Gay/LGBTQ "Lifestyle"

I was on Tumblr the other day (not a shocking revelation if you know me...) and was reading a back and forth between some people who were arguing over the issue of marriage equality and LGBTQ rights.

I don't want to misrepresent anyone's views, but in the interest of providing context, the gist of the arguments were:
Person 1 - Arguing against someone's rights based on your own subjective opinion (based in religion or otherwise) is bigotry.
Person 2 - I'm not a bigot, I just disagree with the gay lifestyle, and I'm allowed my opinion.
Person 1 - Your opinion should not impinge on the rights of anyone, let alone a significant population. You voicing your opinion is tantamount to an act of violence towards those people.

So... quite the incendiary discussion.

And the thing that really hooked me was this strange concept of "gay lifestyle."

Let me first be clear - I'm definitely of the opinion that LGBTQ rights are human rights. That arguing against them is wrong. That you don't get to have an opinion on rights ... because they're rights. Well - I mean sure you can have an opinion... but no one should make any decisions over someone's rights based on an opinion. The right to education, for example - some people believe this should be restricted to males only. An opinion that we won't act on because education is an agreed right.

Now back to the 'gay lifestyle' thing now that you aren't reading this afraid that I might suddenly reveal myself to be a homophobe.

What on earth is a 'gay lifestyle'?!

It seems to me that people who make this argument are hiding behind a pretty flawed concept. "Oh I'm not opposed to people being gay at all, I just disagree with the  harmful gay lifestyle."

How confusing. Mainly because how do you describe the gay lifestyle? How do you describe any lifestyle in a meaningful way? I'll tell you how - by being wrong for the majority of people you are purporting to describe. I think you could describe an individual's lifestyle pretty well, even if it did reduce your experience to key factors and decisions that might not reflect the entirety of your life.

But when you extend that description to cover a group of people - and worse still, a significant percentage of the population - you are going to run into some problems. The problem of "average". For example, try to describe the "white" lifestyle. Take a survey of all white people, find the most common attributes and describe the lifestyle according to that - and then see how well that suits all "white people" ... not a very useful exercise.

Take the LGBTQ population, or even just the LGB population, and take a survey on their lives and try to apply it to everyone and see how many people are outside those parameters. You'll have the same problem. The only meaningful commonality for these people is that they all identify as LGB. Their actions, their lives, their experiences, their lifestyles are all different - sometimes vastly.

So I think the argument of 'gay lifestyle' is doing two things. It is hiding the real cause of the anti-gay-rights person's discomfort, and standing for a misconception on what being gay means, and what gay people's lives entail.

I don't know if it is deliberate or not, and in most arguments where this phrase is thrown in there is no further qualification but I think 'gay lifestyle' when used in this context is code for the perception of a reckless and morally inferior lifestyle.

There seems to be the perception amongst those who haven't been exposed to real life LGBTQ people, that their lifestyles and sexual orientations seem to revolve around sex, sex, sex. And that the reason that same-sex dalliances occur is because these people can't sit still long enough to find an appropriate person to fall in love with; they'll just fall in bed with the closest person and do whatever their bodies (not their minds) want them to do.

But I can tell you from experience, that this idea is nonsense. I mean sure there are probably LGBTQ people out there whose lives do revolve around sex. But that is true of some straight people too, and no one is attempting to remove the rights of all straight people based on the actions of a few of them.

I have two main examples in my life of the LGBTQ "lifestyle". The first one is my uncle. He is gay, and has been with his partner for as long as I have been alive (literally - they met within a month of my birth). They live in a house they've bought together, they have a dog, they both work and pay the bills, they enjoy travel, they worry about their ageing parents, they like to drink wine, and enjoy hosting dinner parties. In short apart for a couple of minor details they are pretty identical to my parents (who are straight, cis-gendered people who've been together for 35 years).

Pretty radical lifestyle, huh? I can see why you'd disagree with that... (Yes, sarcasm detected).

