I will wear my mittens for you.
At our age it's tacky, but
your heart is broken--
I can tell it in the way you
call me six times
so as not to get my voicemail
because it always makes you smile,
in the way you suggest we
meet under the bridge like we
used to,
in the way I can hear you
pacing over the phone, slow
in the way you learned from me
such a long time ago.
So for you I will wear my mittens.
I will take them out of the box
in my closet,
I will meet you under the bridge,
and I will let you pretend that we
are still the same people.
DISCLAIMER: I'm not a poet, guys. But I was looking for a way to talk about moving on from a person or idea and how you have to learn to deal with it after.
Allison
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
The Gay Gene: a poem
I sat on it, heavily, for years:
from dreaming of rescuing Andrea, Kayla, Cati,
of wearing hero's armor-
to shrugging off osh kosh b'gosh and levi brand for
skirts that sparkled.
"Well, looks like she's straight after all," harmless mom jokes
to friends, partners, softball team,
yeah it was probably harmless but maybe I was listening from within my book, after all?
and god it sucks to be told that gays should keep their private lives to themselves,
when I knew, at twelve, already graduated from rose-tinted glasses to the 12th grade reading level,
that a lumpy girl-child with glasses and braces and two mommies needed to become someone boys noticed.
If you want to look at heteronormative look no further than my constructed, collaged walls, a reality cut from teen magazines.
I did genuinely like boys. I liked dogs, too.
I never lied. So, maybe all it took was for them to like me first, but people have built
far more of far less.
Dating, dating, dating, a high school joke, and when you get to college you hear the punchline and it's you. Making out in movie theatres, cars. If it had ended there I might still not know.
Three years of wondering why sex meant tears.
I sat up. I looked around. I breathed, and kissed a girl, and pierced my nose, and lo, it was good.
I do not know if my sexuality is a matter of brain chemistry or construction. I do not know if it came from my mother or my turkey baster dad or my vegetarianism and over consumption of Sylvia Plath's poems.
I do know that high school happiness can't touch the way it feels to lead you, when we dance.
-Eliot
from dreaming of rescuing Andrea, Kayla, Cati,
of wearing hero's armor-
to shrugging off osh kosh b'gosh and levi brand for
skirts that sparkled.
"Well, looks like she's straight after all," harmless mom jokes
to friends, partners, softball team,
yeah it was probably harmless but maybe I was listening from within my book, after all?
and god it sucks to be told that gays should keep their private lives to themselves,
when I knew, at twelve, already graduated from rose-tinted glasses to the 12th grade reading level,
that a lumpy girl-child with glasses and braces and two mommies needed to become someone boys noticed.
If you want to look at heteronormative look no further than my constructed, collaged walls, a reality cut from teen magazines.
I did genuinely like boys. I liked dogs, too.
I never lied. So, maybe all it took was for them to like me first, but people have built
far more of far less.
Dating, dating, dating, a high school joke, and when you get to college you hear the punchline and it's you. Making out in movie theatres, cars. If it had ended there I might still not know.
Three years of wondering why sex meant tears.
I sat up. I looked around. I breathed, and kissed a girl, and pierced my nose, and lo, it was good.
I do not know if my sexuality is a matter of brain chemistry or construction. I do not know if it came from my mother or my turkey baster dad or my vegetarianism and over consumption of Sylvia Plath's poems.
I do know that high school happiness can't touch the way it feels to lead you, when we dance.
-Eliot
"All Futile Requests:" A poem, by ALEXA
Background: I wrote this from the point of view of an closeted lesbian in her adolescence. She and her best friend fall in love, but that kind of love isn't supposed to exist at a high school in Georgia.
"All Futile Requests"
Don't perk at the sight of me
Don't look after me as I walk away
Don't jump at every chance to have me to yourself
Don't get lose yourself in my embrace
Don't let me so effortlessly become the center of your attention
Pretend I'm not always on your mind
Don't look so vain with me
And try not to stare
Let go of malice towards those who cause me pain
Don't ask me if I'm okay
Don't let my mood affect yours
Don't take everything I say to heart
Don't worry
Don't pry
Lose your faith in me
And take me off that goddamn pedestal
Don't let your eyes fall to my lips when I speak to you
Remember to breathe when our eyes meet
Don't let the slightest touch send your heart rate flying
Don't long for more
Don't smile at the thought of the last sweet thing I said to you
Forget what I told you yesterday
Only miss me in my absence
Put your guard back up
And let me down
hard
Don't need me
Don't love me
All futile requests, my love
Requiem: a poem by susiescorcher
Requiem
Sweet song, grant us rest grant
us rest that the magnets, which
attract and repel my eyes from
her eyes and her eyes from my
eyes release our eyes that they
are light on either side of our n
oses and not iron balls which c
hain our brains to the same mo
ments, disappeared, everlasting
Sweet song, grant us rest grant
us rest grant us mercy and etern
al rest that the iron bellows that
still lie in between my head and
my heels do not reawaken from
the dead stretch their fingers in
awakening blink open their hea
vy eyes look up out of their sac
red spaces, that they do not illu
minate my lungs where they hav
e lived and my throat where they
have been heard that my organs
and her organs stop rememberin
g stop that we be granted rest that
they finish dying, a full
and final death
Sweet song, oh grant us rest, gr
ant us rest, grant us rest grant u
s that her breath her breath her
breath rests and my breath rests
in separate bodies that she remains
in her body and I remain in my
body that we may both give up a
nd let our bodies sink separately
in separate seas that, sinking, our
bodies forget the touch of that
we find rest in the water of separate
ness that separates our breaths
O h Sweet Song Sweetest Song, th
at you grant us rest that we may be
granted rest that these things die an
d rest and that I no longer hear her
voice in every voice and she dies an
d rests and I rest and together we rest
Monday, December 13, 2010
"hearing things" micro essay by millertime
hearing things
__________________________________________
my hearing, as though i forever have a shawl wrapped around my head, twisted in the black of my hair and ballooning behind me, a translucent bit of fabric like the picket of fences.
my hearing, as though through the thick cold water of northeastern lakes, greeny browny and ice.
my hearing, under constant threat of attack, has curled in on itself, sleeping lazily.
the deep belly fright of drum broken through. my ear that has been sewn off and on again, twice, in attempts to reach the perforated gauze of my eardrum. trapdoor.
and after countless rounds of anesthesia, how afraid am i of the darkness?
my hearing, as though moving through one of the lower layers in a terrarium model of the earth’s sedimentary layers. my hearing, abandoning me to the deeper silt. taphophobia. fear of being buried alive.
and when outside with my lover, my hearing reveals to me sounds displaced and fragmented, coming as if from no direction, headless, bodiless floating stirrups of noise without context for existence. we sit on the back porch, and she explains these sounds to me, coming from two yards across the way.
and i am the atheist, terrified of ghosts, running spritely through dark hallways in my lover’s home.
Let There Be Light
For this project, I wanted to bring light to invisible disabilities. Invisible disabilities are disabilities that can not be seen, such as mental disabilities/illnesses or autoimmune diseases. Invisible disabilities can often be comorbid, meaning that more than one disability or illness is present.
(click the image!)
brought to you by LP
(click the image!)
brought to you by LP
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Photography Project
Photographs of people who identify as queer with quotes and definitions about what queer is.
Note: The quotes do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the class or the individuals photographed.
