Mixed Tranny Homo

In Memory Of

Our white brothers and sisters

Radical friends

like to dedicate everything to you

your memory ignites their movement

They make movies about how revolutionary they are

Put on events for the "entire" community

And even though almost everyone there looks exactly like them

They hold their events in memory of you.

When you were alive,

our white brothers and sisters

Radical friends

wanted nothing do to with you

A poor Nicoya immigrante      

You were still learning English

Your SRO in the Tenderloin

Was far from the safety of their gentrified vegan-friendly co-op overflowing with bicycles.

You might have asked them for a cigarette

As they rushed off to their community building planning meeting

Ignoring you en la calle.

Our white brothers and sisters

radical friends

created a San Francisco Trans March documentary

and at the end

"In Memory of Ruby Ordenana"

Lo siento muchisimo mamas, that I couldn't say anything

That I was frozen by my anger and my grief

That I couldn't scream out in the crowded movie theatre

RUBY ORDENANA WOULD HAVE NEVER GONE TO YOUR RACIST FUCKING MARCH THROUGH THE CASTRO

That I couldn't stop them from romanticizing and appropriating your life

One year and three months after your body was found naked

Tossed aside como la basura  debajo de la freeway.

Our white brothers and sisters

radical friends

read all about your murder in the paper

It made them worry for their own safety

"How could this happen in San Francisco?"

Those white brothers and sisters

radical friends

live lives far removed from what you faced on the daily.

Fotos y recuerdos

are all we have of you

Just like your favorite Selena song

But our white brothers and sisters

radical friends

would never know what your favorite song was

They would never know that your dream was to start a support group

para mujeres como tu.             

They would never know what it was like

to organize your vigil

to stand with your friends and service providers

at the site you were found.

They would never know how beautiful you were in life

because all their enjoyment comes from your death

thinking about how progressive they are

paying you lip service with "In Memory of Ruby Ordenana"

at events you never would have attended.

Our white brothers and sisters

radical friends

would not have liked you as much

in the flesh.

Because even your memory is far too fierce

to be contained within the momentary flash of a disingenuous

"In Memory Of".

Epic

Yo soy Luis

Surviving in a world that wears me down.

I am not an Aztec warrior or a Mayan prince.

I will not romanticize my mestizoness

invoking Gods who may or not govern my blood.

I am the colonizer and the colonized

And something different altogether.

I am the white child of my brown mother

who never envisioned her blond haired daughter

growing into her only son.

I am part of the chisme whispered at family gatherings

“Ay, did you hear about Maria Luisa’s youngest?”

I am la chingada, betraying the assimilation of my family

While also betraying the gender and the dreams everyone had for me.

Yo soy Luis

I am not the images of Chicanismo heroes

Whose hyper-masculinity

Is not reflected in my trans Latino faggotry

I am not the eagle striking the serpent biting the eagle.

I am the forked tongue between the two.

And like quetzacoatl, this forked tongue is surrounded by boas.

Yo soy Luis

I am the third generation Mexican,

the native child to this land,

and the white European.

I am like a nopal in a stripmall.

My flores are covered with glitter

As “American” as apple pie and colonized minds.

I am the product of bootstrap ideology:

Mija, if you just work hard enough

translation:

If you just marry white enough

if you just look light enough

You can do real well for yourself.

Yo soy Luis

La revolucion esta en mi sangre

And in my very existence

UFW protests that ended with my mother in the arms

Of a white man.

In the stories of my abuelito

where he rode with Pancho Villa

because everybody’s abuelitos rode with Pancho Villa.

I have been the bloody revolution

Staining my chones

With a body that rebelled against my desires.

With a body that never felt mine

after so many people took what they wanted from it.

Raised by a mujerista who knew that story all too well.

I imagine her feeling so small as her hermano

Would slip into her room the nights my abuelita stayed late at the cannery

My abuelito already spending his paycheck on brandy and craps.

Pero do not betray la raza, chingada.

No digas a nadie.

Don’t tell anyone.

Like my mama, I too am a survivor

I survived her for all those years

She took her anger out on me.

I survived me for all the years

I internalized my abuse.