The second example is of the B in the LGBTQ lifestyle. Not too many people are aware that I am bisexual. Why? Well because my first boyfriend turned into my first serious relationship, turned into my husband and here we are. I live a 'straight' existence because I fell in love with someone of the opposite sex. So my lifestyle is literally exactly the same as someone who identifies as straight. Say, for example, my husband - a straight man.

So when people make this declaration of being opposed to the "lifestyle", alarm bells start ringing in my head. Either they are under a lot of misconceptions of what that means, or they are deliberately conflating the experience of millions of people under the banner of harmful stereotypes and misconception.

I am an eternal optimist who believes the best of everyone until proved otherwise. I understand that most people want to do the right thing according to how they see the world, and that everyone has motivations, needs and desires. But it is really hard to remember that when I see arguments or defences trotted out like this.

Not to mention the idea of "disagreeing" with someone else's lifestyle.  What a strange concept... as if your agreement has anything to do with anything.


I suppose I just needed to get that off my chest. It just makes me mad when people don't think through their arguments. Possibly because I try to be so careful in my own, that I'm as right as I can be, and as not-hurtful as I can be. Yes my view probably offends someone who holds to the whole "gay lifestyle = bad" idea, but I don't mind confronting that - because, if you've managed to read this whole thing... it is flawed.

In conclusion - there is no such thing as  a "gay lifestyle". Your opinion is not needed when it comes to human rights - they are rights, not privileges to be doled out at your discretion. It is high time we started viewing people, especially "other"/"different" people, as complex humans and not placeholders for stereotypes or misconceptions that we may or may not agree with.

Human Rights and Being Remembered

The thought has occurred to me more than once: the idea that in future generations, our actions and inactions will be judged with regards to equal rights, with regards to asylum seekers, with regards to many local and global issues of conscience.

And selfishly, this is a compelling argument. Because it is just too damn easy to "click like" and have an opinion, while it is hard to find something meaningful to actually do something.

I talk the talk  -  Australia's mistreatment of asylum seekers is reprehensible. And I, as an Australian, am unwillingly responsible for this violation of human rights, for this crime Australia's lack of action with regards to climate change is shameful, and will have permanent consequences for future generations who inhabit this earth that we are failing to care for. Australia's (slowly changing) attitude to LGBTQ rights (not just marriage equality) is embarrassing.

If I do nothing about these issues, I provide no incentive for those who need a push to act. Sadly there are people who need a political or monetary incentive to do the right thing... And by my inaction (and signing an online petition really doesn't do much...) I don't do anything to push the people in power to make the right decision; to make a decision on behalf of my country that I can be proud of.

And if I need any further reason to act, then, selfishly, I can think what future generations will think of me. I won't have any children, but my nephew (and future nephews, nieces, friends children etc.) can look back at our generation and judge us harshly. How could we have let this happen? Why did we not demand change not just by our clicking of social media buttons, but with our actions?

The funny thing about imagining the judgement of those future generations, is that you are really projecting your inner conscience. Which just goes to further reinforce what I already know: these issues deserve my action and my voice. I shouldn't have to defer to a hypothetical judgement to reveal what I know to be right and wrong.

And so I am trying to do things. I can't do a lot. But when I can, I lend my money - since that speaks loudly for me. When I can - I counter poor arguments; I challenge mistaken conceptions. And one day I'll get over my own anxiety enough to participate in protests and more confrontational forms of action. (No I'll never resort to violence).

I don't really know why I am writing a blog that no one reads about this... except to say that it helps to get my thoughts in order. This is what I think, and is what I believe. I suppose it is a manifesto of sorts.

Post-Celebration

So it seems that we are nearly half-way through 2015.
And what a strange year it has been, and will still shape up to be.


As usual, I feel like blogging when I need to figure shit out... And this has been prompted by my most recent trip away. I went to Tassie for the DARK MOFO festival put on my MONA in Hobart. It was... amazing. So much art, and food, and drink.

There were fires, and warm drinks, and fascinating art. What more could you want, really?

And then I come back here and spend my time at the same desk I've been sitting at for two years and wonder what I'm doing... Of course, I know what I'm doing: I'm earning money. Because without money I'm fucked.

