Remember
By Nikki Patin
C&P 2008
Remember that this is the moment that will define you.
These moments which undermine the fabric of who you are and who you will be.
fabric of you
strong
brown
beautiful
leather
filled with cracks
care-worn
clinging to muscle
buried deep beneath misguided fear
You are the hide of something greater than yourself, woven like sodium in your lashes, stitched with threads of hope, clinging to yourself like a novice on a stallion.
Remember that every moment carries you further from this moment of worthless despair, that these tears are water for your thirsty spirit and that your throat has been your beacon in a life too dark to keep hidden.
Remember.
You are stronger than you ever knew possible and can smile like the sun beaming off your perfect shoulders.
Remember that purpose is the soft belly of discovery, what your fingers find in the dim panic of nothing, what you found when you discovered your voice…
Remember that you had to dig it out. It was not near the surface. Not even close. Remember that your fingers bled and mucked up the earth. Remember that you needed shovels and had no money.
Remember that you now have what you were always digging to find, wrapped your tongue around the sharp edge of destiny and bled down your own body to keep off dehydration.
Remember that you are not a trend-setter, as much as you are a transcender…that your birth was a first because it put steel in a spine that was always bent at the whim of others.
Remember that you forged forward with sheer force of will and refused silence when it might have given you more:
Friends
Money
Prestige
Respect
Dignity
Remember that you threw off all those things in favor of your own endangered truth.
Look in the mirror and remember that you have redefined it. That you broke the glass, slit your own voice with it in order to open it wider. Remember that the mirror thanked you for repurposing its glare into spotlight, reflection into insight.
If you ever forget what no one else knows, remember that it all started with a pencil in your chubby, clumsy fingers, with poems no one wanted to hear, with love no one, including yourself, wanted to feel.
Remember that you took the mud in your eyes and made bricks with it, that you built a pyramid of your life and that you slide down the sides in order to know how to climb back up better, faster, stronger.
And you will.
Remember that you will.
That you dreamed yourself beautiful and forced audiences to agree, challenged them to challenge you to your face with their own discomfort and rage and that, to this day, no one has been able to do it.
Just remember…on dark, cold nights like this when nothing seems to fit and you are too small for your own skin, remember that you remembered how to fill the space.
How getting laced wasn't an option and getting sprung meant tripping wires wrapped around your precious neck…how you laid on the sober ground and held the passage open with fingers frozen with regret.
Remember, dear dark girl, how bright you come on…how you turn on your teeth, tongue your pierced gleam and give the finger to what would worry you into submission.
Remember how you never submit. How you don't give in. How motherfuckers always think they got you when they try to hold you, how their arms tremble cuz you will not give in. How you will cry, scream, rage, twist, throw a fit and thrash like a killer whale wrapped in the careless sail of a drunk pirate…how you will leave blood and fabric floating in the peaceful wake of your devastation.
Remember, girl, black girl, fat, black girl, fat, black, queer, girl, fatblackqueerpoorillegitimategirl…apparently ethnically ambiguous face prettier than the body they claim to love but truly hate…remember you are human first. That you are mammal, animal, species, evolved primate and any of those things, but beyond the beyond…always ALIVE.
Remember that you are alive and what a gift you are to this life, what a triumph over strife that would take lesser men and smaller women and turn them into bushmeat.
Remember. When all your friends have gone wrong and called you crazy, when your lover has found another place to rest their heart, when your family is worried and your colleagues politely distant…remember how you wouldn't let your head full of tears fall into fear that you never knew was there until it was breathing down your neck.
When everyone else has forgotten and you wish you could, but can't forget, remember that every inch of pink meat cracking through, leaving vermillion-stained ice and shreds in feral teeth, pushes fate into the shadow of destiny.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Phat Grrrl Superhero
Recently, I went through a life-altering experience...one that brought me face-to-face with the world I've created for myself and the world that was given to me.
As a result of this experience, I've come to understand a lot more about myself and my purpose, why my part of this circle of existence is necessary.
I've concluded that I'm something of a superhero.
Superheroes have lots of common:
1. They are typically deeply flawed.
2. Their flaws and their experiences as a result of these flaws create a unique and powerful sense of justice that is impossible for the superhero to ignore.
