TRANSGRESSIONS: things i've learned from my body | things i've learned from my body by mai

TRANSGRESSIONS things i’ve learned from my body

poetry & prose by mai c. doan edition two © mai c. doan 2020

transÂˇgresÂˇsion n. the violation of an imposed limit or boundary

INTRODUCTION

Thank you for arriving here. This work means a lot to me. I hope it will mean a lot to you, too. Outside of “what being an ocean has taught me,” (written in 2019) and “pulse” (written in 2016), the pieces in this collection were written between 2009 and 2012. Between eight and eleven years ago, between the ages of twenty two and twenty five. Reading through these poems, it is no surprise that it’s 2020 and I live in the desert (again). This is how desire unfolds: first an inkling becomes a flame, then the flame becomes a star, then the star becomes your heart, then your heart makes a path and the path becomes a home. These poems are (a) home. My wants, threaded around people and memories and the earth. They are wild and hot. They are viscous, vicious, and alive. They are my insides smeared in blazing reds across a sun-soaked page; they are roses grown from my own filth and tears and blood; they are my loss and grief and desire and aliveness spinning in the wind. I hope they hold and inspire you. <3mai albuquerque, NM april 2020

TABLE OF CONTENTS OUR DESIRES ARE NOT SIMPLY WANTS - 6 late summer pantoum - 7 transgression - 8 MY QUEER DESIRE IS ABUNDANT AND UNLIMITED - 9 color - 10 january 7th - 11 viet on the dance floor - 12 mornings with Chavela - 13 altar - 14 long distance - 15 HOW CAN I SPEAK FROM A PLACE OF SHAME - 16 ceremony - 17 wings - 21 WHAT I ONCE FELT AS MADDENING - 22 flowers - 23 freak - 24 days of gold - 25 FOR OUR BODIES - 27 pulse - 28 home body - 29 what being an ocean has taught me - 30

our desires are not simply wants. our desires are needs deemed unnecessary by a system that benefits off of the denial of our existence. we are denied the experience of our existence. we become accustomed to denying ourselves the experience of our own necessary desires.

late summer pantoum for DCJ i knew right then that this would change me would make me tender again my ribcage, a mountain side opening wind pushing through earth would make me tender again you arrived, a burning morning sky wind pushing through earth opened my heart with your fist you arrived, a burning morning sky we met on the first night of an October summer opened your heart with your fist the season, coveting us in her heat we met on the first night of an October summer my ribcage, a mountain side opening the season coveting us in her heat i knew right then that this would change me

transgression up to the fore arms in each other opened we fall sticky asleep covered in our own salts and acids awakened by our own push and pull i could tongue your palm for hours and find myself there powerful thrust forth a raging bull provoked by a passion for her own endangered survival never again will i purge this fear this gift this non-destructive desire this taste of an uprising hailed forth from my insides with your fist

my queer desire is abundant and unlimited.

color after “Root” by Terrance Hayes this country would have me convinced there is no place for color in this bedroom, our skin tealed with cans of Paradiso and Meridian Blue like humidity and rain darkening our skin. on bent knees we worshipped till the sea washed out the stinging salt of beige as if we’d swam home. we stretched into the corners color and returned into color till our migrations revived from our bones. we bent through our muscles, honoring the ghosts, the displaced, the multitude of dialects that have graced this bedroom floor, and i felt love then: the mightly silence that bound us beyond the walls to the boats of pigment that scattered us across my carpet floor. i haven’t always lived here but know the truth about land, about people brushed from the earth becoming hidden beneath layers and layers of white.

january 7th today is my great grandmother’s death anniversary. i don’t know what year she died but i emailed my dad to ask him, along with what his favorite memory of her is. this year, i learned her name: Bui Thi Kinh. i’m still working on its pronunciation. Bui Thi Kinh and i are connected in many ways. the way i know best is through our tongues. for both of us, our tongue has been a tool for selfdetermination; a muscle that has allowed us to survive. even as they were made to be odd parts. foreign to ourselves. making us foreign to each other. Bui Thi Kinh died when i was young. i remember the drive away from some green hills between which she was cremated. the day was foggy and i know now that it was January, makes it less abstract. i remember while driving my dad saying, it’s our fault, as the Mama’s & Papa’s played into our silence. why do i search for her? why do i dig into every last memory? why are these sentences so important? the day, the weather, the song? they are the handful of subtle details that i carry with me. and like the pieces of jewelry once pockets while fleeing, they are mine.

