your Pride can & will be a beautiful & meaningful one—even if the foursomes aren’t happening or the dates aren’t happening or the dms aren’t bursting or the calls aren’t coming through or the texts have gone silent or you’ve lost interest in grindr or hinge or lex or you are your own dance partner at the queer function or nothing lesbian happens to you this year or no t4t makeouts enter your orbit or sexual attraction and/or activity is nonexistent or accessible, clean air, masked events for Pride are nonexistent.

still:

may your hips groove freely to Black gay house jams—even if only in your room.

may your fits always feel like the perfect fit.

may you receive your flowers for consistently serving your community with your magnetic aura.

may your mind expand with big queer thoughts, theories, imaginations.

may you connect with living and dead queer/transcestors through their own words or their own images.

may you write your own interdisciplinary narrative with ease & clarity.

may you feel free enough to try on new pronouns or aesthetics. may you be fiercely protected in them.

may you be protected by your resounding refusal, your cunty steadfastness, your mandatory authenticity.

may being vulnerable (derogatory) never find you.

may choosing vulnerability (positive) set you free.

may you feel compelled to chase after “your own lush self.”1

may you still experiment with living an erotic and somatically-sound life; it is your only one, wild and precious.2

I saw two posts on Instagram the other day that I really enjoyed. They were both explaining how Butchness has absolutely nothing to do with men (I agree.) They both conflated “masc” as just presentation-based. To be clear, these two posts featured white butch lesbian perspectives. As someone in a non-white, T4T relationship, where we’re both thinking about our relationship to lesbianism culturally as a transsexual who used to ID as lesbian (him) & a transgender who never felt attached or attracted to womanhood to ever ID as lesbian but who has always felt a kinship with parts of lesbianism culturally (me.)

I am a Black femme. My partner identifies as transmasc in their gender identity, never as a trans man. I think “femme” and “masc” for us extend far beyond presentation and expression only—especially as two people who love dressing up based on themes and vibes that fuck with traditional expressions of “feminine” or “masculine” dress and who are adamant in providing equitable care experiences in our relationship with each other and others.

In this new queer community, I’ve heard conflations of “femme” identity with “fem” (imo, usually cis lesbian lingo) , which are then conflated with those who put undue pressure on gender role expectations in butchxfem(me)/mascxfemme relations. All of this gets wrapped up in femininity and/or womanhood.

I’m not trying to negate the experiences of binary queer and trans fem(mes), dismiss those who identify with conventional presentations, or lighten the burden of mascs and butches of color being victimized by femme presenting or identifying folks (which happens way more than you might think.) Instead, I wanted to create a space for a perspective that hasn’t gotten much attention.

I am both agender and Black femme is my gender identity. The term “femme,” for me, is not inherently connected to femininity or womanhood at all.

My femme is directly connected to my living and dead ancestors, who relied on “beauty [as] a method1,” adornment as conjure, as survival, as belonging, as becoming.

My femme is directly connected to the racialized gendered violence I am inherently subjected to due to the conditions of the world I live in. My femme is directly connected to my inaccess to womanhood, manhood, and humanity as defined and denied by the transatlantic slave trade; I cannot reclaim what was never made for me. I cannot become what I will never be.

My femme is directly tied to implicit expectations of me—especially in queer society. My femme is directly tied to (un)desirability, to vulnerability, to inheritance—good or bad. My femme is directly tied to excess and to scarcity. My femme is directly tied to abundance. My femme is directly tied to empathy as well as disconnection. My femme is directly tied to understanding and refusing to forgive. My femme is directly tied to the experiences of Black women and gender expansive Black folks of all presentations, diasporically. Unfortunately, my femme is directly tied to capitalism, to low mortality, to neglect, to comorbidities of pain.

