whose body is this.

I am working on an academic-ish paper on the ways language holds its breath as though it is waiting to identify itself within the moment of exhale. As though it is building and marinating within its bones until it is ready to announce its sexuality and gender. Basically, how language becomes us and how we embody language.

I am still…….coming out. 

I realize this with each poem, each sneeze, each incorrect labeling of who I am by a stranger and one who (thinks they) know me.

I am still…….coming out.

I am careful with my pronouns of others, knowing how frustrated I feel when someone calls me miss or ma’am or pretty or words than are not necessarily a pronoun but they are gendered; in 2014, I believe we need to start thinking of humans as more than just gender markings. We cannot be placed into pink and blue boxes anymore.

I am still…….coming out.

There is a human who regularly holds my hand who reminds me that my body is like a carousel that is turning and making music and sometimes my shape changes and that’s ok and if tomorrow I call myself something else, I will still be loved.

I am still…….coming out.

I don’t need to understand all of this. I just need to keep moving along the path of picking it apart as though it really is music. And even if all the chords remain the same, if I experiment with the strumming pattern, suddenly I have a new song. Suddenly, I have many songs on and in this body.

I am still…….coming out.

There are so many ellipses inside us that sometimes we forget to be okay with this continuation of body. We long for that end.

Some of us feel ready for the period, while others need to investigate longer, commit to a few trial runs or test out different elixirs in order to feel closer to what all of this is called.

I am still…….coming out. I am still arriving at my clarified footnote. Take your time while working on yours.