“I feel like I should be imaginary.”

I stop myself before I send the text. I can see that it’s not a fair thing to put on someone else and besides, underneath the words, I feel something else stirring.

Some people like to say that some emotions are secondary. As an example, you may feel angry that your cat knocked over your grandfather’s ashes, but what’s really under there is sadness and a feeling of guilt that you hadn’t put them somewhere safer.

Oftentimes this is illustrated with an iceberg. We can see those secondary emotions in the visible portion of the iceberg. Behaviors that come from it are obvious. But the true emotion is lurking underwater, invisible to the naked eye.

So in this vein, an emotion that gets expressed by “I feel like I should be imaginary” is like a klaxon alarm for the ship captain. There are big things coming. Listen to these feelings.

The void is calling.

As a trans man who has been raped, during this battle over Kavanaugh I feel like my voice is needed but I also feel obligated to pass the mic to women.

Every day my emotions eat my insides into a raw goo. and I find I’m held together by spite and optimism.

So I will listen to my voice, and I will listen to the void, for they give me warnings about what I need to work on next.

I will not fear speaking, for one more voice among millions is how the world is shaped by the resonance.

Here is a poem for Dr. Ford.

Viscerally
in the mucosa
of the brain stem,
somewhere in the
lizard brain,
I get it-
and I hope
she finds peace
from the memories
while we all
get to live in
the retraumaery
and the harsh grim reality
that speaking her truth
barely slowed
them down
except now
more of us see
and with
that knowing
comes action.