My femme is disconnected from womanhood and femininity. My femme has no expectations of what is traditional or proper. My femme isn’t inherently gifted at care and nurturing bonds. My femme doesn’t know what to say other than how they really feel. My femme doesn’t like the color pink. My femme recognizes that though it lacks “humanity,” it is still deserving of care, respect, love, and understanding. My femme loves to talk about poop and the other things our bodies do that often inspire shame. My femme refuses to be shamed. My femme wears thongs as drag. My femme wears oversized white tees as drag. My femme wears big ole hoop earrings as altar.

My femme wants gender affirming surgeries they can’t afford. My femme wants to medically transition in a way that hasn’t yet been invented yet. My femme wants a deeper voice, contrary to popular belief. My femme grows long nails for defense and as a canvas. My femme experiments with their hair, not to feel more feminine, but to become anew. My femme jingles, jangles, click clacks when they walk for energy clearing. My femme doesn’t shave. My femme only removes body hair in an alienbeing kind of way (and to watch it all grow back.) My femme struggles with personal hygiene and walking in heels. My femme doesn’t expect non-reciprocal care and devotion. My femme loves baggy pants and hates bras and also realizes how unimportant that information is to their understanding of gender. My femme has dysphoria more often than not, but chooses to dress it up as shrine anyway. My femme is directly tied to my magic, play, and pleasure. My femme is directly tied to what feels good in my spirit and on my tongue.

Nothing my femme does is for men. Nothing my femme does is for women, either. Everything my femme does is for my spirit, my spirits, my kin, my joy, my muse, my vitality, my resistance. Everything my femme does is for our spirits, our kin, our vitality, our resistance. Everything my femme is and does is for, and of, us.2

There’s a time in the night at every party when things get really hot and heavy…for everyone else it seems. My sweat belongs only to myself. The back of my thighs stick to the vinyl of my seat inbetween chair twerks. The small of my waist stays untouched. The nape of my neck cold—no lips or breath dare stray. My hands, purple and white like a homicide victim on a true crime procedural. With money I absolutely do not have, I buy myself (and others—in a sad, sad bid for connection) drinks at the bar. Or, I arrive with a mixed liquor drink and snack smuggled from home, with the anticipation that I won’t be able to afford anything on the menu and that no one will likely offer to buy me a drink out of the blue.

This year, living in a new city, I’ve been trying to make up for what the pandemic stole from me. For the first time since I was 25, I’ve been finding myself outside on weekends—masked up at my friend’s dj sets and functions, outside at summer dance parties, or at the rare COVID-conscious house gathering. I was amongst the people in ways that I’d formerly been substituting with bingewatching TikToks of young adults going out to dinner or drinks; with multiple reality shows highlighting the lifestyles of the rich and unbothered; with pre-9/11 & pre-2020 sitcoms showcasing young people in their true forms—hot, confused, and alive.

For the first time in years, I’ve been styling “going out clothing” again. I am spending so much time getting ready that I’m often one of the last people to arrive to the function. It’s been fun to experiment with outfit formulas that aren’t my usual, oversized stay-at-home clothes and flirt with various degrees of skin bearing.

While my flesh has been on display, it has not pulled anyone in on the dancefloor or off.

I’ve always loved experimenting with my presentation (Aquarius Venus raised by an Aquarius Sun fashion mom) and I’m definitely doing it for myself foundationally, but it sucks to know that it actually doesn’t matter how I look or how authentic and confident I might feel in a look; there is still this invisible force field between me and being flirted with, being approached, being asked to dance, having a stranger look my way.

As I’ve lamented in a past poem, “the flesh fails.” It really, really does. My flesh fails me constantly. Fails to unstiffen. Fails to entice. Fails to warm up. Fails to unredden, unflake, unswell. My flesh shows itself every time.

I started writing this after a Halloween party, but we’re now a month into 2026 and I fear the sentiment still stands.

Last month, I attended a friend’s queer, semi-formal function. There has to be some unspoken rule or something, some element in the air that turns the atmosphere from one where we’re all on the same page, to extremely coupled, hot, breathy, and full of skin. And I’m always surprised for some reason when it happens. As an unwilling bystander, I scope the scene, move farther away from the dancefloor or back into the nearest corner as bodies kiss and touch and cruise.

