queer

November 24, 2021 (part two)

/ HJ / Leave a comment

Family means so much
to so many people

my genetic relatives profess
Family
as the utmost of all people
those who have your back no matter what
the only humans you can truly count on
(most of them still live within a thirty minute drive of each other to this day.)

my friends, my community, unaccepted within their blood kin
find Found Family
to love them
without reservation
without expectation
without conditions
and count on each other

i am lucky enough to have both
blood and non-blood relations
who love me
unconditionally
but that brings with it
division of time
of love
of feelings
of celebrations

(and it is only the Family from birth
who saw me grow as i did
which is sometimes a good thing
and sometimes a not so good thing;
and there are memories,
sometimes lovely
sometimes hard
when in their company)

but

there is an awfully grand sense of growing
when i am able to fully help with the labor
i only ever messed up or ignored
as a child;
and to be able to pass that on to
the children younger than myself…

that feeling, it’s

Indescribable.

October 11, 2021

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it’s national coming out day
but it’s also
Indigenous Peoples’ Day
(formerly [that colonizer] day)

and so, for today,
for my tiny platform,
i’m going to remind the few folks that may read this
(that may not know already)

that intersections of identity exist;
and i, a white queer,
will be quiet about me,
and hope you read the words of
queer people of color
(particularly those of indigenous and queer identities)
today
(and really every day)

(and maybe, on a different day, i’ll rant about how
queer people are so much more than their
coming out stories)

July 31, 2021

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thirty days have september,
april,
june,
and november
all the rest have thirty-one
except february which completely fucks us up and every four years gets even a little bit more complicated because time is a mortal construction and probably not as linear as people make it out to be…

i see my friends
open themselves up to the universe
to give and receive and the universe complies
sending platonic connections from years and years past,
sheltering under iridescent wingspans
and holding safe a space for baby queers;
we are the ancestors we wish we’d had
(and we do have those ancestors,
they just may not be blood)

the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb
isn’t it great how the actual saying is saying the opposite of what everyone who says it thinks they are saying?
there are a lot of things like that in this world, aren’t there?
(and do we even need to live our lives by sayings made up by humans long since dead?)

i’m still finding my way
slowly opening myself up to the universe,
trying not to ask it too greedily,
as i’m still scared it’s not real,
i’m too much of an atheist/agnostic to trust in anything outside of myself
(but, one might point out, the universe could simply be a part of ourselves that is unknown,)
and we are far more connected to one another than we think we are,
so maybe those connections are the universe
and each other are the spiritual guides,
but all of these are very ‘what if’
very potential answers
but not definites,
and it is too early for this kind of contemplation to make 100% sense
(and i was definitely up too early to be too comprehensible to others)
so we can just write this
and post it
and throw it out into the universe
and know that our place in it is constantly changing
and at times you need the guidance
and at others you are the guide
and it constantly changes
and change is good
scary
but good.

July 27, 2021

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if you are
barely over
five feet tall
and your short-legged stride
outpaces
all the New Yorkers around you
you may have a problem

however

if you are
barely over
five feet tall
and gay
and your short-legged stride
outpaces
all the New Yorkers around you
that’s just fine.

July 12, 2021

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i don’t know why
it never occurred to me
to use my “weaknesses” as strengths
in acting.

i always pondered using my
quick-to-cry
sensations
as a way to
trick
my body
into crying on cue

but that never worked

and i think the key word there
is
“trick.”

i consider my passions
my caring too much
my crying when i’m frustrated
as the “bad” parts of my personality
mostly because they do get in the way
of living a normal life

but i don’t live a normal life

i’m an actor
and rather
than trick my subconscious
into using the base reactions
of my weaknesses as strengths
what if i actually and fully used my whole “weaknesses”
as my strengths?

i’m passionate,
so passionate,
i sometimes can’t decide
on which side
i align
(i solidly stand on the side of progress and compassion,
but with so much wrong with the world,
it’s difficult to concentrate
on just one issue,)
so i so often feel
overwhelmed
and lost
and without an outlet to create actual change
and i often force myself to try to decide
on just one
but
i’ve always considered my social justice life
and my acting life,
while influenced by social justice,
separate
(unless i’m performing in a thing
that is aiming towards creating
social changing)
but, just like i need to stop expecting
neurotypicality
from me
i also need to acknowledge that
as a queer, nonbinary, trans person
my existence holds in it
social change,
and my performing
any script
holds the passion
for some of the social change
of which i seek

and i know what my body/brain/mouth/soul feels
when i discuss a topic
about which i care deeply
and i can take that
and bring it
to other topics,
and i can cater my auditions
to those where passion is forefront
not to change my weaknesses into strengths
but to acknowledge
that all the things i thought were weak
are in fact
so
damn
strong.

