Practice
BY MICHAELA
I have been taking a break from my personal reading as I have been loaded up with course readings, which are dense but just as interesting.
I probably should note that I am taking a variety of intro classes, but I am most interested, I think, in studying public policy and the newly formed gender studies.
So, basically, all I do is read and write!
I’m learning so much in and out of the classroom.
Exploring so much. I have been reading bell hooks, Judith Butler, and one person I have really been enjoying, Audre Lorde.
In one of my classes we are reading Sister Outsider.
The most intriguing are the zines I have come across.
There is something raw and real about the zines, like they are the soul of our queer community.
As I try to work through my list of dreams, these texts make me believe they are attainable.
Like I am learning and unlearning all at the same time.
It is all confusing, illuminating, and wonderful.
I will never get over these brave texts we have access to, and I can’t help but think about who I would be if I’d had these growing up, whether at home or in school.
But, my parents wouldn’t have permitted it—in their home, where the Bible was law, I can see them petitioning for the school to have such books banned.
God forbid I learn who I am if who I am isn’t within their worldview.
Academic reading offers theory, the zines give me real life, and now, I am going to tell you about the practice.
I have been kissed. And I don’t mean “kissed,” I mean KISSED.
Someone kissed me, she kissed me like I mattered.
It’s my first kiss. Whatever I was doing before wasn’t this.
It was also my first kiss as Michaela, my first kiss with a woman.
I’d always had a thing for women but whenever I got close to them, I would have this odd feeling.
The idea of being presented with another woman’s body, one not like mine, would unleash a ball of emotions that I now can put a name to, thanks to my work here: dysphoric.
But this stirred nothing in me except desire. It was my first kiss where I wanted another. And another. And another.
I wrote my list of dreams in an order that I thought I had read or watched a thousand times. A person starts out with their family, then they grow and meet other people. A fleeting glance turns into a date, a date into a kiss, a kiss into an everlasting love, sex and marriage. Happily ever after.
I did start with friends and think our relationship has really taken root and can turn into a really strong family.
I am hopeful about that. But that’s as far as I got before everything flew out of order.
One thing no academic book or zine prepared me for was desire.
Sure, desire appears in the books I have read.
In Stone Butch Blues, desire is cautious, interrupted, and careful.
In Gilda Stories, it is shown, taught, and evolutionary.
What I didn’t know is that my desire is a predator that has apparently been stalking me and led me into an ambush.
That kiss tore something in me open, leaving a gaping hole looking to be filled.
The kisser in question, I will not name, but she’s just incredible.
She makes me feel like anything is possible.
I have never ever felt as light as I did when kissing her.
And that’s also it. If it wasn’t crystal clear to me before it is now: I love women.
I want to be with women. I want to kiss women.
Do more than kiss women. And I have never felt the rush of passion and desire like I do now.
I have started noticing women everywhere, differently somehow, like a film or lens has been lifted from my eyes.
The rush is from that heady feeling we don’t always get to feel: possibility. My kisser gave it to me.
But, alas, the kiss was a practice kiss.
Something done after a night of fun in a moment so small but instantly burst into something so big—for me.
I doubt she even thinks about it. Do I want her to think about it?
This is the thing about going out of order.
I have no idea what’s next on the list. But recently I did tell a friend that I’d let it flow.
Just let go
Let it flow, let it flow, let it flow
Everything's gonna work out right
You know?
Obviously they are a Toni Braxton fan, and honestly? Who isn’t? I certainly am, in more ways than one now.