If I’ve had tequila, all bets are off.

The crying might start ON the dancefloor. At the bar. At a Halloween party, after one margarita, I twerked on my barstool and silently cried, unnoticed.

To my left, a 3-way makeout had begun. In my eyeline, a crush was grabbing on the waist of some racially ambiguous femme.

One of the earlier parties I attended here, I left the club and sobbed all the way from the front door to the bus stop, blocks away. My partner can attest.

When I share these stories, it comes from a desire to be open in a way that feels authentic to me. I know others might have felt this way and had no one else to talk to about it. “I write for the quiet, colored babes who have considered suicide when they are named ‘Too Much—” a quote from one of baby kiki’s earliest Art Statements. I am doing the shadow work, I do know where this comes from. This is how I honor past stories I’ve lived—stories I’ve reinforced for myself—in order to retire them. This is how I honor my need to be honest when the world doesn’t meet me with enough curiosity to ask for themselves. This is how I fortify a new self concept with a foundation of truth. This is a process, an opening, an un/becoming. Yes, it’s true. I have a wound here. I’ve always had. It opens when I least expect it. When I least believe it (on the surface.)

I have a childhood desire to be seen—fully seen—and be wanted. I have a teenhood desire to be sought out after. I have a generational fear that I wasn’t meant to experience reciprocated romantic love & desire more than once, if ever. I have an ancestral insecurity that I will always be yearning instead of experiencing. I have a lifelong desire to feel like I belong. I see her. I know her. I love her, still.

And I trust myself to take care of her, even if clumsily.

I. Even if I don’t hear from the person for a while (or at all,) I am accountable to complete or deliver whatever we previously agreed upon.

II. I owe you a text back if I want to be in community with you. Even if it takes a while. (I will try not to let it take too long.)

III. That being said, I do not start text threads or other social ventures/profiles if I cannot finish at this time. I can trust that my social battery will, in fact, replenish itself and I can miss that event if I don’t have capacity. They will not be forget about me. I don’t have to be on the apps in order to meet my people, wherever they are. I can trust that I will not miss out on the entire world. There is still time.

IV. If someone lets me get away with being mediocre, unreliable, selfish, or lowkey manipulative, I won’t be a trickster about it. Integrity is how I show respect to myself and you.

V. I agree to go outside more. By any means necessary. During the daytime!

VI. I can always take my time. I always have all the time I need.

VII. That being said, I agree to (really try to) limit late arrivals to no more than 20 mins—and hardly ever to new people, if I can help it. I am, at the very least, upfront about my inability to gauge time properly as my biggest ADHD tax.

VIII. I also would recommend that I adopt Mariah Carey’s refusal to acknowledge the concept of time.

IX. I actually don’t need to adhere to the norms of my peers. I don’t have to desperately scramble to find a lover by Valentine’s Day. It’s okay if my sexual energy must be alchemized to creative energy because of a lack of finding aligned & enthusiastic sexual partners. It’s so valid to be non-monogamous with only one partner and not a whole polycule. It’s absolutely fine to have health, air quality, and masking standards, even if abled people find me tedious or cumbersome. If you truly care about me, you’ll care about keeping us alive. If I truly care about myself, I won’t lower my standards to feel accepted.

X. People actually have to talk to me nice. Or not at all. I won’t tolerate condescension.

XI. My autoimmune disease will make me flaky. My fatigue will make me flaky. My autism will make me flaky. My autistic burnout will make me flaky. My ADHD will make me flaky. My depression will make me flaky. The weather will make me flaky. My Chiron in Virgo will make me flaky. My Black femme rituals will make me flaky. My stomach will make me flaky. My social anxiety will make me flaky. My closet will make me flaky. My body type will make me flaky. My dysphoria will make me flaky. My sciatic nerve will make me flaky. My energy levels will make me flaky. My memory will make me flaky. My self-diagnosed OCD will make me flaky. My conjure will make me flaky. My cat will make me flaky. My knees will make me flaky. SEPTA will make me flaky. My bank account will make me flaky. My trauma will make me flaky. My dreaming will make me flaky. My rest will make me flaky.

