Crossfire

I'm really feeling this poem right now, you have to go to her site and hear her recite it!


Crossfire
by Staceyann Chin

Am I a feminist
or a womanist
the student needs to know
if I do men occasionally
and primarily am I a lesbian

Tongue twisted in cheek I attempt to respond with honesty-

This business of sexual dykes and dykery
I tell her
is often messy-with social tensions as they are
you never quite know what you're getting
-some girls can only be straight at night
-hardcore butches be wearing dresses
between nine and six during the day
sometimes she is really a he trapped
by the limitations of our imagination-

Primarily
I am concerned about young women
who are raped on college campuses
in cars
after poetry readings like this one
in bars
bruised lip and broken heart
you will forgive her if she does not come
forward with the truth immediately

Everyone will think she asked for it
dressed as she was she must have wanted it

The words will knock about in her head
horny bitch
slut-harlot-tease
loose woman
some people cannot handle a woman on the loose
you know those women in silk-ties and pin-striped shirts
women in blood-red stilettos and short pink skirts
-these women make New York City the most interesting place
and while we're on the subject of diversity
Asia is not one big race
and there is no such country called the Islands
and no-I am not from there

There are a hundred ways
to slip between the cracks
of our not-so-credible cultural assumptions
and other peoples' interpretations of race and religion

Most people are surprised my father is Chinese-like
there's some preconditioned
look for the half-Chinese lesbian poet
who used to be Catholic but now believes in dreams

Let's keep it real
says the boy in the double-X hooded sweatshirt
that blond haired blue eyed Jesus in the Vatican ain't right
that motherfucker was Jewish, not white

Christ was a Middle Eastern Rastaman
who ate grapes in the company of prostitutes
and drank wine more than he drank water
born of the spirit the disciples also loved him in the flesh
but the discourse is on people who clearly identify as gay
or lesbian or straight
the State needs us to be left or right
those in the middle get caught
in the cross-fire away at the other side

If you are not for us you must be against us
People get scared enough they pick a team

Be it for Buddha or for Krishna or for Christ
God is that place between belief and what you name it
I believe holy is what you do
when there is nothing between your actions and the truth

I am afraid to draw your black lines around me
I am not always pale in the middle
I come in too many flavors for one fucking spoon

I am never one thing or the other-
at night I am everything I fear
tears and sorrows
black windows and muffled screams
in the morning I am all I want to be
wild rain and open laughter
bare footprints and invisible seams
always without breath or definition-I claim every dawn
for yesterday is simply what I was
and tomorrow
even that will be gone

I want to Hug my younger self

I want to hug my younger self. I just pulled out my old journals to just see where I was at, and as I was reading my thoughts from 7 years ago, I realized how far I've come, and how much I just needed a hug. It's funny as I was reading some parts I couldn't even bare to read because they were so embarrassing, I had to skip over all the why did Shaun( the only boyfriend I've ever had, my only relationship period) break up with me parts. But overall I just wanted to give me a hug and say don't worry we're going to be alright. I want to tell my younger self that I'm beautiful and loved. I want to tell myself that all I will find peace and happiness, all I have to do is wait. I began to realize how I didn't realize how beautiful and special I really was. I wish that I hadn't spent so much of my time trying to find my knight in shining armor but instead explore my true self. I was so full of self hatred it was ridiculous, I'm still not so crazy about my body, but I don't feel the way I used to. Through all my fears of coming out to my family and friends I just feel a sense of strength as I realize I feel great, I just downloaded a song by Jason and Demarco, I downloaded their song it is well with my soul and that's how I feel my sexuality is well with my soul! I'm okay being me! It is well with my soul. I just wish that I could go back to when I was 15 and the world was scary and nothing made sense and I just want to reach out and give myself a big hug a real deep hug, I want to hug myself and let me know that it will get better. I just want to reach out to my younger me and give her a great big hug and say Baby it'll be okay!

What would you say to your younger self?

Life on the periphery

Okay so Periphery is my new favorite word; don't ask me why, I just think it's kind of cool.

