 Maybe a couple of months ago, Radar, like, invited a bunch of queer artists to talk about Trump. And I decided to share the piece that I wrote as a result of that, since we're talking about Trump so much. And this poem is called Broken Things, because he's broken. It was on a Thursday at 3 p.m. when it happened. I had just finished a long meeting at work in the midst of a long week at work after an exhausting lifetime of doing too damn much work. You know this story. Five years old, don't bring home any report cards with anything lower than a B. Translation? Work. Seven years old. There is no other option than a college degree. Be focused while you work. Ten years old. When you leave the house, you are a representation of your family. Look pretty while you work. Eleven years old. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Emmett Till did not die for mediocracy. Be terrified and carry the burden of white supremacy while you work. Twelve years old. You can be as smart as you want, but ain't no man going to look at no sloppy, fat dyke all day in an office. Don't eat and try to live up to white European standards of femininity as you work. Thirteen years old. If your teacher calls home for any reason other than a compliment, you are a statistic and racism has won. Be perfect as well as be the Civil Rights Act while you work. Fourteen years old. Don't be aggressive, arrogant, or dramatic. Don't ditch, drink, fuck, or do drugs. Be meek, dull, bored, and extremely Christian while you work. Listen. I understand liberation, but for some reason I'm still aiming for validation from whoever my parents were trying to impress. Even when I believe in revolution, I'm still working so hard to succeed in a system that wants to oppress me. And even when I hate respectability politics, I exhaust myself senseless trying to prove that I'm worthy of acceptance. So in that moment, on a Thursday at 3 p.m., right in the middle of my work day, I was finally so exhausted with my life being about that bullshit that I decided to stop and breathe, to close Microsoft Word and Gmail and Facebook and Calendar, put my phone on silent and my dog in his kennel, close my blinds in my bedroom door, turn on the YouTube R&B late-night mix, I got my t-shirt and my panties on, smoke a bowl full of some fresh green my best friend just handpicked out in Humboldt County for not nearly enough money, take off my blouse and my bra, my skirt and my panties, my shoes and my earrings, climb into a bed underneath some sheets that honestly probably could have been washed last week, lie down next to a pile of clothes that I promise I will hang up someday, kick my dog's bone off the bed, flick away the teased tweezers that are currently poking me in the ass, shove Alice Walker's the temple of my familiar away from my pillow, change my playlist to the Neo Soul's Lever Mix so I don't have to listen to any more R. Kelly, and let my fingers travel the lush expense of my body, from forehead to knees, stomach roll to back roll, nipple to nipple, I queer-plect them Jesus worship my body, pastor inquire call response my body, Sunday school in Bible study my body, I praise dance and testify my body, and write when I am at my most potent, most ripe, eyes closed, holy spirit mounting, ancestor tongue speaking, Crip walking right in front of the pole pad, portal to heaven wide open, self-possessed with eyes rollin' to the back of my head, clipped perfectly sanctified in orgasm ready to be delivered, I grab my tatachi, who by the way, I have named Sharifa after this fine-ass thick girl who once wanted to bone me when I was too stuck on Jesus to believe that I could fornicate, and then I try to set my soul free, but seconds before I was about to an extent, to extend or at least experience a brief, maybe 10 second release from the stress of 30 odd years in the thresholds of the capitalist white supremacist patriarchy has imposed on me, my tatachi jumps, and then sparks, and then dies. Naturally, with my hips still bucking and my heart still races and my clitoris racing, not races, my heart, and my clitoris still throbbing and all of the stress, the stress, intention and unactualized fantasies just roaring and clawing and begging for a moment of redemption to escape all of the ways that I have suppressed or silenced or rejected or denied or worked so hard to suffocate the dangerous parts of me, the angry parts of me, the voices in my head that say, perhaps destruction ain't that bad. When you live in captivity to a government forged from the busted bones of your ancestors, overlorded by police officers and legislators still feeding from the blood your people never stopped spilling, built on top of the genocidal graves of indigenous civilizations rich with centuries of history and family, medicine and technology, art and spirituality broken and stolen and burnt down and coralled just to create room for Donald fucking Trump to be elected our first overtly fascist president. So he could blackmail scientists into pretending like global warming doesn't exist, take away healthcare from anyone who's not economically blessed and force the rest of us to watch our loved ones die from some unnecessary bullshit, build pipelines, walls and international enemies at the expense of everyone but him, his homies, his kids and their spouses, trap refugees and Muslims in airports, danger and hopelessness, invite civil rights villains, Nazi leaders, Islamophobes and anti-poor into the highest positions of our government and tweet us into both civil and world war so his stock portfolio can expand at the booming rate of the weapon industry. And really, y'all, I just want to ejaculate away the fact that on so many levels, I have consented to participating in this regime that I hate so much and so I'm grieving. I am grieving my dead vibrator and I am grieving my dying complacency and the ease it afforded me because that orgasm that I did not have