viet on the dance floor sweet one july night swaying queer on the dance floor we found ourselves found this familiar found some same ocean rocking down inside our bones stayed swaying all night even drenched in music, you recognized my name we couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t resist being moved / stretched / moved again this our beginning

mornings with Chavela sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s drinking tequila. small boney fingers wrapped tightly around her glass. in her voice are the tragediesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of the desert, a cry from the sun burnt canyons of her chest. the sky blazes red loosing oxygen. she alone is the heat of the desert. between cactus thorns and a love poem, she writes me about religion. of swimming pool baptism, how its violence hunts in packs. i hear her laughter through her lips before it turns into a cry: guilt is a vulture. she spits fourletter words at all god-fearing gospel and then writes me of the sun. 2000 miles from her window, the santa ana winds thrust wildly through my hair. the unpredictable movement blows the dust of her clay fingers that is streaked across the page. the color reminds me of her neck, of the mole that rests like a stone beneath her trachea. outside are the sirens i hum to. i do not speak but my silence is man-made and vicious. i want the thickness of her voice, the dark caramel of her mouth. i want to hold the desert lizard tattooed around her hand. i want to suck los nopales from her tongue, get close to her. but all i have are my fingers on her letters. her two licks and the sealing of an envelope. her voice strapped around me in song.

altar for Bui Thi Kinh ive wanted to come closer to you. know the depth of your eyes your crinkled mouth what golden joy illuminates your heart. i used to know only your death and your sorrow that one time i slipped quickly from the seat of your lap. i now know your name and your motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name and continue to ask questions. i tell you of my heartache through incense write to you through poems in red envelopes, and gift you boulders of mangoes, tucked in with tangerines then we sit and talk over tiny cups of tea. i used to know only your death and your sorrow. our separation is generations old and we are tied. come sit here and rest at this altar i have built for you.

long-distance for MCT by now they’re driving in the dark on the 5. beneath the stars and between the long stretch of California dustbowl and i’m still on my couch. i’m still on my couch and my longing fills the space next to my body left open by them leaving. all day i wanted to tell them how i felt. over and over again. but words got caught in fear’s net sifting through my stomach. when we’re together, they turn bees into birds in the space between my chin and the arch of my ribcage. they turn tiny, spiny buzzing into broad graces of wind. their body is a place of rest- long limbs catching all of me: mislabeled pieces, wobbly insecurities, my heart. i tip toe to read them my favorite poem and they ask me to come closer. everything we have is fragile. as if everything we build when we’re together gets pulled thin along the long stretch between the wetness of the north and the desert of the south; the days we are apart begin to outnumber the days we were together. fear creeps in. i forget what it’s like when we’re right next to each other. i want to hold us sacred. place us on my altar next to a pot of flowers and a plate of fruit. let the smoke rise with prayer that wraps tightly around us. i want to feel this with me always, like the heavy stones i pluck from the shore: reminding me of where i am from and where i have to go.

how can i speak from a place of shame when that is where they have built my grave?

