Flying High on the Side
I don’t go dancing
not because I’m not good at it,
but because I haven’t yet had an experience
of being respected, overtly, for putting my best foot forward.
I don’t go drinking for simpler reasons:
not because I’m not Kristang, or not Portuguese-Eurasian,
but because I don’t like it.
I don’t like the taste of alcohol, and don’t respect it
because it feels, to me, like I am drinking psychoemotional petrol,
and pouring fire on scars that are already burning.
And besides,
drinking, smoking, vaping, drugs:
there’s a better way to reach the serene, and the unconscious,
and that’s called individuation. Not a flex;
just what I’ve understood from hundreds of thousands of microaggressions
and very little liquor, and a heck lot of poems, and profile views.
The point is this, anyway: that there is a use
in not just having your own point of view,
but staying true to it. Honouring what you always knew
you didn’t like, and why; and understanding when, and why
your boundaries can be renegotiated, and refined
further. There are some things I’ve never tried,
like killing someone, or wakeboarding, or raw sushi, or being bi,
and those are all different things, with different degrees of goodness and badness.
Different degrees to which they can be brought to Life.
And you know what this means?
Enough space to know when I’m part of the group,
and when I ride freely, and alone, and with pride:
because I know who I am,
and I never fail to understand
why sometimes I do or die,
and sometimes—
most times, actually—
I really honestly fucking don’t give a damn
and go and live in my own beautiful, tremendously fantastic way;
I make a living, and turn it up to nine quadrillion and sixty.
After all
I didn’t not kill myself and survive
to be a beast of burden.
I bested it all inside
so that I would always have the choice
about how I wanted to design my own heaven:
about exactly how I wanted to dream big, and make it bigger, and thrive.