this is what i mean when i say queer.

when i say queer i mean, most of the time i feel fucking gay.
when i say queer i mean having sexual fantasies about girls
at the age of 13 and thought i was a human monster, a hermaphrodite, a psycho freak.
when i say queer i mean not even knew that sex was possible,
until i discovered lesbian chat room and was talked dirty
and unpleasantly seduced by an older woman.
when i say queer i mean feeling rejected and being emotionally
shut down in my family for at least 10 years.
when i say queer i mean i did a lot of fucked up things to people i love because i simply did not know how to love myself.
when i say queer i mean my lover committed suicide when i was 17
and i thought about death every day and night for the 3 years after that.

when i say queer i mean i'm not the white power gays who only worry about their cocktail parties, their newly remodeled house, their muscle mass, or their summer exotic southeast asian trips.
when i say queer i mean i struggle to even be recognized as a person with something important to say, because of my skin color, my accent, my gender, my learned defensiveness with most white straight men and my failure
to relate to them or treat their ignorance patiently.
when i say queer i mean strange men yell dyke at me and give dirty looks and threesome jokes when i walk with my lover in the street .
when i say queer i mean i loathed my body because it was too feminine, too masculine, too weak, too small, too awkward, and too foreign.
when i say queer i mean it took me a borderline eating disorder to love my own body.
when i say queer i mean i cried the first time i had sex with a woman because it changed everything i thought about the world.
when i say queer i mean people i love are traumatized by patriarchal violence physically, emotionally, and constantly.
when i say queer i mean i am fed up with being the token lesbian and the token asian and the token immigrant in every space.
when i say queer i mean i am so sick and tired of being polite and politically correct.
when i say queer i mean i am not gonna explain myself anymore.

when i say queer i mean seeing my queer friends find themselves, lose themselves, doubt themselves, risk themselves, and hurt themselves because of shame.
when i say queer i mean fear of not being able to recreate
the sense of community and family we once had.
when i say queer i mean i feel resentful when my straight friends
off to get married one by one. i feel betrayed.
and then i feel powerlessness.

when i say queer it is agony.
it is silence.
it is grief.
but it is also desire.
it is passion.
it is love.

when i say queer it is not about my biology my brain cells my ring finger or aboout social construction or fucked up family dynamics or capitalism or the oppressive human nature.
it is about my life.
when i say i am queer it's not about trendiness or progressiveness or the right consciousness.
it is still about my life.
when i say queer i mean i don't worry about alienating straight folks and being too confrontational, too aggressive, or too shamless.
when i say queer i mean i don't care if the corporates don't get to sell a piece of our oppression.
when i say queer i mean the gay power movement was co-opted by white middle class assimilationists and it's time for us trans folks and queer folks of color to take back the movement.
when i say queer i mean i want to fight alongside other oppressed folks
not because we are all the same but because we have the rights
to live as different as we fucking wish.
when i say queer i need to say it repetitively because our youth are homeless or home beaten up or dissecting themselves with razor blade.
when i say queer i need to say it repetitively because we are divided by borders, by prisons, by hospitals, by marriage.
when i say queer i need to say it repetitively because our trans brothers and sisters are still getting murdered in the street.
when i say queer i need to say it repetitively so it sounds as heavy and urgent as it is.

when i say queer i need to say it loudly and unapologetically
because it is agony.
it is silence.
it is grief.
it is desire.
it is passion.
it is love.