penetrated me to my core, inseminated me with all the fury and rampage that I've been fighting to suppress and helped me give birth to the monster that America, her savage, colonizing ancestors and murdering supremacist babies created inside of me. This monster that just wants to scream and yell and growl and bite and chop down telephone poles and oil wells and smash apart freeways and courthouses and rip out colleges, college classrooms and jail cells and set fires to factories in the White House and pummel military banks' banks and space stations and through every piece of infrastructure and capitalistic industry stapled into the charred earth of this nation after dipping it into the ditto dust decorated in Trump's face. Because if my vibrator and the government has to break at the same time, the very least I deserve is some high-fructose, heavily processed artificial cheese. Although, I much rather just smoke a joint, bust a few alone Tom Nuts and fall asleep to Netflix instead. Hashtag, fuck Trump and my broken Hitachi. Thank you. You know, as Juliana told you, I'm going through this heartbreak, but the heartbreak and all that bad because I am currently like dating the sweetest, most adorable little puppy who's like sitting right there with a blue lipstick. Oh, my gosh, because sometimes you don't date people. Sometimes you just wallow for a little while and I am accustomed to wallowing because normally after a breakup, I hate everybody. So I've decided that I choose not hate this time. And one of the things that I'm doing is really like honoring the sweetness that I got from something. And if it wasn't sweet, your heart wouldn't break so much. So this is a poem that I wrote about my ex maybe about eight months in when I realized, oh, I can trust you. It's called growing. Talking to you sends me through spirals of decades where yesterday and tomorrow are conflated into a confetti salad of pre-capitalist teenage optimism all drizzled with the confidence of being in my thirties and finally knowing my boundaries, finally knowing my worth, finally knowing my desires and not being afraid to articulate them. Our synergy is a time portal into a period of history when I had no bills or romantic baggage and my only true concern was to proving to everyone that the Spice Girls were actually a part of an underground pop singing lesbian mafia and the slogan girlfower was essentially the equivalent to teenage femme dyke echolocation despite what all my gay homeboys might have thought. You Facebook direct message me after 10 p.m. and I am the giddy and naughty version of myself staying up late after my parents fell asleep so I could use the only computer in the house to cyber fuck the girl crush of my dreams on AOL instant messenger and not feel guilty about the fact that I might have lied and told her I look like a black Britney Spears because offline she's probably the sexually frustrated suburban father of a high school age girl who's three years older than me anyway. You wrap your arms around my shoulders or lay your hands on top of my ass and I'm in the back of my childhood church flustered and aroused and slightly asthmatic because fine ass Stephanie Paloma who's sharing my Bible has just underlined the sexiest of King Solomon songs with one hand and has the other hand resting on my thigh with her long acrylic French tip fingernails or scratching white ash berries just underneath my Easter Sunday dress and she has somehow managed to capture the axis point of my burgeoning King trifecta exhibitionism, sadomasochism and the terrifying tug of war between dominance and submission. You tell me that you like my outfit and we're at Venice Beach three hours after my senior year homecoming dance has ended and I think I am hella fine we're in nothing but my long silky pre-weave braid extensions big silver hoop earrings black lip liner smothered with 99 cent supply store burgundy lip gloss glow-in-the-dark key lime complexion rainbow heart jelly clips clips from Claire's a flimsy semi-broken pink and turquoise rose-set-it black neck choker from Hot Topic and the red lace bra and thaw set my bra and thaw set my mother forced me to wear because she thinks it will improve my self-esteem as well as erase my panty lines which is all true while playing a game of truth or dare right before the police catch me pulling my bra off to motorboat my good friend Christina's boyfriend Edgar we're riding around Berkeley in your car and you start humming some so something soulful and my body notes into the five-part harmony of cement 90s r&b boy groups and you become my high school boyfriend Cleveland boyfriend Cleveland tenderly asking me what I want for my 18th birthday I say I want you baby well gleamin underneath the drizzle of an open-chested sand colored oversized silk suit publicly pair serenading me with close your eyes make a wish press your fear of getting in trouble I pow'd rub your tubby and flirtatiously say aren't I worth a few hours of detention you tell me that we have to get off the phone so you can finish I do that shit choose me fuck your job okay we have to get off the phone so you can finish editing the last clip of your last clip of the evening and I can finish editing my last article of the night and in my love sick giddiness I say the same thing I said to Cleveland all those years and so many lovers since aren't I worth a few hours of miss sleep and an awkward conversation with your professor to which you reply baby what's the purpose of all that drama when we can take our time pace ourselves enjoy the rest of our lives together and still accomplish our goals to which I freeze in response no one's ever been so logical with me no one's ever been so sure about forever and wanted to explore that with me and suddenly I'm not quite a teenager anymore in this relationship you say something that hurts and for the first time I'm suddenly terrified more terrified than I've ever