when you read me

"In writing from the heart, we learn how to love, to forgive, to heal, and to move forward"(Norman K. Denzin 334).

How do you read my body.
My tall, slender, white body.
My hips, my stomach, my breasts...
How do you read the eyeliner, the lipstick, the earrings?
the skirt?
Don't lift it up you might be scared by my hairy legs
(no I don't shave them)
Is this the queer part of me?
Is the eyeliner?
Or is it queer because they both exist on the same body

When you see me
do you see those who came before me
walk with me
live in my house and
teach me

When you read me do you see
my great grandmother's hands
do you see that she lives in my house
do you see that I am one of her care-givers
do you hear her bellow in the night
-Kathy-

Do you see my sister?
In all of her adolescent glory?
Her female-ness complicated by her Latina-ness
complicated by her adopted-ness
Our mothers met in jail
and now we are connected forever

Do you see my mother's jail time?
Her name in the paper
My name in the paper
My prom dress in the paper
She stole so that I could have

When you read me do you see
that I grew up
raised mostly by a single mother
and a great-grandmother
Who gave so that I could have
So that I can give now
So that when they bellow
-Kathy-
I can come running

When you see my body
My tall, white, slender, queer, female body
my hips, eyeliner, and breasts
juxtaposed with another female body
a female body that looks like a male body
sometimes brown and sometimes white
sometimes with a tie, long shorts, and mohawk
sometimes but not always
Is that where the queerness lies?
In the juxtaposition?

When you see my body
When you read my body
do you see my skepticism about
myself
do you see my whiteness
I'm sure you do
even if you do not assess it the meanings of privilege
it deserves
but doesn't
do you see the time I read Malcolm X
and realized my own implications
in the systems of racist ideological hegemony
do you see my commitment to unpacking my
knapsack of privilege (Peggy MacIntosh)
do you see my contradiction?
Is this where the queerness lies?
in the contradiction?

When you read my body
do you see the fragments
the parts that don't know anything?
The parts
that question everything
from the eyeliner, the white hips and breasts
the mohawk, the masculine femininity,
the privilege

the juxtaposition

the contradiction

the queerness