A Triptych on My Queerness

triptych.jpg

[I] Comin in (tuh) one sissy body,

in duh beginning/ it was’n a sure ting:

Muh auntie still does tell duh story/

She say/ I grow up like a plant/

wil’/

stretchin’

‘ery which way

always

movin’

toward light

not just any light

like one dat direct traffics

or duh light-walls

of muh childhood room

yellow like Long Island girts .

I was runin’/

for muh own light

rushin’/ one ramshackle rhythm

turnin’ muh body

into duh first lap on Junkanoo.

It was a ting/

vision it/ jus’ so/

all muh queerness

bus’ right out

runin tru’ duh road.

From den/

e’rry time

I hear music

I pitch up/

ready tuh run wil’

[II] From the back of my mom’s Honda,

I could remember the lights

on the street, dancing just for me.

The querness used to fall out of me

I couldn’t get it out quick enough

This is why I never should have decided to like man.

That’s what I used to say

before I learned

how to love/ This body,

that loves (other) me(n).

This was long before I

decided to bleach

the colour from-out my hair

and let it spring back

cherry-petals crownin

brownin’ soil to acceptance

Back before I knew

my obsession

with the son of

my mother's best friend

was a crush.

I used to fall

in love

with all the boys then

dancing without caring who saw.

[III]

Even after all these years

I still scared to say these words in public,

still caustous

to let Gay spilt my teeth open.

they thought I was growing into some strange queer creature,

some unknown creation. Even I didn’t know

what I was becoming

but I grew

grown up

and up

into a

yellow-red

of

poinciana

royal.

Ide Thompson

(He/him) Ide Amari Thompson is a senior at the University of The Bahamas studying English and History. His work tends to focus on questions of place and person, identity and what it means to personally and socially inhabit different shifting ideas and circles. He grapples with questions of colonialism, independence, nation, identity and love. His primary medium is written works, particularly poetry. His written work has appeared in the PREE online journal, the first issue of Onyx magazine in 2018 a creative journal for diasporic black writers based in the UK and in the NE9 exhibition “The Fruit & The Seed” and “ REFUGE” (2019) both exhibited by the National Art Gallery Of the Bahamas. He also was a participant in the NAGB’s DoubleDutch exhibition “Hot Water” In 2018.

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