comes with the territory; an open letter concerning the genderfluid life

There is a gap that not many see.

A place between the binary countries.

A frontier explored by few.

I walk this narrow, winding path; a precarious valley and boundary that separates the two sexes - neither male nor female, something new, without title. And I stray, and I certainly stumble, pausing only to tend to cuts and bloodied knees from the jagged rocks on either side. I come up gasping for air like drowning sailor, when suddenly washed away and lost in the tides from the two sectors. I awake on strange shores, bruised and exhausted; one day I find myself in a frock and heels, and the next, a suit and tie.  Either way I am a foreigner, wary of the locals, and tender and sore on all accounts. I climb for many weary nights to return to my beloved middle ground. Above all, I prefer my pilgrim’s journey of solitude, in the canyon between, at peace with my own manner, speech, and dress.

I clutch my glass of wine in the early hours of the morning like a life preserver, alone and afraid.

On the rare days that I accomplish to walk the narrow, winding path, the devil on my shoulder laughs with maniacal glee at the public’s confused expressions, and the way they trip over their words - ever unsure of how to address me. But if asked to explain myself, or outright chided for my pell-mell appearance, the soft-shell heart within me bleeds for days. The children stare with widened eyes, and whisper behind their hands to parents who do not directly gaze out of shy, conservative politeness as I pass them on the streets, in my amalgamation of genderless clothing.

You question, and define with your drawn brow and darkened eyes; your shouts that ring out in the parking lots, or the way you avoid contact with me altogether. Were you ever given the task to find a label for everyone in the world? Then no, do not take this upon yourself, as it is not your job in life. I beg of you to only see me as another human - not as a trespasser into your side of the gender fence.

Lay down your arms.

There is a gap that not many see, or hear, or know.

A place between the binary countries, sometimes under fire.

A frontier explored by few, but frowned upon by many.

It is at once a nightmare, and the freshest taste of freedom I have ever known.

I shoulder my pack and continue on the narrow, winding path.

my desert chronicles; or how I learned to stop worrying and love the burn

“What do you mean this won’t be the only Tardis?” I argued. “I seriously doubt anybody else will be celebrating Doctor Who at Burning Man.”

My heated statement only earned me a slightly disapproving look, and a sarcastic pull of his mouth before his turned back to his computer. In retrospect, the expression may have been directed at the viking hat I wore, instead of the idiotic words tumbling out of my mouth.

I took another swig of my mojito and started again. Standing nearly naked in the living room at one am, while he sat at his desk, writing a check for water and electricity bill like  a responsible adult.

“Don’t you think?” I pressed. “Besides, it can double as a shower. We can bathe inside of a Tardis. Isn’t that brilliant? Might even be bigger on the inside.” I wiggled my eyebrows for emphasis in a way that I positively don’t do when sober.

“If you want to fund it and build it, then that’s on you,” he said with a look that said he was clearly trying not to laugh.

“Then I’m doing it,” I declared. “The whole place is designed for you to live out a dream, isn’t it? So why not?”

“So your dream is to be au naturel in a telephone booth?” he replied, this time without looking up. “Well. That would explain a lot.”

“Don’t be a dick,” I said laughing. “I’m going to go as Frodo Baggins too. Cosplay. The night they burn everything down. If this is the craziest place on the planet, then I want to be at my happiest.”

“You know you’re weird, right?” he leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head. A good-natured smirk crossed his face, his dark eyes crinkling in a way that somehow gave his biting remarks a dose of sweetness. It was everything I loved about him.

I set down my glass, removing my viking hat with an unnecessary flourish and arranged myself in his lap, tucking my drunken head under his chin. He held me, rubbing my back.

“Of course I’m weird,” I said. “Its the only reason you’re with me.”

I could feel the grin on his face, without looking up at him, and I grinned too. “We’re crazy for doing this,” I added. “For trekking out into the desert, and living for a week like dirty hippies.”

“It was your dream,” he murmured. “I’m just along for the ride.”

Which was true. I’d somehow managed to talk him into this, and to this day, I still don’t understand how I managed to do it.

