this ain’t love

With love and rage,

Like a heartbroken lover, i come back to you time and again, and it will be hard not to continue this fucked up cycle*.

Yeah of course i wanna get in the door –there are so few radical queer spaces– but i do not want to get in the door so much that i am willing to believe that what “radical” consists of is me continuing to saw off half of myself (or of other people) to do so. Ableism is as ableism does, folks; and this, dear friends, is what this whole mess is. i love and respect you, but ableism is what you are perpetuating and benefiting off of when you make excuses (on and on and on and on) for ongoing inaccessibility, plain and simple.

And while others certainly will, i have no time left for coddling/ placating/ accepting this trifling nonsense. And i’m glad that some folks can be “gentle” about it. i don’t know what i or we would do without that. But we can’t all be “gentle” about this all or sometimes any of the time. And what, precisely, is “gentle” in the face of this ongoing bullshit? We can’t all be “kind” and “generous” and so on about it, not all the time, not every time (and you may not get this, but it is NEVER “a one time thing”, one event, one conference, one dance, one reading, one dinner, etc.) And what, precisely, is “kind” and “generous” in the face of this? i’m grateful that some of us can write sweeping heartbreaking, poetic and inspiring narratives or academiwankery about it that really get people to the heart of it all (and why do we need to break our hearts open and simultaneously back it all up with “evidence” quantifiable and otherwise to let you see the hurt you cause in hopes you’ll stop and go a different way when literally nothing  indicates you will –despite those silver-tongued missives you keep floating by us?). But in any case, we can’t all do this, be this, all the time.

Some of it is rage. Some of it is just being fucking over it. And that is a perfectly valid and understandable part of this picture.

i am going to spend more time on love affairs platonic and otherwise with those things and people that have meaning, form, action, resistance, actual real fucking solidarity, and which state clearly, consistently, and with action to back it up that they are actively working to change this and who can show actual, tangible progress; rather than withering away what precious energy i have left on trying to squeeze some fucking heartjuice out of folks and projects which from the start actively exclude me and who/which through time show little-to-no inclination to stop that process; rather than withering away what precious energy i have left on trying to get you to see “me” and “you” as “we”.

If you’re not there yet, i feel deeply for you. And it’s not out of thinking that you’re incapable of getting there that i leave you, it’s knowing in my heart that you are entirely capable and choose not to.

 

*And because ableism works how it does, of course i will be back in your arms soon, listening to you croon and coo that you’re “looking for” ways to “include” me, that you “really hope you can make it work out”, that you “see me and value me and want me there”, that “next time it will be different”.
Of course you do.
Of course you do.
Of course i will.
Of course i will.