But I'm starting to hope I might be able to find a way to make money that feels less pointless and wasteful. Because I do feel wasted. I'm a clever chicken, so I'm told. I have so much more to give than what I'm doing at the moment.


But how to take that risk? How to push? How to not be scared shitless of the down-side of risk... You know, the chance that I'll end up with no job, no money, and no security. I can't go there. I've seen my parents struggle there, and I don't want to do it.


So for now - I'm doing what I usually do at this point: I'm studying again (this time a combination of useful things and fun things - business and art), I'm sketching and painting to the point that I don't know what to do with the results, and I'm googling non-stop.

What exhibitions could I participate in? What art prizes could I enter? What other pathways are there out there? Where could we move to? What else could I do?


And that's where I am at the moment! Waiting for half my friends to leave (lots of people with big plans afoot), waiting to see if this job will offer me more (or if I could push for more), working on some study, and going crazy with the art.

There you go - the traditional "what am I doing with my life?!?!?!" blog: the foundation of my writing, it seems.

How I Am Not My Mother, Emily O'Neill

To be only bone. To be thin
chrome handle bars on a quiet bicycle.
Small & held like a pebble
underneath my tongue, assassin
of thirst. She used to run, before
all of the children. She used to be
knife fine. I saw a picture
of her glowing frown, her hips
with their ashtray curves. Muse
at dock’s end, endless black olive hair.
That’s what they called her:
Olive Oil. Angular, and animated.
I tore my voice off trying
to be uncanny, porcelain.
I want to be the same ghost.
I jog around the block,
a gasping hole in my sail.
Force my feet into tiny
wooden shoes and bleed.
Hope to become a lens
flare. A stoic.
Like her.

My First Lover Speaks to Me as I Sleep With Her, Raven Jackson (PANK magazine)

This is what it feels like to split the shell of a woman.

Shards of her everywhere. Animal light spread across

the walls. For a second, I feel like a boy entering
a woman for the first time. My skin shivering as if pulled

from the banks of a river. Clothes shapeless on the floor. When she moves
beneath me, I wonder how someone could enter her like a hook

thick as ropes. Tear her into two. And he comes to me as if I’ve closed my eyes.
The braided scar above his lip. The clench

of teeth on my ear. Like this, he says, showing me how to peel her back
like husks. Like this.

*****

Holy shit.

So much amazing.

Sometimes I go weeks without looking at much poetry. Some still filters in, thanks to some excellent poetry bloggers on tumblr (for example lifeinpoetry) and some poets, journals and magazines that I follow on facebook (for example Sam Sax, Australian Poetry). And PANK... when I remember to check it. But man, when I do...

Poems like the one above make me exhale audibly... make me throw my head back and say "fuck", or similar. 

They seem tangible, and I will be thinking about this poem for a long time. 

Audre Lorde, from “125th Street and Abomey,” The Black Unicorn: Poems

mother, illuminate my offering
of old victories
over men over women over my selves
who has never before dared
to whistle into the night
take my fear of being alone
like my warrior sisters
who rode in defense of your queendom
disguised and apart
give me the woman strength
of tongue in this cold season.

We Were Liars

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I can't decide how I really feel about this book... which is probably why it has taken me so long to write this review. I did like it. It was a great YA novel, which didn't focus solely on the old "coming of age fall in love" tropes that get done to death in this (and every) genre.

There is foreboding, there is angst, there is revelation that spins your view of the narrative and the narrator again and again. You are reminded of your privilege. You are reminded of others' privilege.

But there was something about this book, despite everything I like about it, that made it drag. I struggled to not skip ahead because there is SO. MUCH. FOREBODING. That I found myself rolling my eyes and going "yes I get it - something is going to happen / has happened".

I didn't expect what happened though, which was nice. And in the end I was glad I persisted. I need more books in my life where the main conflict does not revolve around romantic interests (though there is some believable teen romance going on here too), and while I wish I could love this book more, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be counted in the list.