I survived the neighbor next door,

Sticking her dirty fingers inside my 4 year old girl underwear

And the best friend in college who raped me.

After all of the abuse I experienced with women

I still love and honor them.

I still call my mama every day.

Because what it means for me to be a queer trans chicano

Is not letting go of the mujeres in my life.

Queer trans Chicanismo is about reclaiming la chingada

Screaming con la llorona about the loss of the little girl I used to be, the loss of my little girl innocence to other women who were supposed to be safe.

Yo soy Luis

Un queer trans biracial Chicano

Who finds his home not in Aztlan

But in the smell of Chanel number 5

In the bodies of the people who violated me

In the brown skin of the virgen who saved me

In the faith that tells me I’m an aberration

And in myself for still believing I am worth coming home to.

10,000 Demons

This is in progress. Sometimes posting things helps me with them.

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I’ve stopped dating mono-racially white people.  But for reals this time, not like the last time I broke up with a mono-racially white lover, 2 mono-racially white ex lovers ago.

It’s not fair to either of us when I date mono-racially white folks. I don’t let them in, I don’t trust them, I don’t let myself imagine a future with them. They fall in love. And I let them. I let them fall in love with me and I try to convince myself that I care about them. What I can’t convince myself of is that I can ever let go of the idea of dating someone like me.

What I like about dating mono-racially white folks is that I’m always other to them. Once white folks find out I’m biracial, I will never be white, no matter what I look like. It’s similar to my experience of being trans. Once non-trans folks find out that I’m trans, I’m never a man; I’m always a tranny. Which is ok with me because I like being a tranny and being perceived as a trans. But I don’t like being perceived as white because it silences half of my heritage; the half that’s most important to me because that’s what I grew up with. And that whole not being white because I’m a passing biracial only happens 100% of the time with mono-racially white folks.

I’ve got this internalized shit that pulls at me with other mixed folx and people of color. I worry that they don’t see me as mixed, that my Chicano-ness is swallowed by my skin. I’m obsessed with the ways people look at me, the ways people perceive me. Growing up I was the white girl my brown mother always wanted to be. I stare at myself wondering if people still see that white little girl. Or do I look Chicano now that I’m on testosterone? It’s only been since I’ve transitioned that non-Latinos have told me I “look” Latino. I think it’s cause I’m short. But still, I stare at myself. Do I look like a girl or a boy, Mexican or white. It’s hard to see myself for everything I am in the mirror. I see the white girl cutting herself praying for the strength to push harder against the vein. I see the good Latina going to church every week, going to Catholic high school and Catholic college. I see the tranny with acne and facial hair that won’t grow in evenly. But all at once, totally seeing myself doesn’t happen very often.

Mono-racially white people don’t see me for everything either. They just don’t see me as white. It’s not enough for me anymore.

I’ve always been able to see myself when I’m reflected in my lovers. Like when I figured out I was a giant faggot and I went after the biggest trannyfags I could find. To actually be with someone who saw me as male for the first time was amazing, especially since his body looked so much like mine. I want to see my mixed-ness reflected that way. It has been with people who I play with or date casually. But never actually in a relationship.

This only-dating-monoracially-white-people track record of mine is a hot mess. While they might be easier to date in some ways, they’re also really hard to date. Because they always seem to do some kind of fucked up shit. Like the ex who would ask me to translate things for them. Or the ex who would make fun of me because I can’t roll my r’s. In this decision to stop dating mono-racially white people, I’m releasing some of those demons.

Fantasizing about girls

Fuck me.  Like you want to hurt me. Like you want to lose yourself in me. Like you see yourself in me. Like you’re fucking yourself with your fist inside yourself in me. Like you want to marry me. Like you want to make babies with me. Like you can’t remember the last time it was so good. Like you want me to fuck you back even better making you scream so loud my neighbors wish they didn’t live above some pervy ass homo. Fuck me sweetly sometimes, interlacing my hands with yours while you stare into my eyes kissing me softly. Fuck me all the time. Make me late for work, behind in homework, forget about my responsibilities. Fuck me like the borders within us come crashing down as our bodies press together. Fuck me the way your life hurts. The way your identities hurt as they scrape up against each other and bleed. On me. Cut me. The way I used to cut myself when I tried to rip myself apart. With your nails dragging down my back, my arms, my legs. Fuck me while you cut me with your nails that catch on my scars, the barbed wire scratching you back. Fuck me dirty and soft all at once. Like you. With your fuck me heels.