But Burning Man had been on my bucket list before I even knew what a  “bucket list” was. I stumbled across a video online of a woman hoola-hooping with a ring of fire at this gypsey looking camp, with people in strange attire, at night, many of them dressed in LED’s that glowed white hot under the delicate camera lense; and the music caught that wild streak in me, and beat to a curious rhythm that flowed in my veins. That was the first time I saw Burning Man, and it wasn’t until nearly ten years later that I finally put a name to that image, and that giddy feeling.

I was 14, growing up in a strict Southern Baptist household. We were a military family, moving across the country every couple years, and by this time it was hard for to connect to anyone, or anything aside from the fantasy novels I devoured. I tried describing the video to my mother, endeavoring to express way it made me feel happy and alive, and she instantly frowned. I was then grounded from Youtube. But not before I had shown my sister, who in an instant, felt the same way I had felt. Her eyes locked onto the screen, and I could see the goosebumps on her arms. We never spoke about that moment, but I knew then that we were different, far, far, different than our parents and our peers. We were untamed in our hearts, drawn to the bohemian lifestyle that was so condemned in our daily lives; the carefree movement of the beautiful black-haired woman, dancing with her fire-hoop, and the group of lost-boys who admired her in a strange desert landscape. It was the antithesis to the men in suits who stood on podiums and told us about our many and varied sins.

“Its an art festival,” my sister told me not long after. Secretly, we tried looking it up but never quite found where it was located, or when, or even how to get there. We just knew that something was out there, something that made us feel more alive than the summer Revival at church ever did.

By the time I was twenty-one, I was living on my own in California with a man that I adored. My sister remained in Texas with my parents, having just graduated high school, and I was doing everything I could to get her out of their suffocating, superstitious grasp. I’d already been disowned years before. Its a long story, but several things came to a head when I voted for Obama instead of McCain was told I could make my bed in the streets. It was about a year after that particular drawn out fight that I finished my associate’s degree, stayed out of arm’s reach from my parents who started making their angry accusations about my jezebel ways physical instead of just verbal. I’d had enough and packed up my car and drove to the west coast. I received phone calls for many weeks from my uncles, aunts, and pastors, saying that my soul was eternally damned and that I should reconsider my poor life decisions before Satan punished me.

(Right, because a good life choice was to stay at home with people who had visions, spoke in tongues, and threw out my clothes and books, twisted my arms, or slammed me into the fridge just for saying “I’m going out with friends tonight,” ….“I auditioned for a theatre show,” ...or, my personal favorite, “I think I’m going to major in anthropology.” )

But I digress.

So I was living in California with with Bill, a dark-eyed, sharp-tongued, curly-headed man, and my life went from living in fear and heartache to waking up each day with a smile on my face: the first time in my life that has ever happened.

It was in this bliss that I was surfing youtube one afternoon, and found the video again of the woman and the fire hoop. I started finding more videos, and I dug for hours until I found the name of it all.

Burning Man.

A whole city constructed in the Black Rock desert in Nevada, for one week at the end of August. It was an event where participants dedicated themselves to gritty self-reliance, (bringing whatever they would need to survive in the harsh condition); Art, (transporting installations, music, laser shows, costumes, whatever); and true, honest-to-god self-expression. The photos of naked people painting themselves in blue paint and frolicking across the cracked desert floor made me chuckle at their zaniness; and it made me hunger for that kind of ultimate freedom, free from judging eyes.

My head was buzzing, and adrenaline flooded my veins. My fingers tapped the keyboard in a blur of strokes, looking for more new and profound information.

And that’s when I found the ticket page.

I called my sister.

“Hey,” she said, sounding groggy.

“You hungover?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she croaked. “Mom thinks I’m sick. What do you want, man?”

Since I was about 18 and she was 15, we had this unspoken agreement to cover for each other when we dabbled in drinking and drugs. I’d come home from a party reeling from tequila shots, and she’d usher me into bed, pretending to have a loud conversation about recent video games, shoving cups of water into my hands to save me from a hangover. Then, a few months later,  she’d show up with her friends, accidentally bursting into the living room when she thought our parents were gone, rolling on ecstasy. I’d jump up and get her group into her room, even care for them if they had to throw up. I baked them french toast when they were high and starving from munchies. We truly weren’t bad kids. We were just very sheltered, had very few friends, and no family to connect to. It was a bad recipe for small acts of rebellion.

