cripchick's blog

i wrote poems about you singing your favorite musicals to me outside in the richmond cold so that when i became angry at you, i would remember your humanity. a constellation of hurts made it too easy a thing to forget. i had poems about the pasta you could order three nights in a row, the debates we’d have walking the sticky streets of the district, the 6 am IM conversations we had in the beginning of our friendship, and all of the 3 am conversations we had over the telephone when you were manic.

it was easy for me to fall into cut-and-dry identity politics — not having it, i truly believed belonging would be found in finding queers, finding people of color fam. you brought out the parts of me that did not feel so radically queer and loving someone who was so white made me question my woman of color authenticity. you reminded me of my dad. instead of acknowledging that i can pass as white, i screamed my commitment to the cause as loud as i could. i drew hard lines – can’t work with white people. or people working within the system. or straight people. or cis gendered men. loving you made shit complicated. every woman of color i knew had a white partner and i didn’t want to be another one.

when grace lee boggs sat with you at dinner and entertained your questions about movement direction, it blew my world apart. i knew she should love me — a young asian girl following in her steps — how could she love you too?

those poems — that kind, gallant boy — was why i kept my hands cupped over our small sticked friendship, rekindling it over and over refusing to let it die. still writing poems, i would have never guessed you to be the one to say goodbye, you to be the one to say “i know i am not someone you can love and actually, that’s okay with me because i know i am worth loving.”

i am sorry i was not a better friend to you, that i let myself forget your humanity. i am sorry it has been years learning this lesson that shared values, love, and a commitment to one another is worth more than any shared experience.

thank you for knowing you are worth all the love in the world.

no one sat me down and said:
“disabled girlchild,
this is what you do
if someone does not want you.”

when you looked at my body and cried,
i did not know what to do but
hold you

i held you
cried over me

if one day a disabled girl child
asks for advice about all
of life’s business,
i will tell her to kick you the hell
out of her bed

hold your head high, beautiful one

This year’s Sins Invalid show is going to be amazing. Friends of mine are coming in from Canada, the American Southwest, everywhere to see it… You should join me there if you want to see queer disabled people of color centerstage. :-)

-cripchick

JOIN US IN CELEBRATING THE 5TH ANNUAL
SINS INVALID PERFORMANCE!

Sins Invalid celebrates the power of embodiment & sexuality, stripping taboos off

sexuality and disability to offer a vision of beauty that includes all bodies and
communities.

Z Space (formerly Theater Artaud)
450 Florida Street at 17th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

8pm Friday April 8th 2011
8pm Saturday April 9th 2011
and

7pm Sunday April 10th 2011

This venue is wheelchair accessible.
Please do not wear scented products, although we cannot guarantee a scent-
free space.

Ticket $16 – $25

2011 artists include: Aurora Levins Morales, Antoine Hunter, Leah Lakshmi
Piepzna-Samarasinha, Ellery Russian, Nomy Lamm, Alex Cafarelli, Juba
Kalamka, Leroy F. Moore, Patty Berne, Todd Herman, seeley quest, Maria
Palacios, Ralph Dickinson and Ryon Gesink.

This performance is Audio Described

ASL interpreted by Stage Hands

To purchase tickets in advance, visit http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/

[pictured above is a postcard announcing the show. In the background are white ropes, knots, clocks and DNA strands on black. In the foreground is Leroy Moore, shirtless, with his hands clenched together in front of him. Next to him is a clock. Above his head are the words: 5th Anniversary Performance Sins Invalid April 8 - 10, 2011. Z Space (formerly Theater Artaud)]

i read this morning on facebook that laura hershey passed away last night. this is outrageously heartbreaking. she was her queer disabled feminist activist poet self before a lot of us gay baby crips were even born. how much of our refusal to stay in the shadows is a dare shaped by her breath, the sound of her words?

today i am not afraid. just somber and sending love to those who knew her.

to find out more about laura, please visit cripcommentary.com or laurahershey.com.

Petunias
by Laura Hershey, 1991

I knew you planned
– you knew I supported –
this arrest.

Yet when I watched you,
unstoppable as ever,
driving your chair
around a cop,
up a hill,
through careful, distinctly unrevolutionary
petunias,
past a police barricade,
and knew I’d probably seen
the last for at least
that day
of you –
my selfish spirit whispered
a small wish
to call you back,
forget the cause,
abandon the movement,
pick some petunias,
and take you home.

Another whisper reminded me
how fragile
our home might be.
The world we share
– our meals, our bed,
our work, our freedom to live
together
alone –
depends on this clash
and on our mutual
– you of your liberty
one or two days
– me of you
in my bed –
sacrifice.

I wanted right then
to offer — like a hand-picked bouquet –
my small insight
to you, and hear
your thoughts in turn.

But by then I could see
no sign of you
except
your tire marks through the petunias.