Lab Rat

I wrote this while on lots of pain meds so it's probably more ranty and less edited than my other blogs.

It's wierd feeling sick all the time. Feeling like I'm spending most of my time recovering from surgeries, in hospitals or worried about more hospital visits. I know that when I get sick I go a little high on the diva chart, but being a princess makes is seem a little better for me.

I just had my tonsils and my uvula (the dangly thing in the back of your throat) removed. While it's not a major surgery- only 2 weeks recovery time- I think my healing is slowed since I just had a double mastectomy less than 3 months ago. As phase 2 of this current surgery, I have to get surgery again in 6 months to fix my deviated septum. And I discovered a small tumor in my arm which I'm hoping is a cist, but either way will have to be taken out. Also, because I'm a diva and blow things slightly out of proportion sometimes I'm convinced that I have some sort of uterine cancer. All my insides are dying and collapsing in on themselves, so it would make sense. I get cramps, the really bad kind of cramps that FTM's get which usually indicate it's medically necessary to have a hysterectomy.  Cramps that start immediately after I orgasm. Even I am not enough of a massochist to enjoy them. They hurt, fuck me up and I can't move for at least 45 minutes after I get them.

I'm waiting until I'm a little more healed from my current uvula/tonsilectomy to make an appointment about the cramps and the tumor. I can only deal with one tranny related health problem at a time. Well, the tumor is probably from my grandmother being doused in pesticides and not tranny related. But everything else is.

I have one of the stupidist side effects of testosterone, second only to tragic tranny balding (which I'm convinced that I do have): sleep apnea. Taking testosterone apparently bulks my massive tranny muscles up so much that there's not room for air to go through my giant tranny throat when I'm sleeping. Sleep apnea means that I snore really loud, I stop breathing up to hundreds of times a night and my memory goes straight down the tranny tube (not to be confused with the tranny tube that sits around my belly). I can't remember anything unless I really really concentrate on it, and even then I will probably forget part of it. I'm a really great person to tell secrets to.

When I was diagnosed with sleep apnea I felt like it was probably connected to taking T. Most people who get it are heavier men in their 40's or older. At first it wasn't a big deal that I had sleep apnea. I took home my bulky, hideous, expensive C-PAP machine that I had to sleep with every night so it could force pressurized air down my throat. As I wore the machine the first few weeks I kissed my slut days good bye- I might not want to fuck (and then sleep with) someone who has to use a giant, ugly machine at night that has long ugly grey hoses that flop around. My partner assured me that some people might be into cyborg play.

Apparently cyborg play wasn't into me- the fucking machine (as in damn machine, not as in an actual fucking machine, which would work very well for me!) didn't work and my memory got worse because I was sleeping even less with the C-PAP. So I saw another doctor who said surgery is the only other alternative. After doing a little internet research I found out that sleep apnea is a side effect of T, and I probably signed off on a form 3 years ago saying that I understood that. I have no recollection of what was on this form other than balding, ruining my liver and heart problems. 

And here I am, recovering from part 1 of my 2 part sleep-apnea-tranny-surgery. I get to have another surgery in 6 more months, then I'll be able to breathe at night. I'm so happy I have insurance. Especially when I get horrible cramps even though I have no period and when I discover new tumors on different parts of my body (I had a breast tumor removed with my boobs in February).

It's very apparent to me now that I, and most of my friends, are lab rats. Even though no one is documenting anything, we're lab rats. No one really knows what long term use of T does to FTM's. They don't even know what all the side effects are. And I personally feel that some of the "side effects" are sexist, like aggression and sex drive. Neither of those changed in me. If anything, I'm more comfortable in expressing my emotions now. Commercials, weddings and the animal planet all make me cry post-T. My sex drive stayed the same, while the actual sensation I had changed. My sex drive is now much lower because I live in fear of the cramps I'm likely to get after I orgasm.

