How the west was won

Wisconsin was the first place that I encountered homophobic slurs in bathroom scrawl. I had encountered bathroom scrawl before, mostly in mens washrooms, but it was mostly of a more banal variety. I mean, some of it was sexist, most of it was idiotic, but it was rarely, if ever scary. At the med school in Davis, CA, I remember finding a note that said "I should have gone to Stanford instead," and after thinking about the long hours of thankless studying and demoralizing institutional culture, I sympathized with his feelings of learning later that an important choice was poorly met.

It's not what you're saying, it's what I'm hearing

One of the first times I was at the UW Milwaukee campus, a group of us were in the bathrooms in the Union, only to discover such uplifting commentary as "Die AIDS faggots". I was shocked. Somehow I just couldn't understand where the author was coming from. Was he a jilted lover, infected and left to suffer the consequences? Was he a right wing soapboxer? A closet case? Are we still trapped in the 1980's preconceptions of AIDS as a 'gay' disease? Does he somehow think a virus is going to morally differentiate between the virgin mary homo and the straight cum dumpster of tinsel town? What is he so afraid of, that he needs to share his opinions in this way?

Last week I had seen something in one of the stalls at work about somebody or other being a faggot. I didn't recognize the name, and it wasn't until today that I realized that all of the stalls in that bathroom were scrawled with "Nate Higgins is a faggot". And the more I sat and stared at the nondescript hand writing, the more I realized the less I knew. Who was this Nate? And did the author mean this literally, or was it some kind of slur against his masculinity? Is it fair to ask clarifying questions in this semipublic forum?

Ten minutes at the computer offered up the insight that this 'Nate' probably was not a co-worker or student in the building, but rather a hockey coach in the upper midwest college hockey circuit.

Which leads me to question of how to respond. Leaving it there seems to endorse the homophobia that it engenders. And yet removing it is censorship. After thinking about it for a while, I decided the best response was something that both calls this issue out into the open and obfuscates it by invoking other stereotypes of masculinity, colonialism and sexuality:

"Hey honey, there ain't nothing wrong with a little buttlove, it's how the west was won."

Heimkehr: In Between Berlin and the Great Plains

I'm already here,
on these Great Plains
that draw the storms of the summer
up like a great fit of temper
inside the body of a small child.
But I'm still feeling you inside me.

How can you be so far away,
when I can still taste the cool smoothness
of your water on my skin?
when the stink of your humanity
still clings to my clothes and burns my eyes?
How can you be so far away
when the beauty of your
damaged past still haunts me so?
when you've fed me so well
in my clumsy machinations
through your streets?

And I know,
that with every passing week,
the details of everything I adore about you
will begin to fade
and you'll become a dead caricature
of puppetry and mirrors
intangible at the edge of my vision
and fading evermore into the distance.

The adventures become episodes,
constrained by fences of time and space
until they finally fall under the realm of
"That was then, and this is now:
and it's time to move on."

Berlin: Long Days and Cool Nights

Alone in a city where everyone seems to be in love.
Where are you sleeping tonight?
My bed is so full of ghosts,
Nesting with my sleepless nights.
And yours is so full of hers.
Between the bruises and the teeth marks,
there's a silence that strangles
my frozen heart.
I find myself sleeping on the bus, in class.
Anywhere the noise is loud enough,
To keep the silence at bay.

Emigrant

(for U. Utah Phillips)

Not from here.
Just passing through
from nowhere in particular.
Some little town
that got plowed under
to make way for the latest
the greatest,
to make way for the bright lights
and the best conveniences
that money could buy
like we've never known before.

And we sold it all, even ourselves
with bright eyes and hopeful hearts
to the slick suits
who never once knew
the smell of the rain
falling through the trees

But I'm taking up too much
of your perfectly manicured space
with my torn clothes and my hobo stories.
I guess it's time I be moving on.

Pedestrian

Walking.
Walking nowhere in particular
Waiting to find
a place worth running to
waiting for something
to come to me
something more
than the dusty street signs
I've been reading
ever since I left the house.
but settling into a pace
where every step
carries me a little farther forward.

Happenstance Poetry of Found Words

Dear Neighbor,

Just so you know, we can hear when you talk very loud (like when there are people over), when you play your music loud we can hear that too, and, yes, we can hear when you are having sex (like at 4 this morning) because you are loud. If it's after 11:30 on a weeknight we would all (and I think I can speak for the apartments next to, above, and below yours) appreciate it if you would do these things a little more quietly.
Thanks,
Your neighbor who did not get any sleep last night due to the noise from your apt.


When I read this letter, I feel like I should think about the situation it represents, but I can't help but wonder about the person behind it. The handwriting is loopy and strikes me as feminine. So I give her names in my mind such as "the comma horder" who can't make it through a sentence without at least five commas, "the paranthesis gardener" who needs to plant paranthesis in every sentence, the "blunt conciliator" who is very firm about the time that she would like things to be a 'little more quiet', the "dependent clause dependent" who needs at least two dependent clauses to to describe any situation.