3. While fun and attention-grabbing at first, this sense of justice can oft times become an albatross. The superhero feels an enormous amount of pressure and therefore always feeling inadequate internally, while externally appearing powerful and confident, even arrogant and condescending.
4. A unique sense of fashion that is the quintessential marriage of function and form. The only exception is the female superhero...heels are hardly functional, even as weaponry.
5. They represent, simultaneously, the tenacity and vulnerability of the human spirit.
6. They don't take any shit from anyone, even if they deserve it.
7. They kick much ass and cause much damage. Strangely, they are rarely arrested or forced to pay for what they've destroyed.
8. They are weird and cannot fit in. Even if they have another persona, they are still weird because they disappear at odd moments and have strange, inexplicable friends.
9. Physically, they are anomalies. Depending on the superhero, what may be perceived as freakish physical qualities are utilized as their biggest strengths.
10. They never give up, back down or do what they're told.
Now, no one's written a comic about me and I rarely run around in tights and onesies, but I've decided that those things are unnecessary.
I have silver spanky pants and I write my own books, mostly about myself...I like telling stories that haven't been told. And I completely possess and love how self-centered and self-absorbed I am...in a world mainly absorbed in superficial bullshit, focusing on myself seems a healthy choice.
Being a phat grrrl superhero does have its drawbacks...like chafing. And only being able to fly underwater. Also, I don't run. I leap, sometimes, but running isn't gonna happen.
What matters to me most about being a Phat Grrrl Superhero is knowing and believing it.
I can run down a whole list of what I'm not supposed to be or do or think. But who cares?
Being a superhero is the only label I've ever applied to myself that feels right.
While I may not be able to leap tall buildings, swing from webs or turn green when I get mad (I usually turn pink), I have saved at least one life...the one that wasn't supposed to exist, the one that has caused much ire and is considered dangerous and sometimes, worthless...
mine.
I am a Phat Grrrl Superhero.
What kind of superhero are you?
As a result of this experience, I've come to understand a lot more about myself and my purpose, why my part of this circle of existence is necessary.
I've concluded that I'm something of a superhero.
Superheroes have lots of common:
1. They are typically deeply flawed.
2. Their flaws and their experiences as a result of these flaws create a unique and powerful sense of justice that is impossible for the superhero to ignore.
3. While fun and attention-grabbing at first, this sense of justice can oft times become an albatross. The superhero feels an enormous amount of pressure and therefore always feeling inadequate internally, while externally appearing powerful and confident, even arrogant and condescending.
4. A unique sense of fashion that is the quintessential marriage of function and form. The only exception is the female superhero...heels are hardly functional, even as weaponry.
5. They represent, simultaneously, the tenacity and vulnerability of the human spirit.
6. They don't take any shit from anyone, even if they deserve it.
7. They kick much ass and cause much damage. Strangely, they are rarely arrested or forced to pay for what they've destroyed.
8. They are weird and cannot fit in. Even if they have another persona, they are still weird because they disappear at odd moments and have strange, inexplicable friends.
9. Physically, they are anomalies. Depending on the superhero, what may be perceived as freakish physical qualities are utilized as their biggest strengths.
10. They never give up, back down or do what they're told.
Now, no one's written a comic about me and I rarely run around in tights and onesies, but I've decided that those things are unnecessary.
I have silver spanky pants and I write my own books, mostly about myself...I like telling stories that haven't been told. And I completely possess and love how self-centered and self-absorbed I am...in a world mainly absorbed in superficial bullshit, focusing on myself seems a healthy choice.
Being a phat grrrl superhero does have its drawbacks...like chafing. And only being able to fly underwater. Also, I don't run. I leap, sometimes, but running isn't gonna happen.
What matters to me most about being a Phat Grrrl Superhero is knowing and believing it.
I can run down a whole list of what I'm not supposed to be or do or think. But who cares?
Being a superhero is the only label I've ever applied to myself that feels right.
While I may not be able to leap tall buildings, swing from webs or turn green when I get mad (I usually turn pink), I have saved at least one life...the one that wasn't supposed to exist, the one that has caused much ire and is considered dangerous and sometimes, worthless...
mine.
I am a Phat Grrrl Superhero.
What kind of superhero are you?
Friday, October 17, 2008
Tour Description
The purpose of the tour is to introduce my work to an international audience via my book, "The Phat Grrrl Diaries."
