Darkness as good

I wanted to play with darkness as goodness. Usually dark is bad and light is good. There's probably a lot to be said about the way this is inherently rooted in racism but that seems like a different post. That said, it came out kind of spooky anyway because I've been reading a lot of Gunnerkrigg Court which is sort of spooky in a lovable way. 

Imagine a mirror. Its face is dark. Ripples spread out across its surface in dark velvety waves. There is no light in the mirror but rather a pulsing, comforting, fertile sort of darkness. The type of darkness a seed could take root in.

Or an empty dance hall, if that works better. Hardwood floors reflecting moonlight and tall arching windows bouncing the last echoes of a tune long forgotten. Imagine the tall shadows stretched into the corners, keeping the lonely ceiling company.

Imagine a deck of tarot cards, edges fuzzy and well worn. They sit against one another, close but comfortable. The space between the cards simultaneously imperceptible and vast. The design on the back of the cards is familiar but unknowable, like a familiar face in a foreign country.

Think about tree branches at the end of winter. Imagine the leaves curled up in tiny buds. Imagine waiting in darkness, protected and nourished. Imagine.

Snippets

Hello (possibly nonexistent) readers! Long time no post. I've been busy with the usual. Work, sex, fighting the systems of oppression and eating good food. So here are some snippets from the void of when I was gone.


What is a sense of place? What is queerness? Where do I belong in my own queerness? What is my my femininity and how does it interact with my queerness and where do I belong?


Who lives in the hole in your sternum? The holes in a violin?


Passive misogyny: Reinforcing the patriarchy through micro-agressions since the agricultural revolution.


The following poem is made mostly out of paraphrased lines from other poems. Please don't sue me. None of this work is original, but really no work is original so still please don't sue me.

Pomegranate:
And don't you dare make a victim out of Persephone
Pomegranate:

Set fire to this fruit; one succulent bead at a time

Pomegranate:

Beautiful, not like a model but beautiful like a wildfire

Pomegranate:

Gay, not as in happy but queer as in fuck you.

Pomegranate:

And nothing has ever felt so sweet as undressing her softness, plucking the wings from his shoulders one feather at a time.

Pomegranate:

And she still looks like religion in high heels

Pomegranate:

And give me your tired, your poor, your huddles masses yearning to be free

Pomegranate:

And forgive me, for sir, I ham a very bad hand at righting

Pomegranate:

And so, the spear Danes, in days gone by

Pomegranate:
My vegetable love could grow, vaster than empires and more slow
Pomegranate:

I think of queerness as a spirit that haunts me

Pomegranate:

Girls like me were made for the rain

Pomegranate:

Maybe there were fireworks when I met you but I didn't notice because you were the brightest thing in the room

Pomegranate:

She had the face that launched a thousand ships

Pomegranate:

And baby, we're going down swinging

"I went to kill the king but wound up kissing him instead." -- Ashe Vernon

I went to kill the dragon and save the princess but wound up saving the princess and killing the dragon.

I went to kill the king and I did.

I went to kill the king and did and then married the queen and then I found out I was the prince and cut out my own eyes.

I went to marry the princess but wound up kissing the king instead.

I went to kill the king but wound up finding myself instead.

I went to wake the princess but wound up falling asleep instead.

To hold wildfire in your palms:

Which is a particularly convenient metaphor for how she feels:

Pain, beauty, destruction, heat so hot it makes the air shimmer around her, and light to keep the monsters away.

The problem with the fire is that it's hard to fit all of her into a single flame

She is duality: The sizzling heat of flame and the comfortable warmth of her living flesh

Femme as Weapon

I see you there in the corner, sharpening your lipstick on a whetstone.

Yes, you.

I see you building your 'lipstick and work boots' aesthetic like a brand.

When they held up a skirt and called it 'flimsy'

I saw you sew on the rivet reinforced pocket.

I know that when the see your femme they think weak

I know that to you femme means strong.

You find support in the stilettos of a red heel,

Reclaim your eyelids with gold glitter

Smelt that shade of fuchsia into a color so bright it'll burn the inside of your eyelids.

And secure the whole effect with countless bobby pins.

I see you reclaiming femme

Claim it for the queers, to prove that flannels aren't the only thing women who love women wear

Claim it for the tall women, the strong women, the loud women, the women who are told they take up too much space

Claim it for men, and anyone not a man or a woman.

You will fight for femme for yourself and then for everyone else and damned if you won't use razor-edged earrings as a shank if you have to.

I see you fitting femme over your head like a body conn dress

One size fits all and makes your ass look fabulous

Work boots and lipstick and carhartts and pink skirts with a poodle sewn on the rim

Dancing and farming and camping and knowing how to cook some bad ass challah bread

I see you under hashtags like 'gamergirlz' and 'fangirl' and 'basicbitch' learning how to use their language to define yourself on your own terms.

I see you claiming femme for yourself

So that every time anyone asks if you're dressed up for a man

You have a snappy comeback written in curlicues

So that every time someone tells you men don't like women in makeup 

You have a winged eyeliner glare sharp enough to draw blood

It's hard for them to understand that your femme isn't for anyone but you

You don't measure your value tallied on compliments and dates

At least, not on a good day.

So that your femme belongs to you and no one else.