Then I think about writing a response to this letter, and how hard it would be to drop the letter at the post office. Not because of any lingering shame, but rather because of the name. Would the postal workers appreciate a letter addressed to 'the neighbor who did not get any sleep last night due to the loud sex in apt 5'?

But then again, what would the letter contain? An apology? Earplugs? A condom?

I have a theory that for every question there's at least one good answer. So I thought about it for a while and decided that a good answer would be:

Dear Neighbor,

Sorry about the noise last night. Next time we'll use the ball gag.

Yours Truly,

Seven Summers into Life

She cracked one eye open at me. I should know better than to bother my older sister when she's napping. The hammock swayed slightly under her weight. "What?!" The word was more of a statement and less of a question, but I took it as encouragement anyway. "I caught a lizard! He's blue and green and orange and beautiful!" She sighed, like she had more important things to do than listen to her younger sibling natter on about lizards. She popped her gum. "Sure". I opened my hands cautiously, trying to show off but not release the lizard held captive between my gritty fingers.

The lizard's belly was bright blue even though his back was a boring brownish-green with the exception of bright orange spots around its ears. The cool lizard had warmed considerably on the walk up from the creek and exploded from my hands. It was gone before I even realized it was moving. I looked up at my sister with tears in my eyes. "Did you see it?" She smiled. "Sure did. Best I've seen all day."

Handywork

There are times when I miss working on the farm. I miss the repetitive motions that let my body work itself raw while leaving my mind to work on its own perturbations. Today I reshelved every volume of the Journal of the American Medical Association from pre-1900 up to 1960. If my wrists were on the outside of my body, they would be bleeding right now. But there's an honesty in the physicality of that work that doesn't exist when I get paid to feed papers into the bureaucracy.

I miss the fact that no matter how much I ran my mouth, the chickens still needed food and the crops still needed water. No amount of talking could make the fields weed themselves. The work was just work, day in, day out, every day, like breathing.

And the wind never did care what I wore to work. The sun was never much of one for small talk around the water cooler. The peas always could keep to themselves without too much trouble. I could work for days without having to talk to anyone out loud. The whole place told me its stories without ever uttering a single word. The way the engine in the truck would gargle, the way the fruit looked on the vine, the way the chickens gabbed all told a thousand little stories of give and take.

I don't know what I'm doing in this city, surrounded by concrete and drywall and artificial trees that don't bear fruit.

Coming Out

Coming out isn't something that I did once and then never had to face again. Admittedly, the first time felt absolutely cataclismic, but it's a process that repeated itself a thousand times in a thousand different venues. It's the "little death" that follows us to work, to the mall, to pumping gas and to the apathetic desk clerk at the DMV. Every time it gets a little easier. Every challenged assumption makes the world a little more accommodating for us all.

And now, after being out as queer for over 10 years, I'm having to start from square one. I'm facing all of the anxiety, all of the alienation, and all of the rejection all over again. It's even harder to explain transitioning in the context of being genderqueer. I don't have a 'pronoun preference'. I don't want to be a 'real man'. I just want to go about my daily life in a manner that doesn't cripple my ability to function.

I love being on hormones. I love the changes happening in my body. I love the way that it all seems like a natural progression of my life. I love the way that I feel like I have a future now.

But I don't know what words to use or how to explain what is going on to anyone else. It's this intensely personal experience happening inside my head with only vague external exhibitions. It was easy to explain being gay, I could summarize the situation in concise phrases like: "mom, I like girls". Would it be enough to say "mom, I'm genderqueer"? Or "I have gender dysphoria."

Would anyone understand my conscious decision to move towards gender ambiguity? Or would they automatically ascribe my actions to a grossly oversimplified gender binary?

Would they be open to deconstructing my perception of gender? Would I have to dumb it down to something like: "hey, I want to look more like a boy, but I'm still keeping my girl parts"? Would I have to say that the sum of my boyishness and girliness are not the sum of my being?

It took me a decade to sort out my gender issues. The years of barbies, Cosmos, tv, football, and tonka trucks weighs a heavy anchor on a child's soul. The systemic harassment in the school hallways and locker rooms took their toll as well. Being myself was something that I learned to hide to survive. So I spent a long time pretending to be a person who wasn't real, who didn't exist.

It took a really long time for me to get past the fact that I was never going to be one of those skinny girls that the media overhypes. I don't think I was overweight, but I had some fat going on. I definitely wasn't athletic or svelte. I knew that it wasn't healthy to want to look like a supermodel, I just didn't have any idea what the alternative was.

Because my build was so womanly, I spent many years fighting with my body. I have an hourglass figure: narrow shoulders, sizable bust, narrow waist, sizable hips and thighs. Women's clothes are cut for an average build across the spectrum of body types, so I had the devil of a time finding clothes that fit. After a while I learned what kind of cuts were flattering and for the first time in my life I could walk into a room and heads would turn. Lovers started undressing me like they were unwrapping a special present. My body stopped being a medium to be tolerated and became an asset to be reckoned with.

