The Virtue Of Queer Ridiculousness

By / June 25, 2018 / Creative Writing, Uncategorized / Leave a Comment
The Queer Community is the ridiculousness to the Trump Administration’s wickedness

Amidst the Trump administration this Moliere quote comes to mind: “People have no objection to being considered wicked, but they are not willing to be considered ridiculous”.

The POTUS constantly tweets about his reputation, defending in particular his masculinity and intelligence in a desperate attempt to distance himself from all ridicule, while actively refusing to deny his cruelty or offer apology for copious instances of sexual assault, racism, ableism, homophobia, etc. Trump’s commitment to preserving his ego paired with his lack of empathy, particularly towards marginalized groups is indicative of toxic masculinity.

Amidst this political climate I’ve found myself reflecting on the virtue of queer ridiculousness. I used to view the word “ridiculous” as a pejorative adjective since it is human nature to avoid becoming a laughingstock, yet as I grew more aware of LGBTQ+ history and culture, I discovered multitudes of individuals who embraced eccentricities as a means for queer self-expression.

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Harry Styles: Rockstar, Ally, Superhero

By / June 28, 2018 / Media Review / Leave a Comment

Perhaps I’m just not used to it. Perhaps after years of being shoved back into the closet by the media because being queer is not palatable, something like this can affect me so deeply. It shouldn’t be a shock, something as rudimentary to all our very beings as acceptance. As it is though, Harry Styles has become the kind of queer ally I have always desperately yearned for.

…

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Love to Mind

By / June 27, 2018 / Poetry / Leave a Comment

*To the lovers that never were because our bodies told them to stay away…*

Ohhhh, Baby! Let me make Love to your mind!

Mindful thoughts swaying in the air with nowhere to go but in the warmth of my bosom
If only we knew how to make love blossom
into our smiles, our thoughts, and words.

Because loving with our bodies seems to be the only language we know
And being physical is nice and all but it’s like that’s the only way we know how to express ourselves
And I want to change the language of intimacy
Intently
Because in the depths of my being I know Love is forever and baby I know my body will not be here forever

My soul wants to caress the inner thigh of your mind
Kiss the lips of your sweet soul
Touch the chest of your thoughts and tell you,
Honey, let’s make love
Not with our bodies but with our souls
Pressing against one another, sweating because our passion is too hot and our faces are too warm
smiling, exchanging those words that we never thought we would
Changing our moans for laughter
Looking into the eyes of the other and saying
Oh, baby…
Let me make Love to your soul!

I see you and you see me, and for the first time in My life I know that if we never touch again we would still love
Still look at the other and agree we were one

One soul

Two minds

Bound in each other’s arms forever and always
Acting like always is forever and my forever is always.

The first time I saw your inner self I began to cry
Because our souls were naked and we saw how raw fully beautiful it was to leave the imprints of each other’s being on our hearts

When our final days come and I see your soul for the last time I will weep.
Because I know I will be leaving behind a mine of gold where I once was covered in dirt by the smog of your powerful beauty
And I think it’s okay to call you beautiful because to me that’s all I see
Even when the scars on your body may say otherwise
And the harshness of your skin may tell people to stay away
Anyways…

…This is all I soulfully see

[Pause]

I am with you and you are with me in bed together naked in our mind’s eye telling our life’s secrets
As if making love was easy and without complication
But let me tell you,
It’s complicated and it is not easy

My love for you is messy and harsh
Judging what my soul shares with yours because my body has been struck by others
By you
Beaten Down, Beaten Down

that my Self-finds it hard to say ‘yes’ to the making of Our love 

To make love to your soul is a task
One that needs work and practice
Your soul against mine is all I ask for
But in moments where I can actually see you for you, I wonder if you were ever really naked to begin with…

…I cry when I see your inner being inside mine

Love to Mind

I’m forever asking you to make love to my soul
Forever, as in My Always.

