shawty's like a melody in ma head, that i can't keep out got me singin like

essay essay essay.

rj visited me in my 'special booth' in the liesbrary. its not mine i guess but when i got here it was occupied and i didn't know what to do with myself. i wandered around the 3rd floor aimlessly, like a fucking little doe- 'yer not my mama' at every vacant study space.

but score! i'm here and ima pillage this essay and all its essay cousins. 

i'm listening this song 'replay'... on replay. (veeeery creative jes).

last night i went to the trent film society screening of dakan. i cried during the love scene. it's this incredible film about this boy in guinea that loves this other boy. classic homo story told in a very beautiful and unique way. amazing shots- minimalist lighting. 

and manga tries, through religious ceremony and for the love of his mother, tries to move beyond his feelings for sori, and falls in love with a woman. but when they start to make love, his mind goes to sori. and not just imaging oumou was sori, but going to moments the two men had together, kissing, falling down laughing. and my heart broke a little bit as i thought about the times i've had sex and been thinking about d; desiring a companion i wasn't in bed with, and the weight of the guilt of not being 'there' for the other person.

and then manga visits sori at the end and sori asks if manga would like to meet his son (new baby with new wife). and manga plays with the child with this piercing laughter and enthusiasm that made me overwhelmingly sad and happy at the same time. imagining holding d's baby, the baby of someone who you hold so much love for, in a being they created. but the wave of knowing this baby is a piece of the life you didn't have with someone you loved so strongly.

...

and rj and i are laughing in this booth and talking about criticisms we have of this queer community. masculinities privileged, whiteness prevailing. feedback unwelcome. stepping back from organizing has been a blessing. looking for new teachers, mentors, places to learn. i have been a teacher too, but the best leaders never stop making students out of themselves. this, i have learned.

rj is one of my teachers. so is nate. so is my father. my father who visited and told me he didn't see colour at the dub fest after telling me he didnt realize it was a black type of poetry. i was like 'of course you saw colour, dad. and its a good thing. peterborough doesn't often have artistic spaces wherein racialized people make up the majority of performers and attendees.'

people like my dad will get their back up and fight if you ask them to. 'asking them to' is disrespecting their voice. privileged or not, if you want someone to listen to what you have to say, you have speak with love. and sure, i'm no fool. i know that if we went around telling the ignorant we loved them, we'd open ourselves up to attack and abuse. but, discernment is key. and not just seizing opportunities but making them. and not just making them in the moment, but laying down the ground work. 

and now, back to this essay...

don't speak too soon

(they did it. they broke me. they broke in. with broadway and candles and chorus. they showed me a love undiluted and i said stop and they said no. the self loathing. its rooted in colonial mire. but i gotta find a new pond to swim in. clear clear water, filtering into my pores.)

birthdays

oh man. twentyfive.

this has perhaps been the best birthday i've yet to experience. 

it's sunday and i'm sitting alone in 'my booth' at the olde stone. saddled with a hefty pint of stout and my current overdue essay putputputtering out of me in seismic spurts of almost-academic-enough, and smirking with the satisfaction that sundays after-arthur article submission provides.

d is working in the back. i woke up at her house after another too-drunk to walk home party. dad and nate visited to give me birthday wishes and some of the best gifts i've ever gotten. dad bought me a pair of paratrooper goggles from an army surplus store, and matched with my same-shade leather coat, i look like a young amelia earhart. nate bought me a gorgeous pen. he says he made the would part of it...with aspen? i dont even know if thats a kind of wood...or tree.. but anyway, it's pine-y in colour and inlayed with gold and black. the weight of it in my hand is perfection. 'it's cuz you're a writer' nate says across our table at kubo, as he beams. his zest activates a part of my heart that only he is able to access. 

i talked them into accompanying me to the remaining evening of the dub poetry festival. clifton joseph. lillian allen. klyde broox. afua cooper. ritalin. the line up was incredible. titans of the dub movement. word warriors. and my father.

my father, who listened to poem after poem hit syllable to microphone to air. affirming the neocolonial clutch that is cunningly grasping his privilege, in the parenthesis of his queer and only-daughter's life hitting its 25th year. i'm not about to say he drove back to uxbridge with any sort of revelation shackled to his hands, because it was nate that had to drive, courtesy of the gratuitous tequila shots. 

but after a series of discussions that blew my mind every way that one's mind can be blown, save for a loaded gun, my birthday meal was literally and figuratively on my father's dime. generationally, i was gifted with time. this time. where queer won't cost my life. where disabled doesn't guarantee segregated, uneducated, immobile. where safety doesn't mean silence.

