crossposted at cripchick’s weblog

part one:

do you know what it means to be someone’s nightmare?
a glance from me is enough to terrify you
the way i talk and breathe sends shivers down your spine
when i move, you make a point to dash out of this alleged path of destruction

in meetings, my opened mouth makes you nervous
i take your loved ones and turn them into people you don’t know
people who are not afraid
your smile looks like it is hurting your face

it is amazing how a girl like me
can carry so much power

this outstretched hand
knows what it wants
and always gets it

your fear is fitting
wrong is not my name

part two:

do you know what it means to be someone’s nightmare?
to always be aware of how much space you take up?
to pad everything you say with softness, to live to alleviate and massage their fear?

you see, i know
i know that everyday

i make parents hug their children
at age 7, 15, 21, i hear their warnings
do not go near her, you will not know what to do, you might embarrass us
people will think you like those kind of people, that there is something wrong with you too
don’t you know? that girl will not be able to give you babies, you will end up providing for her

i’m not even sure what is so scary about the body i inhabit
(is it my cripple gimp ways? the color of my skin? the way i have a fancy for those that can remix love and mash up gender?)
but i hear that
everyday

part three:

do you know what it means to be someone’s nightmare?
i do

when messages of my monstrosity start to slip in and become part of my consciousness (it always does, i am not superhuman),
i take my finger and trace out june jordan’s words
i am not wrong, wrong is not my name, my name is my own my own my own

friends remind me that i am no one’s nightmare, but rather the realization of so many dreams
the product of praying grandmothers
of resilience, of survival

it is fear talking
i refuse to listen

so if you wonder why i call everything an industrial complex (my friend said that yesterday)
or why i am not interested in your diversity bullshit
it is because i am already told everyday that we are occupiers, squatters, inhabitants, outcasts living on the margins
of society
of good
of right

and baby, i don’t need your reminder

-

“I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name
My name is my own my own my own
and I can’t tell you who the hell set things up like this
but I can tell you that from now on my resistance
my simple and daily and nightly self-determination
may very well cost you your life”
-June Jordan