QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology

QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology

I have several poems in this anthology by disabled LGBTQ* poets, non-fiction writers, essayists, academics, critics, and prose fiction writers. I am very proud to be involved with this anthology, and my fellow writers. It is a Really Big Deal of an anthology, pretty much the first of its kind. I'm pleased that it is making waves in both the LGBT and the disability communities.

Since the book's release, in fall of 2015, there have been several group reading events around the US, a couple of which I have been pleased to have read at. Being a part of this has been fulfilling, exciting, enlivening, scary, revealing, courageous and cowardly, and mostly just honest, authentic, and real. It is something that needs to be talked about.

Featuring fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and comics by 48 writers from around the world, QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology proves that intersectionality isn’t just a buzzword. It’s a penetrating and unforgettable look into the hearts and souls of those defiant enough to explore their own vulnerabilities and demonstrate their own strengths.

“Queer sexuality and disability places me so far outside the realms of the everyday that it renders people silent.” —Jax Jacki Brown

Here is a gathering of people with the transformative—and political—power of love that transcends gender and ability. Ignorance is the biggest barrier.

“I feel exhilarated that you might actually accept me as a sexual being; that you might see the deliciousness that is my disability.” —Andrew Gurza

“An anthology often creates a community. In this respect, QDA is truly groundbreaking because it brings two wonderful communities together. There is not a single style, genre, or opinion in the book, but an orchestra of voices. Their seminal works mirror—and do not mirror—each other. Taken together, they light a brilliant path of honesty.” —Jennifer Bartlett, co-editor of Beauty Is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability

Boulders

The lawyers call you to tell you you're doomed.
There's no recourse. You have to start all over again.
But the task is Sisyphean. Why even bother?
Life goes on. Does it? I'm afraid of good days
because they're always followed by soul-killers,
days you look at the knife block in the kitchen
and wonder. I can never seem to have a good day
without being slapped down the very next day.
Some tepid creek of dull everyday shallow streams
would seem preferable. But I don't seem able to take
that route, either. I'm not wired for ordinary.
You end up all alone, because no one wants to hear it anymore.
Can't really blame them, although it's tempting.
Who wants to hang out with a perpetual loser blocked
by gods who want to keep him stuck till he dries up
and blows away. Driving out alone into the desert
and waiting to die seems like a welcoming option.
My life is a Samuel Beckett laugh-riot of prisons.
I can't go on, I must go on, I'll go on.
It would be a lot funnier if you weren't living it.
I'm looking right now. This bleak window opens on
black and white and dismal grey, an apartment backyard
overlooking an industrial backyard and main street
which birds and squirrels don't bother to name.
Names are temporary, and change with the inhabitants.
My life is a hotel room in which I never stay anywhere,
there's nowhere to stay. I lost everything
and that's not enough. Do I even get to tell people?
No, that why lies an endless circle of ridiculous maimings,
none of them more visible than the invisible disability
I can neither manage nor convince anyone is real.
Like there's a point. Push that boulder up the mountain,
it will just roll back down again. Why bother

Here's a thought: since you're going to end up there anyway,
just head for the desert now. You're going to die there,
so why wait. It's just masochistic to stay where the world
has let you know how much it hates you being there. Go.
Don't even bother to wrap up affairs. Just go. Those who are left
can have the dregs that no one wants. Savor freedom.
Part of the samurai's code was, When you know you're going to die,
you can do anything. So go. Let the boulders roll where they will.
Nothing to stop you. Why do you hesitate? Do you so cling
to this hateful existence that you would rather stay and suffer
rather than be free? The bars of the cage hold your eyes
but the cage door is open. You just have to turn your head to see it.
Last time I lived in this place it was just the same.
Here I am back in that same cage, clinging to those same bars.
This time, I'll notice the door. I'll let go of the boulder.
I'll just walk out and disappear into the void.
Like the nothingness before and after the Universe, why wait.

I can't cope with limbo. That's all.
I just need to know something's happening.
I've spent far too much time, this past era,
waiting on other people's agendas who forget mine.
I just need to feel like things are moving forward
at a rate faster than geologic.

It's about feeling like anyone has heard. It's like
a basic need, a mammary need, to feel like you're not shouting
down a well for no reason, not even getting an echo back.
It's like there's a void of silence around your heart.
Nothing can get through, be heard, be present. Time shifts
into its slowest gear when silence replaces sympathy.
Oh we are needy. We are clingy in our need, and fearful.

The entire reason for being is to not be alone.

The Oracular Advice of the Morning

The oracular advice of the morning recommends that I slow down, take a few deep breaths, and not try to do so much. The irony of this, for me, is that I constantly feel like I'm not getting enough done, because it takes me so much longer to get things done than it used to, and than it does for everyone else. But then I have to remind myself, and struggle to be patient with, the context.

When I was in Arches National Park in Utah last year, there was a strenuous hike on a challenging trail that I wanted to do. I couldn't do it, even though I wanted to. I got halfway along that journey, then I had to stop and rest for awhile, and turn back. I very suddenly ran out of steam, which can still happen. I sat in the shade of a dramatically wind-shaped tree (which I later made photos of, and even later painted a portrait of) for awhile, feeling sorry for myself, while both younger and older hikers hurried past me in both directions, in the 106 F degree heat.

And I imagined a dialogue with a younger, stronger, healthier man—perhaps from that couple in their 20s going by right now, perhaps a younger aspect of myself—in which I had come to some sort of peace with my journey. The younger asks the older if he can make it to the top, and the older says no, go on without me. The younger, who expresses concern, asks if that's really okay. The older man, who realizes the truth even as he speaks it, says: I was sick for over twenty years. I almost died. That I managed to hike this far up this mountain, even though I didn't get any further, is a miracle. That I'm here right now, even this far up the mountain, only halfway along this trail, is amazing. I am amazed that I have come even this far.

And that's true.

I constantly deal with feeling impatient about how little I can do, compared to my friends. I still have days of suddenly having no energy, for no reason, like I used to when I was sick. (Like I did yesterday.) I still have to remind myself that I might now at last have the strength for "normal" activity for a few days in a row, but then I must rest. Oracles aside, today has to be a rest day. I don't have a choice.

Yes, my garden looks ragged (any friend who wants to come visit and help me with that will be treated to a fabulous meal as reward), yes I have some paperwork and other mentally-engaged work to do this week that takes me twice as long as anyone else to get done, and so on, and so on. Ironically I am being told to take a break, and all I can do, despite brain fog, is worry about what I am not getting done.

Yes, I know, waste of energy. But before you throw more new age positive thinking aphorisms at me, well intended perhaps but clueless and ignorant of what I've actually experienced, just remember: YOU don't have to deal with the aftermath of a lifelong illness that almost killed you, so shut up about what you think I should be able to do. That I'm here at all is a miracle. That I've climbed even this far back up that cliffside trail towards something you call "normal life" is nothing short of miraculous. (I say this not only to the well-intentioned friend, but also to the voices in my head.)

I'm just going to sit here for awhile, sip my tea, and enjoy the view.

Maybe I will never get to the end of that trail. Maybe I will never be able to see the view for myself from on top of the mountain. Maybe all I will ever be able to see is the view of the opposite cliff from my vantage halfway up the canyonside trail.

And that's amazing. Look at those rock shapes! And see over there, you walked right past those windflowers and petroglyphs on your rush to get to the top! I'm stopping and taking ten and looking around me right now. I might never get to the top of this mountain trail. And someday I might. Just not today, maybe not for a few years more.

Meanwhile, the view is pretty amazing from right here.

Now, hike on, and leave me in peace, right here, right now.