been of you not making the cut I take a day's worth of space process everything with myself lean into my dignity myself respect lean into my compassion my curiosity about your intentions ask you questions express my feelings and we come up with solutions together and I am I am suddenly ready to forgive my father for about twenty years worth of insult and disappointment straight girls aren't the only ones who date their father over and over again but you are the first person I've ever loved who didn't remind me of him I express concern uncertainty fear and you listen to me and engage from an understanding I fuck up apologize and you tell me I'm perfect and you accept me unconditionally I tell you I'm hurt and you kiss my bruises then help me unpack them you navigate anger gently tenderly like me your frustration isn't accompanied by raised voices or clenched fists you ask me not to hide anything because you want to see all of me love all of me touch all of me smell all of me cherish every single part of my existence perhaps you're the first lover that I've ever trusted with unconditional honesty maybe you're the first lover who would accept nothing less maybe you're the first lover who's not in a rush to claim label and recreate me you say that I get all the space in the world and when I'm ready and available all you want is to nurture protect and enable me sing the gospel to me call me deity and say thanks and mercy for my existence y'all knowing you has made me want to remember who I used to be because when I'm with you my heart is so much less hurt maybe it's not the pre-hurt I initially thought but the lessening of hurt that accompanies healing every interaction with you leaves the trauma a significantly less dense you kiss my forehead and I'm 21 learning that a full night's sleep actually does help me do better before an exam you caress me and I'm 24 learning that people are more likely to listen to me talk about race if I don't immediately call them a racist in the process you run my finger you run your fingers through my hair and I'm 27 years old learning that if if she will scream and curse at a stranger when she's angry then she's just as likely to scream and curse at me when she's hurt and I don't need to date a warrior when I have already become such a powerful one on my own but I'm still excited to be loving a phenomenal warrior like you you hold my hand and I'm 29 learning that I am so much more than my baggage my trauma my disappointments my failures and other people's opinions of me rather I am the times I have chosen to forgive and apologize I am the dreams I've turned into action I am the secrets I've learned to keep I am the hours I spend practicing and editing I am the affirmation that begins and ends my day I am the goals I continue to strive for I am the times I prioritize loving myself over the whimsy of someone else's validation you say goodnight I love you and I'm 32 grateful fully believing that I deserve to be loved by someone like you and so much in love with you back thank you I got one more for you do you all remember that Buzzfeed poem that came out I meant this Buzzfeed video that came out a while ago that was like 29 questions black people have for black people and it hurt a lot of people's feelings it was deeply rooted in internalized racism and respectability politics and we were all trash and those people on the internet me too and then I took a second and I was like yo but I've been listening to people talk like that my whole life I grew up with friends to talk to me like that and teachers to talk to me like that and a good portion of the people that I've fallen in love with has at some point at times said something similar to that and it reminded me like of how often those of us who kind of move in activist circles are really quick to condemn people without holding space for the process of healing and growth and how much I want to have a politic that's rooted in love and compassion and how that's helped me with my relationships minus the fact that you know out loud okay this one is called me my besties my exes the talented 10th and all that bullshit the making, breaking and creating of blackness make no mistakes it was always their afro-centricity that I first fell in love with that quiet moment that awkward moment that flirtatious moment that solemn moment that boisterous moment when voices rang higher than the ceilings and hands smacked hard on tables and points were going to be made no matter how many times they were repeated when sound stops and breath were caught and fingers were clawed sculptures of masterpiece and between the electronic planes of their faces in mind eyes, tendrils, rooted deep in my soul sprouting buds that blossomed into the strained eloquence of I've got something to say I've spent a lifetime being unheard and I need you to hear me that delicate moment that tender moment that weeping moment that vulnerable moment when skin is no longer barrier or decoration but rather the unanswered riddle of who we were supposed to be when memory is fat and clumsy and maybe just a little bit terrified on the tongue and the shelter of assumption is no longer applicable and we have abandoned the performance of courtship the ritual of intellectual pontification the cakewalk of cultural familiarity the carefully choreographed dance of what it means to be black and woke in America and suddenly we are just the sums of our stories trying to be something bigger more unapologetic just a little bit softer just a little bit harder than who we were supposed to be than who we were told to be that transformative moment that sacred moment that yearning moment when the black of my flesh touched their black or their brown or their beige or their cream or their purple or their cinnamon or their umber or their pecan or their hickory and they finally tell me the truth that truth that I have heard over and over with my arms cradled around