Logitudinal studies of T will probably focus first on white FTM's, then on FTM's of color. There's hardly any research in ANY health area for mixed folks, let alone the mixed trannies (and much of the existing research shows significantly different health risk factors for mixed folks). I will be unsuprised when all of my friends start dying en masse in their 40's and 50's.

I'm tired of being a lab rat, especially when it seems like no one is paying attention to all of us. I'm also tired of surgeries, doctors and hospitals. I'm tired of feeling tired all the time and tired of not being able to go out much. I haven't even been calling back all my friends because between my health, my work and Ruby's murder I'm not able to deal with anything more. Being trans is quickly losing cuteness.

And I'm sorry to all my friends who haven't heard from me in a few months.

Ruby's Vigil Tonight

Transgender murders are hard enough when they are people you don't know. But when you know them, when you care about them, when you watch them struggle, when you see how much life they have in them, it's devestating.  Ruby Ordenana was a beautiful, vibrant young woman with many hopes and dreams for her life.  She was only 24 years old.  She was found naked on Cesear Chavez and Illinois and her body was unidentified for days. 

She is the third transgender woman of color to be murdered in San Francisco in the past SIX MONTHS.  Something needs to change.

I have the official press release from CUAV.  While the press release says Ruby Rodriguez, she also went by Ruby Ordenana.  Her picture is on the press release and I have more pictures of her if people are not sure that this is a Ruby they know.

Thank you,

Logan

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

Contact:

Alexandra Byerly, EL-LA Program Coordinator (415) 864-7278

Tina D’Elia, Hate Violence Survivor Program Director (415) 777-5500 ext. 304

Community Mourns Murder of Latina Transgender Woman

Requests Attendance at Vigil to Demand Change

San Francisco, California (March 22, 2007) – A Nicaraguan transgender woman, Ruby Rodriguez, 24 years old, was murdered on Friday, March 16, 2007. Her body was found on the corner of Cesar Chavez and Indiana Streets in the Mission District of San Francisco. The murder is currently under investigation by the San Francisco Police Department. Community United Against Violence (CUAV), EL-LA, San Francisco LGBT Community Center, TRANS Project, allies, and community members will hold a community vigil in her honor on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 6:00PM, on the corner of 24^th Street and Mission Street in the Mission District.

----------------- ### -------------------

Community United Against Violence works to end violence against and within the LGBTQQ communities, providing free and confidential counseling, advocacy, and education in English and Spanish. CUAV’s crisis line is (415) 333-4357

Organizers request that the community bring a white candle to the vigil. There will also be an additional altar set up on Cesar Chavez and Indiana Street, and community members are encouraged to bring flowers, photographs, cards and good wishes to this site. Let us not forget Ruby. She was an exceptional woman who was intent on improving her life. Ruby participated in various support groups and language classes, and idolized Chicana singer Selena.

This murder comes at the heels of at least two other violent deaths of transgender women of color in the San Francisco Bay Area over the past six months. Transgender people, particularly low-income transgender women of color, are disproportionately poor, homeless, criminalized and imprisoned as a result of systemic discrimination in our daily attempts to access safe housing, healthcare, employment, and education.

Unfortunately, Ruby’s murder is not an exception, but an everyday fear for many transgender people who are targeted and brutalized by institutions and society at large. Our communities mourn Ruby’s death and ask for a renewed commitment to real safety for transgender communities. It is vital that the Mayor’s Office, the San Francisco Police Department, and the District Attorney’s Office work to end the cycles of criminalization, poverty, and violence in transgender communities and communities of color.

Please direct any questions about the vigil to Tina D’Elia or Alexandra Byerly. If anyone has any information regarding Ruby’s murder, please contact Inspector Karen Lynch at (415) 553-1388 or Inspector Tom Cleary at (415) 553-9569 of the SFPD Homicide Unit.

los tumores

At 12 years old I thought God was punishing me. A small lump had formed on my right breast and I was certain that it came from the way my string of boyfriends grabbed at my tits while their tongues sloppily squirmed around in my mouth. God thought I was disgusting and it was a medical fact that bad things happened if boys touched you. That’s the impression I got from my mom, an incest survivor who desperately (and unsuccessfully) tried to protect her children from molestation. However, being Catolica and raised in the 40’s she was unable to articulate what it was we should not let people do to us, why it was wrong or what would happen to us.