i exist in a space and time in a body and mind of my mother and father's making. the graces that nate and i have found are a direct result of the spirit and soul they allowed us to see in them. sure, my dad wants to be comfortable and provided for. sure my mom doesn't wave a rainbow flag for me. but they continue to love me here, now. and that speaks in ways that they don't. 

i brought nate and dad with me to m and d's pisces party. we rolled with cigars, my dad giggling about how clifton joseph grabbed his hand and told him he'd been 'feeding off his vibe all night'.  my dad stood in a circle with my friends shooting the shit, as i grinned and showed them my prezzies. outta of some unknown pocket nate produces a bottle of single malt scotch for me. as IF.  

d slid into the booth with me after a shift of muck and grunt work. she orders us calamari to share, and we launch into an evening of conversation that keeps me perpetually smiling. about aging. about this queer community and power, used and misused. about our responsibilities. about of failures. about our future friendship. 

we left and rolled into the only, not missing a beat. she read me the label of the chimmay her bartender macking skills afforded us, leaning in close, being sure to meet my cheek with hers. and as i let myself get romanced by her tender and careful intonation, i felt certain of my place in the world. 

and i know that sorta thing, paired with the girl and the bar sounds so goddam trite, but it was a real moment. recalling it to you now makes me choke up, as i feel the terror of not having the ready access to d once she rockets from this city that wears her face in restaurant windows and street corners.  i was fine before her and will be after but time is leaking a trail of tears behind me like hoda sputters in crackpot. 

as much as i am over her, in the in-love sense, i'm still in love with the feeling of her around me. the way she insists on taking care of me. on steering our evening. on being the tempo to our intoxicated dancing. no one spins me like she does. ima miss that. in a way my reluctant heart isn't ready to speak.

and she gets quiet whenever i talk this way. about caring and loving. but i know she remembers me in the same sort of moments. and separation will mean less remembering.  so i asked her to go to saskatchewan with me because i've never seen flatness and i've been dreaming of an imagined landscape and she readily-agrees in pipedream punctuation. 

maybe this is what 25 means. 

we are always mutable. we are always moving. up and away. and away from where we started. away from where our parents first planted our petite pies. its terrifying because its palpable, that distance from the couch to the coffee table. go.

pulling on my socks again

where did the night go.

writing a book

is this a ridiculous idea?

truthfully, i always assumed i would attempt to. but anyway. it's for neal's class. the creative writing one. we have to put together a portfolio. a pretty sizable one. i could (and perhaps should, as he is nudging) use it as an opportunity to get started on a book.

problem is, my writing so far ....

well okay. i've got a bumfull of poetry. and some prose-y chapters that sorta just read like a blog. a blog like this one. which is fine, but lacks...well, characters and development and all that shebang. 

i could just keep doing the poem thing and submit a whack of them at the end of term. or i could push myself to start an actual story. semi-autobiographical, most likely. but yknow... a thing with chapters and direction. maybe some doodles in it too.

hmmm              (would people read this thing?)

hmmm.

i tried to do handstands for you

this video made my heart smile today

so it's valentine's day. and i have nothing cynical to say.

...

well okay. i've been at dana's since passing out here on friday night post-self love cabaret madness. and saturday slayed me with a killer hangover. 

and now it's sunday. dana made me a breakfast sandwich and was chatting with her roommate as they cooked. 'my valentine is almost here', referring to a cross-province hitch hikin lover. 

valentine. made me sorta squirmy. not dana having a sweetheart, but the word i guess. like putting scrambled eggs in your pocket. 

this song makes me think of all the times before the let down. the 'i-think-i'm-crushing' but you're actually more than crushing and blushing and you can't admit it to yourself yet because once you do any little let down is like a tiny stinging dagger deflating the hope of something new. some new feeling. some new person. the gushy.

i catch myself these days. i do handstands for myself only. which is definitely not without its vim and whimsy. but remove the risk and its just jumping around in a field. i love jumping around in a field. but i'm missing the handstands a lil bitty.

and not because its valentine's day. but maybe because it's just the time of year i wanna chase shadows and feelings. and napkins and knowing glances. and floorboards just worn enough for dancing. and mood lighting. and crusty bartenders. and spills on new shirts. and sloppy goodbyes. and being young when i feel old.

today

i didn't move.

it was frustrating because i really wanted to go to the library. tomorrow? tomorrow. 

bleh.