In the end I probably wouldn't recommend this as a "must read!!!" but if someone was interested in reading it, I'd encourage them to give it a go. And not to read spoilers... because then the pay off of all that foreboding would be pretty disappointing.

View all my reviews

We're All Terminal - Kristina Hayes

I’m carrying a pile of salt under my tongue,
collect bruises in my sleep. In the morning
we patiently make breakfast together, 
laugh into our orange juice and later,
driving until the sky turns slate. I know 
that I’m getting even harder to love. 
Your name is every billboard in this city.
You are in the soft tendons of my knees.
I am in a thrift store and everything is us.
The TV spits out nothing but bad news, 
commercials for laser hair removal 
and vacuums. Smoking my first cigarette 
feels a lot like swimming without 
any clothing on. I wanted to text you this, 
but your number is lost somewhere 
in Brooklyn. When I saw you for the first time
after months of nothing, I couldn’t stop
looking at you, so I didn’t look at you at all.
Even when you love the boy you can't 
scrub him off of you. Even when you love 
the boy your heart demands to be a fist.

Sexual Permissiveness Episode 1: Tinder & Dating

I've been thinking a lot about dating, and sexual permissiveness, mostly as result of being friends with several women who have been using the dating/hook-up app Tinder.

I have found myself profoundly uncomfortable watching one of my friends in particular, as she goes through the suggested profiles of men, deciding against them in less than half a second. I laughed in shock as she went through hundreds of profiles so quickly, instantly dismissing so many men based solely on the impression given by one picture.

I asked "What if you would be perfectly matched with a man who wasn't Cleo-model good-looking, and you dismissed him because his nose is too big, or his eyebrows are too big?" And I can't remember her response precisely, but I got the feeling that she was comfortable in using Tinder in a very superficial manner.

Another friend of mine who dates men and women (I won't identify her as bisexual or pansexual or any other term because I've never asked which label she identifies as) is less instant in her use of the app, but the approach is a slightly more considered version of the same.

I suppose I'm being rather judgemental of my friends, who are using an app in the way it was intended to be used. This isn't a deep and meaningful consideration of who people are at their core... this is an app that is largely used for quick hook-ups. So of course, in a society that correlate looks and sex so highly, judgements based solely on appearances for this purpose should be expected.

Yet I feel somewhat disappointed. Not necessarily by my friends, but by the way this type of thing is so enthusiastically embraced, when I (perhaps naively) thought that "modern" people were more open to the idea that people should be valued for more than their bodies as objects of desire.

I suppose some of that is wrapped up in my friends, and the way I probably project my own values on to them; assuming that because I love these people, and I value these ideas, and therefore these beloved people must also value these ideas because how could I love people with contrary values? And I'll take that, and sit on that, and hope that I can accept that my friends for precisely who they are, and not what I see of myself in them.

As an avid reader/academic, I am also drawn to think about Tinder, and the modern dating world, through the lens of an anthropologist, and a feminist. I can't help but draw connections between the way in which Tinder is used and embraced, and the way in which we in modern Australian society view women, romantic and/or sexual relationships, bodies, sexuality and youth.

I also feel that the very quick fire methods used to click yes or no to the hundreds of produced profiles, might be an interesting way to reveal subconscious bias within users - if you are instantly saying yes or no to someone based only on their looks, then surely patterns must emerge that would shape an idea of what an individual looks for in an attractive partner.

I wonder what anthropologists/sociologists/feminists think about this phenomenon? And I wonder what kind of impact this app (and apps like it) has within societies that are different in terms of objectifying sexual bodies?

I am trying not to judge this as either a good or a bad thing, though I can't help but bring my own values to the table. I feel as though it is damaging to view people as objects, and to dismiss people based solely on a .5 second impression of their face, digitally represented. I feel that people are more than their faces, and their bodies, and while physical attraction is valued in romantic and sexual relationships, I thought that we had accepted as a society, that fulfilling relationships rely on non-physical elements of a person.