I must be upfront about it. I won’t act surprised nor ashamed when it happens.

XII. It actually is that deep. I won’t be convinced otherwise.

XIII. I agree to not camouflage my intensity, my passion, my drive. I will lean into being too much instead of trying to run away from it like I usually do. But I will lean in with curiosity & playfulness instead of sorrow & structure.

XIV. I agree to stop overthinking it. Instead of forcing outcomes, I will stay in control of what I can control: myself.

XV. It’s not embarrassing to be seen wanting.

XVI. I must belong “deeply to myself” and no one else.

XVII. There is still time.

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Desire is here to stay. A reliable, persistent, annoying, erotic, eternal flame.

-Ayana Zaire Cotton, Seeda School Newsletter

Almost daily, for months now, I shove Starbursts into my mouth, sticky pink down the unfilled black hole in my back molar, rubbing against my disintegrating enamel, desperate for sweetness in my luteal weeks.

The sting of rejection & acridity of isolation coat my tongue heavy; it feels impossible to get out.

I return to an old poem of mine that seems permanently unfinished (I am forever “re-visioning”) titled WORMTONGUE.

"how fertile my ugly," I wrote, baldheaded on my bed (a mattress on the floor) in Portland with shimmering fairy lights on. I was in my early twenties. Above my pillows was a poster declaring “I WANT TO KISS THIS PERSON ↓.” Was I trying to manifest? Trying to persuade?

Even when I am actively Being Loved and despite my gratitude, my joy in loving, my reciprocation—I cannot shake this feeling. That the physical evidence for my whole life shows I wasn't meant to be the subject of one's desire.

My last therapist taught me to investigate the physical evidence of my feelings to determine their validity. What people misunderstand is that, without the tangible, proven evidence that people feel otherwise, it is very difficult for me (especially now that I know I’m autistic) to trust. I do a lot of self-validation, self-concept work. I’m very attracted to myself. At 30, I am currently in a very Hot era, if I do say so myself—& this is not my first one. I’m currently at my most funny, my most charming, my most authentic, my most sociable yet.

I am deserving of what I want. I am oh so fucking worthy. But decades of this not being reflected back at me externally has really fucked me up. It’s so jarring to sometimes feel self-confident & attractive & likeable & maybe smart? interesting? talented?—& I’m the only one who feels that way about myself.

It’s unsettling, to say the least, to be bombarded by the weight of desire while wading in the depths of my grief. I want to be desired as a dear friend dies on the other coast. I want to be desired as Black and Arab communities are displaced, decimated, tortured, burnt alive, raped, lynched, maimed, disabled, martryed, poisoned, & starved. I want to be desired as my cat dies in the arms of the vet tech. I want to be desired as Black femmes go missing, are targeted, are killed by neighbors & hospitals & partners. I want to be desired as our dog dies in the arms of my partner. I want to be desired as Palestine is still not free. As Sudan is still not free. As the Congo is still not free. As the US is still not free. I want to be desired as my flesh grows pendulous & inflammatorily tender. I want to be desired as my mom grows rashes in the sun. I want to be desired as my grandfather dies suddenly from cancer. I want to be desired as a friendly acquaintance of mine—just 32—dies suddenly from cancer in the state I left behind.

I can’t pretend to not feel like there is a clock ticking behind all of this. Sometimes individually, but also just that there’s a clock ticking behind the world as I know it. When our daily realities are shifted so drastically, when my mind should only be on community & survival, will I still be frivolously regretting my lack of experiences?

Because a long, Black Life doesn’t feel guaranteed, I want to guarantee the normal intimacies & experiences it seems every other young person has access to now. I could die at any moment—so it’d be nice to go on a date? To mutually flirt? To have my pussy ate?