Mutually Exclusive, a personal essay by Pinky Madison
Mutually Exclusive
I had a teacher in high school who loved to throw out problematic statements without even realizing what it was she was saying. She was my calculus teacher, and she frequently told our class that boys were smarter than girls at math and science. It pissed me off, but she was the only AP Calc teacher in the school, and I was not going to let her keep me from getting credit. At the beginning of the year, when we were learning about probability and combinations, she described the term ‘mutually exclusive’ to us as “boys and girls are mutually exclusive. You’re either a boy or a girl, and you can’t be both or neither.” The word girl had two syllables, because the school was in rural Georgia. I knew that what she said was wrong, in a fundamental way, but I hadn’t yet discovered its relationship to me personally.
I was born a woman, and today I still am a woman. Most days I wake up, shower and get dressed, completely fine with my breasts, my hair, my hips, my vagina. Hell, I love my breasts most days, but I love breasts in general. But other days I wake up and think “I want to be a man today.”
Now I think it’s pretty normal for people to muse about being a member of the opposite sex, and for people to believe they were meant to be a member of the ‘opposite’ sex. But I don’t feel like that every day. I only want to be a guy on some days. I want to be both, and go between the two at will. I want to wear a pretty dress and makeup and jewelry some days. Other days I want to bind my chest, put on a pair of boots, chop my hair off and drop my voice an octave lower.
I don’t though. I don’t bind my chest. I keep my hair short, but still fluffy and feminine. I usually try to make my voice a bit higher, in a desperate bid to emphasize my femininity. I’ve never felt girly, and on my “girl” days, I don’t usually feel the need to try to be more of a woman than I am every day. On my “guy” days though, I don’t know what to do. I know so many transgendered people that I don’t want to come off as disrespectful by “playing at” being genderqueer. So on my “guy” days, I usually either look as grungy as possible, trying to cover up everything that feels like it shouldn’t be there, or dress extra-feminine, with makeup and jewelry and dresses, to cover up how uncomfortable I am.
Being a human being isn’t enough of a qualification for a person. Life is full of check-boxes: male/female, white/African American/Asian/Hispanic/Native American/other, Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Hindu/Agnostic/Atheist/other. If you don’t fit into a box with a name there’s always other, for most things. We don’t have an “other” box for sex or gender though, even though lots of people certainly feel like an “other” when it comes to sex and gender. I am not an “other” every day, but on some days I am. On some days I am female, and on some days I am male. It’s hard to explain to people sometimes. I’m already “bisexual,” so clearly I can’t decide who I want to have sex with, and now I can’t decide on a gender? Obviously I’m just indecisive really.
Being privileged enough to attend Agnes Scott College and to be a part of the community at Agnes Scott, I have been able to really think about my relationship to gender. Some people know from early on that their biological sex does not match the gender they feel they are. Some people think about it, and genuinely feel that they are cisgendered, that they identify as the sex they were born with. Most people, however, probably don’t even think about it. There is nothing wrong with being cisgendered, transgendered, or multigendered. I personally feel, however, that there is something wrong with never actually thinking about what gender you are.
I had a teacher in high school who loved to throw out problematic statements without even realizing what it was she was saying. She was my calculus teacher, and she frequently told our class that boys were smarter than girls at math and science. It pissed me off, but she was the only AP Calc teacher in the school, and I was not going to let her keep me from getting credit. At the beginning of the year, when we were learning about probability and combinations, she described the term ‘mutually exclusive’ to us as “boys and girls are mutually exclusive. You’re either a boy or a girl, and you can’t be both or neither.” The word girl had two syllables, because the school was in rural Georgia. I knew that what she said was wrong, in a fundamental way, but I hadn’t yet discovered its relationship to me personally.
I was born a woman, and today I still am a woman. Most days I wake up, shower and get dressed, completely fine with my breasts, my hair, my hips, my vagina. Hell, I love my breasts most days, but I love breasts in general. But other days I wake up and think “I want to be a man today.”
Now I think it’s pretty normal for people to muse about being a member of the opposite sex, and for people to believe they were meant to be a member of the ‘opposite’ sex. But I don’t feel like that every day. I only want to be a guy on some days. I want to be both, and go between the two at will. I want to wear a pretty dress and makeup and jewelry some days. Other days I want to bind my chest, put on a pair of boots, chop my hair off and drop my voice an octave lower.
I don’t though. I don’t bind my chest. I keep my hair short, but still fluffy and feminine. I usually try to make my voice a bit higher, in a desperate bid to emphasize my femininity. I’ve never felt girly, and on my “girl” days, I don’t usually feel the need to try to be more of a woman than I am every day. On my “guy” days though, I don’t know what to do. I know so many transgendered people that I don’t want to come off as disrespectful by “playing at” being genderqueer. So on my “guy” days, I usually either look as grungy as possible, trying to cover up everything that feels like it shouldn’t be there, or dress extra-feminine, with makeup and jewelry and dresses, to cover up how uncomfortable I am.
Being a human being isn’t enough of a qualification for a person. Life is full of check-boxes: male/female, white/African American/Asian/Hispanic/Native American/other, Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Hindu/Agnostic/Atheist/other. If you don’t fit into a box with a name there’s always other, for most things. We don’t have an “other” box for sex or gender though, even though lots of people certainly feel like an “other” when it comes to sex and gender. I am not an “other” every day, but on some days I am. On some days I am female, and on some days I am male. It’s hard to explain to people sometimes. I’m already “bisexual,” so clearly I can’t decide who I want to have sex with, and now I can’t decide on a gender? Obviously I’m just indecisive really.
Being privileged enough to attend Agnes Scott College and to be a part of the community at Agnes Scott, I have been able to really think about my relationship to gender. Some people know from early on that their biological sex does not match the gender they feel they are. Some people think about it, and genuinely feel that they are cisgendered, that they identify as the sex they were born with. Most people, however, probably don’t even think about it. There is nothing wrong with being cisgendered, transgendered, or multigendered. I personally feel, however, that there is something wrong with never actually thinking about what gender you are.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
The Princess Boy (posted by ilikesports)
This movie* features two robots discussing whether or not a little boy should be allowed to wear a dress. It was inspired by the story of a five-year-old boy (pictured above) who likes wearing dresses. Find out more about the original story by clicking here!
TRANSCRIPT:
Green: How are you doing today?
Brown: I’m fine? What about you?
Green: I’m alright. Did you get my e-mail? The one about the boy who wears dresses?
Brown: Yes! I got the e-mail about the princess boy! Isn’t he adorable! It’s nice that his parents are so supportive of him, and that they let him express himself as he chooses.
Green: I think it’s awful. I would never let my child dress like that. He’ll probably turn out gay.
Brown: Wait… What are you talking about? We are talking about a little boy wearing dresses because he thinks they are pretty. Now you’re saying that he will grow up to be gay.
Green: Yes. That’s exactly what I said. Gay men wear dresses.
Brown: Just because a man is gay doesn’t mean that he wears dresses. And just because a man is straight doesn’t mean that he does not wear dresses.
Green: You watch too much Oprah Winfrey and The Ellen Show. That is where you get all these modern ideas from. Back when I was growing up, we called them like we saw them. Boys who played dress up in dresses were gay. Girls who played basketball were gay, too.
Brown: I can’t believe you are saying these things. How a person chooses to express themselves through clothing or whether or not they play sports has nothing to do with whether or not they are gay or straight. People like you make it hard for other people to live their lives and be themselves.
Green: No, people like you just want everyone to run around being different just for the sake of being different. That boy’s mother should be ashamed of herself. Letting her son dress like that will make him a target for bullying in school.
Brown: It’s not the mother’s fault if he gets bullied in school. Any bullying that that little boy has to deal with will come from people like you who make trouble for him.
Green: I’m not making trouble for the little boy. I’m trying to look out for his best interest so that he grows into a nice young man.