I do understand that the point, for a lot of people, of an app such as Tinder is probably not to find a lasting connection with someone with whom you could build and blend a life. But at the same time the idea remains for people that relationships build from casual, to dating, to serious, to committed, and I know of several people who bemoan the fact that casual relationships found through Tinder or similar, do not progress along those expectations.

There is a lot to think about here, and naturally a lot of this thinking is underdeveloped... and has sparked of some tangential thoughts which I'm going to list here, so I can refer back, and write another post along these lines later.



- policing women (women policing women) - sexuality, appearance, behaviour
- classist and racist connotations of slut-shaming terminology
- historical use of words that shame women who appear to be or are sexually permissive
- gendered assumptions of behaviour
- gendered conclusions of bio-behavioural analysis (men are active, women are passive) and the way these feed into social constructs (and have fed into the conclusions of the researchers)

- the line between critiquing sexual behaviour, and labelling someone a slut just for existing as a woman in a public sphere

- men as sluts: what are the negative terms that men fear being labelled in the dating/sexual realm?

- women in art as subject : "the female nude"
- 'classy' sexuality
- bogan sexuality vs. upper class sexuality

Sometimes Brave - Crystal Vega-Huerta

I thought you’d come back,
a ghost, sinking your teeth
into my unbrave throat.

Or, sometimes brave.
Watching my eyes in the mirror,
watching myself swallow pill after pill.

I mouth your name, 
I mouth Sappho,
I mouth your name in Sappho’s mouth.

That is not true.

The pills were before you,
before God,
before my red mouth had had its fill.

There is only cowardice,
my father says, his eyes black with grief,
as he unhooks the stove,

as you’d unhooked my words from my throat.

”

—	Crystal Vega-Huerta, “Sometimes Brave”

Christmas Eve, 17 - Hieu Minh Nguyen

The only goodnight kiss I would
receive came from the bright burst

of headlights as he pulled out
of the motel parking lot. Each raw

knee, puffy with the negative imprints
of the carpet’s braided teeth. Only the sink

has hot water. No point in showering
when sweat is no longer sweat. You can

no longer see his pulse’s splatter across
the palette. The paint is a different color

when it dries. It’s like he was never here.
The gift was rewrapped. A garland

of meat, unstrung. The glass is full.
Again. Again. The mouth, a clean

gutter. The body, a buffed wall.
This never happened. The botched

deconstruction, tooth by tooth,
each growing back. Smile

digging its way out of a pink grave.
Everything is fine. Nothing is gone.

Pain and Suffering

There is a difference between pain and suffering.

I don't want either in my life, but I think I'm coming to understand that pain doesn't have to equal suffering.

I was told by buddhists that suffering is a result of unmet expectations. Which of course means that if you adjust or do away with expectation you won't suffer.

If you expect to live a long life free of pain, and you don't, you will suffer.

If you expect someone to agree with everything you say, and to always be sensitive and outwardly affectionate, you will suffer.

Slightly different examples, but both true, and both important.

So I'm trying to keep this in my mind at the moment.

My want is hard to combat though.
I feel like a toddler - I want everyone to love me. I want everyone to be with me all the time. I want everyone to be happy.

Which is unrealistic, and will only lead to unmet expectations (if ever there were unrealistic expectations, I think mine are it).

And sometimes I'm ok with not having those expectations met. On some level I think I need to suffer. I feel like, on a very naive and romantic level, suffering is what I deserve and what will finally make me a legitimate artist, or person, or whatever.

But is that true?

And what a strange position to put yourself in - if you set yourself up to expect suffering, and you do experience it, your expectations are met but you suffer anyway. I've avoided unmet expectations, but suffered anyway.

Besides which, why should I suffer when I know that suffering isn't romantic or philosophically crucial to artistic endeavour?



This is what I'm thinking about this weekend. And I know full well that this conversation is just as likely to be something I'll have on my own for the rest of my life. And I don't expect (pun?) that I'll magically transfer it to active practice fully. But who knows, maybe?

Maybe we aren't all doomed to be monumentally articulate on our short-comings, while similarly spectacular in our failure to put that knowledge to work.

And maybe that won't make me any less of an artist...

