brownboywrites

[brownboywrites]

“It’s what guys do”

Rolling silverware at the end of the night. My straight coworkers and I are chatting. Well, more like they are chatting and I’m listening. One of they guys talks about knocking one of his friends out, when they were both out one night. Acquaintance maybe. “Yeah, he just punched me out of nowhere,” he was saying, a pick of pride in his voice, “But i dodged it and punched him back. Knocked him flat out on his ass.” My other coworker laughed. “Why did he punch you?” i asked. “You know, when guys are drunk, it’s what they do,” he said. “It’s not what I do,” I said. “But you’re gay,” my other coworker said. “So?” I’m so over this heteronormative toxic masculine narrative. Why does straight culture interpret masculinity as aggression? It’s all empty posturing bullshit.

[brownboywrites]

so true

[brownboywrites]

Midnight Spiritual

The past doesn’t resonate. I am tired, working at the restaurant for my daily wage. Is what I’m feeling the dissatisfaction promised to a generation of lost men? Of men raised by women, yearning for something fuller, for a missing piece? Maybe that’s why I’m always feeling like I’m on the outside of things.  The face I put on to customers, that fawning obsequious dance I do, comes to an end in the shallow brief moments in the back, sweating as I balance plates, roll silverware, talk shit, stop and get water. And that mask all peels off at the end of the night, after I feel too tired to contemplate anything, but what food I’ll put in my mouth before I drag myself home, free from affectation, only to dance again the next day.

The restaurant only seems to run smoothly, but it is falling apart on the inside. The tidy appearance belies the chaos just below the surface. Not unlike the ocean. Not unlike me.  The me from the past looks at me in disbelief. I wonder if he is disappointed. Maybe it’s time to turn the page. 

[brownboywrites]

I want to pour my whole soul out, have all the words I’ve been thinking about saying said, all the words heard, written, and read.

By you.

[brownboywrites]

@innervisionsonreplay

[brownboywrites]

There is an heir of detachment radiating from the two middle-aged women standing on the noisy playground. One wears a pencil skirt, a yellow blouse, and has her hair up in a tight bun. The other, wears billowy pants, a button-down and a blazer. Their daily supervision of elementary school recess seemed somehow beneath them, and though it was a predictable element of their job routine (they were on the schedule today), they acted as if they were doing everyone a favor.  “Look at this,” the one with the pants said, chuckling “Timmy’s chasing Jessica.”  “Another game of tag. ”the one with the bun said sighing. She was looking in the opposite direction of the other women, judging a few goofy kids on the swings. “Enthralling.” With some reluctance, she eventually turned around and laid witness to a pretty funny scene.  “Who runs like that?” she asked, looking at Jessica who was running as if she had never used her feet before.  “Someone who’s not impressed by their pursuer,” the woman in the pants said. 

They both laughed together for a moment, before checking their wristwatches to see when they could go back inside. 

WRITING PROMPT #19:

Person A: “Who runs like that?”

Person B: “Someone who’s not impressed by their pursuer.”

[brownboywrites]

[brownboywrites]

I either write 10,000 words in one sitting or go two months without even opening my word doc there is no in between

[brownboywrites]

Eternal mood. To add to this, there’s a big leather couch and refurbished chairs crowded in front of a fireplace and you can fall asleep with everyone around talking to each other.

oh, to be the owner of a small bookshop on a cobblestone street with roses climbing the front of the building, where books are stacked about in piles and there’s always coffee brewing and a sleepy shop dog lifts his head at the sound of the door’s bell and thumps his tail against the hardwood

[brownboywrites]

this blog is not a well-curated museum. it’s my bedroom & i’m putting things on my shelf & taping things on the wall

[brownboywrites]

You ever write something for fun and just have no idea where it’s going?

The second or third time I got high on shrooms, I was experimenting sexually. It was a part of my abnegation-of-celibacy duties. I was finally surrendering to the fact that I was a queer and horny man, after an unfortunate outing my freshman year. But it took some time to get the ball rolling (i.e. my balls sucked). Mid-college, just off the cusp of twenty, I somehow wound up through a friend of a friend, meeting my plug who sold me the baggie of Washington psilocybin for a cool 40 bucks. You would think it wouldn’t be too hard to find magic mushrooms in college, but the small, sleepy town of Colonial Williamsburg felt more like a nursing home than a college town, and so it was remarkably exceptional in its distinct lack of a “college-ness.” And, unsurprisingly, it was still colonized.