Brown: Why can’t he be a nice young man who wears dresses?
Green: Because men don’t wear dresses.
Brown: Says who?
Green: Says Jesus and all of society. Look around… You don’t see the President wearing dresses.
Brown: This isn’t about Jesus. It’s also not about the President. They are allowed to express themselves through their clothing the way that they want to. That little boy should be able to express himself through his clothing the way that he wants to. He should be allowed to play with dresses just like other little boys are allowed to play with toy trucks. We shouldn’t limit children by trying to box them in to behaving certain ways because they are a boy or girl.
Green: Well if he was my child, he’d wear what I tell him to wear. There wouldn’t be any conversation about it.
Brown: That’s the problem. There isn’t enough conversation about all these expectations and pressures that society puts on people to only behave or look a certain way. It’s not healthy, and that’s why children, teenagers, and adults who are seen as different by other people have such a hard time. We should try to make room for everyone in society.
Green: Don’t try to push your socialist agenda on me. People think that everyone should just accept everything. First it’s boys wearing dresses. What’s next? Cats driving cars?
Brown: What does that have to do with anything? Cats cannot drive cars. Now you’re getting me off-topic. All I’m saying is that children shouldn’t be forced into either boy things or girl things from the second that they are born. And it’s okay if boys and girls like what they like and express themselves how they want to express themselves, and what someone chooses to wear has nothing to do with whether or not they are gay or straight. I’m going to get some coffee. Have a nice day.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Diversity at a Minimum
Diversity at a Minimum
Creative Piece by Kevi Martin
In a conservative town,
I’m locked out of any open mind.
I look for a sign of defiance.
A signal, some flashing light.
I sit.
Sinking in my own productiveless fight
Against the views and expectations of what I’m expected to be.
I sit.
My eyes wander for some sign.
Some glimpse of hope.
Out of the gray of boring life,
I see a man wearing an arch of colors.
He smiles and nods.
Is this a sign?
Can I speak to him?
Do I need permission to talk?
I sit.
Wishing he would come towards me.
And he does.
Hoping he doesn’t think I’m nosey
As I blabber on and on,
Till I finally bring up the arch pinned in a discrete place.
He talks about his struggles to survive in a conservative world.
Where souls like ours had no room to be bold.
Where one word spoken about a same sex crush
Would induce shock therapy and pills to cure the “disease.”
As his cheerful eyes shed a tear,
I knew I could never be found in this conservative town.
I knew, with every day I spent here, my true self would disappear.
I knew my own happiness should not be feared.
As he left that day,
I realized this is where I should start.
Be Bold. Be True. Be You.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Alternative Disney Fairy Tale Ending
If Princess Jasmine Were a Lesbian...
Ever wondered what would happen if Princess Jasmine were a lesbian? How might the script change? This is about Jasmine "coming out" to Aladdin.
This video is not meant to offend anyone. It does not represent the views of all lesbians. This is a creative piece.
Brought to you by lyric and natylime!
TRANSCRIPT:
Aladdin: Jasmine! Isn’t it great? Your father has changed the law to allow us to get married!
Jasmine: It’s fantastic! But I don’t feel right about this…
Aladdin: …What? You seemed so happy with me! Remember the carpet ride? “A whole new world, a wondrous place for you and me”?
Jasmine: Well, honestly… your short hair and your tall physique was misleading..
Aladdin: How Short hair, and tall height is typical for a handsome guy like me
Jasmine: I got confused…
Aladdin: What?! Confused with what?
Jasmine: I mean…the altitude! I’ve never been that high before. And when you’re that high, it’s easy to be romanced.
Aladdin: Wait a second, how were you confused? Did you fall in love with someone else?
Jasmine: Ehh.. sort of. See, when I met you, it wasn’t my first time in the market place. I’ve had my fair share of shopping in the market place. That’s where I met her, Alhena. She’s tall and has a cute, short hair cut similar to yours, but cuter!
Aladdin: SHE?! You fell in love with a woman?
Jasmine: I’m sorry but true love has no gender!
Aladdin: But you can’t marry a woman!
Jasmine: Well, technically my father changed the law to let me marry anyone I want to marry.
Aladdin: But you can’t be a lesbian! Arabian laws don’t allow it.
Jasmine: How dare you speak to the Sultan’s daughter in that tone!
Aladdin: I fell in love with you, Jasmine. I’m your “diamond in the rough”
Jasmine: More like “cubic zirconia in the rough”
Aladdin: Ouch
Jasmine: I’m sorry, that was harsh. I cannot hide m secret anymore! My heart belongs to Alhena.
Aladdin: What am I going to do?
Jasmine: Well… you can help me. If you truly loved me, you would want to see me happy.
Aladdin: This is true. I love you very much!
Jasmine: So, marry me!
Aladdin: YAY! Wait… You didn’t want to marry me earlier.
Jasmine: Well, that was before I came up with a brilliant idea!
Aladdin: Oh yeah? What is it?
Jasmine: Let’s married! And because you love me so much, you’ll let me be with Alhena.
Aladdin: Isn’t that infidelity?
Jasmine: Only if you didn’t know about it. See? This way you know from the beginning and help me to be truly happy with the one I love. Help me keep my secret!
Aladdin: I don’t know if this is a lesbian game, but I will do it, because I love you! But wait, what do I get of it?
Jasmine: You get to be the new Sultan! …and allow same-sex marriage. You’ll make history!
Aladdin: Whatever you say, Jasmine
a poem based on Eli Clare's excerpt by Johnnie Sanchez (creative piece for final)
the flannel that protected
the curls that never got cut off
was I feminine with the hammer
swinging by my side, or,
getting nailed—to the ground—
by my father?
Betsy mistaking me for a boy
made me secretly smile
how my father shaped me
I do not know
are they right?
I learned what it meant
to be a person,
a child,
not girl, not boy
my hands always shaking
for all those lies,
from all those lies
grateful for the quiet
it provided me
with all those stones in my heart
grateful for Susan and Suzanne
who reminded me of myself
before I even knew
sex was never about desire,
or love,
just rape
when I got older I would never
tell her that I wanted her
but then the bone mended
I knew I never wanted
husbands or skirts
I remember the painful uncomfortableness
in that simple white dress,
backed against the Oregon May,
knew I would never wear one myself
I remember adoring that long brown haired
girl at the bar, just nice cause of tips
and now?
I spend my days
sitting with people like me,
or not like me,
tell stories
laugh cry
all into the night,
our bodies stolen
and then, miraculously,
reclaimed
the curls that never got cut off
was I feminine with the hammer
swinging by my side, or,
getting nailed—to the ground—
by my father?
Betsy mistaking me for a boy
made me secretly smile
how my father shaped me
I do not know
are they right?
I learned what it meant
to be a person,
a child,
not girl, not boy
my hands always shaking
for all those lies,
from all those lies
grateful for the quiet
it provided me
with all those stones in my heart
grateful for Susan and Suzanne
who reminded me of myself
before I even knew
sex was never about desire,
or love,
just rape
when I got older I would never
tell her that I wanted her
but then the bone mended
I knew I never wanted
husbands or skirts
I remember the painful uncomfortableness
in that simple white dress,
backed against the Oregon May,
knew I would never wear one myself
I remember adoring that long brown haired
girl at the bar, just nice cause of tips
and now?