“The Phat Grrrl Revolution Tour” is all about beginning the revolution within. Facing down whatever stops you from working your shit out…work out that poem, that design, that song. Work out your issues, your details, your drama. And we can’t really work anything out together unless we’re both working out our own shit. This tour is about one phat grrrl finding her way through art and performance, digging herself out with spray paint and microphones, glitter and x-acto knives.
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this is an adventure.
I’ll take each day as it comes, video blogging about my experiences and interactions, while performing in the evening.
This is a journey into life.
I may not be able to save you, but I can damn sure save myself.
The Revolution Begins Within.
Stay Phat.
peace & much love,
nikki patin
“The Phat Grrrl Revolution Tour” is all about beginning the revolution within. Facing down whatever stops you from working your shit out…work out that poem, that design, that song. Work out your issues, your details, your drama. And we can’t really work anything out together unless we’re both working out our own shit. This tour is about one phat grrrl finding her way through art and performance, digging herself out with spray paint and microphones, glitter and x-acto knives.
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this is an adventure.
I’ll take each day as it comes, video blogging about my experiences and interactions, while performing in the evening.
This is a journey into life.
I may not be able to save you, but I can damn sure save myself.
The Revolution Begins Within.
Stay Phat.
peace & much love,
nikki patin
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
The Unlikely American
I'm feeling a little down this foggy October morning.
perhaps I should say nothing
kick a smile like a simple beat
no complexity in my percussion
warmed by commercial heat
Yeah, it seems that I am in the process of blowing up.
A spot on 848 on NPR, taping the Greatest Living Writers Project this weekend in NYC and I've been in the paper at least once a month since June.
So why do I feel so crappy?
Part of it has to do with the fragility of my future.
Part of it has to do with the ache of shaping my muscles into iron.
Part of it is my own sad heart and hearing the past echo off its delicate chambers.
Part of it is in the listening to the echo and singing/speaking/teaching/writing to drown it out.
But I can still hear it.
I feel very detached these days, knowing more and more that my values are not the values of the land of my birth.
Knowing that to most, my body is an abomination. My body is the "before" in a world full of afters.
My body hurts.
If you know me well, then you know what I'm doing to my body these days. How I am taking steps to become a true warrior and how much it fucking hurts.
What hurts more is the distance I feel.
I was born in Chicago, raised in America. I am an American.
And I hate it.
I hate this land of people who refuse to acknowledge the pain of communities who were used like blow-up dolls to achieve the shameful orgasm that is America.
So many want to be here, live here because this is the land of opportunity and freedom.
So many think that this is an evil land, full of bloated, ignorant people who think themselves better than the rest of the whole world.
This place isn't free enough for me and I've had to wrest opportunity from the cold, white fingers that run this place. I'm more bloated than most and ignorant, to be sure, but I don't think I'm better than the rest of the world. I don't think the USA is the ideal to which all nations should aspire.
I think this place is crazy. I think that most Americans are totally clueless about our bloody history.
I read their complaints about Black people and how we're always so offended by everything.
You know what offends me?
The fact that everyone conveniently forgets that the economic foundation of this "great nation" was built on the backs of people destroyed by its very construction.
Native Americans have been scattered and crushed like fall leaves, dampened with alcohol and casinos.
Black folks are angry and apathetic, bitter and fucking exhausted.
Women are obsessed with dysfunctional celebrities or artful table arrangements. We're totally distracted by lip gloss and talk shows. Those of us who aren't are busy emulating the worst of men, becoming tough-as-nails, bitches on heels who think that acting like aggressive assholes is the way to redemption.
Most other oppressed groups are bleating weakly for rights that will never come or if they do come, will be in name only, but not in thought or in heart or in spirit.
And here I sit, the unlikely American, but more of an honest result of this nation's evolution than the people paraded across the headlines as "Great Americans".
I come from a Russian Jewish grandmother who grew up poor and abused in Ohio, a Trinidadian French Creole grandfather who fought in the "Battle of the Bulge" under General Patton and beat my aforementioned grandmother into a shivering mass of prescription medicine and bitter regrets.
My father grew up on the West Side, with lots of siblings and a huge mother who passed away when he was 16. He had to raise his brothers and sisters, so when my Mom told him she was pregnant, he ditched her and left her evicted and living in her car.
