Quintessentially Queer

Queerness for me, does not limit itself to sexual preference in regards to gender. Queerness for me is more so about understanding the political substantiality of your own sexual identity and the power plays, meanings and structures that can be perpetuated with its expression.

My main inspiration when writing is always an individual that is versatile in their opinions and refuses to conform to a specific social assumption.

Besides writing, I am a performer and curator, thus I try to incorporate such performativity in my words. I am a firm believer in taking what you do very seriously, yet not taking yourself too seriously. In this way, my words are always caught somewhere between severity and irony, from high-brow to mono-brow and from felt to glitter.

The idea behind my writing is not to police any queerness in order to fit specific expressions. On the contrary, it is to try and situate its alternative expressions in a poetic discourse. Primarily, my inspiration stems from holding a genderqueer approach to identity and it’s positioning against homophobia, homonormativity and queer inter-relations.

QUINTESSENTIALLY QUEER

Follow the colors and choose your own.
The unsaturated ones which cover the shine, and dim down the dazzle.
For trying to find hidden hues is not for the weak hearted nor the faint-minded.
As those that walk our walk and talk our talk,
have different paces and many faces.
You don’t know exactly what I’ve been through, nor what I will.
As I chose the street I have to pave, the one I follow made the choice for me.
So as one paves their way, we all follow,
no matter the number, no matter the color.

Fuck the fear of subliminal silences,
and the volume of volatile volitions.
Fuck the vortex of unheard voices,
and the chaos of systematic freedoms.
Fuck your self-fulfilling tolerance and your toxic temperament.
Fuck your empty entitlement and your pitiful privilege.
Fuck your unapologetic greyness as our letters lengthen day by day.
Our will of color and our need for light.
Our effort to not choose streets or change corners.
Our time to stop analyzing looks that can go wrong, and talks that never go right.

Faggots will always exist and fuck your fear.
Your fear of realizing your hatred,
of an unfulfilled future of which you stand in the way.

Fellow faggot, fear no foe and fuck no fantasy.
Live them all in one and you’ll be led to the pot of gold which you’ve been given.

[an earlier version of this poem has previously been published on George Rallis’ blog]