pretending (because, all i want you to do is chase me)

what does it feel like to scour me? to pull me apart? to search me? for me? to hold me down? to fuck me? i want you to know. i want you to want to know. i want you to care to know. i want you to care to want to know. don't just sit there. please. fucking hold me for once. i don't need to prompt you! the world doesn't need to either! especially this white fucking world! stop holding me like a step in your procedure. don't fucking bother.

i'm really glad i have friends that sex me correctly, because i think i really and truly felt my worst when i wasn't allowed into platonic womanhood. there is something truly despairful about not knowing what it means. not knowing what it feels like, to be held the right way. 

but i am hurting. i fall silent when i look at my jaw, not because it isn't beautiful, or because it is ugly, but because it is not mine. and maybe that's just maladaptive. maybe that's wrong. i don't know what else my jaw could be but someone else's. maybe it's no one's. it's not like i have it by choice. i don't even have it by assent. if i had agency over my puberty, i would not have this jaw. so whose jaw is this? it's not my mom's!

so, what is this? a calcification? an overgrowth? just a bone, waiting to be shaken off? either way, i keep thrashing like a lobster not allowed to molt. and i know thrashing is not worth the time or the energy. this sucks. yes, the lobster comparison is meant to be funny. fuck. we'll start with the lobster.

and i don't know! to me, there's some innate difference between my dysphoria and dysmorphia! more than the obvious, i mean. there's a difference mechanically. i can confidently say that my dysmorphia is, in large part, bound by beauty as an oppressive structure (stewing on anti-blackness, anti-femininity, gender normativity, the hatred of fatness, etc.) and how i maladaptively relate to it (recognizing i very much assent to that dysmorphia on the reg). but, i very much struggle to say that dysphoria rests on the structures of cissexism, or whatever.

because, by the accounts i've read so far, dysphoria is prediscursive. we feel this gap between the body and the self intensely, before we are given reason to. and many of us, including myself, sublimate those feelings for many years. but, it all comes down to this: i am a transsexual woman, and those roots run deep. and, right now, i think they run deeper than any structure of cissexism. not saying that this experience is simple or binary, or even bimodal. i don't know what others feel or know in themselves and their communities, or their resources. i am happy to field other ideas. but, for now, i think this is mine.

initially, i had thought that a route to understanding my dysphoria and dysmorphia could be agency, that certain aspects of medical transition are assuredly about asserting agency or choice over the processes your body undergoes, or about reasserting agency over processes that were forced upon you. whereas dysmorphia-care lacks that same dimension of reasserting agency (which doesn't make it wrong, but might make it meaningfully different). still. this doesn't really make sense for sex reassignment surgery, or any other kind of gender care that can't be framed around "fixing" the effects of a "wrong" puberty. i don't really experience much dysphoria around those attributes i never could have had agency over, and i don't think my ethical perspective should begin and end at my own desires or wants. cuz that feels shallow. so.

i don't know. i'm opening the floor. and that vulnerability is, briefly, before stilling the heart, frightening.

so i'm thinking about the lessons i've learned from other people of color, especially black and brown feminists, about fighting whiteness and its toxic sensibilities in every aspect of my life, for the sakes of personal and collective liberation. and i want to be vulnerable, nurse the discomfort and fear and worry i feel

(in response to being vulnerable. acknowledge that what my body really fears is white reproach, white correction, white coercion, and white violence. and reassure myself that i am safe and in community, and loved. remind myself that vulnerability, and openness, and earnestness, DESPITE those fears, are each essential to practicing and developing the muscles. of black&brown/queer liberation. in motion. that it is mine to witness, in myself. and, eventually, it's ours).

and i write about being vulnerable. in sequence. i am able to reflect, and enshrine these tactics in myself, and share them. saying these things and sounding like you. i'm writing for you. maybe i'll find the right words, to put that light to your name, eventually. but we'll figure out, in time, together.

basically,

i want to lead with big smiles, with compliments, and praises. i want big love, and truth pouring, from my mouth with volume. i want to take up space, in spite of what whiteness wants for me. i want encourage those like me, to smile as much as you can, and stand up just as loud. despite how scary it can feel. i want us to have friends and food that reminds us, nothing comes between. i want us to flourish with the rest, believing in ourselves and our truth, and our communities. and moving them into new spaces. and reading, and discussing what's new. encouraging truths about community, and courage always. thinking about folks known by kinship, hanging onto every truthful, wonderful thing they do. despite the struggles.

just now: it is hard not yielding to trauma, and not shrinking up around folks, especially those who have shown me prejudice. but, i am only yielding to whiteness when i yield to my trauma. i need to process my pain, emphasize why the pain was wrong to inflict, and lean into all my impulses that are anti-white, pure, and real. i need to stay true to my worthiness AND my dark skin AND my womanhood AND my puphood AND my sexuality AND my transness. because i believe that i (and those like me) are worthy. so so so so worthy. and i will nurse the wound of self-consciousness, taking up that space and rediscovering that i am safe. resting on the security i know i have. taking up just-one-more inch, every day. some days are bigger than others. and that's okay. so, big smiles for strangers. big love, and presence for all, to share and delight in. i can come to love you, if i don't already. and you can come to love me, if you don't just yet. 

thank you for attending my bed :^)