So on May 20, 2006 I graduated from College, on that day I put an end to my life at my campus that had been my world for four years. In college I created this identity, I created an image of who I wanted to be, who I thought people wanted me to be, and I looked forward to "fitting in". The person I was in college, fit in to my plan of a normal life. My whole entire life I've always kept people at a distance, it wasn't until college that I had found a real best friend, someone who I confided in and trusted. All of my other best friends had been very superficial; I never let them know what was really going on with me. When I was in the third grade, my mother went to California for rehab; I told my best friend nothing. I remember being in so much pain, but I kept silent; I never wanted anyone to know I wanted to be the normal Black American girl. I remember being so plagued by the feeling that there was some part of me that is just not acceptable and can not be revealed. I learned how to play the normal game so well. In the fifth grade Immature was HUGE, all the girls had crushes on them so I picked one Romeo and he was to be my crush. I filled my walls with all of their posters, I learned every fact about them, I did everything that I saw all the white girls on TV do when they had a crush on a group. TV was my guide to a normal life, and that's what I was going to have, I was going to be Stephanie Tanner from full house, or Judy from Family matters (until they kicked her off). When I got a boyfriend in high school, once again I went to TV and friends for a guide or normalcy. I did all the things "normal" teenage girls did, I snuck out of the house, and I snuck kisses to my boyfriend in the hallway of my high school. I had my "be normal" check list and I was working hard to fill it all in, and I never understood why I always felt incomplete. My whole entire 22 years had been spent trying to figure out what normal was and then be it, and that is a very draining/depressing existence.

What is this "normal", and why is it so compelling?
It wasn't until my second semester of my senior year when I finally began to burn out, and simultaneously I began to meet and get closer to people who weren't submitting to the "normal" mold, but they were happy, and while they weren't accepted by everyone they had a strong support system that sustained them, and they were living on the periphery. In these months since I've come out to myself and my best friend, I have found the strength to live on the periphery. This is the best I've felt in a very long time, despite my ups and downs and panic attacks about being ousted from my family and community, I feel whole. I've realized that the way this world is set up there really isn't any room for me in the "normal" world, but I'm okay with that. I don't want any parts of a world in which people are made to feel that they need to fit in to a specific mold. Screw that I'll make a whole new mold and live the way I feel is best. I realize that I'm on the outside, by the way it's assumed that I must like men, the way a guy in my program feels the constant need to ask me if he has a chance with me, the way I must search for movies/books that have characters that reflect me. I got the message I'm not in the heteronormative norm, gotcha. This is the first time in my life that I've been okay with me; I no longer want to be Stephanie Tanner (THANK GOD!).

So here I am living my life stepping further and further away from my "ideal" life, with the Amazing afrocentric, conscious black man, the wedding with the super white dress and all my bridesmaids, the kids, the house, the wonderful church family in my traditional black church, all of it. Now the ideal life has changed it's a lot less restrictive, all I want is to be happy with the woman of my dreams and the support of my immediate family.

So I have one big message to the world that told me I had to be something anything but myself.....

FUCK YOU!!!

Fire

I finally saw Fire and WoW! absolutely Amazing!! I don't know what else to say just see it!! if you haven't.

God, Do you hate me?

I've previously written about my faith, I love God with all my heart! I love being a Christian, I love Jesus, but I can't stand Christians sometimes. I feel so torn, my whole entire life when I was and wasn't in the church I always heard one thing in regards to homosexuality, God sees it as an abomination. So when I started to accept the fact that I had feelings for women, that's the first thing that popped in my mind. The night that I finally said to myself I Am a Lesbian, I asked God that night if he hated me. I don't think he does, it just doesn't make sense to me that the God I serve who knew me before I was even born, would hate me because I love women. My feelings for women are not about lust, but love. I love women; I want to spend the rest of my life with a woman. As I have created new dreams of my wedding, it's changed, it's me and the woman I love on a beach in South African surrounded by those that love us. I feel it so deeply and it kills me that I'm seen as a hypocrite because I dare love God and women too. When I was still searching my feelings I saw a documentary on LOGO about Orthodox Jewish Gays and Lesbians, what touched me the most about this documentary was this lesbian couple talking about being afraid that because of the love they shared here on earth, they wouldn't be able to make it to heaven. This documentary perfectly captured my feelings about my sexuality and my faith. I believe that God won't turn me away because of my feelings but I'm not sure, no one really is, and as much as I want to say God won't , I can't be sure. Truth is truth, I can believe all I want but in the end the truth will prevail. This is just so hard!

Today I went to a friend's house for a Taboo party and one of the words was abominable, and the other was a couple and they didn't get it. My friend's boyfriend says to her that she should have said a man and a man together or a woman and a woman are a ___. He was referencing an earlier conversation they had, and it hit me like a bullet in my heart. This is just so hard! I don't know what else to say, I'm hurting real bad right now, it just brought out so many things in me and I don't really know how to handle it.