so many shoulders and my fingers scratching scalps and my palms rubbing bellies and my lips kissing tears and my tongue licking necks and my teeth scratching thighs and both of us laughing horsely over glasses of wine on rooftops and fancy restaurants and sitting on the beach past midnight hoping the pulleys don't see us they tell me that secret that secret that quite frankly ain't never been a secret the broken teeth of so many black children's dreams whispered melodies tumultuous with the shame and guilt they've covered with dreadlocks and afros and black fist tattoos and pin-up posters of Malcolm X and Bayard Rustin and Shirley Chisholm and Fannie Lou Hamer and Earth the Kid and Nina Simone and Ashe my brother and fight the power of my sister and I'm a motherfucking unicorn and gender is just white constructs of cis male supremacy anyway and Mumia Abul Jamal this and Asada Jakour that and Sonia Sanchez and Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin and Saul Williams and Rikia Boyd and Trayvon Martin and they big cousin Shana and they play brother Rashad and they stepmom and they uncle and they daddy and they daddy and they daddy and the homie they had a crush on in the ninth grade that never actually made it to the 11 and you mean to tell me you haven't read Octavia Butler yet while smoking a joint and listening to a tribe called Twest quest and meditating on ascension and manifesting abundance and aligning their chakras yeah I'm talking about that nigga they lean close whisper scratching at base and timber and they say I never felt like I was black enough I couldn't get my hair straight enough and my lips couldn't cradle slang authentic enough and my hips wouldn't move in rhythm enough and sometimes my weird was louder than my skin and sometimes I cried when I was supposed to fight and no matter what I did I couldn't quite fit in and no matter how much I tried I never truly felt welten and sometimes when I walk into a room filled with my people I feel panicked and afraid that I'm gonna be rejected and unwanted and unliked because I'm not cool enough and they're gonna call me names again the way they did when I was a child back when I was a child when I was that she thinks she too smart kind of child she thinks she white kind of child she got straight A's kind of child she was on honor roll when the rest of them were being prepped for parole kind of child she gonna get scholarships while the rest of them get pregnant kind of child she's our why can't the rest of them be like her kind of child she's our shining star kind of child our black respectability kind of child we gonna forget about the rest of them and focus on her kind of child she's gonna make it out of the hood and bring her people along kind of child she don't talk why she talk intelligent kind of child she gonna grow up and be the boss one day kind of child they're only picking on you because they jealous kind of child you know you so much better than them anyway kind of child you're such a good representation of your people kind of child we're so happy to hire such an upstanding african-american like you kind of child you are so much more approachable than the rest of them kind of child you're not like really black you're like white black you know because there's like totally a difference kind of child so much blacker than you kind of child I like it when black women wear their hair natural it's so much more appealing than those weaves kind of child so do you like role play because it would be so hot if you pretended like I'm the master's wife and you're a slave getting revenge on me kind of child so why are you allowed to say nigga and I can't kind of child what do you mean we need to hire more blacks we have you and there's like nine of you kind of child calm down now don't be so hostile kind of child you know you used to be so friendly and approachable what happened to you kind of child now really is that Trayvon Martin t-shirt really appropriate for work kind of child so I'm feeling really hurt by your stereotypes and reverse racism and I don't understand why you continue to call me Becky kind of child is that black lives matter t-shirt really appropriate for work kind of child what do you want from me I voted for Barack Obama didn't I kind of child so I'm really sorry but we're going to have to let you go because you make people uncomfortable with your unnecessary racial rage kind of child Vanessa they say it took me forever to realize this but I was that middle class in the hood talented 10th kind of child I was taught meritocracy and I bought into it I spent a lifetime blaming them and never thought about how the system heard all of us I spent a lifetime trying to get away from them and I didn't understand I was doing the exact thing I was taught to do hate myself leave myself I feel like I'm just starting the process of learning to love myself and I'm just starting to realize how much I love us and how much I have always wanted to be loved by us and today I dream of creating a tribe of babies that look just like us and when I'm at work being padded on the back for how well I perform assimilated I fantasize about liberation even though I'm trying to figure out what that is but when I'm with you I feel a little bit closer these are the conversations that helped me better understand myself these are the moments when I fall in love when Afrocentricity is no longer a performance a code a bandage of protection and access point for redemption a justification of wokeness a validation of blackness but rather an assertion that they I we have always been black and they I we in our healing and in our turmoil have the potential to want each other to claim each other to love each other to name each other correctly when Afrocentricity is not a residence or performance but memory declaration reclamation resistance compassion redemption self forgiveness grace love and togetherness thank you