Hey friends. This past week was… a lot. I’m still processing, and I hope you like some of my thoughts.
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Sunday, I got a poem published about my name and how transitioning from one name to another has been a big deal for me. There are many ways of transitioning — in the confines of gender and otherwise. In 2018 I moved to Austin, left my first long-term relationship, started therapy, loc’ed my hair, and started going exclusively by KB/using they/them pronouns. Before I knew what they meant, I made a lot of life-long committments: to queerness, transness, estrangement from family/familiarity, and my body as I know it today. In 2018, I started a transition that didn’t become visible to others (and myself) until April 2020, in the belly of a pandemic when I went through with the biggest most expensive surgery ever so I could have a flat chest. As a kid, I always pictured myself as the “man” in a romantic relationship with a girl that I was too scared to approach in real-life. I’ve been processing all of the changes and the overt transition that exists with changing your name.
I think this poem is a start. FREEDOM HOUSE (my poetry book that drops with Deep Vellum in 2023) will be the end.
I’m still processing…
Monday, I got another poem published about speaking to a friend of mine that doesn’t exist on this side of the earth anymore. Dealing with the loss — especially sudden, self-determined loss — of a person you talked to every day for at least 7 years of your life is rough at best. Mind-altering and heart-breaking at worst. I lost one of my soulmates back in 2016 and everything the world does has had a new wash since then; again, this poem is only a beginning of those thoughts. VINTAGE (a poetry book I’m currently writing) will be the end.
I miss him, and I’m still processing…
The day after that, I got a piece published in Teen Vogue (which still feels surreal to say) on why coming out isn’t an option for me. A day before it dropped, I actually told myself I will come out to family as trans because I don’t want the legacy of my life to be remembered as anything that wasn’t queer, trans, Black, disabled, and me in every way that I was here. I’ve built a whole new person that is a me my family doesn’t recognize, and when I’m not here anymore (because I’m not married to my partner) they will be the first to know. I remember going to my soulmate’s funeral and feeling disconnected from everything I knew of him when he was here. It was religious, with a backdrop of all the shit we despised because his family didn’t know him like I did. I remember also being with his two other best friends and feeling sick. We saw a funeral for a man we didn’t know; in a way, that made grief a lot thicker.
So I’m putting myself in harm’s way because I have the privilege to. I’m still processing the weight of those words.
**
On paper, this was the best week of my life. The poems performed well on social media, I’ve gotten nothing but rave reviews on the essay from strangers and friends alike, even an old professor reminded me that I learned e-poetry in his class and commended me for sticking with it; this is all on the first week of me being self-employed. I have another essay that’s supposed to go live sometime this week with a big outlet that agreed to pay me $800 (the most I’ve ever been offered for prose alone). Success feels good inside.
Tuesday, when my first poem was getting tons of clicks on socials, I woke up with the worst pain that I’ve felt in my life. It felt like my back was being pinched with needles and static; I almost couldn’t sit up.
I wish it was the first time, but on-and-off all year, this static and needle-like pain has glued me to the bed like stars in the sky. The time before this was in September, when the flu took me out of commission for 7 days and nights. I went to a bootleg chiropractor since it was up the street from my house. I told myself if it happened again, I would bite the bullet and see an orthopedic doctor.
Reader, the bullet bit me instead.
Luckily, they could get me in within 24 hours. I entered the place and was misnamed (typical). A few minutes after I told the reception desk my name and pronouns, they took me to a room with a gigantic machine and monitors. The lady handling this scifi contraption was nice enough; she told me to pose in awkward, stiff positions and I did. She also asked me at length about my pain — some questions I hadn’t heard in my life — and offered me a private room to change into some paper-pants. Once I was in my silly get-up I sat and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Eventually a white woman appears timidly and highlights my X-rays on a screen.
Spondylethesis, she says. I sit in shock, sadness, and worry.
It is a condition that occurs in about 4-6% of adults, and it is often due to aging and playing sports when young. It exacerbates when you have weak core muscles, and the need for surgery is about 10%. As the woman talks to me I zone in and out of consciousness. What about touring? What about being self-employed? How much will this condition cost me — my money, my body, my time? What do I do if it doesn’t get better? Nobody has answers yet. Just expenses and pamphlets.
I’m still processing this news.
Once I leave the office and pay my copay, I’m having a hard time knowing how to feel. Am I allowed to catastrophize based on being closer to a disability? Am I allowed to be upset, angry at myself for not doing something sooner? Was it basketball, or lack of exercise, or poor posture that caused this? Was it one incident or multiple? It’s hard to give yourself grace when the world doesn’t stop. It’s even harder to feel positive about the future when our bodies do what they want, when they want without your input?
This was the worst week that I’ve had in months.