So God hated me. And I began to hate myself. I started keeping a journal full of images, because I knew my mom would find the journal and read it. It had to be in code- clumsily drawn flowers, tears, knives, skeletons, each symbolizing how much I wanted to die that day. For an entire year I was convinced that the growing lump on my breast was my fault. That if I told my mother she would know everything I wanted to keep secret from her. She would find out how far I let those boys go with me, she would know about 2^nd grade when Lindsey Jones and I shared the same boyfriend, she would discover the relationship Lindsey and I had in 1^st grade where I pretended to be the mechanic husband coming home from a long day at work so pissed that dinner wasn’t ready that I raped my wife (Lindsey), and my mother would have to face herself for letting the older neighbor girl play with me alone in the backyard, forcing me up against the side of the house while she touched me non-consensually.

I watched that lump grow from the size of a raisin to the size of a really big grape, maybe even a fresa. I started Catholic all-girls high school con verguenza and the grape. I started thinking that this thing inside me was gonna kill me and I showed my mom one Sunday night. She flipped out, asked me how long it had been there and dragged me to the doctor the next day. Benign, but I was still so ashamed that I couldn’t tell anyone at school why I had been gone and why I couldn’t do PE.

The doctors didn’t know why I had the tumor, they just told me that some people get them and that it’s pretty uncommon for someone my age to get that type of tumor. I was convinced that God was punishing me. It wasn’t until a few more years when my abuelitas cancer went into remission that my family told me why I had the tumor. My grandmother and her sisters all had cancer that eventually killed them- the kind of cancer that’s caused by being poor and Mexican. My abuelita was a migrant farm worker in Southern and Central California in the early 1900’s. The pesticides passed down through the generations, with the grandchildren all having numerous tumors.

My abuelita died from the pesticide cancer in 1997, on the day I graduated from high school. Two years later I found 2 more tumors, this time in my left breast. Still suicidal I waited until I had a big paper due to go to the doctor- I figured that surgery would be able to get me an extension. It did but it also started the conscious spiral of gender dysphoria that lasted for the next few years. It also made me start cutting again and almost got me fifty-one-fifty’d.

Last year I found another lump. With that lump the flood of memories came back around: shame, bulimia, cutting, suicide, abuse, rape and my abuelita. Her memory pulled me away from the bad memories and forced me into the gynecologist who examined the lump on my hairy breast. All she said was that it’s still small, it would be best to watch it and remove it only if it gets bigger. Testosterone softens breast tissue and people who have lumps usually discover them because the rest of the tissue is breaking down. That lump was removed during my chest surgery. Right now I’m waiting for the results from the pathology analysis. It’s funny that the physical ties to my Mexican heritage may kill me, that the insides of me are where the Chicano in me is visible. And that my dad’s side of the family was farmers who hired farm workers and, I’m guessing, sprayed them with pesticides.

My mother’s only supportive statement about my chest surgery was her relief that at least now I can’t get breast cancer. I don’t even have the scars anymore from my old surgeries- 2 inches around each areola. Now I have 10 inches of scars on each side, located a few inches beneath nipples shaved down and sewn back on. Waiting to find out if the lump is benign or malignant I’m amazed that the faith, which created the whole mess in the first place, gives me hope. But I don’t pray to God now, I pray to the Virgin de Guadalupe. I pray to my abuelita. I clean my altar, light my candles, put fresh flowers out and remember my history.

Healing the Split

Sixteen days after top surgery I have scars on my chest that divide my body, scars that create visible borders between my identities, scars that push my family away, scars that scare me. On day 5 of my recovery when the drains collecting excess blood on my chest were removed I realized that I’m now a transsexual. Another identity to add to the list. Looking at myself in the mirror is still just as painful as it was before surgery. I don’t like the way my new chest looks.  And while I'm happy that people may stop using female pronouns with me as a result of surgery, the thought of being perceived more as a white male scares me.