And maybe that doesn't matter...

Saying Goodbye

We attended Brian's funeral this morning. It was heartwarming to see so many people there, and heart-breaking to see the obvious pain that Pam was experiencing. I thought, not for the first time, "We should re-write this shit." Because death, cancer, and loss - who would wish it upon anyone?

I've been so worried this week. N wasn't keen on going to the funeral, because he wasn't sure he'd be able to handle it. Which, to me, seems to be the reason to go - if you're that upset about something, avoiding an outpouring of emotion is dangerous; It only ends up worse later.

But he made the decision to attend (after I'd decided to stop pushing the issue - so I guess I wasn't helping). And it was hard. We left straight afterwards, not waiting to speak with everyone because he couldn't handle being with other people.

I love him, but he just isn't built to share the load. He carries it, buries it in his chest, and then throws himself into distraction. Allowing himself to let it out a bit today was good though. I'm proud of him.

And now we have the rest of the day off to deal with the aftershock.

Being together is a good thing. Hearing about Brian and his life reinforced how important it is to spend good time with the people you love. And to express your love as often as possible. Vulnerability is hard, but you really don't know how long you have and if you can maximise the positive things people have to dwell on when you're gone, all the better, I think.

Vale Brian.

Rough - Untitled

Get home
Throw on your painting shirt
and stand at the easel, dry brush in hand.

Don't think about before
Don't think about him
Don't look at your fingers

Blank canvas waiting.
Breath to intake.

Drip paint onto the floor
and it pools like so much
expectation.

Everyone has something.
A stretched canvas of something.
But the sea has crawled back from the shore.
And the roads only go so far
before they are dirt.

And knees crumble under weight
and time, and men die.

Tomorrow.
Tomorrow will come whether I paint or not.

GOMA + QAG

Today was an Amanda day.
I went on a date with myself.

That sounds very enlightened and adult and everything, except that I had initially planned on going with a friend - but she got held up having way too much fun with a date.

And also I didn't feel very much like an adult due to the fact that I had to wear a scarf to hide a giant hickey on my neck.

Nonetheless.

I started off with a magnificent haloumi sandwich and a long black at the QAG Cafe. Then moved on to the GOMA to see the Hiraki Sawa exhibition. Which was so amazing. So simple. But so ... meaningful? Broad? I don't know. I could have stayed in there for an hour at least. (I didn't - too many people got in my way).

Then I walked around some more exhibits - Japanese Art since 1989 was very interesting and beautiful. I think I'll have to go back to make more notes, but the themes and ideas that have been played around with would never occur to me. I loved it.

And then I headed over to QAG and looked around the Madonna Staunton exhibit.

• Amazing early abstract stuff- her understanding of colours is amazing
• The collage work is suprising - I mean, it all seems so accidental, but ends up making very strong statements...
• The assembly piece that was fixed on the wall was awesome: 2 folding chairs attached to a canvas frame (sans canvas), with a piece of wood that had obviously been used to prop up paintings (splatters of colour haphazardly across it, dripped), and a hidden vinyl cover. It is so simple, and yet it invites you in; asks you to participate.
• The smaller pieces made on September 11th 2001 were amazing too. Just ink on paper, with impressions of her hands and arms. 

Finally I wandered into the Australian Art section - just the 40s-70s section.

• James Cant - the Lunch Hour 1945. Very striking. Big message, under layers of deep colours.
• Geoffrey Miller - Forrest and Trees in the Moonlight: oh my goodness. I need those prints. Exquisite use of line and colour and so very careful, but not tight.

In the end I spent about 4 hours there, and it was just lovely. I find when I go to an exhibition with someone else, there is always a reflexive sort of self-awareness: have I been looking at this for too long? I don't understand this - what if I look dumb? Have a skimmed over this too fast? Are they bored?

On my own, I was entirely able to look as long or as little as I wanted. And because the galleries are in my city, I can rest assured that if I want to return to understand something better, or look again, I can. Easy.

