Closer Than Rust
June 17th
Vespa Tsang
June 17th. 12:30pm
I'm looking at this building and she shows me all these things.
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
Behind me is a gigantic cemetery.
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
I walk through the glass and up to an open plot.
I see blood run down my arms and I know it's mine. It's mine because I'm American. It's mine because this is my story. My arms are Black and white and brown and tan and yellow and olive and freckled and old and young and the blood is pouring and oozing and falling and then... it's all gone. Dried up. I stand, like a zombie - bloodless and blue.
The blood has been let.
A red, oozing pond of bubbles glows before me. With my small, blue hands, I begin to push the dirt over it, chunks of earth falling into this gurgling lava-pool.
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
When I was first coming out, I read a story in which all the gay people turned blue for a day. On that day, gay people could physically recognize one another. And of course, there were shades - a spectrum of sexual orientation glowing over each skeleton. Identity: Revealed.
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
What if that part of my identity - my sexuality - wasn't invisible?
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
What if racial identity was?
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
What if the "blue" could signify a person's commitment to acknowledging - and transcending, perhaps - a shared history. An empathy. And cultural memory. Not race, specifically, not one's own, but the visibility of... something else...
What was that poem... "forget I'm Black and never forget I'm Black"? Yes. Something like that. For each of us.
Never forget I'm something.
Never forget... we all are.
Maybe one's "blueness," then, would be a cultural indicator, broadcasting to the world the extent to which we can or cannot acknowledge this... that we each carry stories within us... and they're shaped by many things... our intersecting identities... our individual, irreplaceable uniqueness... our cultural heritage... and where we find ourselves in time... and where we find ourselves in general.
Maybe one's blueness represents a commitment to loving each other and the world, to honoring each skin and the stories that inhabit it.
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
Maybe.
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
I like to think so, but then again, my Zombie-flesh is blue right now - and don't we all like to think of ourselves as freedom fighters? World-changers?
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
Sure, we do.
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
What if blue just signifies lack of commitment - a propensity to flutter like a humming bird, from this opportunity to that one, never settling, sucking nectar from flower after flower after yet-another-new-flower but never coming home to roost... what is home, anyway?
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
And with that, the building pulls me back.
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
I stand before her.
The cemetery is gone. The sky is blue, and my skin is not. Birds chirp - The afternoon is idyllic in a way that's almost cliche. A beautiful, sunny Southern day.
"I have seen your story," the building whispers. "And you have seen mine."
"The teaching is done."
Clouds drift through the sky. The building, herself, takes a breath.
"I am not the one for you," she says. "A new flower will call to you soon. But you will never forget the things you have learned here - all that you have seen, said, done, not done, all of it."
"It is not a bad thing," she says, "to be a humming bird."
PRIVATE -
Unposted
June 17th. 12:30pm
PRIVATE -
Pending approval
------
June 17th. 6:30pm
#hummingBird
PUBLIC -
Posted
- 122 people like this -
33 shares
------
June 17th. 7:35pm
Wait... what... what just happened?
PUBLIC -
Posted
- 5 people like this -
0 shares
June 17th. 7:35pm
Wait... what?! 122 people
#liked
this?? Hello? Who are you? You can hear me?
PUBLIC -
Posted
- 5 people like this -
1 share
June 17th. 7:35pm
#canYouHearMeNow
?
PUBLIC -
Posted
- 87 people like this -
11 shares
June 17th. 7:37pm
I feel like a ghost - re-birthed in the cemetery, perhaps...?
PUBLIC -
Posted
- 1 person like this -
2 shares
June 17th. 7:39pm
I'm online!
PUBLIC -
Posted
- 514 people like this -
187 shares
June 17th. 7:39pm
!!!!!
PUBLIC -
Posted
- 572 people like this -
891 shares
June 17th. 7:41pm
I post therefore I am!
PUBLIC -
Posted
- 303 people like this -
212 shares
June 17th. 7:43pm
Bring me some
#celebrity #gossip
-
@PhilanCoffee
#updates
-
headlineNews
!
PUBLIC -
Posted
- 73 people like this -
17 shares
June 17th. 7:43pm
What is going on in the world outside of
Georgia
?! I'm dying to know!
PUBLIC -
Posted
- 29 people like this -
12 shares