That being said, she was always the wilder one, of us two.

But now that I was gone, she didn’t have anyone to cover for her. I felt a familiar twinge of guilt about leaving her alone with them, afraid they would hurt her as badly as they had hurt me. I felt powerless.

“Bro, I’m sorry,” I murmured. “Don’t forget. Water. But, uh, hey. Do you remember that video of the fire-hoola-hoop dancer?” I asked.

The other side went quiet. “Yeah,” she said at last, sounding confused and perhaps suspicious. “Yeah… I do. That was a long time ago.”

“It was,” I agreed. “But listen. I found it. We’re going. Tickets go on sale in two months. I’m paying for everything.”

“Seriously?” she said.

“Seriously,” I said.

I could visualize her mischievous grin so hard, I mirrored it on my face. “We’ll talk about flights in a bit. Just… get your ass out of that house and come see California. I’ll take care of everything. Going to send you an email tonight with everything I’ve found. You were right. It is an art festival.”

“What do I tell them if it comes up?” she asked after a moment.

“Camping trip,” I said with a shrug. “Its not a lie. We’re going to be living in a tent for a week in the desert.”

“I doubt that will really work, but ok,” she said with a laugh. “Are there really gypsies out there?”

“Bro,” I said very seriously. “Everyone is a gypsy out there.”

It was heaven.

We’d found the gates.

We were achieving a dream.

I threw my arms around my dark-eyed man and whispered the dirty things I could do to him if I built my Tardis in the desert.

“You’re so bad when you’re drunk,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not complaining, merely stating an observation.”

“It just seems bad because you found me when I was still a saint,” I said, leaning back to look into his face, referring to the fact that we’d met when I was still trying to meet my parent’s expectations; when I still attended church every sunday; when I still believed in angels and demons and keeping myself pure and untainted for marriage. When I was still playing for the home team, and condemned drinking, and dancing, and playing cards, like every other good Southern Baptist.

My, my, how times had flown.

I pulled up my viking hat from the floor and settled on my head at a cocky angle. “We have forty one days until we make our pilgrimage to crazy-town,” I said, with a slight nervous curl at my lips, biting the bottom one.

“I know,” he said, shaking his head, still holding me in his lap. “We still have so much to organize. And here you are, trying to throw an extra project into the mix.”

“We need a shower out there,” I argued. “This shit is important.”

Bill laughed. “I know we’ll pull everything together. We always do.” He smiled tiredly, and I suddenly became aware of how late the night had grown. “I love you,” he added with a yawn, closing his eyes.

“I love you too,” I said, planting a series of kisses on his forehead, nose, and mouth.

When he didn’t directly respond, already fast asleep, I got up and threw on some clothes and went outside to slip his check into the mail deposit box, still wearing my viking hat. The summer night was cool on my skin, and as I walked back along the apartment complex sidewalk, I smiled to myself.

The gates of heaven were not far now, and one way or another, I was bringing a Tardis. The thought made me laugh.

empty wallet

these phone calls go on for hours

the transfer music as maddening

as the frustration hiding behind every cheery voice.

and I chafe

against every surface of the world

and I fester

like an open sore
with a number in my bank account that makes me weep.

"thanks for your time," she says

and I see her in my mind, with fangs overhanging a plump lip

sucking the life out of me.

But in the end, it will be the bitterness that kills my heart,
not the vampires organizing my health insurance paperwork.

Finding Tesla (working title) part 1

When Alexandrine met Simon, he didn’t have a bed. Or a family.

She worried about him, without speaking of this for many weeks, passing him in the hallway between classes; always picking him out of the crowd, then averting her eyes when he walked too close. She wondered where he slept, or what he ate, or where he took his books to do his homework. If he even still did homework. Maybe he didn’t. Like me, Alexandrine thought to herself. Maybe he draws too much. Maybe he was getting bad grades too.  

She began to note that he only had 3 shirts, seeing a pattern in his dressing emerge. An orange t-shirt. A green long-john. And a white sleeveless shirt, with the words “nitimur in vetitum” printed in black ink upon his chest. Always overlaid a jean jacket too big for him. But strange, she also noted that they were never really dirty, or even smelled.

