Gentle Ramirez, Keep Pledging Betrayal

Keep Pledging Betrayal

Gentle Ramirez

WE PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE RED, BLACK, AND GREEN, OUR FLAG, THE SYMBOL OF OUR ETERNAL STRUGGLE, AND TO THE LAND WE MUST OBTAIN; ONE NATION OF BLACK PEOPLE, WITH ONE GOD OF US ALL, TOTALLY UNITED IN THE STRUGGLE, FOR BLACK LOVE, BLACK FREEDOM, AND BLACK SELF-DETERMINATION.

I pledge allegiance to myself for this body. And to my transcestors and trans descendants who will never hear this poem. I pledge to be thankful, for all it can do and all it cannot. I pledge to feed you when you are hungry and to hold you unconditionally. And to gender dysphoria, I know you’ll choke.

Right hand right on the bible, I’ve been forcefed lies about this body and was told those lies were liberty, I tell you I drowned in the baptism pool with everyone to witness, my skin, not even my own.

Cried out prayers for anyone who would listen, After swallowing my own tongue for communion

I addressed the prayer to myself.

I was made feminine before I was made free. And so, I’ve been chasing this exodus, this justice, my masculinity For my own namesake. I pledge allegiance to my body and to the liberation for which it stands. To black trans people domestically and abroad, for all the godlikeness in us. I pledge betrayal to gender. I say fuck it. What has it ever done for me? Or black folx for that matter.

The history of hysterectomies and gynecology tell us that gender is a white people concept if it tells you nothing else. And so I tell you I got no interest in propelling colonization. That black little kids can be boys and girls and neither if they say it so. That being non-binary got nothing to do with womanhood. And—that the most unprotected person in America is the black trans woman.

Imagine what black people could build, as one body, we’d be indivisible, fighting for reparations, with love and peace for all.

Structured Saadiyat Sunset

Michelle Hughes

Watercolor and ink on paper