I go home and confide in my partner and friends. I drink water and continue to type from the almost-comfort of my bed. The woman gave me a sticky note with the name, Spondylethesis, written in red and I choose to not google it for today. I do all that I can to tuck it inside the back of my brain, after all, I still have things to do. People to see in zoom meetings and the like.
Friday, I get in the car and get ready to go to the food truck my partner and I pledge allegiance to. It’s become something like a ritual — finish all work around 3 and get the yummiest vegan food you’ll ever eat in your life. Though I got the unfavorable news about my back, I genuinely have started feeling more positive by 3pm Friday. And then I get an email that reads this:
I'm so sorry for not getting back to you sooner, and thank you for your work on this! Reading it over again, I'm a little worried that the personal experiences you include seem incongruous to Broadwater’s, which makes it hard for the central argument to come through with the emotion it needs for this piece to land. I'm sorry, this is something I should have thought about before, and talked through with you before the drafting stage; this is a tricky piece to pull off, and it's my fault for not being more attentive to that. We could pay you a 25% kill fee of $200. Again, thank you for the work you put into this!
Before I can even read it again, I feel the pit of my stomach churn.
**CONTENT WARNING: MENTION OF RAPE**
For context: I wrote a vulnerable, hard-to-even-write essay about America’s issue with masculinity. It circles Anthony Broadwater, a Black man who spent 16 years in prison and 23 years trying to get exonerateed for the rape of Alice Sebold. I wrote about how, one year into my hormonal transition, I’m noticing how differently people treat me now that I’m perceived in the gender-ignorant eye as a Black man. I also referenced research and details about the case that relate to the plight of all Black masculinized people, and it was canned/I lost $600 because my experiences are “incongruous”.
This is the worst week of my life.
Because I’ve been a writer that participates in traditional publishing, I’ve been rejected a million times for things. Every week of the year I likely get rejected for at least one poetry thing; it’s no big deal to me at all. This rejection, however, hurt immensely for multiple reasons: 1) it was accepted as a pitch and then my second draft was rejected after 5 days of radio silence from the editor, 2) I spent maybe 3 hours writing and editing this piece in immense pain, 3) in the draft, I shared things I’ve never shared before — around Blackness, transness, and masculinity from a queer lens, 4) the first draft was called “moving” and “nicely-written”. To be told, after what feels like an emotionally-everywhere week, that a personal narrative that I was really proud of wasn’t good enough for publication because my personal experience of masculinity is vaguely “incongruous” to a Black man’s is….. a lot. It’s also a lot to think I was paying rent with some money and not getting it.
Initially I responded and guaranteed that I could make the piece better if I was given actual direction, but I ultimately expressed that I felt invalidated, confused, and disappointed at the decision to kill my story. This is not a thing I do often (if at all), but the decision REALLY didn’t sit right with me. Afterwards, the EIC got on the thread and did the damage-control “this isn’t about your identity” thing. Even if I believed that this decision wasn’t about my transness, it still felt like a waste of my time.
I’m still processing the choices I made and the choices they made in this interaction. I’m still processing my back pain and recovery plan. I’m still processing my coming out, my friend’s death, my (pending) second coming out, the everyday perils of being Black/queer/trans/a spectacle and so much more that I can’t even name since I don’t want this to be a thesis. It’s all too much for me to hold.
**
It’s Sunday now. A new week has started and I’m still feeling all the sharp needles, static, and emotions of last week. In one life, I would’ve retreated to my room, unable to move out of one spot for hours at a time, but today — one now-deleted twitter rant and multiple streams of consciousness later — I’m writing this entry to you. I’ve sent my essay to some places; if it doesn’t land anywhere by Wednesday, I’ll just post it here and hope that it gets to who needs it. I’ve decided to take the rest of the year off of every social media platform unless I’m using it to call friends and there aren't any other options (love u Jazzy <3). I’ve decided to start PT next week, continue to go to therapy (every Wednesday at 12pm), use the tools for managing stress that I have (sorry @ my therapist), and live as long as I can. I’ll still be organizing my tour and taking bookings and general messages at my website.
It’s all I can do. That and process with myself & care networks that have my best interest at heart.
In the time that I’m not scrolling, I hope to be reading, writing into this newsletter/my projects-in-progress, and working on myself. I’m trying, even on the worst weeks that seem like the best weeks if you look at the bylines alone. I’m falling flat on my face, publicly, in hopes to get closer to you.
And me for that matter. It helps to get this out. In the words of one of my favorite rappers right now, I need to let it out.
**
That’s it, yall! Oof. Send me money if you’re feeling it lol (cash app, venmo, paypal). I appreciate you for reading.
Love, peace, & chicken grease,
KB
Image credits: Sivana East