I want to open you
to yourself.
Show you the beauty that lies within,
Help you fill the void inside you,
That empty place
that can be full.

I want to crack you open
like a pomegranate,
Taste your bittersweet juices
Until my fingers are
stained with you.

I will lift you up to
the mirror of my soul,
Reflect you back to yourself
So you can see all that you can be.

I will not heal you,
That is your work,
But I will point you to the key
So you can heal yourself.

I just discovered Kit Yan and Good Asian Drivers today. You may or may not have heard of them or seen them before, but in case you haven’t I have two videos for you. The first is Kit alone doing his awesome piece titled “Third Gender,” the second is Kit and Melissa Li in a piece titled “Queer Nation.” They are both extremely powerful, and I’ll let them speak for themselves.

there may be as many as a million genders, identities, and sexualities,
just floating around, searching for the right person,
to snatch them up,
put them on, and proudly parade around in their new skin,
unrestricted by layers and identity, and
limitations of culture, society, and social construction.
this new gender is a function of inner desire, and
genuine understanding of self to be lived…

Hey, I thought that our people were past this
That everyone was a feminist non-conformist boundry-pushing progressive
and enlightened spiritual being but I’m wrong
to think that queer people were born with an inherent knowledge
that push past the nurture of America
but the truth is that we screw up too
see we still haven’t found our groove on the outskirts of society
we’re still using old blueprints with bad foundations

And for a little more humor…

I’ve posted this poem before, about a year and a half ago but I’ve recently re-discovered my love for it and also found I could share the audio version with you all. I was first introduced to it on Ani DiFranco’s live album at Carnegie Hall and fell in love with it immediately.

The image above is a wall hanging my sister made for me with the poem on it (obviously) but it’s also below as well as Ani DiFranco reading it.

I’m not entirely sure what it is about the poem that hits me, maybe it’s how I imagine myself to be or how I used to be… I’m not much for analyzing poetry even though I’m one for analyzing myself.

I’ve used the first line “Her words pour out as if her throat were a broken artery and her mind were cut-glass, carelessly handled” for quite some time on my livejournal and I’ve been thinking of incorporating it here somewhere as well, I love the imagery and it’s definitely how I think of my posts sometimes.

Ani talks a bit before getting into the poem, but this player doesn’t allow you to skip forward so you’ll have to listen to it to get to the poem, but I promise it’s worth it.

by Judy Grahn

Her words pour out as if her throat were a broken
artery and her mind were cut-glass, carelessly handled.
You imagine her in a huge velvet hat with great
dangling black feathers,
but she shaves her head instead
and goes for three-day midnight walks.
Sometimes she goes down to the dock and dances
off the end of it, simply to prove her belief
that people who cannot walk on water
are phonies, or dead.
When she is cruel, she is very, very cool
and when she is kind she is lavish.
Fisherman think perhaps she’s a fish, but they’re all
fools. She figured out that the only way
to keep from being frozen was to
stay in motion, and long ago converted
most of her flesh into liquid. Now when she
smells danger, she spills herself all over,
like gasoline, and lights it.
She leaves the taste of salt and iron
under your tongue, but you dont mind
The common woman is as common
as the reddest wine.

This was written by my wonderful Dominus. I think it’s beautiful (of course I would, it’s about us) and so I wanted to share it with you.

He and I have talked about him doing guest posts on here, which I was going to make this one except he preferred it if I posted it as a quote from him rather than having him post it from his account. Hopefully we shall see a few posts from him in the near-to-distant future.

The Cactus

The Desert almost claimed me

This salted Wasteland
So barren in its Homogeny

I withered

And to survive
I became a Cactus
A natural part of the Desert

Yet not letting anyone past my spikes

And I endured

Until I saw the Lotus
Stubbornly refusing
To wither under the heat

Unwilling to become part of the Desert
Reminding me that even a Cactus

Can bloom

by Judy Grahn

Her words pour out as if her throat were a broken
artery and her mind were cut-glass, carelessly handled.
You imagine her in a huge velvet hat with great
dangling black feathers,
but she shaves her head instead
and goes for three-day midnight walks.
Sometimes she goes down to the dock and dances
off the end of it, simply to prove her belief
that people who cannot walk on water
are phonies, or dead.
When she is cruel, she is very, very cool
and when she is kind she is lavish.
Fisherman think perhaps she’s a fish, but they’re all
fools. She figured out that the only way
to keep from being frozen was to
stay in motion, and long ago converted
most of her flesh into liquid. Now when she
smells danger, she spills herself all over,
like gasoline, and lights it.
She leaves the taste of salt and iron
under your tongue, but you dont mind
The common woman is as common
as the reddest wine.

(because I love it, and it needed to be shared.)