Drug addiction. Abuse. Domestic violence. Alcoholism. A family of bastard children filled with broken dreams and dashed hopes.
And here I sit: product of bootleggers and plantation owners, abusive war heroes and drug-addicted activists.
This pain rises in my throat and stabs my heart when I read another blog, comment or essay about how whiny we minorities are.
The blinding fury chokes my vision of the future when I look at the present and see injustice represented in a room of children who don't know how to simply be nice to each other.
And underneath the pain and the fury is the question that has driven me since I was old enough to read (age 2): is change possible?
Is it possible for me to walk down the street and not get dirty looks because I'm too fat or too light or too Black or too female, but not feminine enough?
Is it possible for my voice to matter in a world that constantly sends the message that I don't?
How long can I keep singing, speaking, teaching, believing that a better way is possible?
I don't know.
What I know is that my animal spirit is that of a bull. I am vicious when stirred unnecessarily and persistent in my pursuit of justice.
This is who I am, vicious and persistent.
What place is there in the world for a human such as me?
What place for a vicious, persistent woman of many colors with a body like a bulldozer and a heart like an orchid?
I don't think America is the place for me. I'm tired of being the antithesis to the place of my birth, simply because my birth is the result of men who couldn't leave well enough alone.
We skip past the truth of slavery and the slaughter of the people who were here first, chalking it up to the world being a different place back then.
I don't buy it. Every choice that is made is conscious, if consciousness is allowed to flourish without restraint.
Those monsters who we call the discoverers of a new land (though nations were here for centuries) made the conscious choice to throw women to the ground and rape them viciously. Those monsters made the choice to go to another land, rip people from the homes, names and languages, all so they didn't have to pay for labor.
Those monsters wrote the books/so-called histories of these injustices and forced the rest of us to learn it in school.
And as a result of their conscious choices, millions of young people now live unconscious. They live in MTV-land, thinking that a woman without lipstick or bra is crazy, thinking that Black people who don't listen to the Ying-Yang Twins aren't really Black.
The conscious choice to alter the possibility and potential of billions of people because of their lust for power and profit is a choice that I, not they or their offspring, live every day.
And I'm pretty upset about it, especially because there's no real place to discuss the effects of our bloody history.
The descendants of those monsters still control much of the world today and write off any other version of history as "conspiracy theory" or "lies".
So this blog is one place where I can discuss how I've been affected. I refuse to roll over and think that Christopher Columbus is my hero. I refuse to be grateful that my ancestors (and by extension, I) were forced here. Now that slavery's abolished and my civil rights are written on some yellowing piece of parchment, I'se free, right?
WRONG.
Most people in this nation are so blind and wrong that their refusal to wake up will be their undoing and possibly mine, if I don't make a break for it.
In case it ever gets twisted, Nikki Patin may be the list of identities that are twirled like funeral ribbons, but what she is and will always be and what fuels her anger at injustice is this:
HUMAN.
perhaps I should say nothing
kick a smile like a simple beat
no complexity in my percussion
warmed by commercial heat
Yeah, it seems that I am in the process of blowing up.
A spot on 848 on NPR, taping the Greatest Living Writers Project this weekend in NYC and I've been in the paper at least once a month since June.
So why do I feel so crappy?
Part of it has to do with the fragility of my future.
Part of it has to do with the ache of shaping my muscles into iron.
Part of it is my own sad heart and hearing the past echo off its delicate chambers.
Part of it is in the listening to the echo and singing/speaking/teaching/writing to drown it out.
But I can still hear it.
I feel very detached these days, knowing more and more that my values are not the values of the land of my birth.
Knowing that to most, my body is an abomination. My body is the "before" in a world full of afters.
My body hurts.
If you know me well, then you know what I'm doing to my body these days. How I am taking steps to become a true warrior and how much it fucking hurts.
What hurts more is the distance I feel.
I was born in Chicago, raised in America. I am an American.
And I hate it.
I hate this land of people who refuse to acknowledge the pain of communities who were used like blow-up dolls to achieve the shameful orgasm that is America.
So many want to be here, live here because this is the land of opportunity and freedom.
So many think that this is an evil land, full of bloated, ignorant people who think themselves better than the rest of the whole world.
