C.K.

My experience and understanding of my queerness is - and maybe always has been - evolving. Shifting. Growing. I struggle with landing on a fixed identity or name. Queer is good enough. Maybe a better name would be, well… Call me a seed. Call me a tree. Call me its fruit and leaves and the dirt it comes From. Call Me roots. Call me the bird that nests in the tree, maybe and the bird’s shit that falls on the heads of people who are building concentration camps and giving hate foolish names like “Alligator Alcatraz” Wow, that got serious quickly. Here’s more: Don’t call Me by your name. (I started here, but now) I hate that idea. Don’t call Me by my name only call Me By my name - call me alive call me by the name of my ancestors and call me ancestor. A lot of paperwork asks me what my sex is. I say queer. They ask me my gender. Queer. Sexual orientation. Queer. Sexual Practices. Queer. Relationship structure: so queer. A long time ago, my queerness was something I tried to hide. I grew up next to a cornfield in a midwestern town in the nineties. I used to have nightmares that I’d go to hell. When I was a young adult, I slept with car keys in my hand. Just in case my parents found out and I had to run - fast. A lot of people knew before I did. I was pretty lucky (whatever lucky is). I got threatened with beatings at school (mostly empty threats), called slurs. I was teased a lot - and that was just about that. Queerness meant trying to be small and pain. Anyway, now? My experience of queerness is this: I like putting all kinds of people in my mouth. I guess I mean being queer now is being filthy? I guess I mean being queer means I’m deeply sexual And wholesome. It means fucking is spiritual and I can never ever get rid of my goodness. That maybe my transqueerboy pussy is giving birth to my own freedom. Now my experience of Queer is fuck you and I love you and I want all of us to live - to be fully alive. And so it means: Black Lives Matter Free Palestine This world is mean. So mine is the kind of queerness that likes to spit on cruelty. It is fierce and kind and it is the best thing about myself. When I am cruel To others and myself, my queer heart helps me face it (eventually) and I try to do better. Because the way I’ve lived queer, I’ve experienced cruelty from others. And I know that’s not where I’d like to live. My queerness loves me when I am petty and hard hearted. My queerness pushes me to do better - it is alchemy. My queerness isn’t a door - not an obstacle or closet. Now my experience of queerness isn’t hiding and fear. It has been my constant companion, a key. It carries me from one day to the next. It holds me in the present. It is a passageway. A guide. Something I used to try to hide has transformed my heart. And I know today my queerness is more anointed than anything I *ever* heard in church as a child. What is my relationship with my queerness? Today it is all blessing grown from the curses of other doctrines. It is a heart full of teeth.