…the body is of foremost concern—whether it’s a woman’s body in wartime, the trans body, or the undocumented one. Perhaps our proximity to the border serves to remind us how the body under surveillance—the body whose legitimacy is constantly in question—must find simple acts of resistance to survive. Witnessing, creating, and retelling our histories keeps the body front and center…and makes space for new dreams for the future.
—Denise Uyehara
There is no passport for this. We are already stamped without that rectangular book with our code(s) inside. What defines this body as legitimate. What reminds those looking through the cracks of our skin that this can be believed. When there is not enough movement, do the bones forget their aim; do they rot. This survival can be called Monday or diagnosis or gender non-comforming or muscularity of breaths. Resistance arrives when we have run out of vocabulary. So we read. So we echo the incantations of others who are outlasting these wars and painting out the torture of their endurance. As bodies, we can be spectators and we can be testifiers. Here is the moment we decide our deposition.
Aimee Herman 