gendered

love by sara barber

in sixth grade I was terrified to have my name associated with anything gay. when I came out six years later, or rather came into what I knew would make this brain+body tender, my grandmother asked me why I chose queer as an identifier when she only knew it as a pejorative. Queer has indicated the unexplored and undefinable, and my queer identity has been a blend this kind of pleasure and pain, or perhaps feeling joy despite the demand to feel shame. these photographs explore the beauty of queer intimacy - within ourselves, our self-determined family, and our broader community - with aims to both normalize this existence with those unfamiliar, while standing in arms with those who comprehend this lifelong experience.

if this body were more chiseled blue-boy, there would be less bruise beaten into these round chest bones, less curved eyes around bodacious thighs.

in its place, more muscle making fist out of palm. more wrestled in the promise of what the past has to offer. no conditioned sentiments, only bundles of limitless options.

CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE

tell me about your universe before we bang. do you hold your breath the same way your mother held you? there must be the body and then what becomes of it. I exited the womb weak and I do not know the words to apologize to my mother for the world saying she had to be small.

if you tell me your gender, I will say mine is all the ways in which I have become. this is what I’m not supposed to write down but what continues to exude from my lady parts. the ones I’ve been told to keep private, crossed legged, hiding shaven, coated pretty in pink. what I’m trying to tell you is when you touch me, try not to see the woman the world wants me to be. envelop me like meteoroids crashing through earth’s atmosphere. let us erupt somewhere our parents never explored.

OUR SOON-TO-BE VICE-PRESIDENT aligns himself with conversion therapy and the girl I’ve been loving rises over the pre-election night and jokes how we should enjoy our last time before we’re captured in the morning. unlike the moon beckoning light through my dorm window, I am unphased. no shock sparks my surprise because of Matthew Shepard’s in America and Zelim Bakaev’s throughout Chechnya and this stunning girl’s hair glistens lighter than the moon outside, brighter than the day in which we will wake in the morning. when the sun rises my love will feel heavier, even more politicized because of people with power who could end my kind of intimacy

when she says to forget, drizzle her honeycomb curls in regret. say: this hive has been empty an evening but your silk skin has enveloped me like infinity. she knows this intimacy is wrist-slapping, eternal damnation wrong, and your kiss won’t convince her mother god’s not stronger.

say: hallelujah, queen bee, you have taken all of me and returned this lust back to sender. if she thinks of you, I hope she hasn’t named your memory shame.