CEREMONY 1. Language The word abortion has been hard for me. Given contemporary meaning through white, capitalist patriarchy, this word, for me, in a lot of ways, can dehumanize a deeply human process. For one, it can feel overly surgical. While yes, my abortion was performed by a doctor and included a speculum and gloves and a small white room, these details do not define or begin to summarize my experience. Abortion also is an overtly Political word, in ways that make it hard for people who have abortions to have their own experiences and narratives. For example, the Political baggage of the word abortion doesn’t always leave room for me to express what was hard or how I believed what was happening inside my body to be something like life and how I held that sacred. It’s important for me to resist the pressure to intellectualize my experiences so they can be legible or fit into these existing frameworks for understanding abortions. Instead, I want to speak from a place of feeling. So, I will start with a poem: post— a poem from my womb slow churning this cavern of blood ache and tremble these walls causing great waves of fury salt heat as if my heart has sunk into the grave of my hips i rise crash break

i am overcome washed over red thick pulse of a brushfire charred earth still pumping hot After my abortion, I felt challenged by the oversimplicity of the language that existed to speak about my experience. As a poet and writer, I am familiar with the failures of language. But I also know that if language isn’t there for me, it is mine to create. From this intention, the word uprootion (up-roo-shun) came to be. A word for me to speak about abortion in a way that felt embodied and sacred. Uprootion. As in being uprooted. As in losing your grounding. As in being separated from. But also, with root, as in beginning. As in life. 2. Life I had my uprootion on May 6th, 2011. Two months prior, I had moved from San Francisco to Oakland, left a job I was burnt out from, and to top it all off, a partner of mine who I was desperately in love with had broken up with me. The day I found out I was pregnant, I remember lying on my floor thinking of how strong the roses on my altar smelled, how disgustingly sweet their scent was, like pink syrup. I remember laying on my floor wondering if it was the heat or the season, and if this was why I was so tired. And then, after peeing on one of those plastic sticks, it made sense. I was pregnant. I couldn’t sleep in my room that night. I couldn’t stand the stench of roses cooking in heat, how they betrayed my prayers for things to get better. After the initial shock and heartbreak, I began to sit and witness with what was happening to me. Along with the swelling of my breasts, the pain lodged beneath my ribcage, and the taut plumping one hand beneath my belly button, I began to feel whole again. My heart began to mend, and in its ache, I found a sense of courage and ferocity that I can only describe as a parental instinct. I felt highly protective over and connected to what I understood to be happening in my body—a growing, pulsing ball of light.

We communicated daily. Each day, my two palms would rest below my belly as I would drop both my mind and my heart into my womb. Each day, I sent more and more light and love, all that I had in my being, into my growing ball of light. It was my responsibility as a parent for our short time together to shower them with all the light I had to give, making them that much stronger, fiercer, and more loved for their next journey. In short: being pregnant reminded me the power and magic of my own body. 3. Ceremony The night before my uprootion, I had a dream: I am in a room lit dim by dawn and tall candles. I am laying on a bed. Next to me, are my grandmother and my great grandmother and they are feeding me a thick black tea. It smells and tastes like dark earth and I can feel the course ends of roots in my mouth as I chew, and then swallow. After I finish, they have me lie down and sleep. I awake to intense cramping, and both my grandmother and my great grandmother’s place their palms flat on my lower belly. Their palms are radiating heat which soothe the quaking inside of me. Soon the pain becomes almost unbearable, rolling me over into fetal position. Palms continue to rub my back until I am lifted out of bed and placed into a warm bath that smells of jasmine. The shades are drawn and I feel as if I am in my own sort of womb, being held by the water and its warmth, by the presence of these two women who know what to do and how to care for me. The pain intensifies and I start to bleed heavily. Red washes into the tub as I shake and sweat and when it’s over, we all know—we can feel it. I am dried and placed into white silk pajamas. A white band is placed around my head and my neck, armpits, and abdomen are coated with warm eucalyptus oil. I am taken into the backyard where together, we empty the contents of the bath into a deep hole in the earth. Each of us throws in an offering—a piece of jade, a thin gold chain, a jasmine flower—before we fill the hole with dirt. That morning, a close friend drove me to a nearby clinic: We wait in the waiting room. My name is called. I write my name next to a patient number. When I am called into the room, I am shown an image through an ultrasound

