at the gray-hazed palm trees crawling past us in LA rush hour. If I do it right, they morph the same way that did the Bradford Pears, which lined the road outside my parent’s house in St. Louis. Riding back from school with mom, I’d try to make them blur and stretch as far as I could—a task as elusive as meditation for my 8th grade mind. In the moment, the impossible was possible, but as soon as I tried to witness my own mini-marvel, I’d snap to—fixated on trunk after trunk.
It was the task I took up to distract myself from mom’s questions, to avoid accidentally finding myself vulnerable in front of her. “How was your day?” “Fine.” “What did you do?” “Stuff.” The call and response never changed.
Except once.
“How was your day?” “Fine.” What did you do?” “I tried to slit my wrist last night.” My eyes kept their soft-focus on the treetops as fear burned the tips of my ears and threatened the muscles in my jaw. I hadn't wanted to tell her, but Mr. Jacobi had given me no choice. My “friends” had told him by lunch, and by sixth period, I was in his office, watching his Adam’s apple bounce in his throat as he chewed the words with yellowed crowns and llama tongue. “You’ll need to tell your parents. I’m going to call home at 7.”
My face was hot with embarrassment. Home, I thought it rang distant, but familiar like the Lord’s Prayer I’d picked up from West County Basketball League. This word that was supposed to give with comfort struck rigid like a taunt. Maybe he could see through me--through my fitted jacket and scratchy plaid skirt--maybe he could read my mind through my eyes like some Buffy villain; maybe he knew that I’d never been home. That I dressed this flesh in pink and pearls the way my family strung Christmas lights each winter--self-conscious performances. Empty rituals to keep the neighbors happily believing that our insides matched the exterior. I watched him only from angles, just in case.
Mom didn’t speak. For the remaining three blocks, as the trees swirled into sky, into brick, into muck I held the ache firmly in my throat. Door popped open; slammed shut; keys scratched each other and lock; strip of light seeped from beneath kitchen door, and I watched it in silence.
“Talk to me, Thambi.” He tries again. I can feel it cracking in my chest now. Collapsing in. Pulling down from center and stealing back control. My mouth opens despite contrary instruction, and air pushes through.
“I’ve just been feeling sad.” I confess. As the words come, I try to divorce myself from their truth. I attempt the mental calculations--maybe I can let it out, just a little. Just enough to relieve this pressure from my lungs. “I don’t know what it is,” I say deliberately, forcing a steadiness back into my voice. I’ve lost my jaw to the quaking now and try to will it back with deeper breath and pressed lips.
I refuse to turn towards him, instead dropping my eyes to my thumb which moves along the cold brass contours of the horse-head cane. Its teeth catch the orange light of the setting sun, summoning its features into familiarity. I’ve seen this face before in a memory. In a hallucination.
Two years prior, locked in a room without shoelaces, or belt, I had seen this face. Outside, there were nurses, pills, and a humming TV set. Beyond that were lanyards of fake evergreen and fat, colored lights lacing the corridor; they began at a slab of windowless steel that could be opened only from the outside, and ended at double glass doors that swung out to the sharp winter air.
I’d seen it there, inside the glass doors, inside the slab of steel, inside the belt-less, shoelace-less room as I lay awake again and praying for sleep or death to find me. Over on the tray by the shatterproof window, I had seen it rise from a rag, dripping with blood from its severed neck, eyes bulging as it turned to ravage the strange woman in the bed next to mine. I knew it wasn’t real, but I had wanted to believe my eyes. And I had hoped that when it was through with her, it would come for me.
The night before that, I had lay awake in my parents house, witnessing evening turn to night, turn to morning again, haunted by a different set of images. A body hanging limp from the ceiling fan; one floating face-down in the tub; corpses sprawled and pale—pills scattered— blood pooling on the beige carpet. The bodies were mine—all of them. “Home” for only two nights, and I felt more a stranger than ever before, wanting my family to know me, and fearing that they would rather not see the truth.
I had tried to remove my breasts earlier that week. Snipped them like the skilled surgeon my parents wished they’d raised. I had hoped to make this body more hospitable for the young man that I was becoming.
Today, in the car, my breasts ache. Not from cuts or scars, but from the weight of existence.