Sam’s Guide to Gay Media #2: Creating an Online Portfolio

By / June 25, 2018 / Op-Ed / Leave a Comment

I’m of the firm belief that every writer or journalist, no matter how experienced or inexperienced they may be, can benefit from an online portfolio. This is your professional homebase, the place where you can confidently refer anybody—curious friends, family who’ve always wanted to read your writing, and of course, potential employers—who wants to get a better sense of your skillsets. Plus, if you’re an artsy queer like myself, it can be super fun to design a portfolio that reflects your style visually and textually.

Here are my key tips for creating a solid digital portfolio.

When it doubt, keep your layout simple. White background. Simple, consistent, easy-to-read fonts and formatting. As few pages and navigation bars as possible. These might seem like minor components of building a killer portfolio, but they’ll help you standout. Sites like WordPress make these configurations super easy (and cheap) to accomplish. (Plus, WordPress has enough built-in functionalities that you can have a little fun with your layout or formatting without compromising the overall design.) You’d be shocked at how many people have lackluster or difficult-to-navigate online portfolios. On the flip side, some of the journalists I most admire have incredibly simple and clean online portfolios. Rachel Schallom, an award-winning journalist and digital strategist for The Wall Street Journal, has an excellent and super-simple digital portfolio (rachelschallom.com.) Jesse Steinbach, an editor at NewNowNext, also has a fantastic online portfolio, broken down into a very logical and easy-to-follow navigation bar (jessesteinbach.com.)

Identify and highlight your best work. Find and showcase the stories that make your voice shine (and your reporting or narrative storytelling prowess obvious.) And use them to your advantage. Cultivate a “Selected Writing” page on your portfolio website, broken down in a logical way (if you write in a variety of beats, break it down by genre. If you’ve written for a variety of publications, big or small, split it up by outlet.) When selecting showcase pieces to include, prioritize stellar quality over prestigious outlets every time. And, this should probably go without saying, but check your published pieces over for typos/inaccuracies.

Don’t be afraid to showcase peripheral skills. Are you an excellent photographer? Include that on your online portfolio, with samples—you’d be surprised how many editors will ask (and potentially pay you more) for original photography you provide! Are you a bomb social media strategist? Damn it, embed some killer Insta posts you’ve written and uploaded professionally. Any skills that are somewhat related to editorial work, even tangentially, can be hugely beneficial to highlight on your portfolio. I do this myself on my own digital portfolio (slmjournalist.com.)

And, at the end of the day, enjoy it! Creating an online portfolio should be fun, and a great way for you to evaluate (and re-evaluate) your professional strengths and weaknesses. Don’t get too wrapped up in perfection. Instead, aim to encapsulate your voice, your style, and your best work. And remember the true beauty of the Internet: you can always edit and revise your portfolio. Nothing is set in stone.

Today’s recommended reading:

  1. In a Terrifying World, Pride Reminds Us of the Strength of Queer Community (Them)
  2. Inside America’s Mass Detention of Queer Asylum Seekers (Them)
  3. I De-transitioned. But Not Because I Wasn’t Trans (The Atlantic)
  4. Super Gonorrhea Could Be the Next Gay Health Epidemic (NewNowNext)
  5. Queer-Owned Clothing Line Responds to Melania Trump’s Insensitive Jacket (NewNowNext)

sabertooth: four stanzas on gender dysphoria

By / June 25, 2018 / Creative Writing, Poetry / 1 Comment

i don’t know but i but i’ve been

enthralled with anatomy textbooks since i was a girl and i’ve always

thought it would be delicate, somehow, to have

tattoo needles trace other skeletons onto my own,

emblazon me with the teeth of extinct species,

explicate this sweaty contemporaneity and wire together

a preservation of imagined once-perfection.

 

some things stay some things do stay the movement of

a score of a stomach of a sadness and i always told myself

the worst of things.

hitting breaking screaming conflicting,

hurting so i could hate myself want myself dead without

feeling guilty.

 

consume imbibe poison. eat the rock in your hand.

eat the food from the ground, lick the

frozen pole just once just to have someone else speak for you,

another shot please no yes i’ll be sick yes i want to be sick oh i

hope i get sick tonight i hope i finally fucking

choke.

drink ink drink lotion drink shampoo find everything that doesn’t go

down easily and make yourself a cocktail stare at it.

take five advil for no reason because your blood craves something and

you don’t yet know what.

