When I look into my love's eyes, I feel happy. I feel truly happy. I want everyone to know of my happiness, of the joy I feel when I see his smile and taste his lips on mine.
It's a truly wonderful thing to be in love, to have the love of that person who was made just for you. You feel like you're ready to burst with exciting news, and it takes everything out of you not to shout it from the mountaintops for all the world to hear. You want to share that happiness with the world.
In my country, we are as backwards as we come. Bullied by society and their irrational fear of damnation for being sentinent beings, they have created the taboo of homosexuality, transgendered/transvestites, bisexuality- anything other than heterosexuality, it seems. For all of their fears of the so-called 'abominations', they choose to ignore the passages that talk about not judging others, loving all persons as good brothers and sisters should, and only hating the sin they commit, not the person themselves, but instead focus on the ones that call for hatred and division.
This 'proud, black and Christian nation' I call home is content on re-enacting the discrimination and prejudice that we suffered not too long ago as balck slaves upon people whose only crime is that they loved someone outside of the norm. This country DISGUSTS me to no end.
The Right to Love is exactly that- a right. Not a privilege awarded to the fair and many, but a RIGHT awarded to ALL- just as we as human beings are given the right to simply exist as we are. The right to celebrate that love and be officially recognized as a union is just as important, as it is once again treated as an privilege here and in most places in this world. I sincerely hope that others like myself can band together in this backwards, intolerant country, and fix the status quo so that all men and women can be treated as equals as we are made to be treated.
The Right To Love
I Saw Us In The Mirror...
...and I was happier than I had ever been in my entire life.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Who I Am
A common question that is asked. Who are you, to step so boldly out and chastise us? Who are you to speak out like a fool?
You CAN'T be one of us.
Well, they're right. I'm not.
I am not the overly religious zealot that has become the stereotype of my country- fearful of different sexualities and beliefs, and unable to budge on anything. I am a free thinker who lives a moral life and an honest code not dependent of a higher power or being to dictate to me what is common sense, who is tolerant and fair and values the rights of all humanity.
I am not a student who wants to teach, practice medicine or law. I am a student artist- a re-creator of beauty written by poets, portrayed by actors and imagined by anyone with able minds and hearts. I don't care if the road is hard, and I know that everyone who watches me will be wondering if I'm suicidal, or just plain nuts. The strongest truly survive this walk, and I intend to survive it.
I am not a female incarnation of any martial artist that has graced the silver screen. I am someone who sees the value of self-defense and intend to continue it at my own speed and pace, learning what I can and applying the things I learn to the way I live my life.
I am not the pawn you play to walk over on later. I am someone who will snap at your heels with each step you take, while enigmatically smiling through my teeth.
Friday, October 17, 2008
The Little Rebel
When I was three and wasn't running behind my best friend of that era, I would sit down and read books far beyond my age bracket. Already preparing myself for a life of isolation.
When I was in primary school I was praised for being so quick and clever and smart. Never pretty, like all the other girls. Perhaps that is why I don't tolerate compliments even now. Boys would shun me because I wasn't 'fresh' or flirty, and I suffered many foolish, premature heartbreaks back then. I always wondered about the boys my thoughts would tend to flit to back then, and wondered if they knew how badly their words wounded me, how much they broke my fragile little spirit- already alienated for being too quick, too clever, too smart- with their words about how no one could ever like me.
Thinking about it now, the fights I used to get into... they make much more sense now. The lashings I would give out when a boy would look at me funny, the way I'd cuss at them like the rowdiest sailor on the boat, the "fuck off" attitude I developed over the years.. perhaps that was just the little rebel in me striking out against the 8 years of constant punishment I was being given for being simply myself.
Too quick, too clever, too smart. Never pretty.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
a small dedication
one night i dreamt that i was standing on a picket fence on a grassy hill. the landscape stretched on for eternities, countless slopes and grassy knolls weaving in and out towards the expanding horizon. the sky was clear of clouds and clear of sun, but the blue was blinding to my eyes.
i squinted left and right as i kept my balance on the fence. i saw persons dressed in white pass me by on either sides of the fence. it started as a trickle of persons i barely knew, but as time went on i saw people in my life- those i knew and talked to, those i hung out with, those i loved and those i lost. family, friends, everyone.
but as i stood there watching everyone, i saw them all walk away. some would stay close to the fence. some would come and talk to me, laugh with me and cry with me. but none would ever stay with me- they would eventually leave me standing there. and i would watch them go on without me. sometimes i would cry as they left me, other times i'd stand there in isolation and true grit, and just continue squinting away to avoid the tears.
one day i sat there on that same fence, my face in my hands, tired of looking at everyone so happy and carefree, content with their lives to simply ignore mine, and just wanting everything to stop, when i suddenly felt a hand around my waist. i looked up wildly and saw someone i thought i would never see come near me, let alone touch me. i had remembered watching him from afar, like a wistful child wanting something so good and perfect that it had been out of my reach. before i knew it, i had turned around to face him and gazed into those eyes i had admired from a distance. embarrassment gripped me and i looked away from him, ashamed for him to see me as i was perched upon this fence. that's when i heard something odd- a chuckle. i looked around again and heard him speak- his words ran through my blood like a strong river current- powerful and strong, but soothing.
"hey, i'm just like you, you know."
that's when i opened my eyes properly and saw he was sitting on the fence with me.
i felt his hands take mine, our fingers interlacing, brushing foreign skin that we've somehow known all our lives. i felt my body pouring into him; molding into his cedar frame and nestling against his body, drawing comfort from his warmth and stilling my own troubled heartbeat by listening to his steady breathing. it was like hearing the ocean wash over me, pulling away the stress and sadness i once felt. i looked up again into his gaze, almost disbelieving, almost doubtful, thinking that this was just another person who would stop by the fence and leave me again. just like the others.
but then i felt his tender fingers under my chin and his cool lips against the side of my face- to my temple, my eyelid, my cheek. my hand reached up and grasped his fingers instinctively, and my eyes fluttered closed as i felt his lips brush against mine- stealing both my breath and my doubts and tossing them to the swirling winds around us as i sat there with him, locked in his embrace and his kiss, while all of the world passed by us in silence.
i never heard their snide insults and jeering comments, i never saw their pointed fingers and pointed stares. and i still don't. everything that i ever hoped for was now sitting beside me, watching my body rise and fall with every contented breath as i stared up at the clear sky, no longer squinting, but smiling happily. i remember our fingers dancing and clasping each other.
the world didn't seem so harsh anymore.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Prologue
I am an endangered species in a country of religious fanatics and hard-headed fools, of two-faced 'friends of convenience' and those who barely know me.
It hasn't taken me long to realize that I am considered a misfit in my own society. I don't follow the norm, I don't believe in the norm. I masquerade constantly to appease the only higher power capable of returning me to a state of despair. I am treated as a dependable person when the time is right and discarded and ignored when I'm not required. I step on toes with disregard and rebel against the masses behind a dutiful smile.
It's so hard at times, to keep it all together when so much threatens to tear me asunder. But as I sit here on this fence-this divider of chaos and sanity, the definition of my own identity- I realize that I would not want to be anywhere else in the world.
