My heart is still beating.
It’s a political event;
This desire to be here,
To keep breathing.
I want to live.
.
I want to be happy when my eyes
Welcome sleeping.
I want to rest in peace,
Long night hours I’m keeping.
My only torment: a sweaty pillow.
I’ve been unknowingly drooling.
I want to live.
.
Rush me to a hospital bed.
Blood transfusion, see it dripping.
The burn of a scalpel, my only proof,
I’m still capable of feeling.
Strap me down, see me raw
From incessantly screaming:
I want to live!
.
If the shadows in the corners
Rise up around me, all consuming.
If this body, fat and brown
Brings nothing but pain unrelenting,
Then let this pain be my only proof
My heart’s indeed still beating.
Fear and dread will make my brain
Crackle with terrible feeling.
I want to be alive,
Even when my life is only fleeting.
****
Being present and visible is something that I often struggle with. There have been countless incidents in my life when I’ve been told, “Are you sure you’re in the right place?” This doesn’t happen when I’m lost, but almost every time I go to a queer space, or a white-dominated space (which is often the same thing). After a while I start wondering if there is another place I could be. I keep searching, hoping to be in a more accepting environment, but it hasn’t happened yet. I suppose the thing that has changed is me wanting to stick around when I feel so unwelcome. Biphobia, racism, fatphobia, class-hatred are some of the things that I am bombarded with on a daily basis. It gets tiring. It only adds to me feeling like crap. I don’t know if things will improve, but I don’t just want to exist. I want to be happy to be here: happy to be alive.