“Can I tell you my theory?” he asks. When I don’t respond, he continues, “I think this is about your move. New job, new apartment—you just need to get settled in. You know, creating a home space is a big deal. People don’t always realize”—
“I feel so alone.” I tell him, looking out the window again, pressing my tongue against the ridge of my tooth to keep the tears from falling. “I feel like I can’t do it anymore.”
He reaches out to squeeze my shoulder, and they fall anyway. “I’m trying to be the best man I can be,” I pause to stop the tears, but they keep coming.
“It’s alright, Thambi, I gotchu.”
“I just”—
“It’s alright.”
“I just can’t do it in this body.”
“I feel trapped.” I start again. “I want to be strong. I want to be brave and giving, and I want to do right by my family. I can’t afford for my mom to need me and to refuse to see me.” As I speak, I remember this past winter when she was in the hospital. My father couldn’t even feed her. He had approached her like a child does a lamb at the petting zoo, moving food gingerly, body turned and guarding chest. I ended up taking over and feeding her tenderly, the way she had done for me as a child.
As the car slows, I still can’t face him. I want to tell him that I’m not ready to say goodbye. That I’m not ready to lose my family but that I can’t keep living in this skin. That I want to slice it open sometimes because I feel so trapped inside. That I fight myself to keep living and breathing and moving every day. That I’m tired of fighting and that I feel like giving up.
But instead, I swallow it. Instead, I worry about preserving my manhood, worry that he sees me as weak. I feel myself crumbling, melting, discombobulating, and I need to be held or I will fall apart; but I don’t tell him. Instead, I dry my eyes.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Talking about violence at home
As part of the second youth media blog-a-thon ...
I was hesitant to write this post because talking about international violence (physically located outside the US but very much related) and how it affects me personally, my city (Karachi) and my country (Pakistan), particularly within a post-9/11 US context is … hard work to say the least. It is a lot easier to comment on how NOT to talk about international violence. On how talking about an entire nation of close to $200 million people as the Most Dangerous Place in the World and a Failed State from a cozy conference room in Washington DC is not only simplistic and unproductive but also downright [insert adjective here: racist, orientalist, Islamo-phobic, being a bitch]. I have lived in the US for almost four years and almost everyday of it seen all talk about violence in my country being reduced to statistics about militant attacks, images of bearded, angry, brown, Muslim fanatics and rhetoric about “bombing them back to the stone ages” (Mr. Obama is no exception here, but that is a post for some other time).
Friday, March 14, 2008
Independence Day
"After I broke up with my boyfriend, I decided to be single and celibate for a year. Who would I be without a companion, sex partner or suitor? I didn't know. But I did know that, although friends and lovers are important, I'm the only person who is guaranteed to be around for my whole life, so it would be smart to get comfortable with myself."-- Aya de Leon, Deciding to Marry Myself.
I'ma be real: my past few relationships have crashed and burned faster than an overpriced home in the middle of the San Diego desert in October. Some have been ugly, while others have just ended up being stagnant and dissapointing. What started out as exciting and full of promise ended, in one way or another, with me deleting someone from my phone or IM buddy list (some call it immature, I call it momentary therapy). There was the multi-year relationship with a former best friend that went from disappointing to dramatic to downright ridiculous in a matter of months. Then there was the "we're-so-deep-no-one-else-can-understand" on again, off again romance with another close friend. Then there was the one I like to call pure seduction. We had great chemistry and could cut the sexual tension with a chainsaw, but I wasn't down for committment, much less with someone two hours away. I've blamed myself, my partners, my family and our fucked up society for my love's demise. Sometimes if I'm in a good mood, I'll mumble something about it being a test of fate, that I'm being challenged by our higher being, blah, blah, blah.
Lately, I've been shying away -- and sometimes running -- from anything that smells even slightly romantic. My excuse? I want time to myself. I want to deal with my shit. I want to stop looking for someone to be my perfect shield. I know that everyone has their baggage, and some of us have a lot more than others. And while I've grown to accept that the baggage will always be there, I want to figure out how I can carry it more effectively. Instead of spilling my shit in the middle of some busy intersection while trying to run for a bus to take me anywhere but my past, I want to be organized about it, put my pain and insecurities on a granny cart and strut my way down the block with the confident swag of someone who's mistake-prone but life-savvy.