and am told that I am eight and a half weeks pregnant. I am cold and shaky in the air conditioned room. Things are fuzzy enough that I am able to make small talk throughout the procedure. I don’t remember pain, only that afterwards, I walked out of the clinic and into the sun, grateful for its warmth. And while there was no bathtub or silk or hole in the earth, I recall the people who were there with me that day and all people who choose to learn how to perform abortions in an increasingly violent, patriarchal and anti-abortion system and feel gratitude. 4. Self-determination Despite the intimate connection, I never for once felt guilty about my decision to have an uprootion. I cannot tell you that I didn’t count the months wondering how big my belly would have been at any given point if I had decided to continue being pregnant. I cannot tell you I don’t wonder or that I didn’t mourn. But I promised myself that I would never let myself feel guilty or shameful. It has been necessary for me to fight and continue to fight to selfdetermine my own healing process, including resisting both guilt and shame, and separating them from my grief. Becoming pregnant and going through an uprootion has reminded me of the power and magic of my own body. I still grieve, for healing is not an instant, gratuitous process. And equally powerful, has been this raging passion to self-determine how my body and spirit heals, how I tell my story, and how I continue to use my power and magic towards a world more like our dreams.

what i once felt as maddening, isolating aches, i now see as the institutionalization of self-doubt.

flowers sometimes, the only flowers are the blooms of bacteria clinging to the back of my throat. never trust doctors, she said. i find myself experimenting on my own body. our eyes our ears our throat they wound together. our flowers die young but they frequently return as stank buds cut off too soon. i learn to ask who is inside of me? my great grandmother smiling has her tongue again.

freak You are here with me but you are only half-way here. You are only half-way close enough to me as I want you to be. I’m never sad without reason. There is nothing wrong with me. I only choose to feel. I only choose to face my heart courageously so that I live awake, so that my eyes are open, so that I can become whole again after all of the closing up and off and away from. Sometimes I feel like a freak. A slumping freak. A freak that is slumping in the corner. That’s what words can do sometimes. That’s what this world can do sometimes. Sometimes I feel like a freak for feeling. Under this system we are driven to insanity just for being human, just for having hearts. Sometimes I don’t think you want to rebel with me. Sometimes I think you think I am the enemy, and vice versa. Sometimes I think you’d rather let me be a freak in the corner than come closer to me, than come closer and tell me you feel too. And I feel too. Too much. Too emotional. Too feminine. Too queer. Too sad. Too crazy. Too unnecessary. Too much why can’t you be like us. Then you compare me to “normal people.” Since when do we adhere to some bullshit idea of “normal”? When have either of us been accepted as normal, with our pungent smells and fish sauce language, with our gendered bodies and fingers-down-the-pants-on-the-highway-in-heat queerness? How can you even use that word against me? Sometimes I don’t think you want to rebel with me. Sometimes I think you think I am the enemy and vice versa. Sometimes I think you’d rather let me be the freak in the corner than come closer.

days of gold if i could have, i would have worn my gold tights today. no one was stopping me, that’s the interesting thing. i knew that they had a run in them and that that might be inappropriate for work. they have a run that goes right up my upper thigh and it’s provocative and i like those tights not just because they are gold but because of that run, because of the way my skin insists through the fabric. i could have worn them to work today but i knew that i had to go to a meeting at the school district. i think it would be inappropriate, i think people would think all sorts of things: slut. weirdo. mess. she doesn’t belong here. what is she doing here? i have no idea where these thoughts come from but i know they are not my own. i carry a lot of things. (and i know i should know better.) i have tons of bags that i’ve never even looked through. i have bags inside bags inside bags. i have bags i have never even seen before, never even knew i had. but this is okay. i recently learned that this is okay. it’s okay not to know everything about yourself. it’s okay to be a little messy, it’s okay to make mistakes. i’ve been told these things many times but for some reason they never sink in. but some things do. and it’s interesting to think about what sinks in. what finds its way easily under my skin, what easily becomes a part of my heart and body muscles so that it takes years to come to realization when they are not my own. do you know why i like wearing gold? because it reminds me of my magic. it keeps me aware of what my truth is versus what is illusion, it helps me move through the world more as myself and less as who the world thinks i ought to be. what’s illusion are these black tights, these buildings propped up by their shadows. how strictly things need to be held together so they don’t unravel. i wear gold so that the totally oppressive absurdity of things feels that way instead of feeling like a truth i can’t break out of. and when i feel lonely and

