These pieces are rough and stream of consciousness. They are not intended to be “good” or polished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still remember her hand upon mine. Age drags at her skin, veins wrap thickly around bone. She smells floral, of detergent, of baked goods–snickerdoodles, raspberry tart, homemade pesto. Lake weed tinges the air and mixes with freshly cut grass, perfumes her hair pulled up above her head, styled in a way long since passed from younger memories. She wraps herself in long shawls the color of the earth, wears jewelry purchased from thrift stores and boutiques alike. Lines cut along her face, pinch around her eyes when she smiles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still remember the way she used to make me feel seen. How she would be the one to engage in my ramblings of story ideas, my twisting narratives. How she would print out the stories I wrote and keep them in folder, tucked away for safekeeping. The folder, thick and bursting, required several rubber bands to keep it together. Peeling them off took effort, rummaging through the old works took a thick stomach and humility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still remember how she told me I looked like a gorilla. How I stood in the mirror with my arms up, cornered in the bathroom, my thin body shrinking beneath the snickers and teasing of her and my mother. She laughed when she said it, asked if I was growing a jungle under there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still remember how she baked my favorite cookies whenever I visited. How she would send me home with several bags, even when I was sick. The cinnamon sugar snickerdoodles perfectly soft, bundled up in large ziplock bags I hoarded the next several weeks, slowly devouring. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still remember how she said BLM protestors deserved to be shot if they caused any destruction. I sat at my desk, peering at my screen in horror, reading the post she wrote over and over, desperately hoping it was all some mishandled joke. That a woman proclaiming to love others wouldn\u2019t wish death upon those wanting life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still remember how she chose an abuser over the abused. How she chose to silence the victim instead of letting their voice ring true. How she chose to pretend the bloodline is not tainted by her sin of inaction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still remember how she wished death on queer people a week after I came out as lesbian. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still remember how she told me drag queens were sick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Memories taste of ash. They are an uncomfortable mix of bittersweet. They are shards of glass coated in sugar. I remember finding some semblance of safety in her home. I remember it slipping it away. I remember realizing that safety never truly existed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I cut my mother\u2019s mother and her husband off six months ago. I have hardly spoken to them since. They are blocked from all social media platforms. They are restricted from any personal information on me. It is a choice made that came with pain, but also peace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is not easy to separate yourself from those once considered family. It aches in a different way each day. Sometimes, not at all. Sometimes, a photo appears, and you remember the time when things were different. When things were simple while you were too young, too indoctrinated, too naive to see what they were doing to you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She loved a version of me that only existed as a front for survival. I hid as someone straight, someone cis, someone who believed everything she did and did not question it. Someone who was exactly perfect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She dug insecurities into me about my body. She made me feel unsafe in a bathing suit because of who she chose as a husband. She defended the cops killing my marginalized siblings in the streets, insisted that queer people \u201cknow their history\u201d by reading Sodom and Gamorah. And she chose to never listen to me when I approached her with concerns. Instead, she sent a rant about how I\u2019m letting my queer identity take over every aspect of my life, that I\u2019m trying to indoctrinate others into my lifestyle, that there\u2019s more important things than being gay – like poor kids in Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sent her Walking The Bridgeless Canyon <\/em>by Kathy Baldock. I told her to read it and then maybe we could talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She hasn\u2019t. And we haven\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Application Form:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seeking New Grandmother<\/p>\n\n\n\n Must: Be queer-affirming and passionate about queer rights; be passionate about women\u2019s bodies looking however they want them to look, and not constrained to society (i.e. body hair is okay); be able to stand with victims, and call out abusers; stand for social justice and be willing to call out bad behavior; be able to make snickerdoodles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you think you\u2019d be a good match: please find me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I took the photo down from my house that you once drew for me. A redhead woman holding a small dragon in the palm of her hand, with a cave curling behind them and the night sky blooming just beyond. You wrote notes all along the back, quotations from the bible, assertions of the faith. It hung, framed, in my guest loft. I once had the notion that my house would be filled with touches from all my family members. I wanted to take it down for nearly a month. I sat on my couch and pondered it, delayed it, busied myself with other things. Perhaps because I was not yet ready to let go. Perhaps because I was not yet ready to accept that you would rather hate me for being queer than you would rather learn, and accept, and be part of my life. Perhaps because I thought, maybe, you actually still loved me beneath those layers of hair spray and perfume. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I climbed up the ladder and reached over to lift it off the hooks. It filled the wall nicely, but now that space sits empty, hooks available for whatever I hang next. I set the picture against my door and took it out the following morning. I considered burning it, cleansing it from my life, letting go of it completely so it would not have a hold on me. I pondered my firepit in the back yard as I crossed my property to my shed. I shoved the door open, set the frame down, and stepped back. Dust, distrubed from my entry, floated in the air and settled upon the glass. I locked the shed. I walked home. I sat on my couch and looked at the empty spot in the guest loft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am grateful for the emptiness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The oven you gifted me broke before Thanksgiving, a week or two after I finally cut you off. I tried to fix it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I discovered where the fuse had gone bad. I had the materials to fix it, only if I could get the machine to open up to me. Peeling back the corners with a flathead proved tricky, but doable. I undid the screws, set them aside carefully so I did not lose them. I popped out one corner of the backplate, but the rest would not give. I tried, I tried. I knew abandoning it was easier, but it was my oven. It was my <\/em>oven. It meant something to me. It meant something important. I could fix this and I would not have to find a new one somewhere else. I pushed and pulled and prodded the metal, trying to bend it so it would open. I gripped it to hold it steady.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I split my thumb nearly in half. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Along the tip of the thumb and stopping before the first crease, a thick, bloody line began to gurgle. I washed it, pulled it back to see how deep. Deep. I washed it again, soaped it up, wrapped a bandage around it, bit back tears. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I put the oven in the shed. I figured I might try again one day to fix it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s been six months since we last talked. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to fix it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I still remember her hand upon mine. Age drags at her skin, veins wrap thickly around bone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[525],"tags":[158,157,12,238,114,97,37],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27tjX-BO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2345,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2344\/revisions\/2345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winter-publishing.com\/welcome-to-winter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
But you are not family anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n