I spend my days
sitting with people like me,
or not like me,
tell stories
laugh cry
all into the night,
our bodies stolen
and then, miraculously,
reclaimed
Monday, December 6, 2010
The Decision (Soka Chan)
She, with a solemness about Her, draped Herself across Her bed, drew Her knees toward her chest, and allowed Her posture to echo that of what could have been one year prior. without invitation, Longing and Emptiness joined Her beneath the sheets.
for This, this act that people named "good" or "a gift to spare her from foul timing," was Her reality. It was the act of Being Without, not spared. while She accepted that it was the mind of the Universe herself who had made the final decision, it did not change that a year later the hollowness remained.
rather than attempting to forget, She removed the alarms and ceased swallowing the ever-efficient daily reminders of what had failed to actualize. She began to rehabilitate her Body, making herself aware of what entered its temple walls. as the anniversary approached she put down what destroyed her internal alter and surrounded herself with others who could hold worlds within them.
and on this day, the day that it washed over her that her season of remembrance was ahead, She Decided. In a world where She was already Othered, in a world where She was already foreign, alien, strange and perhaps Unreal, She would be most valuable to the Universe and Her inhabitants if She did what moves Her. what stares it could bring. what flames judgmental eyes could send to tongue at Her face; they had licked before and She had not burned.
while the rest wail their songs of grief into their knees She vowed to silently take Her sorrow and fold it into a link in her chain, another reason to Live Her Life Her way. labeless and unowned, this night she promised to herself to step briskly, quietly, and shoeless, into the world of which she was already familiar. to love vigorously whomever and whatever longed to be loved, to turn her back on no possibility, to create when war threatened to tear worlds apart. there is no Right Time in the future. the Right Time is Now.
so here, in this hour she lay with a compressed bust and the hollowness inside of her, kept chilly in winter by Longing and Emptiness against her will. she will see the light, of this she is aware. but first she must sit and allow herself to drink all of the Loss that will serve to remind her, for the rest of her life, of what she is capable. of what she must do. she will remember what could have been but she will not fantasize. for in her world of stolen promises reality need not be romanticized.
for This, this act that people named "good" or "a gift to spare her from foul timing," was Her reality. It was the act of Being Without, not spared. while She accepted that it was the mind of the Universe herself who had made the final decision, it did not change that a year later the hollowness remained.
rather than attempting to forget, She removed the alarms and ceased swallowing the ever-efficient daily reminders of what had failed to actualize. She began to rehabilitate her Body, making herself aware of what entered its temple walls. as the anniversary approached she put down what destroyed her internal alter and surrounded herself with others who could hold worlds within them.
and on this day, the day that it washed over her that her season of remembrance was ahead, She Decided. In a world where She was already Othered, in a world where She was already foreign, alien, strange and perhaps Unreal, She would be most valuable to the Universe and Her inhabitants if She did what moves Her. what stares it could bring. what flames judgmental eyes could send to tongue at Her face; they had licked before and She had not burned.
while the rest wail their songs of grief into their knees She vowed to silently take Her sorrow and fold it into a link in her chain, another reason to Live Her Life Her way. labeless and unowned, this night she promised to herself to step briskly, quietly, and shoeless, into the world of which she was already familiar. to love vigorously whomever and whatever longed to be loved, to turn her back on no possibility, to create when war threatened to tear worlds apart. there is no Right Time in the future. the Right Time is Now.
so here, in this hour she lay with a compressed bust and the hollowness inside of her, kept chilly in winter by Longing and Emptiness against her will. she will see the light, of this she is aware. but first she must sit and allow herself to drink all of the Loss that will serve to remind her, for the rest of her life, of what she is capable. of what she must do. she will remember what could have been but she will not fantasize. for in her world of stolen promises reality need not be romanticized.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
There's Never a Manual by Rachel Mathers
I hadn’t seen him in awhile. It had been years, actually. He was my best friend in high school and he is the only guy-friend I have ever had. I was anxious and excited but above all, I was nervous to see him. I was nervous to find out that the reason we had ‘lost touch’ was not just because of distance. He and I lived thousands of miles apart, on opposite sides of the country. It was natural that we hadn’t talked in awhile.
For months I had reached out to him through every type of communication medium, wondering how he was doing in school and in life. I missed my best friend. Continuously, I had told myself that his unreturned calls, texts, and emails were because he was busy, not that he didn’t want to talk to me--not that he didn’t miss the same things I missed. We ended high school with ritual sleepovers at his house, watching silly movies, exchanging political thoughts, where my opinion was always deemed valid. We went on trips together, stayed in hostels, talked about fashion, technology, and helped inspire each other when we were both no longer motivated in school. My first year in college he had sent me roses on my birthday and Valentines Day just to let me know that someone cared--he knew that I didn’t really have a male presence in my life.
And, where were we now? It happened all so fast. Weeks of silence, turned into months of silence, and then suddenly it had been two years. I felt like we were nonexistent to one another, and above all I had no explanation for why this was the current status of our friendship. Had I done something wrong? We had never been in an argument--and he never mentioned that he was upset with me. I asked him once or twice if he was upset with me, but he would respond quickly with a no... He was busy.
And now, after two years of no communication, I was driving to meet him. It had been too long--he and I both knew this. It would take me about two and a half hours to get to our hometown--just enough time for me to plan conversation starters in case bouts of silence occur between us. He hardly ever came home--he was always in some type of internship or job.
Ahh, Greg. I smile when I think of him. People are naturally drawn to Greg, primarily because of his charm, witty remarks, good looks, and confidence. He is so knowledgeable--one of those individuals that can be classified as a’ lifelong learner.’ You know the type, right? The person that reads the news every morning, subscribes to The Economist, and can still do all of the assigned homework and go to bed at a decent time.
I met Greg in high school. We weren’t immediately friends, but we gradually became friends. He was extremely supportive of me during a time of need where many other people weren’t.
For years, students at school had joked that Greg was gay, but I never believed it--I defended him several times in high school telling people to shut up. We went to a very conservative high school, and lived in a very, very small, conservative town... Hell, even professors that had been teaching at our high school for 10+ years had never come out. I was very protective of him because he was special to me. We both knew we had a unique relationship that we both did not quite understand... We were young.
I guess I had always assumed Greg was heterosexual because he had told me that he was. Looking back, I remember him speaking of past flings with women. I had asked him a few times if he was dating anyone in college, and he would always say that he didn’t have time, which is very true; he is one of the busiest people I know.
First and foremost, Greg was my friend, and I never really questioned or ‘saw’ his sexual orientation... I only saw him, as true friends do. He was my friend but I eventually developed feelings for him. I wanted to tell him many times, but nothing ever came of it because of the distance, the timing of college, etcetera.
I found out through Facebook that Greg was gay. We all did. One day it just said “interested in men” and that Greg was in a relationship with a man. When I say ‘all of us found out’ I mean the few people he was still Facebook friends with, but news of this sort always travels fast--especially within our friend group.
I brushed it off and thought it might be a joke at first. You know, lots of young people joke about same-sex relationships on Facebook, but I knew that this just wasn't something he would joke about. I went through so many emotions when it was finally confirmed that he was gay. At first I was shocked, and then I cried for awhile. I could no longer pretend that Greg and I were close. God, I was hurt. How did this happen? I knew that I was being selfish and yet I could not help it. I was so sad, sad because we had drifted so far apart and hurt that I was no longer his best friend. I think part of me had fallen in love with him a long time ago, and I had never been forthcoming with my feelings. I felt like our friendship had slowly died, and I had just started to grieve.
I thought about things for a few days, about what I should do, or if I should do anything at all. I again reached out to him and sent him a heartfelt email (the likelihood of a returning phone call from him was slim--he hadn’t returned my calls for months). He eventually replied with a brief response back and that made me very happy. I can still remember every word. I knew that he still cared.