June 27, 2021 (part 2), or: on Pride

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i’ve been involved
in many a Pride:
marching in the parade,
spectating,
only coming for the afterparty,
staying late,
leaving early,
volunteering,
forgoing because of work,
forgoing because of travel,
forgoing because of emotions,
huge Prides,
tiny Prides,
side Prides,
marching,
listening,
shouting,
chanting…

i’ve been lucky
to learn
beforehand
what i needed to know
to appreciate
each message,
each Pride.

i was introduced
through friends,
chosen family,
strangers,
the internet,
leaders,
who really was Marsha P. Johnson,
and i listened to Sylvia Rivera call us all out,
i learned of the sit-ins,
and the die-ins,
Act-Up,
papier mâché,
the quilt,
what Leather Daddies
and Dykes on Bikes
gave to the communities,
Stormé DeLarverie,
and so many more
i’m still learning about,
and even more
still unnamed
still faceless
who gave me the right
to fight for others’ rights
today

and i hope we continue to march,
that instead of forgoing Pride for comfort
we forgo Pride for Queer Liberation,
or at least include Queer Liberation
inside our Pride.
that we continue to march
for Black lives,
for Trans lives
for Black Trans lives
for a free Palestine
for disability rights
for a Pride
that supports us all;
sans cops
sans rainbow capitalism
supporting what Pride originally stood for

(not because i want to go back,
but because we really cannot go forward
until we are all truly free.)

June 1, 2021

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just remember, folx,
in this epoch of rainbow capitalism
that wearing your Pride is encouraging,
exciting,
exceptional,
try (if you can) to buy queer-made
so that our money funds our community,
and so that the big businesses know
they can’t obfuscate our memories
with shiny color spectrums;
we remember when they funded hate speech against us,
(and we know they have never formally apologized,
just realized they could take our money as well as our humanity
at the same damn time),
and we know the true meaning of Pride
is against the man
against the machine
against the culture of conformity.

our ancestors fought hard fights
for us to live out loud today.
let us honor their memories
by fucking with the system
that holds anyone down.

April 30, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

staring at this blank screen
trying to come up with the poems to write today
the concepts flowing in and out
thinness
and queerness
and how they intersect
body dysmorphia and dysphoria
(words i get so mixed up
because they are near equally balanced in my mind
and while they are two stems
they seem to bud into the one same flower),
and how these all intersect
but i’ve thrown a rib out of place
and i am spending a little too much time concentrating on
keeping the ice pack where it needs to be
even while my cat shifts her weight around on my lap,
and trying to pay attention to what positions i’m in
when the pain gets to a bit of a crescendo,
and apparently these are the things that my mind needs to concentrate on
not making the next great queer poetry collection
so…there’s that i guess.

[life]

September 5, 2020

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when one is used to long long car trips
four hours feels like nothing.

and when hours and hours and hours of driving
usually requires an audio distraction,
shorter distances can be all conversation
(and you can fall in love all over again,
even without first falling out)

July 7, half-heartedly edited July 21, 2020

/ HJ / Leave a comment

On my rooftop I see:

1. a green tree across the street
2. a match to the folding chair under me
3. a pigeon, hopping on the next roof, its eyes as red as the
4. red brick apartment across the road
5. a treeline, it might be the park?
6. a metal fence, so I don’t fall off
7. this private rooftop terrace, that my privilege helped get me
8. satellite dishes from DirectTV
9. a/c units sticking out of 6th floor windows
10. clouds and a flash of what may be a rainbow
11. my rainbow hair blowing in the polluted wind
12. no sign nor sight of a way to make this poem end
13. sounds of busses, bodega music, wings flapping, construction; scents of the laundromat around the corner,
and wind, so much wind, against my face, feeling a chill on this hot New York afternoon, perhaps//

a loud boom, a bang, was it from the west or the east?
i strain my neck over the gate, and the only answer i see
is the smell of the garbage truck, stopped on my street.

i have so many unfinished poems written
but not the stomach to stomach the rereading.