This place isn't free enough for me and I've had to wrest opportunity from the cold, white fingers that run this place. I'm more bloated than most and ignorant, to be sure, but I don't think I'm better than the rest of the world. I don't think the USA is the ideal to which all nations should aspire.
I think this place is crazy. I think that most Americans are totally clueless about our bloody history.
I read their complaints about Black people and how we're always so offended by everything.
You know what offends me?
The fact that everyone conveniently forgets that the economic foundation of this "great nation" was built on the backs of people destroyed by its very construction.
Native Americans have been scattered and crushed like fall leaves, dampened with alcohol and casinos.
Black folks are angry and apathetic, bitter and fucking exhausted.
Women are obsessed with dysfunctional celebrities or artful table arrangements. We're totally distracted by lip gloss and talk shows. Those of us who aren't are busy emulating the worst of men, becoming tough-as-nails, bitches on heels who think that acting like aggressive assholes is the way to redemption.
Most other oppressed groups are bleating weakly for rights that will never come or if they do come, will be in name only, but not in thought or in heart or in spirit.
And here I sit, the unlikely American, but more of an honest result of this nation's evolution than the people paraded across the headlines as "Great Americans".
I come from a Russian Jewish grandmother who grew up poor and abused in Ohio, a Trinidadian French Creole grandfather who fought in the "Battle of the Bulge" under General Patton and beat my aforementioned grandmother into a shivering mass of prescription medicine and bitter regrets.
My father grew up on the West Side, with lots of siblings and a huge mother who passed away when he was 16. He had to raise his brothers and sisters, so when my Mom told him she was pregnant, he ditched her and left her evicted and living in her car.
Drug addiction. Abuse. Domestic violence. Alcoholism. A family of bastard children filled with broken dreams and dashed hopes.
And here I sit: product of bootleggers and plantation owners, abusive war heroes and drug-addicted activists.
This pain rises in my throat and stabs my heart when I read another blog, comment or essay about how whiny we minorities are.
The blinding fury chokes my vision of the future when I look at the present and see injustice represented in a room of children who don't know how to simply be nice to each other.
And underneath the pain and the fury is the question that has driven me since I was old enough to read (age 2): is change possible?
Is it possible for me to walk down the street and not get dirty looks because I'm too fat or too light or too Black or too female, but not feminine enough?
Is it possible for my voice to matter in a world that constantly sends the message that I don't?
How long can I keep singing, speaking, teaching, believing that a better way is possible?
I don't know.
What I know is that my animal spirit is that of a bull. I am vicious when stirred unnecessarily and persistent in my pursuit of justice.
This is who I am, vicious and persistent.
What place is there in the world for a human such as me?
What place for a vicious, persistent woman of many colors with a body like a bulldozer and a heart like an orchid?
I don't think America is the place for me. I'm tired of being the antithesis to the place of my birth, simply because my birth is the result of men who couldn't leave well enough alone.
We skip past the truth of slavery and the slaughter of the people who were here first, chalking it up to the world being a different place back then.
I don't buy it. Every choice that is made is conscious, if consciousness is allowed to flourish without restraint.
Those monsters who we call the discoverers of a new land (though nations were here for centuries) made the conscious choice to throw women to the ground and rape them viciously. Those monsters made the choice to go to another land, rip people from the homes, names and languages, all so they didn't have to pay for labor.
Those monsters wrote the books/so-called histories of these injustices and forced the rest of us to learn it in school.
And as a result of their conscious choices, millions of young people now live unconscious. They live in MTV-land, thinking that a woman without lipstick or bra is crazy, thinking that Black people who don't listen to the Ying-Yang Twins aren't really Black.
The conscious choice to alter the possibility and potential of billions of people because of their lust for power and profit is a choice that I, not they or their offspring, live every day.
And I'm pretty upset about it, especially because there's no real place to discuss the effects of our bloody history.
The descendants of those monsters still control much of the world today and write off any other version of history as "conspiracy theory" or "lies".
So this blog is one place where I can discuss how I've been affected. I refuse to roll over and think that Christopher Columbus is my hero. I refuse to be grateful that my ancestors (and by extension, I) were forced here. Now that slavery's abolished and my civil rights are written on some yellowing piece of parchment, I'se free, right?
WRONG.