Hey,
You probably are wondering about me and Jim... We met several months ago, and have been talking every night since we met. I don’t know how it happened, but we had an instant connection. How are you? ...I’m sorry we haven’t talked. How’s your mom? Thanks for writing, I’ll call you soon.
It can be so confusing to discover that someone close to you is different than how they depicted themselves be. Passing can be misleading, but we live in a society where passing sometimes is the ONLY way for a person to maintain their safety and emotional well-being. No one knows someone’s personal journey, or the hardships someone may face in coming out. I knew that Greg had reasons for his silence. Maybe now our friendship would be able to rebuild.
I think when I arrive and sit down with Greg, and once we talk for awhile, I am going to tell him that I passed too in high school, and that I am still misleading others. My passing does not apply to my sexual orientation. My passing is different than Greg's and the seriousness of his passing and mine are nowhere near equal; regardless, I will tell him. I pass in the way that I put make-up on to cover all of my imperfections and blemishes. I pass in the way that I perfectly straighten all of my unruly curls and unkempt hair. I pass in the way that I exercise not for cardiovascular purposes or to fight off osteoporosis, but to conform to this normative sense of beauty that is completely unrealistic.
I passed in the way that I never told him how I really felt about him, and that I wanted to try despite the distance; I was misleading. I’m going to be the best friend that I can be. I am going to tell him that I can’t wait to meet Jim. I'm not sure what else to say, but only that I should listen--there’s never a manual to these situations.
For months I had reached out to him through every type of communication medium, wondering how he was doing in school and in life. I missed my best friend. Continuously, I had told myself that his unreturned calls, texts, and emails were because he was busy, not that he didn’t want to talk to me--not that he didn’t miss the same things I missed. We ended high school with ritual sleepovers at his house, watching silly movies, exchanging political thoughts, where my opinion was always deemed valid. We went on trips together, stayed in hostels, talked about fashion, technology, and helped inspire each other when we were both no longer motivated in school. My first year in college he had sent me roses on my birthday and Valentines Day just to let me know that someone cared--he knew that I didn’t really have a male presence in my life.
And, where were we now? It happened all so fast. Weeks of silence, turned into months of silence, and then suddenly it had been two years. I felt like we were nonexistent to one another, and above all I had no explanation for why this was the current status of our friendship. Had I done something wrong? We had never been in an argument--and he never mentioned that he was upset with me. I asked him once or twice if he was upset with me, but he would respond quickly with a no... He was busy.
And now, after two years of no communication, I was driving to meet him. It had been too long--he and I both knew this. It would take me about two and a half hours to get to our hometown--just enough time for me to plan conversation starters in case bouts of silence occur between us. He hardly ever came home--he was always in some type of internship or job.
Ahh, Greg. I smile when I think of him. People are naturally drawn to Greg, primarily because of his charm, witty remarks, good looks, and confidence. He is so knowledgeable--one of those individuals that can be classified as a’ lifelong learner.’ You know the type, right? The person that reads the news every morning, subscribes to The Economist, and can still do all of the assigned homework and go to bed at a decent time.
I met Greg in high school. We weren’t immediately friends, but we gradually became friends. He was extremely supportive of me during a time of need where many other people weren’t.
For years, students at school had joked that Greg was gay, but I never believed it--I defended him several times in high school telling people to shut up. We went to a very conservative high school, and lived in a very, very small, conservative town... Hell, even professors that had been teaching at our high school for 10+ years had never come out. I was very protective of him because he was special to me. We both knew we had a unique relationship that we both did not quite understand... We were young.
I guess I had always assumed Greg was heterosexual because he had told me that he was. Looking back, I remember him speaking of past flings with women. I had asked him a few times if he was dating anyone in college, and he would always say that he didn’t have time, which is very true; he is one of the busiest people I know.
First and foremost, Greg was my friend, and I never really questioned or ‘saw’ his sexual orientation... I only saw him, as true friends do. He was my friend but I eventually developed feelings for him. I wanted to tell him many times, but nothing ever came of it because of the distance, the timing of college, etcetera.
I found out through Facebook that Greg was gay. We all did. One day it just said “interested in men” and that Greg was in a relationship with a man. When I say ‘all of us found out’ I mean the few people he was still Facebook friends with, but news of this sort always travels fast--especially within our friend group.
I brushed it off and thought it might be a joke at first. You know, lots of young people joke about same-sex relationships on Facebook, but I knew that this just wasn't something he would joke about. I went through so many emotions when it was finally confirmed that he was gay. At first I was shocked, and then I cried for awhile. I could no longer pretend that Greg and I were close. God, I was hurt. How did this happen? I knew that I was being selfish and yet I could not help it. I was so sad, sad because we had drifted so far apart and hurt that I was no longer his best friend. I think part of me had fallen in love with him a long time ago, and I had never been forthcoming with my feelings. I felt like our friendship had slowly died, and I had just started to grieve.
I thought about things for a few days, about what I should do, or if I should do anything at all. I again reached out to him and sent him a heartfelt email (the likelihood of a returning phone call from him was slim--he hadn’t returned my calls for months). He eventually replied with a brief response back and that made me very happy. I can still remember every word. I knew that he still cared.
Hey,
You probably are wondering about me and Jim... We met several months ago, and have been talking every night since we met. I don’t know how it happened, but we had an instant connection. How are you? ...I’m sorry we haven’t talked. How’s your mom? Thanks for writing, I’ll call you soon.
It can be so confusing to discover that someone close to you is different than how they depicted themselves be. Passing can be misleading, but we live in a society where passing sometimes is the ONLY way for a person to maintain their safety and emotional well-being. No one knows someone’s personal journey, or the hardships someone may face in coming out. I knew that Greg had reasons for his silence. Maybe now our friendship would be able to rebuild.
I think when I arrive and sit down with Greg, and once we talk for awhile, I am going to tell him that I passed too in high school, and that I am still misleading others. My passing does not apply to my sexual orientation. My passing is different than Greg's and the seriousness of his passing and mine are nowhere near equal; regardless, I will tell him. I pass in the way that I put make-up on to cover all of my imperfections and blemishes. I pass in the way that I perfectly straighten all of my unruly curls and unkempt hair. I pass in the way that I exercise not for cardiovascular purposes or to fight off osteoporosis, but to conform to this normative sense of beauty that is completely unrealistic.
I passed in the way that I never told him how I really felt about him, and that I wanted to try despite the distance; I was misleading. I’m going to be the best friend that I can be. I am going to tell him that I can’t wait to meet Jim. I'm not sure what else to say, but only that I should listen--there’s never a manual to these situations.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Just one word By Sabrina Lopez
Watch the bridges
Crawl and curl
Under…over
Forcibly black and white
Letters hidden within the cracks
Of cold, grey stones
That never melt
Now watch her hands
Buried, searching
Where’s her label?
Throats swell with fear
No not that one…please
If she could just find the right letters
Under this umbrella
Swallowing, hungry
While they avoid cool eyes
Seas of silence
I can’t just be one word
But they say…
She can’t love her
He can’t release her
She can’t be him
He can’t touch him
So you have to be
Rivers that dance deep
With tiny squares of society’s box
So slip inside with everyone else
For acceptance that will never come
No doors, no windows
You can never fit whole
I dare you to find a way out
Because there isn’t one
You see
She can’t run too fast
Without falling over the bridges
That flow
Just like she should...