Having borders on my skin comforts me in a way. The borderlands of my body and my identities are visible to me now every time I look down. I wonder about why I think these scars are ugly. Borders are meant to be ugly- do those of us who live our lives on them have to lie and say how happy we are that our bodies, families and identities are ripped apart? I don’t know if some internalized transphobia is keeping me from reacting the way transsexuals are supposed to when we have surgeries. We’re supposed to feel so happy that the pain is meaningless, that we can finally look at our bodies with satisfaction. I look at my body and I see the physical border from being other in so many ways. It comforts but does not heal or satisfy me.

I wonder how the border between my racial identity would visibly manifest itself. I’ve always imagined looking different- either looking more like my mom’s side or more like my dad’s side. I think that the border is visible when I’m placed in the context of my family. My sisters and I look nothing alike; we don’t visibly make sense as siblings unless our parents are with us. The border is always present at the dinner table and family gatherings. But where does it go when I’m by my white-skinned self? It gets internalized while I "pass" as white only. The thing about passing is that it’s intrinsically tied to deception in order to access certain privileges. When I "pass" as a white male I’m hiding parts of my identity and gaining privileges. I can’t wear signs everywhere that declare myself as a mixed tranny, and I am undoubtedly perceived as a white male. The borders become internalized on MUNI, in the grocery store, all those spaces where white non-trans males access privilege.

Gloria Anzaldua wrote about healing the split caused by unnatural boundaries. Her answer was to change the binary nature of Western thought, situating herself firmly in that space within the border crossings of race, gender and sexuality. I try to inhabit that space and it’s a struggle because borders are unnatural and they hurt. They hurt the way my chest does after surgery. They hurt in the way my hand cramps now because it’s so hard to orgasm without nipple sensation. They hurt in the way that my mother who was 45 pinche minutes away from me for the week after surgery never came to visit. They hurt in the way that my white dad drove 3 hours one way to take me to a follow up appointment while my mother reenacted the oppressive patriarchal message of betrayal to la raza. They hurt in the jokes of my sister about how I’m the whitest looking person in the family. They hurt in the absence of messages from most of my friends who never called or emailed to ask how my surgery went. They hurt in the phone call I got 6 days after surgery from the Program Coordinator of the UCSF Sociology Ph.D. program who asked me if I pass as male when all she called to tell me was that UCSF lost my GRE scores. They hurt monetarily in the $7,500 desperately saved for a surgery listed as a "cure" in my Gender Identity Disorder diagnosis not covered by the insurance I am privileged enough to have.

I don’t understand how to heal the split in my identities when it is both so visible and invisible on my skin. I identify, live and breathe on the borders that hurt me and push me away from my family, lovers and friends. Maybe it’s that the ugly scars on my chest are too new and painful right now for me to find any solace in the borderlands. This split, this visible Sex Reassignment Surgery split dividing up my gender was supposed to heal something. All its done is gotten rid of my binder, my breasts and with them my nipple sensation. I’m not finding any healing in that. Right now my identities are all raw like my new scars. And I’m very afraid that this raw, chafing, emotional, fucked up space is where Anzaldua situated herself. I am afraid to stay here and afraid of moving away from it. I want my fucking cure and I’m shocked by my surprise that it is not found in binary Western medicine.

learning spanish

My mouth stumbles over words I don't know to make sounds I've heard all my life.

The rr's stick in the back of my throat, held captive by my German ancestry. 

I understand casi todo, but I can't reply.  I am a prisoner of my own fears and self doubts.  I am afraid of sounding white, I am afraid of saying the wrong thing, I am afraid that when I speak all that is visible is the assimilation of my family and the heritage of my father.

Frustrated and angry with my mother, I listen to the white homos in mi nivel grasp el subjuntivo en el pasado perfecto while I struggle, held back by memories of family laughing at my Spanish, code switching so I couldn't understand. 

Are there people there who look like our family?

"Are there people there who look like our family?"  What my mother really meant to say was "are there people there who look like me, like my mother and father, like mis hermanos".  Yes mama, there are people who look like our family here.  There are people who look like you here, there are people who look like my abuelitos here, there are people who look like my tios here.  But most of the people who look like me here (in Cuernavaca) are white folks from the US.  I see them from far away, clustered together, talking louly, frustrated that no one here speaks English.  They ooze privilege as they giggle about how inexpensive everything is- not realizing that 70% of Mexicans earn 100 pesos a day- and that 100 pesos often has to support at least 3 other people. 