Most people in this nation are so blind and wrong that their refusal to wake up will be their undoing and possibly mine, if I don't make a break for it.
In case it ever gets twisted, Nikki Patin may be the list of identities that are twirled like funeral ribbons, but what she is and will always be and what fuels her anger at injustice is this:
HUMAN.
Monday, June 4, 2007
the anger of opposite
i am opposite right now. and angry. i am different. and angry. rebellious. and angry. so angry that i don't know what to do with myself. so angry that i threatened two people this weekend...maybe with good cause. maybe not.
i don't know whether or not to feel bad about my anger...it's picking at me, like lint. it doesn't hurt. the thoughts, the reflections, the memories and sting of my anger just sit there. fly in my mind. in my ointment.
i ask myself: what am i trying to heal? where am i trying to be? what do i want to do?
where do i want to go?
away from here, from this angry city of my birth. can't help but, right? because we're all squeezed too tight and trying to smile from the pain, but the corner of my mouth are showing faint cracks and i'm only 29.
i've been so resigned and the anger's the only thing that feels right.
is my depression turning inside out?
i think so. is this a stage, a process, a rock on the road to healing?
i wish i knew and that there was someone who i could ask who isn't ashamed of the fire in my eyes. maybe they aren't ashamed.
maybe i am.
i enjoy being gentle and sweet and kind. i enjoy being understanding, empathetic, an active listener. i enjoy being connected, having intimate conversations that unfurl like the purple tongues of children, eating summer popsicles.
i enjoy the visceral twinge of love when i look into the eyes of a kindred spirit.
but the sweetness is so fleeting...and then honks, fingers, dirty looks, judgmental stares, snickered insults, an entire society with brainwashed pathology, taught to rake everyone over the coals. a stairstep world where stepping on is stepping up and stepping up will eventually lead down and stepping down is rarely seen and when it is, considered weak. the only thing that's truly accepting is stepping in time, stepping in place.
1, 2, 3, 4.
5, 6, 7, 8.
who do we appreciate?
how do you protect yourself without becoming defensive?
without getting so angry?
i'm still looking for my mountain to sit on.
i don't know whether or not to feel bad about my anger...it's picking at me, like lint. it doesn't hurt. the thoughts, the reflections, the memories and sting of my anger just sit there. fly in my mind. in my ointment.
i ask myself: what am i trying to heal? where am i trying to be? what do i want to do?
where do i want to go?
away from here, from this angry city of my birth. can't help but, right? because we're all squeezed too tight and trying to smile from the pain, but the corner of my mouth are showing faint cracks and i'm only 29.
i've been so resigned and the anger's the only thing that feels right.
is my depression turning inside out?
i think so. is this a stage, a process, a rock on the road to healing?
i wish i knew and that there was someone who i could ask who isn't ashamed of the fire in my eyes. maybe they aren't ashamed.
maybe i am.
i enjoy being gentle and sweet and kind. i enjoy being understanding, empathetic, an active listener. i enjoy being connected, having intimate conversations that unfurl like the purple tongues of children, eating summer popsicles.
i enjoy the visceral twinge of love when i look into the eyes of a kindred spirit.
but the sweetness is so fleeting...and then honks, fingers, dirty looks, judgmental stares, snickered insults, an entire society with brainwashed pathology, taught to rake everyone over the coals. a stairstep world where stepping on is stepping up and stepping up will eventually lead down and stepping down is rarely seen and when it is, considered weak. the only thing that's truly accepting is stepping in time, stepping in place.
1, 2, 3, 4.
5, 6, 7, 8.
who do we appreciate?
how do you protect yourself without becoming defensive?
without getting so angry?
i'm still looking for my mountain to sit on.
Friday, June 1, 2007
the most beautiful boogieman
I performed burlesque for the first time last night.
Stripped. Damn near naked. In front of a room full of people.
At almost 300 pounds.
With a Blackhawk (the Black mohawk...the original mohawk, actually).
As I was peeling sexy clothes from my round, brown body, I also did spoken word and sang a reinterpretation of Mos Def's "The Most Beautiful Boogieman."
I am the quintessential multi-tasker.
So how does it feel to be in this body, at that moment?
Incredibly powerful, inordinately sad, infinitely memorable.