Just like we should
Art piece by Gelila Lulseged
Saturday, November 27, 2010
How to Grow by A. Kalena Williams
The readings for the last few classes inspired me to share a Queer fiction piece I wrote for my fiction workshop. Please feel free to add critiques and comments you would only be helping me. :)
How to Grow
The concept of brunch is misleading. I think of families laughing over grapefruit and Belgium waffles and picking over each others’ meals because they aren’t strangers. Marisol and I can’t laugh together because I don’t know her. I knew Andres. I want to know where my brother went. I look at Marisol with her long brown hair filled with tiny golden threads and search for remnants of him in the creases oh her hands. Marisol takes a sip of her orange juice and leaves a magenta stain on her glass. She is a clone of Eva Longoria. She lifts her shades to order because she is not hiding behind them. I stare at the menu hoping I didn’t do my math wrong. I’m a clone of America Ferrera.
I am stiff in my chair, while she is practically in lotus position talking about her new place, about how she is taking up gardening. “What are you going to plant first?” I don’t actually want to know but we’re playing a game so I ask. “You know I think I may plant a few trees in the back to have more shade.” She pauses hoping I will contribute to her plans but instead I stare at the little green eyed boy in front of me eating apple slices. I want to smile and then cry. I shake the sadness out of my outgrown bob and forfeit the game. “So you still like trees?” I asked. She nodded as she removed her shades and placed them on the table. I wonder if Redwoods are still her favorite.
When Andres was well, my brother Andres and not Marisol, he would cry when trees where cut as if he was a branch being torn from its trunk by a rusted blade. But that was when he was seven and I was five and we weren’t ashamed of our emotions. In time however, we would learn to shed our childhood for tougher skin to make it through the daily contests we always lost.
Andres lost the most. He lost the ability to make the words on the pages stay in one place. He tried to keep the p’s from looking like q’s d’s and b’s but the girls were yelling again and he couldn’t concentrate. Someone else was leaving, someone else had a baby, someone else was going to have to teach him how to read because his tutors were dropping like flies better yet, they were leaving like they had been kicked out of the house for getting pregnant at 17, 16, 15. I was lucky. I relied only on myself when it came to book smarts.
Afterschool we would always study in the kitchen. “The red wood forest is the only place the red trees grow.” After thirty-five minutes he managed to read one sentence. He closed the book and began to wash his hands in the kitchen sink. I was reading our sister Angie’s journal to see if she would be the next to go play house. “Let’s make a snack Nati.” “You should probably finish your homework.” “I’m almost done.” “You read one sentence.” “So how about grilled cheeses and green apples?” “OK. Fine” I would always give in. He would only let me help him that way. I tried to teach him how to read but he just starred at the pages for hours, even when he gave up on deciphering the words. He would look at the pictures and tell the story he saw. This worked pretty well until the books he read no longer had photos. After that he began to sink inside himself and even I wasn’t allowed in.
I watch Marisol neatly eat her crepes. I wanted to know what happened that day after we finished the last of the apple slices but she was more focused on small talk. I had lost track of Marisol’s progress on the house, she was saying something about changing the color of the living room then going for modern light fixtures in one room to antique fixtures somewhere else. She was stalling. “I can’t believe we’ve only been talking about me. How are you?” Even behind my shades she notices my impatience. Whatever she wanted to say since she called me last Monday, “Hi Natalia, have brunch with me. I miss you” was going to pour out soon in front of all these happy people. “I can’t complain.” I really couldn’t.
I have been trying Buddhism for a while now; the whole concept of “ending suffering” drew me in. It’s the only reason I am here today. “This can be a healing experience if you let it be.” The words of my teacher no longer made me think I was in Jedi training. “Don’t empower negativity.” “Take the time to free your mind.” “When you hold grudges you enable suffering.” They have turned into quiet mantras I whisper as I adjust my worn tote bags filled with overdue notices on my shoulder while walking the seven blocks to the write for a magazine no one ever reads.
As I slump in my chair I claw at the phrase “This can be a healing experience if you let it be.” I take another bite of my bagel. Take one last glance at the little boy as he waddles out the door. This Bistro in the valley is a clone of the clean ones for tourists in Hollywood. I take my shades off and look at my sister. Andres is gone.
My brother was my soul mate before I knew what one was. I never really had sisters. I had nice girls that would brush my hair and told me stories to go to sleep before their boyfriends came to tap on the windows late at night. They didn’t know me and left the house before they could. I had been waiting for this, for some way to piece the yesterdays back together. I was done with the ugly pleasantries. They were remnants of the mariansimo I thought I had peeled away from after picking it apart while getting my B.A.
We no longer play make-believe. Marisol strokes her shades as if she wants to be strangers again. Before she has time to really ponder it I speak again. “Why didn’t you tell me? I used to feel sorry for you but then I realized it was happening to me too. To all of us so I just started to feel sorry for myself.” “Your editor Shawn tells me you are covering the opening next week, will you promise not to leave until you see the whole exhibit?”
Andres would do this all the time. He was three steps ahead of me when it came to things like this. No matter how many words I could read I could never quite predict his reasoning. “I know you are struggling with stuff right now Nati, I also know that we don’t know each other anymore. One conversation over one meal won’t help us. Besides words were never my thing. I can show you the answers you want or atleast a way to find them.” I stare at the remainder of my fruit salad.
That day we were studying in the kitchen Andres told me he had something to show me. He had the biggest smile on his face and I got excited. I chewed the apple slice as quick as I could and ran after Andres to Susie’s old room which was Sara’s old room before that.
There’s only a few dresses in the closet, heels scattered on the floor like they’d been picked over, and a white comforter over the bed. All things you leave when you have to grow up and have babies. Susie had left her favorite shirt on the bedroom floor before she left the house. It had been lazily swept under the bed, where all things went when wewere supposed to clean the house. Andres retrieves it as if he knew it was down there.
He puts it over his clothes and it fits like an oversized dress. “Did you wear my shirt? It feels bigger then it was last week.” His impression of Susie was flawless. And it helped that they looked the most alike. “That’s perfect!” I laughed. He even held his hands like her. His green eyes glowed as he twirled his dress. I think he forgot that I was in the empty room with him. “Kids!!! Andres, not again, why do you like to do that. Your sister has been harassing me for this thing.”Andres yanked the dress off, walks past my mother, and grabs my hand. We walk back to the kitchen. I wanted to ask him what mama meant but he had the dead trees look in his eyes, so I thought otherwise.
I look up to see Marisol’s face she has the same green eyes as before, as always. Even when Andres became Andy and only looked at me when he was tapping on my bedroom window after mama locked him out for skipping curfew, or because she found his makeup bag, they never changed. They always seemed too say, I wish we could be kids forever.
“The redwood forest is the only place where the redwood tree grows.” Andres closes the book because that’s all he needs to know. Marisol is like a red wood herself, she was forced to grow in one place until she convinced others to cut her down and take her with them.
We had both tried to escape the pattern our sisters created. I struggled in school and landed a job on the bottom of the journalist food chain writing for angry lesbians. Marisol worked gods know where to pay for her surgery and then took up photography. She was lucky enough to gain a kudzu like following and is comfortable at 32, at least financially. But we both lost everyone even each other. We should have just been normal and had babies as teenagers.
I sigh and agree to all of the conditions Marisol mentions, she graciously pays for our meals and I wave goodbye not yet ready to embrace her. We had opened a wound and had barely begun to treat it. I would have to wait for the 16th of September when Marisol débuted her photography exhibit titled Funeral.
I didn’t want to be there but questions that need answers. More importantly I had bills to pay. Bills that did not care if I hated the crappy “how to” pieces I was forced to write to prove myself to the magazine. When I first received this assignment I thought it would be the piece I had been aching to write: “How to Spot Queer Art: Today’s Top Ten Queer Artists”. Since art had many interpretations I thought I would have free reign but Shawn who was not only the editor of Grapefruit but a controlling Octabitch already picked the artists. Once again I was still stuck writing for someone else.
