come fly with me

i’ve been trying to write a post for the past 4 hours or so. i wanted to talk about this message i got on okcupid, about street harrassment and how it pertains in particular to queer and nonnormatively gendered folx of color, and about what i do to get up and go on every day when i know that everyone on the bus and on the streets and at the grocery store (that i can actually afford to shop at) will have some shit to say to me.

maybe i was gonna work something in about how the whole point of my online life is to have a life where i go and talk to people yet don’t have to deal with the aforementioned bullshit (so, jsyk, any and all arguments about how ~it’s just the internet~ mean absolutely nothing to me)

but there’s this whole harrassment and abuse of my girl strugglingtobeheard (which has been going on for the past year, mind you) and i don’t know how to write this post without acknowledging the serious connections with her fight for survival. i don’t know how to articulate all the ways in which our respective battling, to just be us without having to apologize or tone that shit down, are connected. i don’t know how to acknowledge the ways in which i feel implicated in my lack of action, in my silence.

i don’t know how to say that my nonconfrontational nature, the bit where i avoid people’s eye contact and wear headphones at all times and pretend i can’t hear/see the cashiers and baggers at grocery outlet openly mocking me, sometimes looks a lot like cowardice. sometimes that thing i do to survive is nothing more than papering over festering wounds. and sometimes it’s actually pretending not to notice when a fellow queer and genderqueer black womyn is being bullied and having her boundaries violated repeatedly (while supposedly objective ain’t-shit niggas look on and laugh, or do their best to make her look hysterical/illogical) over the course of an actual year.

i don’t know how to say any of this without making it sound like the worst fauxpology that is rly only a justification for future cowardice.

i really just don’t know right now. i’m trying to figure my shit out. i’m going to think it over and maybe later i’ll have something better, something real to say about this pain (my pain, strugg’s pain, the collective pain of queer black womyn) but for now i’m going to take a bath and have a glass of wine and hope my bff will hurry up and get here and maybe hold me just a little bit because this hurts kindof a lot

my roommate done picked up after her nasty ass!

she actualfax bought a broom and also threw away her nasty trash (over 10 full sized trash bags) and also has moved out of the living room.

i can see the coffee table! and the kitchen table!

this apartment is strange and clean and i almost like living in it, what?

when i got home she was all TA-DA! (even though i definitely had to ask her to stop living in the living room) and i was all pretending to be excited that a bout-to-be-29-year-old womyn can actually pick up after herself and sleep in her bed like a big girl.

but really. that’s a damn shame.

a few days ago, one of my regular customers told me that he liked my outfit/hair.

((the thing about compliments from customers is that you have to be careful; they are almost always followed by a) invasive questions, b) unsolicited advice, or c) an insult and/or really bad joke.))

but i needn’t have worried because he followed it up by telling me that he notices that i’m always switching up my style in some way or another. he said,

“i look at you and i think to myself: that girl is a work of art in progress”

and it’s probably the kindest, most observant comment i have received in a very long time. i rarely feel seen in my day to day life. looked at, stared at, and occasionally openly mocked? yes. but seen? not so much.

i’m still figuring out how to describe how his comment is resonating in me and in my life, but i know that it is important and good and i just needed to tell you about it.

just got home from queer and trans folk of color magic craft night.

it was just as magical as it sounds.

and my wand is beyond dope.

sad days for sad boigirl

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some southeast Asian dude tried to initiate a pissing contest over gold chains with me at work today.

legit, he started the conversation with, “your chain would be very expensive if it was real.”

which is weird, because i was wearing my apron and offering him a bag for his groceries. bruh, you stunt on cashiers? and like, feel good about that shit?

i was kinda like “haha yea…” because that is how i respond when customers are clearly attempting to be funny (and damn near every customer thinks they are a veritable barrel of laughs and tend to get real offended when you just stare at them blankly and tell them their total)

but he went on and on and eventually showed off his own chain, eventually mentioning that it was about $8,000.

and i was like “…looks nice?”

because you coulda paid my damn rent for a year and still had some change. shit, 4 of those mufuckas could pay off my student loans. you do understand, that even if i had that kinda money, i wouldn’t spend it on ONE piece of jewelry that i would have to hide in my shirt for fear of being killed/jacked?

also, that chain’s cute and all but you do not look like a mermaid gangsta, not one bit.

but most of all, stuntin on cashiers is not a thing. you just look like a jackass.

[i included the dude’s ethnicity because every time i keep thinking about appropriation of Black culture in east and southeast Asian communities and wondering what it means that this southeast Asian man felt the need to call me, a Black dyke, out on not just any piece of jewelry, but a specific urban marker like a gold chain. but i am way too stoned to chase that thought any further.]

am i the only person who legit sings love songs to themselves?

like str8 lookin in the mirror like i never knew there was a love like this before

(if you haven’t, you should probably try it. it’s fucking awesome)

this str8 cis-dude i’m trying to get over was super not about it tho. he is inexplicably immune to all of my charms. i find it bewildering, odd, and disappointing in turns.

i know what you’re gonna say, okay, i need to leave them str8 dudes alone because they are not socialized to 1) appreciate black womyn, 2) appreciate womyn who adamantly oppose, and indeed create a lifestyle opposing, mainstream notions of womynhood and ‘femininity’ and all that rot, or 3) be honest about what they want/feel. i know.

but i also know that it’s just not possible that every single str8 dude out there is either repulsed or intimidated by me. it’s just not fucking possible.

(and not just because i’m fine as shit)

but because i’m certain there are some interesting grown men out there, challenging themselves and growing and shit. absolutely certain.

but this belief that i have, the belief that there are exceptions. it’s what leads me, every few months, to find a new fixation, so utterly convinced that this time, things will be different. this time, he will be different.

(spoiler alert: they never are)

anyway. i’m movin on. and takin a sabbatical from this shitty cycle of fixation and doomed attempts to impress followed by implied rejection that i’ve called my love life for the past 3 years. i literally cannot continue to play this game. something has to change, and i’m getting this weird feeling that that thing is me.

none of this, of course, is meant to negate the fact that i was hella fine today and probably will be tomorrow. them’s just facts. the rest is speculation.

i’m bowin out of the love game, y’alls. now in search of: a platonic life partner who is excited about building a queer family with me. i will bake for you. must love babies, puppies, and hyperactive sensitive sad stoner cancer types.

and then, at the train station, i cross paths with another beautiful brown genderqueer person and i’m like HEY. i SEE you and your mustache and your off-the-shoulder black sweater! i see you.

…wait. do i follow you on tumblr?

and then i remember that, while my city is far from perfect, i can’t even imagine why i would ever leave.