By Dani SK
She saved me from a glorious kind of pride
So how could I resist
The dedication to underestimating.
I had been asked before –
If the supposed confusion or uncertainty,
of my particularities
was a malformed arrest,
Or a failure in the development of my tastes –
to something more refined
some adult dementia that looked like normal
arrogantly forgetful,
general but loyal,
specific and one-sided but still questioning the validity.
I returned, imagining Woody Allen by my side –
The joke’s on you!
But honesty respected me enough to remind me
Like clothes pin to a campfire rope
The burning was a metaphor
For the suffocation of those funny words
As though, requiring special admission –
Some exactitude.
“But you seem so feminine?”
“You seem so normal?”
a funny statement – at that – since my
quiet or unspecified differences still tip the uneasy
irk the parts of you that bathe in concrete
This pavement gave way to her other inquiries –
“how do you know the difference if you have so many options”
the quantifiable analysis no longer suspended over the quality of my gesture –
and this was the point of my inclusion
she saved me from a glorious kind of formula
by forcing me to describe the faces of my tabernacle
Where the interlockers do not form joints or measurements
But became the wedges and the fixations of her outlook
the beams of a desert run by self-professed experts
Her assertion – “It is far too much for us to deal with lesbians and gays to begin with, let alone bisexuality!”
As if biracialism couldn’t be addressed because there are still racists
I could not believe such ineffectual and counterproductive teachings
Though their inquiry was enough not to engage not my pride – But my yearnings
for more expansive and inclusive prophesy
I imagined the altercations if I protested
I imagined what would happen if I just began to laugh.
Dani SK is an interdisciplinary scholar, artist, poet, educator and an advocate for gender fluidity and qualitative educational inclusion (daniskarts@yahoo.com)
Featured image: Dani SK, “Orangedimpleman” – Graphite on paper 2010