That night I stood in front of the gallery and held a promotional card in my hand. Behind the when and where was a photo of six manikins four girls make a perfect row in the back a younger girl and a younger boy are in the front, They are in a forest with bare trees. Although this was the opening night, the title of the exhibit: Funeral, told me everything. I knew what she was going to do and a familiar unease settled inside me. She was going to kill my brother, again.
I stepped into the gallery the typical white walls were painted sandstone and made my red button up and black blazer standout as I maneuvered through the entrance. The first photo I see is called Hermana and is the same one that is on the card. The photo has a captive audience around it. They unknowingly swoon over our childhood. I look at the photo and feel sick. I hated the day that photo represents.
That day, my hair was slicked back and braided tightly to keep in the wildness. My dress was 66% starchy tool and 34% polyester. My neck and belly itched underneath it, my sprit itched underneath that. I am holding Andres' hand and he is wearing a stiff maroon button up shirt with a bolo tie, black slacks and crocodile boots with a metal toe that matched his aglets. We grasp each other's hands hoping we could teleport somewhere else. But instead we are ushered to my sister’s wedding reception which would not end until 8 am the next morning.
After five hours of our drunk “tios” telling us to get them more beer, Andres and I ran to a back room and with little dialog, exchanged clothes. In our innocent joy we returned to the party and resumed our waitressing roles. Mama was furious when she saw us. The next week she shipped Andres to our Tio Mario’s house for the whole summer, figured he needed a male role model. That summer I begin to slip into the pages of the stories I read and when that was not enough I would write my own. Before I walked to the next photo I realized that the younger girl has green eyes. Mine are brown.
There is a nervous smile on my face. A survival skill I learned from my mother. I smile to save face and so I am not judged for burning inside as she did that day she shoved us to the bathroom to lock me back in my dress and Andres in his pants and tie. When we saw that smile as we walk through the party, we knew our mother was hurting. The guilt seeped into our small chests and we began to hurt too.
Marisol must have kept that smile with her as well because her next photo is a remake of our mother. The woman in the photo had a scarf over her head and was starring into the candles that lined a mantle. My mother prayed to the Virgen many times a day hoping for answers and all she was given was the strength to cope. Although she would never admit it, after awhile, she began to think she was cursed for leaving Mexico and her husband. Curse or no, the strength she had to leave that day was what helped me love her even when she no longer loved me or Andres, or Marisol.
I pass many other photos and after the seventh one they had begun to tell stories about a world I only saw hints of in those green eyes as we grew older. One of the last photos was of a figure balled up back against a white wall. Everything was blurred except the hands. The nails were manicured and painted magenta, the hands covered in makeup covered the face. The photo was titled Andie. My throat tightened and it was hard to swallow to breathe. I began to understand. Andres was burden, a lie my mother tried to mold Marisol into. Here in these photos Marisol was trying to kill the burden that laced the beautiful parts of the Mestizaje our mother shared with us in the womb. Tears escaped from my brown eyes and soothed my burning cheeks that were still trying to maintain my pride with a smile.
In a startling motion I am disoriented and find myself in an embrace. Marisol has found me and I have found her. I quiet the rush of emotions inside and hug her back. She smells like the children we will never have. She lets go and we look at one another there was so much to recover and I had only just begun to understand. Her eyes held back tears, they were the only part that still hurt like she used to when she was merely a secret hidden behind a body.
That night I realized that I had been running from many of the answers I had been looking for. There is something in our family, in our culture that kept us from growing into the people we wanted to be. And it wasn’t my mother’s fault alone, someone had taught her how to limit her expectations and her identity. What else could she do but perpetuate the cycle? To transcend the norm meant an internal loneliness because no one really gets you, you don’t even get it all the time. I guess I am lucky to have Marisol at least now we can be lonely together.
How to Grow
The concept of brunch is misleading. I think of families laughing over grapefruit and Belgium waffles and picking over each others’ meals because they aren’t strangers. Marisol and I can’t laugh together because I don’t know her. I knew Andres. I want to know where my brother went. I look at Marisol with her long brown hair filled with tiny golden threads and search for remnants of him in the creases oh her hands. Marisol takes a sip of her orange juice and leaves a magenta stain on her glass. She is a clone of Eva Longoria. She lifts her shades to order because she is not hiding behind them. I stare at the menu hoping I didn’t do my math wrong. I’m a clone of America Ferrera.
I am stiff in my chair, while she is practically in lotus position talking about her new place, about how she is taking up gardening. “What are you going to plant first?” I don’t actually want to know but we’re playing a game so I ask. “You know I think I may plant a few trees in the back to have more shade.” She pauses hoping I will contribute to her plans but instead I stare at the little green eyed boy in front of me eating apple slices. I want to smile and then cry. I shake the sadness out of my outgrown bob and forfeit the game. “So you still like trees?” I asked. She nodded as she removed her shades and placed them on the table. I wonder if Redwoods are still her favorite.
When Andres was well, my brother Andres and not Marisol, he would cry when trees where cut as if he was a branch being torn from its trunk by a rusted blade. But that was when he was seven and I was five and we weren’t ashamed of our emotions. In time however, we would learn to shed our childhood for tougher skin to make it through the daily contests we always lost.
Andres lost the most. He lost the ability to make the words on the pages stay in one place. He tried to keep the p’s from looking like q’s d’s and b’s but the girls were yelling again and he couldn’t concentrate. Someone else was leaving, someone else had a baby, someone else was going to have to teach him how to read because his tutors were dropping like flies better yet, they were leaving like they had been kicked out of the house for getting pregnant at 17, 16, 15. I was lucky. I relied only on myself when it came to book smarts.
Afterschool we would always study in the kitchen. “The red wood forest is the only place the red trees grow.” After thirty-five minutes he managed to read one sentence. He closed the book and began to wash his hands in the kitchen sink. I was reading our sister Angie’s journal to see if she would be the next to go play house. “Let’s make a snack Nati.” “You should probably finish your homework.” “I’m almost done.” “You read one sentence.” “So how about grilled cheeses and green apples?” “OK. Fine” I would always give in. He would only let me help him that way. I tried to teach him how to read but he just starred at the pages for hours, even when he gave up on deciphering the words. He would look at the pictures and tell the story he saw. This worked pretty well until the books he read no longer had photos. After that he began to sink inside himself and even I wasn’t allowed in.
I watch Marisol neatly eat her crepes. I wanted to know what happened that day after we finished the last of the apple slices but she was more focused on small talk. I had lost track of Marisol’s progress on the house, she was saying something about changing the color of the living room then going for modern light fixtures in one room to antique fixtures somewhere else. She was stalling. “I can’t believe we’ve only been talking about me. How are you?” Even behind my shades she notices my impatience. Whatever she wanted to say since she called me last Monday, “Hi Natalia, have brunch with me. I miss you” was going to pour out soon in front of all these happy people. “I can’t complain.” I really couldn’t.
I have been trying Buddhism for a while now; the whole concept of “ending suffering” drew me in. It’s the only reason I am here today. “This can be a healing experience if you let it be.” The words of my teacher no longer made me think I was in Jedi training. “Don’t empower negativity.” “Take the time to free your mind.” “When you hold grudges you enable suffering.” They have turned into quiet mantras I whisper as I adjust my worn tote bags filled with overdue notices on my shoulder while walking the seven blocks to the write for a magazine no one ever reads.
As I slump in my chair I claw at the phrase “This can be a healing experience if you let it be.” I take another bite of my bagel. Take one last glance at the little boy as he waddles out the door. This Bistro in the valley is a clone of the clean ones for tourists in Hollywood. I take my shades off and look at my sister. Andres is gone.
