real fans know when to remix. it's hard to not think of most of my loved ones as spectators to the longest performance art piece. I hate when art feels like holding the audience hostage. I wonder how many people actually miss my unsolicited opinions. it's become marginally easier to say less. it's harder to make money. every check is planned between now & the end of the year. I work so hard to be left alone & I enjoy all the company I've acquired recently. it is a joy being loved in real life by people who look like me. to have siblings & children looking to me for support. I don't take being looked at lightly. I am not a role model but entertainment always has a responsibility toward something. my story can't be retold only footnoted & possibly revamped.
this past week commemorated "trans awareness". or a bunch of cis people got to perform grief & non-binary folks parading the violence against "the most vulnerable" as their metric for tragedy. this week a gay man I'm in community with revealed the gaps in his politics at my expense. even in the fallout, he framed himself as the victim. this is another way Black trans folks are relegated within their own community. relegated to spectacle or aggressor or deceased. this young man has taken to texting me whenever he learns some new facts about Black Trans death. he reproduces every neoliberal politic he's ever been taught. I've been hurting over it in new ways. at the moment his violence was such a clear tantrum but the timbre has revealed the teeth on the other side of the blade.
while not unique to any particular generation we are continually in an age where knowledge is a perception instead of a fact. moreover, the value of any fact shifts weight in the gravity that holds it. what we "know" matters only in relativity. each of us ingests & process constantly, how to make sense of it? for too many histories (contemporary & otherwise) seem to be inaccessible or unworthy of inspection. for too many, their limited life experience is the only color that paints their lives.
Against visibility, toward recognition. I see my latest griefs thrown against a slate of otherwise joy. I can step back from this canvas & map the abstraction of each day's composition. I still stay inside more, but the eyes of my passersby don't trouble me the same. I've been dreaming of tattoos & sleeping more regularly. I am more content with the man I love. his consistency with sparks of extra sweetness tells me he understands why I am around even a little. He knows I can use my gifts for him. I feel so full of love.