I see my juices dripping from the sides of all of your mouths.
Yet, I dysfunction: throat first, then lungs, then gut.
Today’s music is a mashup of Mariah Carey & SZA. After getting my seasonal blood drawn, I share a cigarette with a kind & disheveled white man with $43 to his name. He swears he’s seen me before. I ask him if he reads the Willamette Weekly. Without sounding more like myself than usual, I’m gracious to fans & men on the street are the most polite to me unless they are not. I don’t know what to make of it but the average men around here just try to physically get close without fixing their mouths to acknowledge. Their eyes work. Going out less has only concentrated the harassment & as of late white women have taken up the ranks in sidewalk gawkery.
The outside has been a treacherous place. I’ve created paranoid topographies of every place I’ve called home. It’s not lost on me the everyday white supremacists embolden by evil & neutralizing thein-between. Jan. 6th was the opening of the final acts. On that day state capitals nationally were attacked by white militants. Reports across all 50 states state the concerted efforts of domestic terrorism. The white militia has waited to activate. Been waiting, as we been said.
The consensus of centrism is already suffocating the national conversation. How do we adapt to being lied to daily? The truth, I guess, only ever did so much anyway. The internet can’t purge itself of all of us who build it more daily. The conglomerates must fall violently. We need a completely new language of regulation & verification. I mean, every law we know can be broken with the right amount of money. The only American treason is poverty. Even liberal leaders want to lie with the vile & shame the beds we are forced to make to die in.
It’s hard for a girl like me to say no one deserves to be a celebrity. Since when have I not wanted my name on as many lips as possible. But I never want to be untouchable. I don’t fetish wealth. My relationship with luxury is symptomatic not the source material. I hate how people are quick to monetize their interests but the rent doesn’t grow on aspiration. Which still says more about the cost of living than the value of art. I call my work craft to make it feel more like magic & not the labor of tongue, skin & algorithm.
I miss making eyes with someone & never knowing their name. The death of certain sociality feels imminent. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to share cigarettes with vagrant men on the street. I miss sweating in the darkness outside of my room.
I tell one of my loves to try the low-hanging fruit. I send him a shaving kit. I explain to my white lady phlebotomist the term “ethnostate” before she gives me a flu shot. I get my first child stones for their alter. My other children begin their transformations. I texted my not-husband happy new year (after months of silence). He replies & I nosedive. I’m still pulling back up. I’m worried turmoil is another vice I need to address. I was asked to write about a trans girl’s relationship with porn. The editor couldn’t afford it but the idea’s been in my head ever since. I’ve never seen a bxtch like me fuck the way I fuck on screen. There’s more but that’s all you can afford right now. Maybe my new rates are gonna starve me. I’ve judged so many more prizes than I’ve ever been considered. It’s been getting to me. How can so many behind the scenes folks trust my taste but not see my work as part of the conversation?
One of my loves tells me he’s gonna write fan-fiction based on words I’ve already said publicly. I want to tell him he isn’t the first sweet white writer man transcribing me into brief forevers. He asked permission unlike most of the others & this is why/how I keep him. Remember this is the era of adoration. My loves each describe their tributes so I get new ways to show grace. The Lovers card has been a fixture in my spreads for months.
"We need a completely new language of regulation & verification. I mean, every law we know can be broken with the right amount of money. The only American treason is poverty." !!!!!!! thank u for writing this, this whole piece was fantastic