Human Connection

I don't want to get too good at being alone...

9 Parts of Desire

Tonight I saw the play "9 Parts of Desire". It was beautiful. And sad. And intense. 

The premise of the play is this: one woman plays the parts of 9 Iraqi women who are talking to an interviewer. During their interviews they share their experiences of life before and during the Gulf and Iraq wars. Each story is very moving as they express all the nuances of living in fear. And all the nuances of finding enjoyment and peace and pleasure where ever they can. The violence that is a common theme among the women is gripping. And equally gripping is the disclosure of a doctor who has been delivering mutated baby after mutated baby that she herself is pregnant and that she doesn't know how she will be able to look at all these malformed infants when they grow up. 

Like the war in Iraq and the constant news coverage that faces us all, this play does not let up. There are several lighter moments thrown in, but from start to finish it is one full story of intense emotion.

Magnet Poetry for Posterity's Sake

Music is to smear

red sex passion

deep into

raw nude rhythm.

Monuments need green aesthetic.

I remember my first dress.

Every straight man

is a femme in the closet.

Use more leather.

Transitions

Tell someone you are transgender, give them enough time, and I am willing to bet you will eventually be asked where you are in transition. Everyone seems to be obsessed with transition. There is an assumption that all transfolk who were assigned male at birth want to be female and that all transfolk who were assigned female at birth want to be male. There is an assumption that the end point to being transgender is to have crossed the gender binary and to once again fit neatly into one of the two boxes (of course there is also an assumed, and much focused upon, surgery that goes with that as well). These assumptions often are made from within the trans community too- not just from without. What most fail to realize, though, is that the idea of transition doesn’t apply to all transfolk. Certainly the idea of a definitive one-gender-to-the-other idea of a transition doesn’t apply to a large portion of transfolk. It doesn’t even need to be this giant, all-consuming, concerted effort that it so often is portrayed as.

“This is my secret: trans[folk] don’t ‘do’ transition. People say things like ‘When you transitioned’ and ‘when you made your change’ and they have no idea what they are talking about. Transition isn’t an active verb, but a passive one. You don’t transition, you simply stop resisting transition, you just give in. You just stop fighting. You just let the current sweep you away. Transition is a sacrifice, like an act of submission, like going to sleep, like dying. Maybe sex is like that too. Maybe everything is.” -Stacey Montgomery Scott

What if the idea of a transition simply meant that we allowed ourselves to be who we are- that we stopped pretending, stopped acting, stopped misbehaving, stopped pushing? What if the idea of transition simply meant a wardrobe change for one person, a full SRS for another person, a hormone regimen for another person, nothing for another person, a change in behavior for another person, and another person, and another person, and that all these changes were seen as equal transitions? They don’t all mean that boys become girls or that girls become boys. They idea of transition is allowed to also represent those who go from being boys to being another gender. And girls who become another gender. And the other genders are recognized. And moving and flowing between all the genders becomes easier and acknowledged and allowed. 

We in the trans community so often complain about the male and female genders/spaces being policed. How about we stop also policing the spaces for transition and the spaces for other genders? How about we let this whole gender experience just happen and end the rules and expectations for all of it?

Cling Wrap

How fortunate it is to wake up in the middle of the night and remember that lying there in bed with you is someone who is so beautiful and so amazing. Someone who you love so very much. How wonderful it feels to cradle them in your arms and to feel their arms around you. But how to tell them you love them when you're not sure it's what they want to hear? To risk everything to lose it all. To risk it all to gain everything. And so there is silence. An extra unspoken squeeze during a hug. Perhaps a reciprocal look in the silent gazes. Is it possible that too much is being read in that perfect smile? Sigh.

Random Text Message: Elaborated

In this mechanized metropolis there is no park. It is all grey and desolate and polluted. At the far end of the park there is a hopeful sight. Upon a bench four dusty corpses sit in a row. Each living their own death. Each waiting for a reward from their previous life. A flower bud struggles to reach high enough between their decay to bloom. Only a few more inches. Yet her neck is craned and her legs stretched all the way out already. It begins to rain...

HMS Life

It seems that life is as a ship at sea.

The energy levels rise, crest, and fall as waves.

Sometimes in a frenzy, the emotions pitch the boat back and forth,

Eventually calming to a gentle rocking again.

Sometimes land comes into sight.

And sometimes all is adrift with no hope of rescue.

It is a constant struggle to stay aloft.

A struggle not to fall into the undertow.

A struggle against raiding ships only after your goods.

Then there are days when the sun shines and the wind softly blows.

And on those days everything is perfect as headway is made.

Alas, on the high seas those perfect days are few.

But for a port or a harbor to anchor at.