So I've come up with a new version of my Campaign '08. Something geared more toward self actualization. Something that if put on a mixtape might have the title of the "Re-education of Jamilah King". I've decided to do the most dangerous thing a person can do in our society: learn to love myself. It's kinda like my own little independence day, every day.
I say self love is dangerous because our society is stanchily opposed to anything that doesn't include at least two friends and an unlimited text message plan. Especially for younger folks who grew up on the internet -- what do we have if we don't have Facebook, Myspace, cell phones, sneaker conventions, digital cameras (usually to take myspace and facebook pictures with), iChat, gChat and AOL Instant Messenger? We live in every moment but the present and want everything but what we have. This consumer-driven mentality has inevitably trickled down into our love lives. We're always marketing ourselves for the next available suitor, even if we say that we don't give a damn about outward appearances. We always want someone's stamp of approval, whether it's a date, a picture comment or a wall post. Whatever the cost, we can't be alone.
I'm not immune from this. I have Facebook, Myspace, (ill-fuctioning) digital camera. I still care about what people think. I don't want to be alone. But I guess I just want to learn how to meet genuinely amazing people build relationships that aren't predicated on sex and romance.
This self love talk might sound nice, but what does it look like? To be honest, I have no idea. I signed up for salsa class to tackle my rhythmic handicaps -- does that count? I meet up with a group of friends every Monday night to have dinner. I devote entire weekends to hanging out with my mom and my dog, watching episodes of The WIre and eating boxes of eggo waffles. I can't say that I've learned myself any better. I honestly have no idea what an independent, self-loving person might look like. I'm also afraid that the goal itself might be circular and misinformed -- what if I just waste a bunch of time trying to be more independent than I was yesterday? If love is limitless, how will I know if I've actually gotten there? And where the hell am I trying to go anyway?
Some of my friends disagree. They think that I'm punishing myself. Why not just find someone to build with instead of being alone? And what do I know about life or love? I'm only 22.
I'm still figuring it out.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
the job blues
So I haven't been writing.
At least on this blog.
I have been writing cover letters, tinkering with my resume in countless ways, and checking boxes.
There's something nerve wreaking about looking for a job. Sure, there is always that am I good enough anxiety that perplexes the mind. Then there is that, shit-I have a master's degree-I deserve to be paid more mentality.
Leaving the academic world has given me the chills. To be quite honest, I don't think I've faced reality. Classes have started, books have been paid for, drop and add slips have been processed and for the first time in five and half years, I won't be a part of it. My main anxiety: if I leave will I ever return? Will I ever be more prepared or more experienced for academia as people claim I will be?
To be honest, leaving the academic world is an effort to make more money. Pay off some loans, buy my own car, and save up for the future. As a broke student of color, I honestly, don't think I can get far without feeling some sense of economic stability.
Who knows, maybe in the process I will finally be able to feed myself without raiding my mom's fridge.
Wish me luck!
At least on this blog.
I have been writing cover letters, tinkering with my resume in countless ways, and checking boxes.
There's something nerve wreaking about looking for a job. Sure, there is always that am I good enough anxiety that perplexes the mind. Then there is that, shit-I have a master's degree-I deserve to be paid more mentality.
Leaving the academic world has given me the chills. To be quite honest, I don't think I've faced reality. Classes have started, books have been paid for, drop and add slips have been processed and for the first time in five and half years, I won't be a part of it. My main anxiety: if I leave will I ever return? Will I ever be more prepared or more experienced for academia as people claim I will be?
To be honest, leaving the academic world is an effort to make more money. Pay off some loans, buy my own car, and save up for the future. As a broke student of color, I honestly, don't think I can get far without feeling some sense of economic stability.
Who knows, maybe in the process I will finally be able to feed myself without raiding my mom's fridge.
Wish me luck!
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Getting over heartbreak
I’ve been gone for a while
Out of myself for some time
Trying to muster a drop of creativity to write this blog
Don’t think I’ve forgotten where I belong
The problem is that I had to
break
…remove myself from the academic world
and almost anything else related to it
I spent the summer settling
getting over a heartbreak
crying to Sade’s sweet voice
…somebody already broke my heart…
I had to break it off with the academic world, its politics, and its players…
at least for a breath
Now, after some time, I am ready.