1

I’ve had sex 1.5 times this year. I’ve had one make out? I think this is more than last year. It’s September.

I do not get approached, my approaches are denied, I am not crushed upon, I am not cruised upon, my eye contact is mistaken for bitchery, the clear & very bold declarations of my want are taken with a grain of salt & never brought up again.

I find it hard to believe everyone else just gets what they want sometimes? When they want to date more, they find dates? When they want to fuck, people they want to fuck want to fuck them also? When they have specific kinks, they might find people to enact them with? I ask my friends, I ask my partner, what it is I’m missing; they have no answers.

There must be something wrong with me.

mucus skirts through my skin | bitch-made and blighted by want | I bleach the crotch of my panties and slither into my winter-skin | siphoned of sun here | I am whatever | that may be once | I was a man | and then I was disaster | gnawing at walls for their secrets | for a vortex other than my own | burrowing | no one sees me anymore | until it rains and then | too much of me | cut off the tail and whatever comes after | i’ll just come right on back | i split into millions | i blink off cruelty | traipse through the night in sticky trails | i promise you | i am so slick wit it | slob wit it | how fertile | my ugly

There’s a playfulness that I crave to explore. Especially as an Eldest Daughter with prominent 5H Pisces placements, on the autie & ace/aro spectrum, with sexual trauma & social trauma & a long history of communications gone awry despite all my best efforts at democracy & overexplaining. It is hard to build, even harder to connect.

“Is somebody gonna match my freak?”

By “freak,” I mean curiousity. I’m tired of being the only yearning party, the only one openly invested in discussions of pleasure, the erotic, & their politics. I want to feel someone’s heavy want for me—for my mind, for my body, for what my imagination (& mouf) can do. Not just anyone, but those who I choose as well (I will admit, there are yt queers in my inbox that I absolutely did not ask for.)

I refuse to settle for anything less than reciprocity.

True to my Aquarian Venus, I crave an opening to understand & bond most. To relate first & foremost. To be seen & openly admired. To be seen & admired for what’s unconventional about myself. The things I’ve struggled to reckon with. The things I love about myself also. To know that these parts of me are wanted, desired, craved for, means more than actually fucking. It gives me evidence.2

I yearn to build curious, erotic, & sensual relationships that are expansive & loving with the world around me. With ritual & art. With my lineage. With my past selves. With my loving friends & future friendly lovers. I am doing it with myself. I have always been known to myself. I would like to share it. I would like more opportunities to collaborate.

I’ve spent almost a year trying to write this & the draft of this piece could actually be broken up into many others. There’s something here about growing in deep connection with someone over many years in one aspect while losing the spark of another, something about the social pressures of sexuality & trying to understand why you feel so left out of the conversation, something about the global phenomenon of thinking Black femmes are the least desirable, something about actively shifting your practices & self-concept while wanting to stay truthful to the ugliness you feel, something about hidradenitis suppurativa, about loneliness, about my world getting so small at the ripe age of 25 due to the pandemic, about protecting myself & my community by consistent COVID protocols but wanting to live as free as the un-maskers of my age, about disability, about burnout, about Venus years, about glamour magic, about herbal allies, about disorganized attachment, about unmasking in the neurodivergent way, about how the romantic-the platonic-the sexual are all amorphous for me, something about how reading All Fours by Miranda July last year lowkey changed my life.

I have more to say—I always do. I just needed to get this off my tongue.

In the meantime, I guess, I am here—back in my oversharing bag, refusing shame—witless, bitch-made, haunted by want.

Who are you?

once I was a Man, and then I became worm—witless, bitch-made, haunted by want.

What do you want?

What if I want me. Want you in my. Want myself back by any means necessary.

3

from May 21, 2022

1. This week, I binge-watched Conversations with Friends on Hulu. It’s based on a book by Sally Rooney that I’ll probably never read (I make it a point not to read a lot of white literature!) With the TV show, though, embarrassingly enough, if you throw one Black character into a slice-of-life show, I will tune tf in. Bonus points if they’…

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