So where did he go after school?

She only knew about his problem because she overheard a teacher on a phone one afternoon, long after the last bell rang. Standing at her locker, sliding heavy textbooks from her heavy backpack and shelving them, she heard her name, softly spoken, amidst the general rush of and clamor of students leaving the building. At first she ignored it, but a moment later, as she slid her arms into her worn hoodie, bending to pick up her now empty bag, she heard her name again.

“Yes, Alexandrine,” the voice said. “In my class. I feel like... he has a connection to her. Maybe I can ask when I see her tomorrow.”

Alexandrine straightened, her head swiveling, honing in on the sound. She moved like a sleep-walker through the emptying hallway, leaving her back-pack unzipped on the floor, and her locker open. Her hands touched the edges of the chipped doorway, and her dark-haired head followed, eyes peering into the empty classroom, where the speaker sat with her back to the door, curly cord to her phone stretching over her computer monitor, and waving like a collapsing bridge as she spoke.

“No, no that won’t be necessary,” she went on. “I’d like to do this without the school therapist and especially the police, for the time being. If he can just tell us, we’ll be able to take it from there. I just hope he’s staying out of trouble in the meantime. I just can’t imagine where he goes, or what he does, without a family. A kid that age can’t be just going out to pick flowers, you know?”

The teacher spun back to her desk, pulling bobby pins out of her braid as she spoke, and suddenly stopped, seeing Alexandrine’s rumpled cascade of black hair in her doorway, and the girl, frozen and afraid.

“I’ll call you back,” said the teacher to the phone, and hung up. “Alex?” she called out softly, getting to her feet.

The girl’s eyes widened, and she scrambled backwards, spinning on her heel to rush back to her abandoned backpack. She did not turn around to face the following teacher, instead letting her hair fall over her reddening face as she bent to collect her things. Her locker had been slammed shut, but her books were taken and strewn across the hallway. The deserted hallway, she suddenly noticed too late.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you heard, but its nothing bad -- ” the teacher began.

Alex abruptly whirled back to glare at her teacher over her shoulder. “I missed my bus,” she said, before dropped her gaze and hiding behind her hair again.

A small awkward silence ensued as the teacher took a breath to collect her thoughts.

“Alex,” she started again. “I’m sorry if what I said worried you. We can talk about it right now if you want, and then we can call your dad for him to come get you, or find another way to get you home. And here,” she said, kneeling to get the last of the scattered collection - a math book now with ripped pages, thrown under a row of lockers. She handed it to Alex, and stayed there on her knees, right at eye level with the girl who sat slumped against the wall, refusing to look at her. After a moment, Alex took the book, and threw it roughly into her bag, zipping it up with such force that the woman thought the girl might tear it.

“So what do you want to do?” the teacher murmured with as much kindness in her voice as she could muster.

“Am I in trouble?” Alex whispered, and her throat made a cracking sound as she started to cry. “Are you going to call my dad?”

The teacher was torn between wanting to shake the girl to her senses, and wanting to hug her, and knew that if she wanted to keep her job, that she could do neither. She instead settled for a soft sigh, and took the girl’s hand. “Alex,” she said quietly. “Look at me.”  

Alexandrine was instead frozen again, the only sound that she was listening was the continued tremble in her shoulders.

“Alex,” the teacher said once more, much more slowly this time. “Look. At me.”

The girl did so, parting her dark hair for one fierce and reddened eye to peer through. Her shoulders shook but her gaze never wavered, and the teacher, thoughts now drifting to somedays I am not paid enough for this, took another breath before she began.

“You are not in trouble,” she said with conviction, her grip on the girl’s fingers momentarily tightening to make her point. “I was talking about someone else that I’m worried about, and I wanted to ask you about him.” She paused again to wait for a reaction from the girl, but none came. She continued on. “You want to come in and sit down? We can call someone to come get you so you can go home.”

The sliver of pale face disappeared behind the hair again as she dropped her head to look down at her hands. “Why were you going to talk to the police?” she asked.

“I’m not going to talk to the  police,” the teacher said, with a small sigh of suppressed exasperation.