infantile in my powerlessness i look down at the skin of my thigh insisting through that tender rageful rip i got from riding my bike fast into a cold winter night covered in stars and a waning moon and i think FUCK THAT SHIT. i cry into madness, into truth and i cry out of all that has died or that has been impossible. and i just explode. through the bottom of my belly. through my grief until it turns a black hole into stars. i explode!!! and it hurts so much to tear through oneself deeper into oneself, to become so goddamn expansive. to make new room in an old body. to become a light after darkness. but i just feel so deeply i explode. the wind and wildness and the ocean pull. i am pulled apart. i am pulled golden again.

wings you are unique as the butterfly stuttering in your throat held captive my insecurities youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been born into fluttering to speak rust-colored dust submits to the thick of your lip do not choke yourself. give breath to the winged creature whose prison is your esophagus allow her to come out release all that color see how beautiful you are

for our bodies: we heal from separation. we break what we spill over. we are never too much or not enough. we starve capitalism. we detoxify. we hold sacred our flesh.

PULSE for those we lost during the Pulse shooting in 2016. we call ourselves to dream higher than body we are light deeper than light we are sound fuller than sound we are song dancing out from the grave dancing each other alive again

home body i don’t want “queer” or “poc” / “qpoc” to feel like something i have to live up to

stretch myself into

feel shameful next to for the parts that

spill out.

i want my names to feel like a warm blanket

reflect

like the mirror of a kaleidoscope always a different shape and interaction of color on repetition

never hinging

for the sake of legibility and recognition.

before words are my body i am feeling (into) myself interrogating my desire taking power back shattered piece

curiously gender

sexuality

one small piece of glitter /

of light

at a time.

what being an ocean has taught me originally written for and published in MIXED UP: A Zine about Mixed Race Queer and Feminist Experience vol. 3 i’ve been carrying around this prompt about bridges with me for weeks now. taking it on walks. meditating with it in the bath. dreaming with it in my sleep. something about opening up and examining my experiences as a mixed-race person feels complicated. overwhelming. exhausting. i’ve started to write this piece at least three times now. not quite sure how to enter, not quite sure where to begin. this is a common feeling for me: not knowing how or where to begin. not knowing which point in the vast constellation to start from. not knowing which points to bend or to compromise, not knowing which points to include or leave out. this is what’s particularly overwhelming about being mixed-race, about the moment one asks me to describe my experiences as a mixed-race person. i am a whole thing yet the world understands and asks for me in pieces. the world wants to know just enough to be mystified, but not enough to fully see or feel me. it is across this fragmentation that i am asked to be a bridge. the appealing thing about a bridge is that it takes you from point A to point B. once you’re on the bridge, it’s easy to find your way to the other side: you just keep going straight. but the hard thing about bridges too, is that they take you from point A to point B. they take you from the beginning point to the end. they are linear. but life is not linear. time is not linear. being mixed-race is not a linear experience and i myself am not a linear thing. in the world i am asked to be linear. to choose a point A and point B to explain myself within. the world asks me to choose either / or. the world reminds me not to take up too much space. years ago, i was walking around lake merritt with a friend and we were talking about gender. how the gender spectrum is the current alternative to the

