NOT GAY AS IN HAPPY BUT QUEER AS IN - Michael Gray Bulla
[image description: a poem text that reads,
“NOT GAY AS IN HAPPY BUT QUEER AS IN
bared teeth. As in celebration. As in carving the body out of the carcass. Not gay as in rainbow cop car for a policed pride parade, thin cis men washing the walls white – not gay as in NO FATS, NO FEMMES – but trans as in -cendence. Queer as in scribbling sharpie over the shadow of the she I was never going to be. Fag as in piercing my ears with my lover’s Mars earrings. Tranny as in tracing the chest’s twin lines, the ricochet of the real name, the loving someone else even when you don’t love yourself – Transfag as in T-dick. Shot & chaser. Building bodies out of boats untethered to the banks of bend yourself until you break so I won’t be made uncomfortable. Transfag as in fuck your “female erasure.” Transfag as in stomping your boots to the beat of I am here, real, alive. Not gay as in gunshot, left to bleed on the concrete, save only yourself, sneering. But queertransfag as in echoing in every hallway. Scratched out of the history books. Pushed to the back of every line. Making our own lines anyways. Writing our books. Building hallways. Queertransfag as in wrapping the wound. Celebrating the scar.”
/end id]
