Category: Bodies

Discover what our bodies have to say in the Bodies issue! Take time to reflect on the effects that culture, society, time and sexuality all have on our bodies. To get started, take a look at the Letter from the Editor/Table of Contents!

Sip

jayy dodd

Come here boy, my bitter cup of coffee

awake aromatic senses as I sip slowly your letters ‘bout love, lips, and sin

as my breath, boy, meets your fire, heating my desire, I feel your touch in my gut dispersing through my body, boy, like desperate darts, dashing by danger signs. Read More

skin, queer brown muddy kid,

Skin

Travis Alabanza

From the age my eyes grew ears, I can remember my mind associating anything to do with our bodies with skin. There were no arms, no legs, no face structure or elbow joints- just skin. Everyone became a colour, ascribed to them so carelessly by me, and that was all they were. “You are brown muddy boy”. “You are pale pink girl”. “He is porcelain white”. And that was all there was. I didn’t see the depth in their eyes, the dips in their soul or the grit in their teeth- just their skin. Travis Alabanza, a self-defined “muddy brown boy”, at the age of 8- defined bodies by their skin. Read More

shifting seas, seen(s) and scenes

Geoffrey Wilson

i get misgendered but also misraced. if “gendering” a person involves applying a gender assumption  like man or woman, then “race-ing” a person involves applying a radicalized assumption like black, white, asian, native and so on. “misraced” refers to the act of making a falsified racialized assumption. often i am misunderstood, misinterpreted and misplaced. i am racially identified to be ethnically misaligned and gender assigned to be temporarily displaced. Read More

queer prism rainbow white light

Finding the White Witch In Queer and Trans Youth of Color

Nate Faulk

The color white is often referred to as the source of pureness, cleansing, hope, and good… while the color black has been synonymous with evil, filth, and corruption. Keep in mind this is a certain type of thinking, which doesn’t necessarily make it everyone’s truth. Many people uphold the color black as a core of equality and strength, and in the same breath will hold white to malevolence, dullness, and oppression. Even more so, there are people who think both black and white work together as agents of love. The only reason I mention this is to point out my own struggle with the term “white witch” and how I came to use the term in my day to day work. Read More