a rant about my body
By Tahirah Alexander Green
when i was little a friend told me i cuss too much. before i went to the private school my mother told me not to use slang anymore. my aunt once threatened to stab me if i did not speak. as a joke.
my lowest grades from kindergarten through grad school were always class participation. i was too quiet. too shy. i was an anxious wreck without a diagnosis or accommodations. i was a survivor of child abuse. i was an expert of secrets. i worry i can’t write how i talk or talk how i write or talk how i was raised or talk how i talk.
the voice is the part of the body that scares me the most.
i sound black girl, i sound nigga, i sound white girl, i sound dc, i sound pg, i sound american,
i sound my father, i sound my mother, i sound my grandmother, i sound my friend, and my other friend, and my other friend, and i sound my sister, and my brother, and i sound academic, and i sound non-profit professional, and i sound artist, and i sound radical, and i sound ho, and i sound nerd, and i sound bitch, and i sound millennial, i sound child, and i sound old soul, and i sound dyke, and i sound they/them pronouns, and i sound like i’ve assimilated so many times, and i sound like i’ve changed, but you can never get the hard d out of my tongue with certain t’s.
i want to love my voice or at least be cordial. don’t want to hear myself and wince. don’t want to be surprised when someone says they liked my reading. because how could someone enjoying hearing
me make sounds for that long? what is it you hear? can y’all show me?
sometimes you need to be shown. so i asked how to have love and compassion for my physical body. community said to talk to this body like a friend. make art of this body. thank this body celebrate this body, forgive this body. touch this body. get this body emdr.
i want to be pissed at my body. but i guess i’ll forgive it. forgive it for that time i poured 750ml of gin down my throat while watching that documentary about the famous one who died tragically, while i was grieving. forgive how often i didn’t bathe it when i was depressed, leaving snot stains and food remnants on our clothes. forgive how many cavities i got cause i was too lazy to brush my teeth and only ate sugar for meals. forgive the suicide attempts. brain is body too.
body, let’s learn to love us. turn trauma from inward to…to…to something different. something where the black queer loves themself, not because i have to.
i want to love.
Tahirah Alexander Green (they/them) is a queer, Black, nonbinary literary artist based in Washington DC. They are committed to celebrating Black queer weirdos in their work by crafting stories that nourish, heal, or disrupt. They are a 2021 DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Fellow, 2021 Tin House Fellow, 2020 Hurston/Wright workshop participant, and 2019 Lambda Literary Fellow. Their work has appeared in The Rumpus, Electric Literature, Black Youth Project, and more.