I realized that I wasn’t upset with the entire field of women’s studies
but with one of its participants
Sad to say it was my academic advisor
One of the only black women on campus to head an academic department
I let her play favorites
throw out excuses as to why, as one of her poorest students, I wasn’t given an award I was nominated for
the gist of her response to me: You have a full fellowship, what the f**k you complaining about!
In the end, she was right
I couldn’t complain
my voice shattered along with my heart.
Was this the women’s studies I signed up for?
I wanted a place//space//group/
that was welcoming, supportive, willing to understand
I wanted a director who recognized that even with a full fellowship
I am a student of color with limited means
I still need to pay the rent, satisfy the growling of my stomach, feed my brain, and all that other jazz
I don’t have access to my parents' bank accounts—there are actually none to speak of
and my minimum wage job will only get me so far
I survived the summer
spent some time pleading with the mailwoman to stop delivering outstanding balances
stealing tomatoes and onions from my mom’s fridge
overdrafting
…yet, here I am…
I survived one heartbreak
ready to try again.
Out of myself for some time
Trying to muster a drop of creativity to write this blog
Don’t think I’ve forgotten where I belong
The problem is that I had to
break
…remove myself from the academic world
and almost anything else related to it
I spent the summer settling
getting over a heartbreak
crying to Sade’s sweet voice
…somebody already broke my heart…
I had to break it off with the academic world, its politics, and its players…
at least for a breath
Now, after some time, I am ready.
I realized that I wasn’t upset with the entire field of women’s studies
but with one of its participants
Sad to say it was my academic advisor
One of the only black women on campus to head an academic department
I let her play favorites
throw out excuses as to why, as one of her poorest students, I wasn’t given an award I was nominated for
the gist of her response to me: You have a full fellowship, what the f**k you complaining about!
In the end, she was right
I couldn’t complain
my voice shattered along with my heart.
Was this the women’s studies I signed up for?
I wanted a place//space//group/
that was welcoming, supportive, willing to understand
I wanted a director who recognized that even with a full fellowship
I am a student of color with limited means
I still need to pay the rent, satisfy the growling of my stomach, feed my brain, and all that other jazz
I don’t have access to my parents' bank accounts—there are actually none to speak of
and my minimum wage job will only get me so far
I survived the summer
spent some time pleading with the mailwoman to stop delivering outstanding balances
stealing tomatoes and onions from my mom’s fridge
overdrafting
…yet, here I am…
I survived one heartbreak
ready to try again.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
100% Angry Rant
I am so tired of people comparing Hillary Clinton to her husband. Sometimes it works in her advantage at other times it does not, but that isn't the point.
The point is: She is her own person. Every time I hear someone say things like "I haven't forgotten this and that from when Clinton is in office, so what makes anyone think Hillary will do anything different?" I want to scream!
How about the fact that she is a different person! It reminds me how much work we have to do in the field of women's rights. If it were the other way around people would be saying "Well, things didn't go so well when Hillary was in office, but I'm sure that Bill will be his own man and not make the same mistakes."
Seriously, if you don't like Hillary Clinton that's fine. She isn't perfect and there are things that I do not agree with about her stances, but can we please recognize her as an individual?
And how about getting more women and people of color in Capital Hill? I am now living in a city that is 60% black and I have seen only a handful of black staffers or legislative assistants during my lobby and coalition meetings these past two weeks. There are more women, but only white women. This whole working in DC for a predominately white organization that tries so hard to do anti-racism work is driving me a little crazy.
In sum, I really fucking miss my ladies in Claremont.
The point is: She is her own person. Every time I hear someone say things like "I haven't forgotten this and that from when Clinton is in office, so what makes anyone think Hillary will do anything different?" I want to scream!
How about the fact that she is a different person! It reminds me how much work we have to do in the field of women's rights. If it were the other way around people would be saying "Well, things didn't go so well when Hillary was in office, but I'm sure that Bill will be his own man and not make the same mistakes."
Seriously, if you don't like Hillary Clinton that's fine. She isn't perfect and there are things that I do not agree with about her stances, but can we please recognize her as an individual?
And how about getting more women and people of color in Capital Hill? I am now living in a city that is 60% black and I have seen only a handful of black staffers or legislative assistants during my lobby and coalition meetings these past two weeks. There are more women, but only white women. This whole working in DC for a predominately white organization that tries so hard to do anti-racism work is driving me a little crazy.
In sum, I really fucking miss my ladies in Claremont.
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