It could be my own experience of isolation that prevented me from knowing that freer, trendier part of campus, but when you are gay and Latino in a place called “Colonial Williamsburg” the isolation is maybe to be expected. Either way, I wasn’t familiar with the earthy intellectual woman whose room felt halfway out of a 90’s grunge snuff film and some kind of Hindu-Yogi- place of respite. Perhaps I was being too judgemental, but the gold hookah in the corner felt out of place alongside the Pixies Doolittle poster and the collection of boxed vinyls sitting on the bottom shelf of an overstuffed bookcase. I was staring at some large glass bottles fermenting what I assume was kombucha on the top shelf, before my eyes made their way to a tapestry of a multi-colored tiger hanging on the far wall.

I wondered if I was already high somehow before I had even taken anything. The pulse of the technicolor stripes seemed to leap off the wall and the open maw invited me to stroke the dazzling fangs. I thought of Bangladesh and of a hot crowded street, filled with vendors. I thought of slums, of lush dense jungles, of appropriation. How do I tell Brian that this white girl gently poking around in a small wooden box suddenly felt like an outlier to me. I was just now feeling as if her partially shaven head seemed to signal the mere affect of a lifestyle. That, given the chance, I would call the social justice warriors of the internet onto her, I would tell the brown and black people of the world: Here, take away her hookah, smash her kombucha bottles, tear down her tapestry, burn her buddhist books. Tell her to stay in her lane. Tell her to get her fragrances from Yankee Candle and her reading selection from the Barnes and Noble bestseller list. Tell her to stop taking things that do not belong to her. She turned to me. Her name was Abigail I remember Brian telling me on the walk over.

“You’re gonna want to take this whole thing if you really want to trip, or if you want to maybe micro dose, I recommend taking half of these,” Abigail said as she pulled out a ziplock bag of slender pale stems. Her hair smelled like lavender and my mind eased at the sound of her voice. “You guys can eat them here if you want, I’ll be hanging around for another hour or so, but I got to leave at 3:30 to catch my friend’s acapella show.”

She seemed nice and I felt bad for those series of thoughts that ran through my head- that gush of triggered emotion. I handed her two twenties and thanked her before looking toward Brian to see some indication of what he wanted to do. It seemed he was intent on staying for a while because as soon as he handed Abigail the money, he was opening his baggie and giving me a knowing look.

“Are you sure you don’t mind if we take these here?” He asked.

“I mean hey, sure, they’ll take at least thirty minutes to kick in but you’re welcome to hang here until I have to leave.”

“Thank you very much,” I said, “That’s really nice of you.”

“Ready?” Brian asked. And then we ate the mushrooms all at once, trying to chew as quickly as possible. It tasted like old hay and a bit like mildew and was tough to get down. Abigail left and returned with two glasses of water, which we swallowed gratefully.

“And so it begins,” she said with a smile, as she opened the living room windows and let in the spring air. It smelled like honeysuckles and the sound of distant cicadas wailed.

[brownboywrites]

Three photos of Black lesbian writer and activist Audre Lorde and her partner and fellow activist Gloria Joseph. Audre and Gloria lived together in Gloria’s home of St Croix in the Carribean until Audre’s death in 1992. The last thing Audre wrote was a note reading “Gloria, I love you.”

Learn more about Audre Lorde with our podcast

[images: Audre (left) and Gloria (right) wearing leis; Audre (left) standing behind Gloria (right), both laughing; Audre (left) and Gloria (right) seated, leaning on each other and laughing with their eyes closed]

[brownboywrites]

New Years Eve Musings

I made this blog last week and am not quite sure what I want to write about on here. All I know is I want to write more.  A little bit about me: I’m 24 years old. My favorite color is green. I don’t like heavy metal music. I don’t enjoy organized religion. And I’ve never been on a date. Well, I guess I’ve been on exactly one date. -_- I’ve wanted to be a writer since first grade, but sometimes I think I’m drawn more to the outcome than the craft. The glamor of having an anthology, like a stack of creative declarations affirming my existence: Hey world, I was here, I had something to say, and I said it. It reminds of that Chuck Palahniuk quote: “We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”  As the New Year rolls around, like it always does, unencumbered, predictable, and all too quick, I think about my mortality, I think about the pandemic, about survival, about the way I’ve spent my time over the past 365 days. I can’t help but think of myself as a generational cliché. The pensive millennial, who dreams of being an artist, but doesn’t have the confidence or discipline to pursue his goals. I think, maybe, it’s all a big fear of commitment. Or maybe a game of self-respect, whose rules I’ve been neglecting. It’s funny how a luxury of choice can suddenly transform into a crisis of choice.  But, I have a really good feeling. A word of advice to my future self: create for yourself, design your world, and pluck the fruit from the tree while it’s still ripe.

