#fergutful

[fergutful]

Straight Boy

Straight Boy makes a joke about fucking his dude friend and i remind myself to get a sense of humor, maybe join in with them this time, man up, something. All the faces lift to release their laughter after forcing it in for so many HOURS, those poor straight boys, always being told to “make new jokes,” “nicer ones,” “less insensitive” —how are they supposed to stay sane, uplifted?

But not me.

I’m in the room thinking back to the first time I ever saw a man and felt butterflies in my stomach, told myself to “Quit it; you’re straight, you’re straight” until I was 15 and didn’t know how many more times I could respond to a god damn Straight Boy asking if I was gay and laughing when I said No.

I’m in the room four and a half years after coming out, telling myself to Get Over It when I really want to ask, “Don’t you know what it’s like to want to be something else?” or why I have to respect their insecurities but they don’t have to respect mine, or maybe why they think it’s so much harder for them to stop making fun of people than it is for me to keep hating myself.

Straight Boy flings his dick at me in the locker room, then makes a “faggot” joke in class.

Straight Boy bends his friend over to pretend-fuck him from behind, and I think of how inappropriate it would be if I opened up one of my girlfriend's legs and did the same.

Straight Boy forgets I’m gay and makes a joke about sucking my dick and I leave because what the fuck am I supposed to say to that?

Straight Boy slaps friend’s butt supportively at the game, then slaps it again later, winking and doing the Gay Boy Voice.

Straight Boy gets mad when I finally ask him to stop. Straight Boy doesn’t stop. Straight Boy won’t stop.

Straight Boy doesn’t know anything but his own story.

-Mikey Jakubowski

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From my poem “On Hold.” Read the whole thing here.

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Thoughts on being an artist: It's difficult for me, as an artist, to grasp which parts of me are okay to disclose to people and which ones are not. I've always wanted to be the artist that says it like it is, that is honest and raw and human— not god-like or bulletproof or unbeatable; these things would only be an injustice to myself and everyone around me. I believe I've done a fair job of publicly displaying my wounds and, of course, only to encourage other people to do the same— to talk about their dark side, to be vulnerable (strong), to de-stigmatize being emotional. But often I have this sense of losing myself, like I have unremittingly given away even the most delicate parts of me. I know that, as an artist and as a performer, my job is to share my experiences, but how many of them? If I turn my heart inside out and lay it on the table, am I allowed to then cover up certain parts of it? If I take the bandaid off, how long until the air starts to sting? At what point does my honesty become self-harm?

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Poem For Not Knowing How To Let Go

Again, I make myself round for you,

shaving the hips, the shoulders down until

perfectly shaped for your hard hands.

Tonight I have had more wine than

expected, but for once I can see the life

in things again. I can, at the very least,

feel it within myself, buzzing in my belly.

Sadness, though familiar, feels far,

but the scarring, the cuts, they are still here.

They are red as the blood I’ve let myself let go.

Still, I find myself crying at the thought of you.

Still, I feel that hole in my chest, that

knife to the gut, rusty and engraved with my name.

Still, I am lost in the rotting forest of myself.

When I am done here, finished with all that

I have to give and take, will I be able to

tuck it away? Leave it here to forget about?

Will I be able to go out and find myself again?

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Autobiography

This time it’s in my teeth, buzzing, clipping, whistling even, like the kettles of water I used to boil for the sound. It’s a nuisance to you, I’ve noticed, how quiet I am, lips curling open like old wallpaper, trying, revealing my discolored interior. I cry and cry about it each night and wastefully so, all that water leaving me—I want it back. But my life is not one to be filled, to be cared for, to be rocked in the kitchen in your arms as I spread tomato seeds into my cutting board. We give the baking dish to the oven but I wish it was me this time.   This time it’s up the back of my neck, a cowlick from too many ponytails, a knife poking out but feeling like it’s coming in. You follow me to the bed and I pull my leg away from you when I think you feel uncomfortable. But then you place your head to the back of my shoulder and all the books start flying around the room, hitting the walls and splitting, opening only to pages with the words “pain,” “regret” printed on them. When I get up to leave I’m stopped by my life story telling me to let go of loving you. I’m trying.   This time it’s around my chest, closing in, squeezing, choking, making it easier to give away my breath than to take it. In my bedside drawer I’ve kept an inhaler but each asthma attack is getting warmer and warmer, higher and higher, farther and farther away from you. On the wall, a note is saying “call Mom” in my handwriting, but I don’t listen to strangers and now you are there gripping my hand, my body bending, bargaining for air. For every wave of love you send haring at me, I find it impossible to return. I love you, but this is all I ever was.

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Leave Me Alone by Mike Ferguson

I’ve really noticed this year how sensitive I am to the way straight men treat so many minorities, including my own. It manifests in me in so many ways, but the most common is anger and, often, I don’t know how to handle that. I end up screaming at the people I love and eventually just shutting them out, and I hate that. None of us want to be that sour monster, seeking passive aggressive revenge, but it’s what oppression makes of us.

Straight men shame all these minorities for being “over-sensitive” or “offended by everything” or “too PC,” for being angry in our activism, but they never think to consider the fact that they are the ones causing us to feel that way. Heated political rhetoric may not always get us far, but it’s sure as hell justified.

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You have given me nothing, but even that is something, and I will take it with me, and I will leave you behind.

Mike Ferguson (fergutful)

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Something about this just gets me, i dunno. The screen, the green, the freckles of the background. I took this right when I woke up a few days ago.