 

skin is rubbersoft hard and it hurts to have hair it hurts to have blood

it hurts to feel like to feel like to feel like to feel.

my tongue fills my whole mouth i was always picking at my lips at my

nose my skin eroding myself gently peeling away until i could be only

the bones like the exhibits in the neverending hallways the ones where

i would stay for hours where i wished i could live where i was nobody but

an observer or an outsider and i never felt like i belonged here now progressing in

a self a form and and and to have a body is to have a stake in the narrative, so i just

wrote

(it)

instead.

An Open Letter to Coming Out

By / June 25, 2018 / Poetry / Leave a Comment

Coming out. Come out of what, and where? You too? Do you feel alone? I do.

Coming, coming out. Out from where? Reality? Concealed? Why concealed? “In the closet.” Why conceal me the darkness?

Knock, knock, tick toc, come out, come out.

Get out or come out – which is it? And who for exactly? Why was it hidden to begin with? Made me feel wrong to begin with.

Come on, come out.

Coming out is overcoming; it’s over, and coming in the dark, to see the light, from the closet, in the closet, why the closet, who put me there?

Who put me there to have to make this cross. I have to make this cross.

I’m coming out, I’m coming out, I’m coming, coming, coming. . . I want that pleasure. That pleasure, of coming out.

How to be your own role model

By / June 22, 2018 / Op-Ed / Leave a Comment

Hello all!  If you have spent as much time on the internet as I have, you are probably familiar with the fact that most media websites can be pretty LGBTQIA+ unfriendly.  Being queer, the relationship I have with the internet is often bittersweet, and that has become doubly true now that I am attempting to form a career on it!
I decided I wanted to be a twitch streamer as soon as I discovered the website.  Live performance mixed with video games?  My two passions?  You better believe I was sold instantly!  However at the time I had not explored my identity and thus the mostly cisgender straight male streaming community left me with lots of role models and examples to look up to.  In the several years building up to my first livestream I learned more and more about my identity and the list of people like me I could look up to became less and less until finally I was my only role model.  On a website where “gay” was still used as an insult, women streamers were constantly objectified to the point of having to revolve their brands around their physical features (an issue I hope to go much further in depth on at a later date), and breaking the format usually meant becoming the object of much harassment, I had to make myself a home within this community.

I had to ask myself a lot of questions as the time came ever closer for my first livestream.  Should I come out?  Is it even safe to come out?  If I do come out what is the best time?  There was nowhere to turn for examples and nobody to ask for advice.  I had to become my own role model on an entirely new platform for myself.

When I first started streaming I didn’t even come close to hinting at being queer.  Not a single mention of it.  I had no idea what being queer on a platform like this would mean for me or my future as an internet performer.  I stuck to whatever pronouns people assumed I used, and rolled with what I was given thinking it was going to be permanent.  As time went on though, I gained some loyal viewership and began mentioning that I was queer and posted on my channel that it was an LGBTQIA+ channel.  This did make my viewership grow slower, but something magical happened.  The chat room for my channel became a community of people supporting each other fantastically!  Hearts being thrown around, dotted with encouraging messages and tips to boost each other’s streams!

The moral of this entry on the blog is that being queer in the age of queerness, it’s very possible that you might have to be your own queer role model on a new platform.  I’m here to tell you that no matter how scary it is, there are safe places even in deeply toxic communities.  Your community will become your role model.  The love and support you inevitably receive as you progress will become your role model.  Take those first unsure footsteps into a new world and you WILL become your own role model, and even the role model for a few others too!

Untitled poem about queer love

By / June 21, 2018 / Uncategorized / Leave a Comment

I don’t know how it feels

To hear them

Call you ma’am

In the checkout line.

Does it sound the same

As the man checking your ID

saying hey

Isn’t this a girls name

I don’t suppose they sound the same. 

But I know my stomach sinks

When I hear your mother call you that

There’s a twitch in my fingers when they call us girls 

Because I know you.

