The experiences at Central State
coupled with the controversy
added to the contradiction of race
culture
and who believes what because of whom
have marked me a path across the Caribbean
the journey
always takes me home
to Jamaica
and why we seem to have the same problems
in the same spaces
in the music
the streets
the homes of people I call friends
it is still illegal to be homosexual in Jamaica
still dangerous to say out loud
this is who I am
raging-dyke-inappropriate-Jamaican-bitch
who I am still knocks rattling
at the chests of familiar faces
faces I love still struggle to claim parts of a compromise
I refuse to make
I am a lesbian wherever I go
Dayton
Louisville
Tallahassee
And so I go to Montego Bay
to Paradise where the running water is often iffy
where little girls are not always safe
the reggae rumbles
along those dirt lanes devoid of government
all kinds of guts
turn ugly when they think of somebody like me listening
to music not meant for me
when I go too far back
home
familiar mouths half-smiling
greet me
regretful that I could at first look seem so
normal
even easy on the eyes to some
all day long I come out to witty beautiful men
who think if they could only have me
they could change me
bible or dick
or ditty
it does not matter what hard weapon
they always chose one
hoping to poke my most sensitive parts
they don’t know
how I struggle
to make space for these conversations that mark us
as colonized
their intolerance marks me as torn
heavies my chests
it takes courage
to carry my aunt’s laughter inside the rhythm of my own songs
the most awkward parts of me
still giggles when I let myself think of what she thinks of me
the harsh judgment of them rude boy tunes
cradles my childhood
whets the desire of my pen
—the day I passed the Common Entrance
My future luxuriating in Bob Marley and Peter Tosh
on a verandah
too long ago to craft specific details
my first kiss
with a big-kneed boy named Troy
the first high school party with the nuns not looking
that moment I first knew I liked the first girl
her breath sweet with promise
places me on the university campus
young Buju Banton singing
“I wanna be loved
not for who you think I am
nor what you want me to be
could you love me for me
real love
with no strings attached
I wanna give you my heart
And I don’t wanna take it back…”
always in the backdrop
is the soundtrack of memory
misogyny sometimes
mixed in with the love of country and freedom
the beat laced with the hatred of things misunderstood
and Beres Hammond
begging some woman or other to be his night nurse
this place is home
and my struggle is to find safe room in it
for all the parts of me now labeled American
and white
and invisible to the hemisphere that informs my girlhood
chi-chi man
batty boy
pretty boy fi dead!
no anger meted out for the women
that phenomenon remained
unspeakable
“How you mean two woman can fuck?”
Adam and Eve they say
not Adam and Steve
at best
the rhyme is childish
the idea petty
mundane
I am ashamed of these opinions
the misspelled words
the in-articulation of ideas
not thought through
how I ache for them to be able to discourse
in fine lines
even if they disagree with me
I would love for them to know
how much they do not know
instead
they go on insisting that they know
threaten to do me harm if I continue to engage
I ache for all of us
from a room in Washington Heights
a café in the West Village
I listen to horns blowing in anger
brown boys striking out at fear
because they are so afraid of the things they do not know
thank fate or caprice or God
for Patricia Hill-Collins
for Keith Boykin
even if we do not agree
sometimes
thank God for the ones who came before
for the names we always use
names that do not connect these kids
to a world that reflects them
Audre Lorde
James Balwin
I raise my cunt up
for all the names the Historians will never make space for
the names of your cousins
my daughters
the son that can never tell his fathers he is in love
with a boy so streaked with history
when you look into his eyes
you see Africa
for your sisters who will never say anything
to you
or me
lest she be tagged outsider
thank the stars
or Allah
or Buddha
or just some good fucking luck
for those voices that write to say thank you
thank you for writing
for saying the things I am not yet able to say
I write to them
to say thank you
thank you for making room
for making sense
for making me remember
that even against the odds
we must speak
that often
we do not speak for the tongues already wagging
but for those
who are being forced to be still
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