My brother was my soul mate before I knew what one was. I never really had sisters. I had nice girls that would brush my hair and told me stories to go to sleep before their boyfriends came to tap on the windows late at night. They didn’t know me and left the house before they could. I had been waiting for this, for some way to piece the yesterdays back together. I was done with the ugly pleasantries. They were remnants of the mariansimo I thought I had peeled away from after picking it apart while getting my B.A.
We no longer play make-believe. Marisol strokes her shades as if she wants to be strangers again. Before she has time to really ponder it I speak again. “Why didn’t you tell me? I used to feel sorry for you but then I realized it was happening to me too. To all of us so I just started to feel sorry for myself.” “Your editor Shawn tells me you are covering the opening next week, will you promise not to leave until you see the whole exhibit?”
Andres would do this all the time. He was three steps ahead of me when it came to things like this. No matter how many words I could read I could never quite predict his reasoning. “I know you are struggling with stuff right now Nati, I also know that we don’t know each other anymore. One conversation over one meal won’t help us. Besides words were never my thing. I can show you the answers you want or atleast a way to find them.” I stare at the remainder of my fruit salad.
That day we were studying in the kitchen Andres told me he had something to show me. He had the biggest smile on his face and I got excited. I chewed the apple slice as quick as I could and ran after Andres to Susie’s old room which was Sara’s old room before that.
There’s only a few dresses in the closet, heels scattered on the floor like they’d been picked over, and a white comforter over the bed. All things you leave when you have to grow up and have babies. Susie had left her favorite shirt on the bedroom floor before she left the house. It had been lazily swept under the bed, where all things went when wewere supposed to clean the house. Andres retrieves it as if he knew it was down there.
He puts it over his clothes and it fits like an oversized dress. “Did you wear my shirt? It feels bigger then it was last week.” His impression of Susie was flawless. And it helped that they looked the most alike. “That’s perfect!” I laughed. He even held his hands like her. His green eyes glowed as he twirled his dress. I think he forgot that I was in the empty room with him. “Kids!!! Andres, not again, why do you like to do that. Your sister has been harassing me for this thing.”Andres yanked the dress off, walks past my mother, and grabs my hand. We walk back to the kitchen. I wanted to ask him what mama meant but he had the dead trees look in his eyes, so I thought otherwise.
I look up to see Marisol’s face she has the same green eyes as before, as always. Even when Andres became Andy and only looked at me when he was tapping on my bedroom window after mama locked him out for skipping curfew, or because she found his makeup bag, they never changed. They always seemed too say, I wish we could be kids forever.
“The redwood forest is the only place where the redwood tree grows.” Andres closes the book because that’s all he needs to know. Marisol is like a red wood herself, she was forced to grow in one place until she convinced others to cut her down and take her with them.
We had both tried to escape the pattern our sisters created. I struggled in school and landed a job on the bottom of the journalist food chain writing for angry lesbians. Marisol worked gods know where to pay for her surgery and then took up photography. She was lucky enough to gain a kudzu like following and is comfortable at 32, at least financially. But we both lost everyone even each other. We should have just been normal and had babies as teenagers.
I sigh and agree to all of the conditions Marisol mentions, she graciously pays for our meals and I wave goodbye not yet ready to embrace her. We had opened a wound and had barely begun to treat it. I would have to wait for the 16th of September when Marisol débuted her photography exhibit titled Funeral.
I didn’t want to be there but questions that need answers. More importantly I had bills to pay. Bills that did not care if I hated the crappy “how to” pieces I was forced to write to prove myself to the magazine. When I first received this assignment I thought it would be the piece I had been aching to write: “How to Spot Queer Art: Today’s Top Ten Queer Artists”. Since art had many interpretations I thought I would have free reign but Shawn who was not only the editor of Grapefruit but a controlling Octabitch already picked the artists. Once again I was still stuck writing for someone else.
That night I stood in front of the gallery and held a promotional card in my hand. Behind the when and where was a photo of six manikins four girls make a perfect row in the back a younger girl and a younger boy are in the front, They are in a forest with bare trees. Although this was the opening night, the title of the exhibit: Funeral, told me everything. I knew what she was going to do and a familiar unease settled inside me. She was going to kill my brother, again.
I stepped into the gallery the typical white walls were painted sandstone and made my red button up and black blazer standout as I maneuvered through the entrance. The first photo I see is called Hermana and is the same one that is on the card. The photo has a captive audience around it. They unknowingly swoon over our childhood. I look at the photo and feel sick. I hated the day that photo represents.
That day, my hair was slicked back and braided tightly to keep in the wildness. My dress was 66% starchy tool and 34% polyester. My neck and belly itched underneath it, my sprit itched underneath that. I am holding Andres' hand and he is wearing a stiff maroon button up shirt with a bolo tie, black slacks and crocodile boots with a metal toe that matched his aglets. We grasp each other's hands hoping we could teleport somewhere else. But instead we are ushered to my sister’s wedding reception which would not end until 8 am the next morning.
After five hours of our drunk “tios” telling us to get them more beer, Andres and I ran to a back room and with little dialog, exchanged clothes. In our innocent joy we returned to the party and resumed our waitressing roles. Mama was furious when she saw us. The next week she shipped Andres to our Tio Mario’s house for the whole summer, figured he needed a male role model. That summer I begin to slip into the pages of the stories I read and when that was not enough I would write my own. Before I walked to the next photo I realized that the younger girl has green eyes. Mine are brown.
There is a nervous smile on my face. A survival skill I learned from my mother. I smile to save face and so I am not judged for burning inside as she did that day she shoved us to the bathroom to lock me back in my dress and Andres in his pants and tie. When we saw that smile as we walk through the party, we knew our mother was hurting. The guilt seeped into our small chests and we began to hurt too.
Marisol must have kept that smile with her as well because her next photo is a remake of our mother. The woman in the photo had a scarf over her head and was starring into the candles that lined a mantle. My mother prayed to the Virgen many times a day hoping for answers and all she was given was the strength to cope. Although she would never admit it, after awhile, she began to think she was cursed for leaving Mexico and her husband. Curse or no, the strength she had to leave that day was what helped me love her even when she no longer loved me or Andres, or Marisol.
I pass many other photos and after the seventh one they had begun to tell stories about a world I only saw hints of in those green eyes as we grew older. One of the last photos was of a figure balled up back against a white wall. Everything was blurred except the hands. The nails were manicured and painted magenta, the hands covered in makeup covered the face. The photo was titled Andie. My throat tightened and it was hard to swallow to breathe. I began to understand. Andres was burden, a lie my mother tried to mold Marisol into. Here in these photos Marisol was trying to kill the burden that laced the beautiful parts of the Mestizaje our mother shared with us in the womb. Tears escaped from my brown eyes and soothed my burning cheeks that were still trying to maintain my pride with a smile.
In a startling motion I am disoriented and find myself in an embrace. Marisol has found me and I have found her. I quiet the rush of emotions inside and hug her back. She smells like the children we will never have. She lets go and we look at one another there was so much to recover and I had only just begun to understand. Her eyes held back tears, they were the only part that still hurt like she used to when she was merely a secret hidden behind a body.
That night I realized that I had been running from many of the answers I had been looking for. There is something in our family, in our culture that kept us from growing into the people we wanted to be. And it wasn’t my mother’s fault alone, someone had taught her how to limit her expectations and her identity. What else could she do but perpetuate the cycle? To transcend the norm meant an internal loneliness because no one really gets you, you don’t even get it all the time. I guess I am lucky to have Marisol at least now we can be lonely together.
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