gender binary. i told them that i didn’t want a spectrum because a spectrum still feels too linear—i still have to place myself along a bridge between point A and B. and if we place each other on the spectrum, we still exist in a linear relationship to each other. you are closer to point A and i am closer to point B. i wanted something more expansive and multidimensional than a spectrum. like an ocean: vast, interconnected, and in motion. in an ocean, i am less likely to have to describe myself in relation to arbitrary points, in relation to point A and point B. instead, i have a wide and ever changing space to just describe myself within: i am this patch of deep sea that is now calm after a storm. or: i am this patch of warm water above a coral reef. or: i am floating beneath the stars. my experiences (like many and maybe all mixed people) have been less about some fantasy of multiculturalism and more about healing (from) intergenerational trauma. i grew up in a household created by my parents—a brown refugee father from viet nam, and a light-skinned immigrant mother from guadalajra, mexico. i was born eleven years after my parents came to the U.S., right after they moved to the suburbs of Los Angeles with my older sister. i grew up in a town of hyper-conservatism and white supremacy that acted like a pressure cooker for my family which was already steeped within layers and layers of familial, systemic, and intergenerational trauma. i grew up around a lot of adults who weren’t quite sure how to survive what they had been through. three women on both sides of my family have either attempted or have committed suicide. everyone has done the best they could. and as these traumas and struggles for aliveness continue to unfurl, everyone is doing the best they can. including myself. when i express a desire for wholeness, articulation, and existence, i mean it. not abstractly, but concretely. physically. linguistically. emotionally. spiritually. the world as it is makes it nearly impossible for complex, complicated, and multidimensional beings to exist in our entirety. so we use our superpowers to create space for our existence, we use our superpowers to find a way to be whole again. this is my / our magic: creating healing, connection, and home out of loss, fragmentation, and despair. even here,

through the microcosm of this story, i have been able to articulate a space for myself. i have been able to create a tiny pathway back towards myself and my own healing. sitting with this prompt about bridges, iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been able to realize just how much of my thinking about being mixed-race has ultimately revolved around being able to articulate myself to other people. contemplating questions like: how do i describe myself and who i am? which identity markers do i utilize, or not? how do i articulate myself so the other person will see and understand me? has ultimately led me down a pathway of silence and erasing my own expansiveness and complexity. i think of where i have come from and feel how urgent and necessary it is for me to honor the fullness of my aliveness. i know this is a process rather than a point. and that this process is more like being an ocean than a bridge. my / our aliveness is urgent and necessary which means i can no longer let myself only half-exist as a bridge bending across somebody elseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s point A to point B. so now, when someone asks me what i am or i feel unsure about my wholeness or where i come from, i will remember this: iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a star. i am a child of the sun and the earth and i am healing and finding my way back into my power. i am made of the memories of the earth and stories of my ancestors; in my heart is the vastness of the ocean, fields of flowers, and a sky full of stars. i take baths and lay in the moonlight to remember myself. and when my mind drops down into the space of my heart, i began to float through my own sea; i begin to feel my own rhythms and waves. i feel the fullness of both my sadness and my joy. and i continue to swim. i continue to make room.

mai c. doan is a poet and writer from Southern California. She has published and performed her work though the National Queer Arts Festival, Entropy Magazine, Mixed Up!: A Zine about Mixed Race Queer and Feminist Experience, RADAR Productions, and more. She holds an MFA from Mills College, where she attended as a Community Engagement Fellow. water/tongue (Omnidawn, 2019), her first full-length poetry collection, is a 2020 Lambda Literary Award nominee. She lives in Albuquerque, NM with her dog, Story.

For more: www.maicdoan.com / @maicdoan on IG Contact: hello@maicdoan.com

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This chapbook is dedicated to the past lovers who taught me about (my) desire. To my friends and loved ones who see me and believe in my work. To Ana Mendieta, Audre Lorde, Chavela Vargas, JT Tamayo, La Chica Boom, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, all of the artists that ever performed with Mangos con Chili, Pilar Albarracin, QWOCMAP, Sandra Cisneros and so many other black and brown queer, femme, and rebellious artists, dreamers, and creatorsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;thank you for the world(s) you create. And most of all, to our dreaming, desiring selves. May we love, center, and protect the dreamers whose dreams take the deepest and most radical work to femmifest.

This chapbook was created as a labor of love, with the intention of being freely shared and accessible. Please share it with others, if you are moved. If poems or excerpts are shared, please always include credit and acknowledgement. If you feel moved to offer a financial contribution to honor this femme labor of love, please make a meaningful contribution to any or all of the following groups: • • • •

Mariposa Fund Red Canary Song Survived & Punished Trans Justice Funding Project