I know you’re the type to bring a life raft to your wedding reception

I know sometimes you want to float

On an open sea.

You wouldn’t be scared at all.

Every night

I touch your skin

Each night,

A bit rougher.

Sometimes you feel

Stone cold.

When I was 8, I buried a rock in the snow

Hoping to see if something will grow.

I sat in the snow

Molding balls of frozen water

Between my mittens.

The frigid wind reddens my cheeks

But I don’t care.

I think:

If I had magic powers, I would freeze the world

just to catch my breath.

You’re so damn good

At hiding the truth.

You pile bricks and bricks

To block out the light.

You don’t know your bricks are transparent

And your friends and family are waiting outside to see you.

We ignore what truly hurts us.

We know this.

We mention nothing.

We hide from feeling

Anything that is inconvenient.

Sorrow

Rings through my ears like a gong,

My heart

pumps the hurt

into my clean blood.

Am I free?

Am I free?

After the hurt goes away:

I learned how to ignore it.

Pass through life

Unconscious,

Comatose to current,

Distraction & Detachment:

My favorite drink.

My traumas

Orbit me like little moons

Held in place by gravity.

They spin in circles,

Dancing in the dark.

They are glowing.

I want to know why you shine so bright I can’t see what’s around me. You’re not translucent you’re a glass prism and you shine brighter than I can ever appreciate and I’m sorry I am too much sometimes and I can’t see all your light but there are colors I will never perceive just like I’ll never see how beautiful your rainbow truly is and I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I cry when I’m mad and I look for love in the wrong places. I’m sorry I’m weak and you’re strong and you don’t understand why. Please don’t hide from the world. Please see the beauty in an ice cold world. Snow melts. People change. The world loves you.

I liked a girl, but did not know!

By / June 20, 2018 / Creative Writing / Leave a Comment

I woke up that morning and I was ready. Kindergarten here I come! Finally, I was a big girl. The trip to school was almost too long to remember so I don’t remember it. All I remember is getting to those big brick red doors. Smiling a bit too much, turning around ready to say goodbye, and catching the glimmer of my mother’s tears at the edge of her eyes. Her sad smile broke me and so I went to her. Hugged her and she laughed. “¿No deberías estar llorando tú?” (Aren’t you supposed to be crying?) she asked as she wiped away her tears. I had seen her smile so I knew she was just sad cause she’d miss me, and I’d be back so… I ran for the red brick doors once again. I looked up as the doors started to open and saw the endless beige hallways. I walked in and stared in awe.

I had never been inside this building so everything was a new experience. From the sound of my shoes tap tapping along the floor to the many new voices of students throughout the hall, still I was ready. Walking towards what I later discovered was my room, I saw a pair of sapphire eyes. They caught my attention but my excitement overpowered and I continued. I roamed around for a little, exploring. After sometime I found my teacher and with her a whole bunch of what I hoped would be my friends.

We all introduced ourselves and played games. I had so much fun. While waiting for lunch I saw her. Straight dark chocolate hair and a smile that was … sooo pretty. I wasn’t going to say anything, what would I say ? I had no clue. So I decided I wouldn’t, but right before I made that decision she looked at me. There they were. Those sapphire eyes again.

I do not recall this encounter in anyway sexual.

You see, my first attraction to a female, was way beyond my knowledge about sexuality. I remember a world in which gay and lesbian were the only other sexual orientations I knew existed. A time when the only other way to possibly describe why another girl was “sooooo pretty,” and I mean “Soooooooooo pretty,” was because I was just admiring. I was admiring. I really was actually. The world I remember was not necessarily cruel, but it was

The first encounter was X. I don’t remember her name but I do know it started with an X and she was absolutely “sooooooo pretty.” I was in kindergarten and she was in my class. Long and thick straight black hair, piercing blue eyes, and a smile that I remember wanting to capture. I took her picture at the end of the school year. Wanted to “remember her” even though I definitely had more than 25 others kids in my class. Although back then I would not have classified as a crush, I definitely see what it always was. I liked a girl, but did not know!