Powerful, because my piece was all about using my own self-hatred as a mirror for the hatred that I'm faced with everyday. It forced me to look at my own disgust with my body and ask myself why. I have partial answers...the most prominent being my lack of reflection in the world around me.
Besides stereotypes of desperate women who chase men who insult them or asexual mammies who take care of all the white chillun, who do I have to look up to? Who's my role model?
Where are my American Heroes?
One of the aims of this performance was to bring a little balance to a world that stubbornly refuses to acknowledge all of its people. I'm starting to realize more and more, every day, that I am as necessary to this construct as anyone else.
Now that I've realized that, I'm pissed at how little I'm given to work with and how much I'm expected to do with nothing.
I gave it back last night...all the pain, the disgust, the outrage at the existence of my body. I ripped off my clothes and left some people shocked, some proud, some scared, but all with a new image of woman. Of human.
Of me.
This wasn't an easy process. As usual, I hurt all the way through this. I hurt all the way through all the new shit.
One of the things that was most painful was the treatment I got from some of the other women in the show.
Scene: Dressing Room, The Hothouse
Women of various shapes, colors and sizes are getting ready for a burlesque show, inspired by and devoted mostly to women of color. There are fishnets, glitter, pasties, spirit gum, beads and bangles resting on tables, sparkling on bodies.
There is good-natured pre-show dialogue:
"You need some help with that?"
"That is so cute!"
"You are so adorable!"
"I wish I had an ass like that." (sigh)
"I just saw a titty!" (lots of laughter and cat-calling)
I am in various corners, trying to squeeze myself out of the way. I know everyone. Only a couple people acknowledge me. Only the white women really talk to me, except for a couple of my homegirls who I've been cool with from the moment I've met them.
The really, really cute girls who keep telling each other how cute they are avoid my eyes. No one tells me, as I'm getting dressed, that they want my ass. No one yells anything when my titties are out, as I'm putting on my pasties.
No one asks me anything about how I feel, being the biggest women in the dressing room, in the club, maybe even the whole block...and how that might affect me when I take off my clothes.
This is not malicious on their part, but it is sad. I am everyone's body nightmare in that room and they all escape from admitting it by refusing to acknowledge their own discomfort.
I sit on the couch by the fan, fat dripping from every part of my body. My eyes are closed and I'm listening to the airplane flying low of the roof of the club...the door's open to dry the sweat of the sweltering dressing room.
I wish, briefly, that the plane would crash right through the door. I wish, as I text my crew of loving friends, that I was with them downstairs, instead of isolated with a bunch of women who all act as I'm not there. Who all work very carefully to conceal their discomfort.
Who have no idea how transparent they are.
I use that, right before I go onstage. I think of the distance between me and the rest of the performers. I think of the gulf between me and most other women. I think of how I feel, how I felt. How I longed to finally be accepted into a sister circle...not even a permanent circle, just for this show. How I longed to walk into that dressing room and have them tell me treat like I was one of them. How I longed to not be so different, so distant.
How I longed for someone to be excited about my titty popping out...to share in the intimacy of all of us taking gigantic risks under hot lights. How I longed to be surrounded by them and asked if I needed help with my makeup, where I got my necklace...how hard this must be for me and how they all had my back.
No such luck. Don't get me wrong...not everyone was like that. I got some encouragement from the few who seemed comfortable enough to encourage me without looking decidedly away from me.
That longing propelled me firmly into the spotlight, spitting fire and pulling strings until I finally stood, resplendent in pasties and fishnets. lace boyshorts riding tight in my ass like my favorite dildo.
My people later told me that I was the only to get a big standing ovation. I ran up the stairs after I was done, eager to get back into my clothes and to watch the rest of the show. To grab a drink. To kiss my love. To hug my friends. To make some new connections.
I could go on and on about the politics of the evening, but I won't.
I'll just say that ignorance is often closer than it appears. It's up to us to stay aware of why we do what we do and how that might affect people.
I took off my clothes to show a different view and to begin rebalancing my world.
If I can't find my American Hero, I'll just have to be my own.
Stripped. Damn near naked. In front of a room full of people.
At almost 300 pounds.
With a Blackhawk (the Black mohawk...the original mohawk, actually).
As I was peeling sexy clothes from my round, brown body, I also did spoken word and sang a reinterpretation of Mos Def's "The Most Beautiful Boogieman."