It took me almost ten years to establish a realistic standard of beauty, and it wasn't until then that I started to really be able to face the rest of my gender issues. Ironically the very elements of my physical appearance that I thought were attractive also started to elicit crippling emotional responses.

Why did I want to cry when a lover fondled my breasts? By any standard, including my own, they were nice breasts. Why did my heart wrench itself inside my chest when lovers tried to worship them? Why would I look down at our naked bodies and feel like the body I saw couldn't possibly be my own? Why would it make me despair to see myself looking soft and curvy curled up in bed?

Being naked meant letting my guard down. And the moment that happened, the expectation that my body should look more boyish would come pushing in like a hole in the dike. By that time, I had finally learned to muffle my body behind my clothes. But I could only hide behind them for so long. Naked in my lover's protective arms, I lay vulnerable to the rising tides of a gender that couldn't live with my body.

I don't know why I couldn't cope with it. I don't know why I couldn't get used to living with it. But I couldn't. My whole life was falling apart. Every gendered situation would send me home depressed and alienated. My relationships were falling apart. My job performance was abysmal. I felt like a double agent, committing treason on both sides. I couldn't bear to watch the things that I love most in the world slip through my fingers.

Something had to give.

It seems criminally arrogant to say "I'm at odds with my body, therefore my body needs to change". But on the other hand, this life is a composite of elements at odds with nature. Clothes, birth control, airplanes, pacemakers and space travel all fall outside of what is "natural". But why only are some of those acts considered "unnatural"? Why are some of them considered "progress"?

I spent 10 years trying and failing to come to terms with the situation. And since I started hormones less than 6 months ago, things have improved immensely. I didn't so much care what needed to change, I just wanted my life back. It seems easy for outsiders to overlook the fact that my whole life was falling apart, and the locus of that destruction was my gendered body.

I'd be the first to admit that the situation is not ideal, but to what alternative? If you can't live with your body, you die, either mentally or physically. It really is that simple.

And I didn't want to die just yet.

Too Much Foucault, Not Enough Bra Burning

I'm fucking tired of discussing what I have or haven't got in my pants. I want to talk about the fucking haves and the have nots; I want to talk about a generation lost between the privilege and the weight of the knowledge of it. I'm tired of having to make a stand on gender, tired of being a little girl, a big man, tired of the boxes and the rage. My fists are what I'm fighting with, lets talk about them. What am I fighting for? Did I block that uppercut? Did I miss it? Is that why I'm reeling? Lets talk about my skills without having to box in my nuts or qualify my tits.

I don't work on cars because they make my dick hard. I don't cook to please my man. I didn't unclog the drain so that I could rescue you from distress. I don't clean so that I can be a good wife. I didn't wear a dirty t-shirt to make an antisocial political statement.

I work on my car because I can't afford a better mechanic. I cook because I'm dying of hunger. I cleared the drain so that I could take a shit without being up to my ankles in it. I clean because I can't hack it with the filth. My shirt is dirty because I'm up to my elbows in it.

I'm sorry you can't relate to me as a woman, I'm not that kind of girl. I'm sorry I don't pass as a man, I'm not that kind of boy. I'm not your possession, not your provider, not a facade to chip away at.

Memory

"Now, the past didn't go anywhere, did it? It's right here, right now - I always thought that anybody who told me I couldn't live in the past was trying to get me to forget something that if I remembered it would get 'em in serious trouble.

... Time is an enormous, long river, and I'm standing in it, just as you're standing in it. My elders are the tributaries, and everything they thought and every struggle they went through and everything they gave their lives to, and every song they created, and every poem that they laid down flows down to me - and if I take the time to ask, and if I take the time to see, and if I take the time to reach out, I can build that bridge between my world and theirs. I can reach down into that river and take out what I need to get through this world."

-Utah Phillips
The past didn't go anywhere

Two Pounds of Flesh

Beneath the layers of fibers and print
and everyday bravado
that sound like acquiescence
are the two pounds of flesh
closest to my heart.

Is my manhood enough
to warrant the price
of the two pounds of flesh
closest to my heart
cut away to pay off the debt
to a gender that won't own me?

Is my womanhood enough
to warrant the price
of the two pounds of flesh
closest to my heart
cut away to pay off the debt
to a gender I can't own?

Beneath the layers of fibers and print
and everyday bravado
that sound like acquiescence
is a gender that pays
no debts and makes no apologies.

Visionary

A man woke up one day from his afternoon slumber on the beach with the sun blinding in his eyes. And after the glare wore off, he noticed something was different. For the first time in his life he could see everything, everywhere, in minute and perfect detail. Every child, every parent, every intention and every betrayal lay open before him in crisp and unequivocal detail. Every success was chronicled in ripples of clarity. Every failure lay open. His heart swelled with the beauty and progress of humanity, and yet as he turned he saw the suffering of every starving child, every war fought for ideology, the violence, the despair, and the indifference of his fellow man.

Paralyzed by the enormity of it all, he squeezed his fists into his eyes and prayed for deliverance, for something to wipe away the images of the world that had burned their way into his retinas, until he ran screaming and clawing at the only set of eyes in the world that could see it in her entirety.