out-not-in

[out-not-in]

it’s trapped in my throat again, my body won’t let me say it

[out-not-in]

on meeting your body where its at but i lose track and talk about coming out and then then i forget again and i talk about performing for men

it wasnt hard for me to accept the limits of my body

it was always easy for me to play within the rules

why make it harder, its already so fucking hard

___

i couldnt really tell you when I came out to myself, I don't really remember a moment or an age where I was experiencing something that wasn't gay i had a friend who couldnt stop talking about sex. 2 actually. but this one she spent all of our time in Arabic class talking to me about how she would google pictures of naked people and what she would see

she would tell me she felt stuff down there, and one day i found myself feeling them too

we only sat together in Arabic class. It was the 4th grade.

she asked me if i felt it too, I said no at home, I googled them too from there to the "how to french kiss" wiki how tutorials, to the "girls kissing" snippets of videos that ended at the limits of my imaginations of what they were doing and what happens next ___ there were men as there always as, the attraction is always there but a lot of times I see them as they see women -- tools, genitals, something i take from the idea of being wooed and seduced and wanted by them preludes my imaginings of actually being with them I am attracted to them in the same animalist sense that drives with them, with very little of the genuine interest but I love when theyre interested in me - I love the little award winning play we put on together

we put our costumes on and cough out the vocal strain of last nights show man: i like how you look me: i like that you like that to be attractive to a man is to be attractive enough to inhale the privilege of the world there is so little I have, pretty privilege would be so nice tell me I'm pretty, maybe it means the world will give me what it owes

[out-not-in]

am i avoidant or do you not know how to hold me?

im told i dont share im told i don’t let people in

im sure i have work to do

but why do you need to see me cry to care for me?

———

but here i am doing the work

i dont know how to do it while looking someone in the eye

i wish someone would sit me down and ask me the questions that feel obvious to me

hold my hand into falling apart and falling open

watch me refuse to make words

i dont know how to make sounds out of it

my throat won’t let me

she claws in on herself

blocking her own airway, remaining small and closed and defiant

she won’t let me make sounds

———

and so i won’t

i’ll write about

an i’ll write about it into the eather

where i am unseen and unheard and unknown

reader, you cant possibly let me down

it’s enough for me to pretend you exist

———

nothing i have to say hasn’t been said before

i just need to say them to untangle them out of the chronic pain of my body and mind

they say repressing make us sick and sicker

my narratives are never ones of aloneness

the human experience, isolating yes

but suffering .. is for all of us

and i suppose it’s for all of us to do together

they say community heals us, they say it’s all we need to survive the in-survivable