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6
learning that stretch marks are a fact for me
unintentional and intentional tearing of the dermis.
xe was weary of being put in situations where xe was forced to consider xyr womb from a present tense perspective. lineage and linearity put xem in such situations. often, men on the street would say snide things to xem; sexual statements with no sexual relevance.
a mother is also daunting, but when xe came of age, xyr mother became even more positional-unrest for xem. xe was tired of attempting explanation, fatigued from trying to explain that xyr relationship to xyr womb was currently past tense.
even though they taunted xem for being inverted, xe skipped Thanksgiving dinner that year. xe was intent on attending to xyr garden, so that xe could have a familiar place to experiment with hybridizations that might make possible, vergetures on the vegetables. so that xe could have a quiet, non-opinionated place where xe could contemplate what xe daily felt in xemself as xyr dead womb.
7
a woman carrying water back to her tribal village in a bucket made of dried grasses and reeds; a bucket that by design, leaks
xe heard from xyr friend that there were sex workers who were willing to hold spiritual space for their clients. xe queried one about paying them to come and join xem, hosting the ritual.
xe knew that xe would need to be forced to submit. this related to the fact that xe had currently, seemingly given up on kneeling. had just stopped doing it all together. had stopped uttering “dear deva” before going to sleep. xe was tired of feeling so unintentionally close to the haunting, applying xyr efforts and continuing to be haunted by the tri. xe did not like that lately xe had been wondering if unresolvable grief was in fact, a part of xyr cosmic self.
when the dominant arrived at xyr door, xe invited xem in. handed xem the dulled knife, the red kimono, the oil and the hybrid vegetable. opened the window to let in some of the summer wind, took the hand of the dominant (the hand that was not holding items) and walked them both out the door and into the night.
“where are we going?” the dominant asked. “please, just come” xe said, almost whimpering as xe dragged the dominant along. xe remembered the parent who dragged their child around that corner at the park. in remembering this xe slowed xyr walking pace, afraid that if xe was too dominant now, that if xe felt too much power in xyr body, that xe might not fully be able to submit later, when they got to the inlet in the river. xe noticed a glint in the dominant’s eyes. an emotion that looked like a mix of fear and arousal. xyr concern about not being able to fully submit became even more forefront in xyr senses, when xe saw the part of the dominant’s look that had fear in it.
when they got to the place in the river where the inlet was, there was an oval shaped shrine with many small, luminous and dark objects on it. xe turned and looked the dominant in the face. “I need you to understand that I need you to not stop. no matter what I say, no matter how I demand it, no matter if I beg you, I need you to let me know that you hear me, that you are here with me, and that you are not going to stop.” “ok” the dominant said, then a pause before the dominant started repeating: “ok. ok. ok. ok. ok.”
xe noticed that the longer the dominant looked into xyr eyes while repeating those words, the lower their voice got as they were repeated. xe felt something like hope and a bit of a trembling of xyr own desire in that.
8
Carolee Schneeman pulling a scroll out of her vagina as performance
the red kimono was being removed from xem, cut by cut. with the application of the musky oil, the dull knife, in its dullness, continually slipped. jabbed into xyr skin. the dominant was surprised that with each jab, each tiny release of blood, xe made no sound. just had tiny flinch-like reactions, but made absolutely no audible sound.
the dominant remembered that xe did in fact make a whimpering sound, earlier, when xe was leading the dominant through the night. wanted to fulfill xem, so was working to make an understanding within xemself. perhaps there is only sound for xem when xe is embodying a position that feels powerful to xem, xe thought. with that thought, a bit of a harder jab which led to a bit of a more dramatic flinch. the dominant wondered if xe knew that more force was being applied on purpose. it was getting so dark that the dominant could no longer see xyr eyes as a color, only glint.
holding the hybrid vegetable steady in xyr mouth xe had gone to the place behind xyr eyes. the place that had become so familiar in the previous months. the place xe had been applying psychic pressure to in an effort to change the reoccurring dreams. when xe kept poise in that place behind the eyes, no matter the exterior pain, xe found that xe could remain soundless. could keep the words from spilling out of xyr mouth or xyr womb. xe knew that this was possible because of the cutting that was being applied on the outside, and the precision in xem holding the hybrid vegetable so taunt in xyr mouth. xe felt it as it was happening, a sort of subtle but constant pushing of xem to the ground, onto elbows and knees.
xe wanted there to be gentle but intentional inscriptions and slashes left on xyr body, after the full length red kimono had been completely but excruciatingly slowly, removed.
9
my heart has been reinvented so many times in the last few weeks, since we have been spending more and more time together
weeks after the first ritual, xe had the dominant come back. they repeated their work. fulfilled by it, xe noted that xe had not felt anything that xe would name fulfilling since xe stopped hearing the voices of the trinity in good standing with xem.
after the preliminary ritual on that thickest of nights, xe picked up a few of the red strands that had caught on the trees and boulders near the oval shaped shrine in the inlet of the river. xe was certain that xe would have to find ways to glue some of these remnants back onto xemself. xe was not sure exactly why, but knew that to do so would be to make a new indigenousness. an absolute-zero. a reinvented zone.
xe was striving to compose allies. xe was reading the scroll as it was being pulled out of xem by the dominant.
10
self-ethnography never stalling
interlacing angles. trying to lift aspects of a triad into various divergent efficiencies. deleting or adding points to a previous point of view.
in Celtic lore it was often the case that male heroes traveled in groups of threes in an attempt to complete a complex journey. each of them completing one part. or how shamans were a necessary third state, an essential quality of the tribe, because of how they inhabited a site between what was considered physical and what was considered ephemeral.
many nights near the open window, xe was attempting to find ways to straddle a three legged chair. an always tilting chair with inscriptions in many different languages on it.
11
isn’t the border of trauma also the shared border of healing?
xe enjoyed being in the garden even when xe was not working with the vegetables. xe liked talking to the space between the plants. things were not exactly the same since xe and the dominant stopped having a monetary relationship. as a way to honor where they might be going, xe went to xyr garden to rest.
xe would laugh and feel relief there, unlike in xyr bed. xe regularly went to the local greenhouse and bought megadriles. peristalting figures xe brought into the garden in vats. xe would take them from the containers they were transported in and cover xemself with them. a convolution of scolecophagous. profound, wriggling array, as a way to invert what xe always felt in the very back of xemself; tendency toward destruction and distress.
reading from xyr notebooks xe would say out loud to the worms that were all over xem, that were adding weight to xyr skin: “male pores opening posterior to the female pores, even though the internal male segments are anterior to the female.”
xe, xe, xe
from noting the indelible quiet between the impacted plants
to xe
mining mineral cadence.
Extro
xyr is defined in Wikipedia as a logic-of-pronoun akin to the lineage of Spivak pronouns. It is generally employed as a gender-neutral or gender-irrelevant pronoun. Though often an accurate and utilized pronoun for trans-masculine identified people, xyr is not exclusive to one particular quality of queer experience or identity. It, as a pronoun, is still open and inclusive.
I wanted to work with xyr not only because it is the pronoun that is most relevant for me, but because I was curious about working with it in ways that were focused on emphasizing gender specificities (as opposed to the above stated “gender-neutral or gender-irrelevant”) that exceed binary lenses or paradigms.