I struggle with my privilege here, which is good.   Especially looking white, coming on vacay for language school that costs more than what most folks earn in a month here, and being able to learn spanish at a language school in Mèxico. 

And I'm coming back in August.  With my mother.  To hold her arm as she walks down streets filled with people who look like her, surrounded by her white husband and her two white looking children. 

Some random thoughts:

Selena is playing really loudly in el zocalo.  I love it here. 

There's a white woman with dreadlocks at my school.  I feel bad cause I haven't even smiled at her and I think she's tried to start talking to me (she's probably queer and from Berkeley and down with la causa).  At the LYRIC talkline, we had this thing called UPR, which was unconditional positive regard.  I'm trying to expand that to include problematic people, but I'm really struggling.  Does it make me a jerk that I totally dislike this woman cause she has offensive racist ass hair?  Would it make me a jerk if I smiled fakely at her while I thought the whole time about how offensive I think her hair is?  I'm trying to have more UPR in my life, but how do I do it with white dreadlocks? 

Uniform Skirts

In my Ethnic Studies Theories class we had a poetry exercise about our adolescence- this is what I wrote.  I realized that I posted it on myspace but not on friendster. So here it is.

Uniform Skirts

Itchy uniform skirt worn long
  to hide
Knees cushioned by that skirt
  after lunch throwing up in toilets
Those same knees pulled apart
  skirt lifted
  clumsy cock forcing its way deep inside
Blood disappears on plaid wool skirts
  like it never happened
When the bleeding finally stops
  the skirt hides that too
Bulging bellies full of life
  disappear within the pleats
The skirt is lifted once more
  by doctors cradeling a bucket
  slowly filling with blood
Blood that disappears on plaid wool skirts
  like it never happened

cama

I’m sleeping in my parent’s bed. I will soon be fucking in my parent’s bed. In 4 days an undetermined amount of people will be fucking on my parents bed- with and without me. Today my mom and dad drove their old mattress and the bed frame they’ve had since I can remember down to SF to give to me. I helped my dad assemble the frame and helped him screw in wood planks so that the mattress doesn’t fall through the frame like it used to when I was growing up.

I lit sage over the bed, I blew candle smoke from my altar on the bed, I burned lavender scented candles and wafted the lavender scent on the bed. I’m not sure if it’s the bed that needs cleansing for me or me who needs cleansing for the bed.

Laying in it I seem smaller. I take up about a quarter of the space I used in my old bed, which was the same size. Laying in it I remember crawling up on the footboard at 3am after one of my many nightmares to sleep in between my parents. The pickle in the middle.

I remember hiding under the bed and I wonder if I could still fit under the bed- if going underneath it would send me back into the small body of a child deathly afraid of her mother- hiding underneath the bed her father was sleeping in so that her mother wouldn’t hit her. The bed protected me. My father- asleep during the day cause he worked nights- would wake up as I slid underneath the bed frame with my mother charging after me. He would hold her off. Sometimes he wasn’t there and my mother would yank me out from under the bed by my long hair so she could beat me.

I wonder what it will be like to be beaten on this bed.

My housemate is convinced I’m gonna break this bed. I’m a little worried about that, since I broke my old bed twice in the past 3 months. Snapped the bolts. Forgive me Father, for I have sinned and my bed did the penance. The chains that stressed the bolts are gone because it’s too sacrilegious to put them on la cama de La Madre.

It seems so intimate, lying here. Comforting and scary, full of memories that I question. Was my mother really as bad as I remember her? Did I really run into bed with my mom after my sister knocked on my window at 4am trying to get in because my mom kicked her out for using and she had nowhere to go? Was that neighbor kid really touching me there, when I was 6, next to the wall that this bed sat against? Did I really go crazy that time I called my parents my junior year when they scooped me up, drove me back to their house and laid me in their bed asking me if I wanted to be there or placed in psychiatric care? Did I really try to kill myself when I was 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21? The memories are vague and sleeping on this bed, I worry that my dreams will be filled with my past.

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PS Does anyone know where the phrase "Pickle in the Middle" comes from?