[brownboywrites]

[brownboywrites]

Astrology and Ariana Grande  Part 1

      Intro:

      While stans would insist every year since this vocalist’s/artist’s debut has been a big year for her, I think it could be argued that 2020 was THE year for Ariana Grande. At least, for me, it was. I was always a fan of Ariana since I first saw her on the Nickelodeon show, Victorious, as it became clear to me that she had some major pipes, yet I never listened to her songs on repeat the way I did this year when the Positions album came out. Seriously, it was all I listened to for months and I still am unable to restrain myself from listening to it for hours on end sometimes. So whether I liked it or not, I had to accept that I was now an Ari stan.

      To make matters worse, this past week, she released a Netflix documentary, Excuse Me, I Love You, consisting of smoothly compiled performances from her 2019 Sweetener World Tour, interspersed with some behind-the-scenes cuts. The whole experience feels as if you are in concert with her and she is singing directly to you. Needless to say, I was LIVING in my bedroom, by which I mean, I was confined to my bed for 2 days straight, replaying my favorite parts of the documentary over and over again (I think I might have a serious issue). However, the time dedicated in listening and watching Miss Ariana Grande was not at all a waste, and I was able to pull some deeper insights. 

  Cancer Sun: 

      Watching her performances in Excuse Me, I Love You only reinforced the major Cancer vibes I got from listening to her music. The soft gloss of the lighting, the water effects, the delicate and precise hand movements, and more importantly, the way Ariana seemed to treat everyone around her, all painted a picture of gentleness: of someone with a strong instinct to nurture. Since her music gives me so much LIFE, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that her sun sign falls under the archetype of the lifegiver: the mother. 

    Cancers are a cardinal sign; simplistically, cardinal signs can be thought of as the “leaders of the zodiac” and have a natural talent for bringing people together. When in groups, Cancers are gifted at making everyone feel included and respected, and like all water signs, they have a high emotional intelligence. They are also an emotionally protective sign and are good at protecting themselves and making others feel safe. 

     In the case of Ariana Grande, I think much of this sense of emotional safety can be readily accessed through her music. While many of her songs demonstrate a deep emotional sensitivity and awareness, one song that particularly exemplifies this sense of emotional safety is needy, which is a major water sign anthem (Scorpios perhaps abstaining). It may be bit paradoxical because Cancers are a rather independent sign and are commonly known for their tough exterior. Cancers would never admit to being needy unless they have full trust in you, and even still, they might be hesitant. However, once a sense of complete emotional safety is established, Cancers will have no trouble opening themselves up to you. In needy, Ariana not only allows a free discussion of her emotional needs, but fully celebrates vulnerability. She herself creates a safe emotional space for such a dialogue to take place for her listeners. 

     I think in a world where so often emotional vulnerability is seen as a weakness, the more important it is to have spaces in which emotional expression can be affirmed and valued. Ariana isn’t afraid to assert that sometimes “[she] can be needy, way too damn needy” but that it’s okay. In a culture of scarcity, in which we are all scrambling to feel like we have enough, it’s only natural sometimes to “feel [we aren’t] enough.” In sharing these anxieties, Ariana also encourages us to be vulnerable and open with the ones we trust and love. She establishes safety and compassion for her listeners: she creates space through music.        Watching her perform needy to a live audience only served to fortify this sense of emotional safety and encouragement of emotional transparency. Ariana sat on the stage, nestled in the soft glow of the magenta and violet lights. Her dancers sat still behind her with fog-like smoke rolling off their cuffs and collars. It felt calm, cooling, and safe, evoking images such as an icepack a mom would place on a child’s scraped knee or the stroke of a loved one’s cheek before bed. As Ariana sang and encouraged her audience to sing along with her, I felt invited into her tender dreamlike world for a moment. 

     I think that is where a Cancer’s true power lies. They lead not through force or shrewdness. They don’t demand from us and they don’t call our names loudly. They gently pull us in and make us feel safe to be ourselves, however “messed up” or “needy” we may feel. They embrace us. It got me thinking how one person can command so many, not with displays of strength or shows of wealth, but with demonstrations of compassion. And in turn, how we can find power through vulnerability. Because if we can’t be vulnerable, how can we grow?