my gender is yellow and living in my left shoulder

hello the name we speak in re(f/v)erence is fragmented but this part is reuven and this part is you. we are parts of each other from the moment we meet and onwards until we die.

everything is a collaboration, and so it is with that threaded hope that you’ll do me the favor of reading this with as open a mind as you can. you don’t have to be perfect. it’s okay if parts, or all, of this make you cringe with embarrassment. i’m not perfect either. no one is, really, but we both have heard that shit before and it’s not really necessary to go into that aspect too far right now. but I want to talk to you today.

i want to ask you a question:

no, really. what is it?

you don’t have to tell me. i don’t even really want to know. but i want you to know, because it’s important.

it’s important because it’s you.

yes, i know it’s all made of cheese but- it’s good cheese.

listen, if anyone’s going to give you a chance it should be you. being open with yourself and what you’re truly, honestly feeling leads to being open with others and what they’re feeling.

the solution has never been to hate more. can we agree on that?

Human’s sins are envy;
and wanting desperately, with all
our hearts. You love just as much
as I love. You are human and
so am I, though we’ll agree that each
path we walk will never be
the same. Yes! It matters.
We all love in the
same basic direction;
like a wind blowing, gently,
through leaves of an
endless forest.

my gender is whatever feels right, whatever feels good.

who can tell me what i feel but myself? who can see inside my mind so clearly as to overrule my roiling emotions?

and so when i tell you my gender is a freshly made meal, steaming and fragrant and filling, made with and for those i adore, you have no choice but to believe me.

my gender is a shattered prism, reflecting colored beams of light every which way without any care for your thoughts or opinions or ROY G BIV ordering.

i’m sorry your gender fits in a silly little box whilst my gender is much cooler and more deeply cared for, i truly am.

you deserve your own rainbow, too.

but now my gender is actually a tessellating pattern with no beginning or end, spinning outwards endlessly into eternity, and it can never be defined by language, so good luck with placing a box around it. my gender will not be contained!!

where is your gender stored? i mentioned one place earlier, but my gender is also stored in the fingertips, and it bleeds into everything i touch.

sometimes it’s gentle.

sometimes it hurts.

my gender is a raging fire, burning white heat consuming material like no-body’s business, eating whole buildings alive before the wood has a chance to even creak or groan in protest.

my gender is a baseball bat, splattered with viscera, nails driven into its hard-ness. i was built for violence, fundamentally changed from plaything to weapon with the first cracking drive of sharp nail into body.

my gender is dirt under nails, staining the lines of my palms, trailing along with me long after the digging has commenced.

my gender is chronic illness, pain so deep and enduring that i have no idea what its like to stand up without wincing. sometimes it hurts.

my gender is blood in the sink after too many days gone without clean teeth, bone-deep sickness forcing me away from the mirror and the possibility of health.

a film of gender coats my mouth like phlegm, thick and cloying and sliding down my throat in the most disgusting way you can think of.

this does not paint a picture of my gender that is flattering, but, nonetheless, it paints the truth. you may think me disgusting for it. you may think me unkempt and wild, violence in the baring of my canines, the clenching of my fists.
and yet-

my gender is birdsong- delicate and lilting and joyous expression.

i take my gender out of my chest and it takes to the blue blue sky with wings that shine with sunlight.

my gender forms itself into a lump in my throat that aches to jump and scream and laugh and cry out to the world that I am! I am! I am!

my gender is washing my roommate’s dishes with warm water and placing them into the wire rack, delicately and one-by-one, to dry in the summer heat. my gender is the sizzling of garlic and onions in butter, my gender is a gas stove, my gender is a funny joke that only i have the joy of understanding.

my gender is a underground cave system- it has an ecosystem, it balances itself out, it drinks fresh spring water and becomes pale and blind and adapted to its environment. my gender is that water, shaping itself to whatever container it so chooses to place itself inside of for this brief moment.

what does your gender container hold? does it hold man-but-not-quite? How about woman-who-rages? Being-inside-meat-suit? What about person-in-the-Sun? do these fit you? does something else work? i want you to think about it.

your experience of gender is different from those you’ve been grouped with. how you act out Man or Woman is not the same as your neighbor acting out their version of Man or Woman. experiences shape us. and gender is just that- an experience.

definitions change. gender can change too. humans cannot be divided into two groups perfectly.

here’s a secret: only you get to choose what defines you, and if anyone tries, well, they’re just not listening. that’s on them.

and what if i told you i had no gender at all?

what would you believe defined me then?

love, reuven

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