Moon Memo: The Poet Laureate
Intro
Hello from Portland Oregon, where Jade just had to break up an argument on our street. One neighbor was threatening another for violence. Turns out the other neighbor had stolen their cell phone, decided the best way to get her way was theft and violence. Sometimes I think this town is completely falling apart, and other times I know it's because we as a society think of violence as a way forward, as a method of interpersonal communication. We just have the idea that volence is the answer, and escalate accordingly. Is that an American trait? Is that something that other countries deal with as well? I don't know. Who even knows.
A lot of panic in the neighborhood right now. We had an armed robbery a week ago. Lady taking her groceries out of her car robbed by kids. People are starting to think of this place as a shitty neighborhood. This is a paradise. Trans women and small families. Houselessness and rentals. What more could you want from a city. But I get it. This world is difficult enough without being afraid. And Americans, if nothing else, are afraid.
Tools again
I usually use a program called Drafts to write everything. Saves everything in Markdown format. I use Obsidian, another notes app, for my library. I don't write directly into Obsidian because I don't like it's interface for actual writing.
Today I'm in BBEdit. It's a programming tool, more than anything. Been around for 30 years. I downloaded the free version months ago because I kept hearing about it on the apple podcasts I listen to to fall asleep. It's great: simple user interface. Extremely flexible. Isn't going anywhere. Anytime I need to edit an already saved markdown file, I use BBEdit as the program. It's way more powerful than anything that I could ever need. But it does it all really really well.
Drafts is nice because it syncs all over the place. I can start something in bed, and it will be on my computer. BBEdit doesn't exist on the phone. Rich Segal, the developer of the program, wants to make this one thing that works really really well.
I don't know why I need so many different writing tools. Pick one, and stay with it. But sometimes when the words aren't working, you need somewhere else to go. Today, that's BBEdit.
This is only interesting to Alana, a fellow Mac nerd, a real coder. Hi, Alana. You're the best.
Poet Laureate
Thursday, put on my silver laurels and leather harness, and read poems at a reading series called Tell Tale. The theme was elder queers. It was important to have a poet there, and specifically a trans woman on that list.
Here are the poems:
Trans Girls of the New Abundance
For Jay, who died in 2007
The biggest team we find for ourselves:
trans girls of the new abundance.
We have cell phones and super computers
when the old girls only had each other,
had to repair themselves with horse piss, knives,
and blow jobs in cars, if they were lucky.
The lock of my deadname is barely in print,
waiting in old journals when grad students come.
I only think of murder half the day now.
I wonder how strong the new girls are
who never had closets, secret dresses and garters,
never had a girl disappear into an obituary suit.
We are a community, they say, point fingers
at the right kind of problems done a decade ago,
let the imperfect rot in black mold hotels alone.
But I know Jay would have stayed out longer.
Years ago she lost and turned into a ghost.
You can make it now, I'd say. They're not going to win.
Persephone Returns to the Under World
We want decadence and wonder. We want
the world to know us and leave us alive.
We want the dying girls to linger even as
their bodies break down to leave corpses of
beautiful stardust. I have my list to mourn,
a desk covered in post its, razors, and names
staring as I move numbers from columns
to columns. We are worthy because we say.
We are not pixels glowing alone. We are
meat and fluid, air bags and long food tubes.
Tonight she'll put on her leather jacket, cross
the street into Davie's Village, let music and
bodies heat up her cold body. In her pocket
the texts pile for attention, all the suffering
waiting for her return. Maybe she will linger
among the living, let them worship her body,
dance with her in the darkness, turn around
and let them return to hell, find her own way.
Let Me Die An Old Trans Woman
Our dead disappear behind deader names,
swooped up by family who kicked her
out of memory while she lived a while,
ready to edit all she was away. And we
who helped her find herself, cast sigils
of protection in ink and blood into her,
held her as she spoke the new name while
our bodies cooled together are left with
only small memories, the smell of smoke,
ghost of her tongue in our throats, feel sad
as we watch favorite movies, wonder if
we’ll find the razor next. All I want is
a funeral, pews of lovers and friends singing
what a bitch I was, what kind of kindness
I gathered for them as the last of my cousins
stare in horror at my glorious life, the way
I called god a son of a bitch, how he lost
His grip on my pre-ordained death, how
my corpse shines with lipstick and anger
as the children sing my glories forever.
Belief
She wore booty shorts that said sodomy,
shook her ass in the company of men who
saw her as fresh meat, as what dangled
like a participle, as novelty in this sweat
and vodka cranberries. Saturday night so
thick and steamy my glasses fogged as I
sat alone, tits out under leather jacket,
watched her grinding out a gender, ass
swaying against hips on the dance floor,
moving hands from hips to tits, accepted
lips of gay men now unsure as she stroked
her way around them. This is holy, I said
as we shared a cigarette, our lipstick stains
delicious on the filter, her sure breath ring
hanging in the air like an offer, my cough
showing my fraud at the party. "I wish girls
treated me with lust not worry," she said,
broad shouldered and sweating, curvy in
the wrong places, "didn't avoid my smile on
buses, didn't act as if I was a sign of danger,
a brick to be thrown at them. Men see an ass
and a mouth, and at least that's pleasure, not
the cold ways of the pretty girls puddled in
their apartments." We nodded together, girls
who knew the double rejection. When she
pushed me against the wall, searched me
with her tongue, whispered I was beautiful
I could believe her, I could believe again.
I take being the trans poet laureate very very seriously. I don't think people realize how much I have wanted to do something like this since I was a young girl. I am the representative of this work for the trans world. At least in Portland.
Stress
I'm carrying a lot of stress right now. Work stress (layoffs are coming). Life stress (usual body stuff moving forward). Family stress (no, I will not go into family stress). If I seem a little out of it for the next little while, well, that's why.
Outro
Not really much to this week. Take care of yourselves. Know that I love you.
Misha