#or the fact that i sometimes...personally feel excluded not from wider society but also my family. so i relate to him. and i wrote these

[universalheart]

apocalypse

#i really missed drawing in mspaint! this is my first mspaint drawing in a long long time. its also of the most predictable characters ever #but my friend fizz recently asked me why i liked gallus so much in the first place (because i am the only gallus fan.) this made me rewatc #basically every episode he's in so that i could think about like...really why i DO like him. at the time i told avery that its because i #just tend to like grumpy characters (which they said like grumpy bear lol - i do love grumpy bear and am a huge care bears fan. another #good example is susie deltarune or karkat. i really like them both.) #but then why don't i have an obsession with like...short fuse? or gilda? or smolder? #(although i do actually adore gilda and smolder...) #but its probably because gallus gets the most emotional focus out of any young 6 member (excluding maybe yona?) especially in the episode #hearth's warming club. this episode (just his telling of his backstory really) is very heart-wrenching to me. more so now that i really #like him and have created a whole characterization for him outside of the show. #and there are other things...like the fact that he's a boy character in a show that doesn't have an apparent misogynistic culture #or the fact that he's from a different kingdom so he's experiencing equestria for the first time #or the fact that i sometimes...personally feel excluded not from wider society but also my family. so i relate to him. and i wrote these #feelings i have into summerfree! ive been doing it since i was 17! his original iteration was named LYRICAL PROSE...but he's always just #sort of been me trying to express how comforted i feel by my little pony. my old oc tickle (and my current oc daisy chain and my ponysona #milkweed) also do this for me. #its like free therapy :3 #gallus #summerfree apple #june 12th 2023 #june 13th 2023

[jardindesoi]

The Garden’s Harvest, a collection of poems.

For my first blog post, I decided to analyze some of the poetry I’ve written in my free time through an outside lens. I compiled all the pieces I’ve written whose main themes deal in some way with my experience as a queer person: this theme shows up a lot in my private work, so I wanted to see what the poetry I write reveals about my relationship with my queer identity.

When I get inspired by something I experience in the world, I open a note in my phone and use a specific artistic style to try and articulate the “truth” I am grappling with. This style depends entirely on how I feel in the moment: some of these pieces use specific parallel structures or references, while some are bursts of words and phrases written down as they occur to me. I title and very sparingly edit them after finishing. If I were to compile these for some formalized assignment or other publication, I would likely edit them for either length or clarity of thought, but as of now they are the raw “flashes” of creativity I felt over a period lasting from some point in my senior year of high school (“History”) until a few weeks ago (“Sterilization”). 

I looked at these pieces from the point of view of an outsider, with the help of my friend, another queer person who writes poetry. The first thing I was able to notice about what I’ve written so far is that they all contain elements of three specific themes. I’ve arranged them below in order of which of these themes they fit most: the social perception of queerness, then anger at this perception, and finally yearning and love. 

Most prominent in the first section but present in all three is the impression that I am very in touch with both my queer identity and how it is perceived by the wider society. I wrote “Work for It” such that each stanza discusses a different marginalized group that suffers under American capitalism, and this fragment demonstrates how I am conscious of the queer community’s place in this suppressive system. “History” was me coming to terms with the fact that the history I was learning in school excluded the stories and challenges of the queer community as it recognized itself and grew, requiring me to seek out this knowledge without any formal guide. 

What queer representation I am able to find, both in history and in present-day media, is the object of “Sterilization:” the “idols” are the whitewashed, well-behaved, stifled image passed off by mainstream media as the epitome of how queer people are expected to act to gain acceptance in majority society. “I AM MORE” was a rage-fueled vent spurned by frustration at queer identities being treated as jokes even in spaces that claim to be accepting of them. These two pieces together show how I see the queer community as double-edged sword: I am thankful for the ability to find and relate to other people like me, but the injustice and separation both within and without the community lead to stereotyping and a monolithic view of queer people as a whole. 

The last two pieces are unique in that they don’t have an explicit theme of social or political commentary: rather, they are raw and unfiltered expressions of love, the same love felt by heterosexual couples. “He’s Beautiful/or Something” muses on men I have found attractive with the underlying idea that beauty can be found in any kind of person, while the “Wanna” fragment is an expression of the desire to be close to someone. Although these two deal explicitly with my own emotions as a gay man, they portray emotions and desires shared by anyone with the capacity for love; the only difference between these poems and identical ones dealing with heterosexual love would be the use of a differently gendered pronoun. Yet they are still queer pieces, because they were written by a queer person who experiences love. I used the act of writing these expressions of love as a method of authenticating those same feelings: being able to articulate my emotions like this allowed me to further settle into my identity as a queer person and a queer lover. 

