My creative project for Music and Social Protest is going to end up being 15 pages (single spaced) of polished poetry and 5 paintings. As opposed to a 10 page (double spaced) paper. It’s amazing what my work ethic can do when I care about something.

4:39 am  •  17 May 2013  •  2 notes

I’m watching all of these wealthy cis gay men on facebook get emotional about all of these allies changing their profile pictures or whatever for marriage equality, like this is the final stop on their journey to the promised land and all their friends have seen them to that new horizon, and it just seemed silly to me until I realized that this might be how they see things. As a queer whose place in society isn’t really affected by my right to get married, and who has experienced heterosexism (and monosexism, let’s not forget) very differently than these cis gay men, and who has often had to aggressively reassert my identity in a room full of allies in order for it to be respected, I’m certainly not impressed with this type of facebook activism.

And you know, full disclosure, I’m a heap of privilege because of my race and class, but honestly, I think it’s kind of gross how easy it is for these privileged people to feel like they’ve been a part of something monumental, a part of this struggle, while so many of my people will live the same struggles even after marriage equality is standard. My people being queer, which is different from gay, which doesn’t necessarily fit into the space patriarchy is making for gay marriage. Marriage isn’t for queers, because our identities defy identification within patriarchal structures. I’ve been talking to a friend of mine, a cis gay male, who is offended that I’m not as excited as he is about marriage equality, and I’m beginning to see that he’s not far from being a first-class citizen—marriage equality might give that to him. All I’m being given is a right that isn’t relevant to my oppression, access to a system that ignores my identity, and I keep being told that I should be satisfied.

I wonder if this person, and all these other cis gay men and women, will become part of that system once they have their rights, stepping off the activist train to freedom without looking back. Then I wonder, is there a point at which I will be satisfied, get off the train, and forget the people who rode with me? I think this is the root of difference between gay and queer identities: the former attempts to make a place for itself within society, and the latter attempts to remake society. I think that means that as a queer person, I can’t be satisfied, and I’ll be one of the last ones fighting (or writing) for change. And I think that’s why gays and lesbians so often don’t understand that queers operate differently, because we aren’t attempting to operate within existing hegemonic structures. I hope there’s never a moment where I feel like I can operate comfortably within an oppressive system.

3:10 am  •  27 March 2013  •  7 notes

One day I will write a memoir about southern queerness.

Until I have time for that, every poem I write will be working toward that.

7:20 pm  •  15 March 2013  •  4 notes

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1:12 am  •  20 February 2013  •  1 note

I want to start submitting to literary magazines again over ISP, but I’m nervous. What if I’m not as good a writer as I was in high school? And what if I’m just setting myself up for disappointment? Also, if I remember right, most magazines’ reading periods have already ended. This is the kind of thinking that stopped me submitting my work in the first place. Oh well, maybe one day this week I’ll set my mind to do this when it’s not almost bedtime.

2:24 am  •  14 January 2013  •  3 notes

(Source: photosynthesising-wood-nymph, via time-garden)

5:17 pm  •  4 January 2013  •  29,586 notes

But seriously I need to stop doing incredibly regrettable shit in order to get a poem out of it

2:59 am  •  3 January 2013  •  1 note

I wrote a damn poem

2:54 am  •  3 January 2013  •  1 note

11:19 pm  •  29 October 2012  •  1 note

3:18 am  •  21 October 2012  •  1 note