I didn’t mean to lie - I’ve never lied to anyone ever - right? - just been afraid to tell the truth and said something different - oops - maybe lying is something I do - by omission - subtle rewordings - fact changing - rearranging the finer points to tiptoe around the face you make - the backing in to quiet corners - untrusting - give me space is what your asking and my sad remorseful heart is cringing - painting me a picture of sorrow and regret but wait - if I shouldn’t lie then how can I let myself lie again - stop - that is not sad sorrow remorse nor regret that is fears upon fears upon… what rhymes with that… yes - tears - my anguish buries my glass-half-full halfway to six feet and one and one half inches is how small I feel - next to you - silence - is the string tethering me to this moment - me to you - why? - I forget to ask me - was I so afraid - and think - me - before you talk cos this time a lie won’t save you anything
Apr 10
Lie
Viviane Namaste is a powerful activist who I admire greatly. Here are some of her words speaking to the cycles of invisibility faced by transsexual and transgender people: “Whereas previous scholars contend that medical and psychiatric discourses produce transsexuals, I suggest that TRANSSEXUAL AND TRANSGENDERED (sic) PEOPLE ARE PRODUCED THROUGH ERASURE, AND THAT THIS ERASURE IS ORGANIZED AT A MICROLOGICAL LEVEL, IN THE INVISIBLE FUNCTIONS OF DISCOURSE AND RHETORIC, THE TAKEN FOR GRANTED PRACTICES OF INSTITUTIONS, AND THE UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCES OF SOCIAL POLICY.” (Namaste 2000, 53) Trans people are reduced to figural tropes and stereotypes in mass media and in sociological, queer and feminist theory, used to produce plot or explain gender. This erases trans lived experiences. Trans people are taken for granted or ignored within social institutions, leaving them largely outside of social service networks (or abused within) and therefore leaving social services confused and inexperienced in serving the real needs of this populations. Many trans people are literally made impossible by classifications of “men” and “women”. (Namaste 2000) When trans people are erased, the world gets used to their invisibility, perpetuating it and hurting the shockingly huge majority of trans people who need services, help, and visibility more than ever. If you are interested in learning more, see Viviane Namaste’s book Invisible Lives: The erasure of transsexual and transgendered people.
Mar 12
Viviane Namaste: Erasure as a defining condition of transsexual and transgender people
Mar 11
A recent project, a rubber stamp day planner. This particular example is in a generic journal, the pages must be 5 by 8 inches or bigger. This early attempt was made with dye based ink which bleeds through but I prefer inks that set on the paper’s surface, taking longer to dry but producing a clean and un-saturated result. This was tons of fun and a creative way to justify organizing my life. Let me know if you would like one! Contact me at abcmarie123@gmail.com if you would like to have me make you one.
"…I carry with me three names. One you do not need to know. I threw it away hastily with my Levis, my ties, and my dapper-Dan wingtips. The other is a ferocious diva, a queer conqueror of homo nightclubs and twinky hungry-for-Hungry-Man gay boys. And me, the third, my name is Adaline, and it sings beautifully…READ MORE @ ORIGINAL FORMAT"
The sun proved to be the best napping blanket. What a pleasant day!
"…but I’m afraid you are forgetting as I am telling you, you who maybe hears me, for disappearing is something that I do. I am a shape-shifted being, a witch, like a ghost. I am practically magical. I have powers to bend people’s minds, to break their body from brain, reducing them to fumbling idiots. That is how powerful I am. I can move grown men to the opposite side of the street without much effort at all. I can erase a child’s worldly understandings and leave them confused by merely sitting near them. I am so powerful that I can walk in to a government facility and escape their strongest efforts to categorize me. I can stand naked in front of a mirror and the mirror can do nothing but sit silent, motionless, and stare at my body with wonder. I am like a ghost… READ MORE @ ORIGINAL FORMAT"
I enter as a closeted poet, a journalistic writer, and a fledgling essayist. I have an unbounded desire to bring the power of experience to my writing and to find clarity of voice as an activist through my relationship to language.
I am here by way of a deeply situated need to describe my world to myself.
Ear to the ground, hoping to stumble in to community.
To build with intention.
Documenting the experiences that I shape and that shape me.
Wanting to give my pages to the eyes and minds of others without preface or pretense.
As a trans girl who’s gender alone is uniquely intricate and enigmatic, to myself, and surely to this world.
As a person who has shared the last few decades with this planet.
Not naively claiming to write a future that will hold peace and comfort for my body and every other body seen and unseen.
Unapologetic with a horrible habit of apology.
So I start with my self, my past, my hilarities, my tragedies, and a need to write without knowing exactly why. I have turned to my writing like a child who defies the rules, who devours books by flashlight under the safety of the covers. I have been, her, late night, closed door bleeding out emotion, fear, hatred, loathing, and love. Some cut their flesh to feel catharsis, some turn their pains onto pariahs, and some just sit with their sadness and never smile as deeply as they would like. But I have found writing as my healer, my masochism, my mirror, and my knife with which I can let my own experiences bleed.