Here are the pieces I used for this analysis (CW: f-slur in “I AM MORE”):

fragment from “Work for It”

The queer, commodified 

Into company pandering one month yearly, 

Whose battle for the rights to marriage, adoption, and healthcare has been one of distracting White noise?

“History”

My history is not taught.

Students don’t read about my predecessors—

Unless they read between the lines,

Under Achilles’ heel,

Under Shakespeare’s pen,

Under Caesar’s fist.

Their eyes must strain under and between,

For my history is beaten and burned and buried.

My history is uncovered in late night dives through Wikipedia,

Following a scent trail of shining blue words,

Digging up fragments of a story with no words,

Of a movement with no motion,

Of a revolution with no goal.

We have no manifesto, no agenda.

We have identity, 

Love, 

Art,

Life...

Mere abstractions, whose essences are eroded by the sands of time.

I gaze at the past through a rose tint, and cannot see the blood that drowns our past,

Soaks our present,

Steeps into our future.

For who can stare agog at the glitter and self-expression of the balls,

Without also bearing witness to the sicknesses and deaths of the models, the dancers, 

The lovers?

We are all lovers.

Our Hearts are Normal,

But our history is not.

“Sterilization,” unfinished

Are these to be my idols? These totems of plastic and glitter, these mannequins adorned in the clothes of the everyman, these peacocks who preen and strut and jape and dance and sing for their audience? 

Am I to learn their dance, learn how they imitate those traditions which for so long were closed off from them? Am I to fall, as they do, at the feet and mercy of the audience, performing and receiving as payment the permission to be like them? 

/////

They are Not Us, and We are Not Them. 

They are Not Us, so We become Them. 

They are Not Us, but We are Not Us.

They are Not Us, yet We are Them.

“I AM MORE”

I AM NOT YOUR JOKE

I AM A HUMAN

I AM BEYOND THE STEREOTYPES I PUT ON FOR HUMOR, IN CONFIDENCE THAT THEY ARE UNDERSTOOD FOR THE NONSENSE THEY ARE

I AM NOT YOU

I AM EVERBEING I AM MULTITUDES I AM BEYOND I AM MORE THAN YOU AND I WILL NOT DIE

I AM A FAGGOT

I AM NASTY

I AM NOT A HILARIOUS FAIRY

I AM SOCIETY’S DISGUSTING LEFTOVER MISTAKE

AND I LOVE IT

“He’s Beautiful/or Something”

He has long, curly, blond hair that falls almost to his shoulders, a mane that shakes when he laughs.

Or his hair is long, but silky smooth and straight, and he wears it in a tight ponytail when it gets in the way.

Or his head is buzzed almost to the scalp and dyed crimson red, or sea-foam green, or blinding white, or any other beautiful color.

His eyes are dark, almost black, but they shift with the sunlight to a shining amber or gold.

Or they’re sky-blue, shimmering with a reflection of the world they gaze upon.

Or they’re green, but sometimes they’re hazel, or cerulean, or mint—but they’re always beautiful.

He’s tall, and when we’re together he envelops me in his embrace and surrounds me.

Or he’s my size, and we share clothes, and when I wear his sweaters I lose myself in the scent he left behind.

Or he’s small, almost dainty, and I hold him tightly when we’re together, as though to protect him from the world, or selfishly preserve his beauty for myself alone. 

He’s an academic, his eyes glazed over as he devours the heavy tome before him, hardly noticing me until a small kiss on his head brings him back.

Or he’s an athlete, running or jumping or swimming, hitting or kicking or just moving, his kisses full of a passionate spirit.

Or he’s an artist, creating from nothing pieces that speak to the heart, that are at once uproarious, haunting, and as beautiful as the face I kiss every day.

I am his.

Or, he is mine.

fragment from “Wanna”

I wanna

Be close,

Closer,

Closer,

So close that the atoms that separate us break apart

And we are left with our spirits,

Ebbing and flowing in an eternal cosmic dance,

Fundamentally connected,

Never to leave the warmth of the other.

I wanna

I wanna