“Who’s the man you keep talking about? Who is he?” Alex asked, still without looking up.

“Not a man. A boy,” the teacher corrected. “In our class.”

A few seconds of silence ensued in which Alex climbed to her feet, dusting off her shorts and hoodie, shouldering the heavy backpack that cause her shoulders to bow under the books’ weight.

“What boy?” she inquired at last.

The teacher stood too, and in response, motioned for the student to enter her classroom. Alexandrine did so, and they closed the door behind them.

“Simon,” the teacher said. “Simon Harwell. This is not for you to go about telling people, alright?” She carefully eyed the quiet teen, who still watched from behind her curtain of dark hair with a guarded expression. Alexandrine gave a tiny nod and listened as the teacher explained she received word from her committee about a troubled student who was skipping classes and whose grades were drastically falling. When they went to inquire with his parents about the situation, they discovered his parents were gone and that someone else lived in his home.

And Alexandrine kept thinking about her own falling grades and wondered if her name was on the committee's lips as well.

“So naturally we’re worried about him,” the teacher went on. “And I sometimes see him sitting next to you in class, watching you draw.”

“I don’t draw,” Alex said defensively.

The teacher pursed her lips. “You most certainly do.” She picked up a slip off her desk, covered in inky doodles of moons and stars to prove her point. “This is your most recent masterpiece I believe.”

Alex hung her head further.

“But that’s not the point Alex. I’m not here to reprimand you. We’ve already had that discussion. I just wanted to ask you if you knew anything about Simon, or his situation.”

The girl shook her head. “I didn’t even know he sat next to me,” she said quietly.

“Alright,” the teacher said with a sigh. “Do you have a cell phone?”

She shook her head again. “Its dead.”

“Well. Don’t worry about the situation. We’ll get it figured out,” the teacher murmured, picking up the phone to hand it to her student.

“But should I?” Alex asked, suddenly looking up with another piercing gaze. “Are you going to call the Police now?”

The teacher, still standing with the phone in her outstretched hand, tried again to not let her annoyance show. “If I have to, it will be to help Simon. Not hurt him. Ok?”

Alex slowly took the phone out her teacher’s hand and called her dad. She kept her face bent down as she later said her thanks to the teacher, and when she slipped quietly out of the classroom to put her books and homework away in her locker, this time without any interruption.

diplomacy.

And this time
I toe the line a little

make it look smart
like an informed decision

when it was all fly
all touch and go.

wet dreams

I had a dream I played a piano on a beach; an overcast cove, hemmed in with grey cliffs that fell to the shore in crumbling slants. And it was cold. Cold in my dream, where my feet touched the sand, and the waves sucked at the piano legs pulling them closer to water with every crash, and creeping of foam, pulling us both, the piano and I, into the sea. The dark wood was grainy and old, and I could trace the knots and veins with my eyes as my fingers met the keys, and curved over them in heavy octaves and flourishes, and trills. It was so real. I played until I ached, and I woke with the melancholy song still ringing in my ears.

And now I sit at my keyboard, thinking. I have a memory of playing a neon piano in the desert, about this time last year. I had crawled out of a dust storm, hiding behind an army jeep until it passed... miles from my own encampment. As the storm abated, I saw it - coming out of the dust like a dream. I went to it, laid down my pack and my water-skin and played all that was in me. The loneliness, the fear, the joy, the curiosity. The sun returned and beat down, washing out the vibrancy of the pink and green flourescent keys, and at long last I looked up to see a gathering of people watching at a distance. They pleaded for me to go on, but I could not, my throat choking with either the dust or surprise; I could not tell the difference. They  offered granola bars, cold water, and a few hugs. I accepted what they gave, feeling at once both fearful and awe. I took my leave of them, and continued my walk as another storm rolled in, blotting out the sun. I did not know where I was going again, but somehow hours later, wound up mute and exhausted at my camp and slept until nightfall...

I have this dream of playing my heart out in every corner of the world; in strange settings, in woods, and fields; on city-corners.

And yet I still stand here, frozen, pondering these black and white patterns, trying to remember the tune from last night. I am voiceless without it.

What does such a dream mean?