Plus - bonus: I wrote a poem with random thoughts that occurred to my during my time there. As ever, it says more than I intended it to. So I like it.

Gallery of Modern Art - 11 January 2015

The art is behind you, Amanda.

Come to an image by its words
and forget the context. Come to an image
by your tongue.

Come closer to see yourself in the glass
and step back to see better, the contrast.

Your shadow is pressed on the paint,
your thumbprint stain.

We’ve stumbled into a room
full of safety pins, reclining and open
in expectation of pin pricks blooming blood -
tuck in your thumbs.

It isn’t safe, after all.

FFS

So today was, in a couple of key ways, a shit-storm.

Found out an old friend died last night. He'd been sick for a long time, but it was a shock nonetheless.

Then, less than half an hour later, I found out that my best friend had had an emergency c-section and given birth to her second child, a son named Gus.

I burst into tears at the news.

How does that even happen?

What if she'd gone too?
How lucky am I?

Fuck.

I'm so sad and so happy.

And then I spent the rest of the day hidden beneath layers of thought and attempts to process said thoughts.

Which naturally led me to feeling like shit when a friend attempted to offer support, but I could only give her half of myself.

So. What a day.
At least when I got home N gave me a massage and I ate a good curry.
And now - bed. Because tomorrow is another day... which hopefully will be more mundane.

Poem for the New Year? - Kristina Haynes

I keep trying to write the most important poem.
About boys who stay away and the mothers 
who find themselves loving them despite 
their vacant beds. About sad songs that are 
beginning to skip because they’re played too often. 
About hunger and frustration and nostalgia 
and sadness. About the things I always talk about. 
I run around town in black tights and black heels 
doing errands and trying to look important, adult. 
I kiss the faces of strangers hard enough to leave 
craters behind, forget to take my birth control 
but it’s not like I’m having sex so what’s the big deal? 
Everything is a question. Everything is like I’m 
eleven again, taking out a hand mirror, studying 
the new parts of myself. How spooked I was 
to realize I was becoming a woman, my mother’s eyes 
in my face, my father’s nose and lips beneath. When 
I was younger I couldn’t keep track of how often 
strangers would thumb my face, talk about my eyes, 
touch my braided hair. Say, “how pretty.” Say, 
“aren’t you just the most precious thing?” I haven’t 
been touched like that in years. The strangers 
stay away, but there is a bed across town 
that I know better than my own.

—	Kristina Haynes, “Poem for the New Year?”

Elegy Owed - Bob Hicok

In other languages
you are beautiful — mort, muerto — I wish
I spoke moon, I wish the bottom of the ocean
were sitting in that chair playing cards
and noticing how famous you are
on my cell phone — picture of your eyes
guarding your nose and the fire
you set by walking, picture of dawn
getting up early to enthrall your skin — what I hate
about stars is they’re not those candles
that make a joke of cake, that you blow on
and they die and come back, and you,
you’re not those candles either, how often I realize
I’m not breathing, to be like you
or just afraid to move at all, a lung
or finger, is it time already
for inventory, a mountain, I have three
of those, a bag of hair, box of ashes, if you
were a cigarette I’d be cancer, if you
were a leaf, you were a leaf, every leaf, as far
as this tree can say

 

 

Hellfire

Australia once again faces massive destruction through fire. 

I know if I was back in SA, there would be nothing I could do since I'm no longer involved with firefighting. But sitting up here in Queensland I feel useless.

And scared.

Fire is a completely understandable phenomenon from an intellectual perspective. Heat, oxygen, fuel and chemical reaction equals fire. 

But experiencing fire is something else. A bushfire, a raging fire - hellfire - it's different. It is visceral. It roars and cracks and groans. From a distance it looks slow and cumbersome - up close it twists and jumps and rages.

So I sit here in my office, with a fan blowing warm air away from me, and I worry about everyone back home. Yes, this here is home - but back there, that was my first home. And really, anywhere that holds people I love is home. 

I can only hope (which feels like a prayer to no one in particular) that this beast of a fire dies down. That the firefighters stay strong and dogged and defensive. That no one is lost.