I am the quintessential multi-tasker.
So how does it feel to be in this body, at that moment?
Incredibly powerful, inordinately sad, infinitely memorable.
Powerful, because my piece was all about using my own self-hatred as a mirror for the hatred that I'm faced with everyday. It forced me to look at my own disgust with my body and ask myself why. I have partial answers...the most prominent being my lack of reflection in the world around me.
Besides stereotypes of desperate women who chase men who insult them or asexual mammies who take care of all the white chillun, who do I have to look up to? Who's my role model?
Where are my American Heroes?
One of the aims of this performance was to bring a little balance to a world that stubbornly refuses to acknowledge all of its people. I'm starting to realize more and more, every day, that I am as necessary to this construct as anyone else.
Now that I've realized that, I'm pissed at how little I'm given to work with and how much I'm expected to do with nothing.
I gave it back last night...all the pain, the disgust, the outrage at the existence of my body. I ripped off my clothes and left some people shocked, some proud, some scared, but all with a new image of woman. Of human.
Of me.
This wasn't an easy process. As usual, I hurt all the way through this. I hurt all the way through all the new shit.
One of the things that was most painful was the treatment I got from some of the other women in the show.
Scene: Dressing Room, The Hothouse
Women of various shapes, colors and sizes are getting ready for a burlesque show, inspired by and devoted mostly to women of color. There are fishnets, glitter, pasties, spirit gum, beads and bangles resting on tables, sparkling on bodies.
There is good-natured pre-show dialogue:
"You need some help with that?"
"That is so cute!"
"You are so adorable!"
"I wish I had an ass like that." (sigh)
"I just saw a titty!" (lots of laughter and cat-calling)
I am in various corners, trying to squeeze myself out of the way. I know everyone. Only a couple people acknowledge me. Only the white women really talk to me, except for a couple of my homegirls who I've been cool with from the moment I've met them.
The really, really cute girls who keep telling each other how cute they are avoid my eyes. No one tells me, as I'm getting dressed, that they want my ass. No one yells anything when my titties are out, as I'm putting on my pasties.
No one asks me anything about how I feel, being the biggest women in the dressing room, in the club, maybe even the whole block...and how that might affect me when I take off my clothes.
This is not malicious on their part, but it is sad. I am everyone's body nightmare in that room and they all escape from admitting it by refusing to acknowledge their own discomfort.
I sit on the couch by the fan, fat dripping from every part of my body. My eyes are closed and I'm listening to the airplane flying low of the roof of the club...the door's open to dry the sweat of the sweltering dressing room.
I wish, briefly, that the plane would crash right through the door. I wish, as I text my crew of loving friends, that I was with them downstairs, instead of isolated with a bunch of women who all act as I'm not there. Who all work very carefully to conceal their discomfort.
Who have no idea how transparent they are.
I use that, right before I go onstage. I think of the distance between me and the rest of the performers. I think of the gulf between me and most other women. I think of how I feel, how I felt. How I longed to finally be accepted into a sister circle...not even a permanent circle, just for this show. How I longed to walk into that dressing room and have them tell me treat like I was one of them. How I longed to not be so different, so distant.
How I longed for someone to be excited about my titty popping out...to share in the intimacy of all of us taking gigantic risks under hot lights. How I longed to be surrounded by them and asked if I needed help with my makeup, where I got my necklace...how hard this must be for me and how they all had my back.
No such luck. Don't get me wrong...not everyone was like that. I got some encouragement from the few who seemed comfortable enough to encourage me without looking decidedly away from me.
That longing propelled me firmly into the spotlight, spitting fire and pulling strings until I finally stood, resplendent in pasties and fishnets. lace boyshorts riding tight in my ass like my favorite dildo.
My people later told me that I was the only to get a big standing ovation. I ran up the stairs after I was done, eager to get back into my clothes and to watch the rest of the show. To grab a drink. To kiss my love. To hug my friends. To make some new connections.
I could go on and on about the politics of the evening, but I won't.
I'll just say that ignorance is often closer than it appears. It's up to us to stay aware of why we do what we do and how that might affect people.
I took off my clothes to show a different view and to begin rebalancing my world.
If I can't find my American Hero, I'll just have to be my own.
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