a literary playground

By: Jae Eason

I.

There once was a time when I was alone and nothing. 

Half of me:

an egg inside a sac,

that was also once an egg inside

another sac.

The other half:

waiting to be toiled together.

There once was a time where I did not matter. 

My future not perceived.

My disappointments yet to be discovered.

floated

I in a space where I could romanticize my obsoletion.

The moment my mother knew she wanted to bore children from her body, my performance began.

II.

There is no way to fully see ourselves under the guise of a neoliberal less.

The essence of genocide

slavery

exploitation

imperialism

and various other words

complications

and

ideologies

are all guests at our

They have been scratched into the blueprints of our perceptions. If I were to construct a body that has never known these sufferings, the body would  fold  into space. 

So how can I construct a true-image of my human-nes, if I cannot exist without these factors pillaging my corporeal form?

III.

When I get to gender and think about my role within its construct, I get lost. There were times where all I thought about was my own gender perception. I was adamant to know how I viewed myself and felt in this body.

I waged war against the things that felt inaccurate.

Pleaded for the removal of organs that sanctified me as less than (Throwback to when Roe v. Wade was overturned.).

Then, I further think about the years before the Europeans touched down on these soils. Before the people that would make me people           (as well as oppress my people)               wreaked havoc on lands they did not love. 

Did those people fear their gender the way I feared mine for so long?

Was there ever a point of resolution where the fight ended and the being began? Have I come to the point of submission where I no longer fight, but accept that this understanding is futile?

IV.

Currently,

I am thinking about how to write a poem where the undertones of the prison industrial complex do not exist. This isn’t to say the poem is about prison. I am not even saying it’s about confinement. It is to say that the systems we live in,     

     V.

When thinking about sex, think about the performance of

fucking. Of arousal. Of pleasure. Is a fake orgasm a performance,

or is it just sad? How much did your first time align with what you saw

in pornos? The disappointment that comes when it doesn’t go exactly

as planned. We have sensationalized one of the most vulnerable acts

we can do as humans. Contort our bodies into shapes to fulfill the fantasies

of our lovers, but leave ourselves out of the equation. We partake in a violence that we pretend is not violent (It is difficult to say if there will ever be a moment where the consumption of porn is not rooted in violence. This is not to say that those who make porn are automatically committing violence against themselves or their partner. But, if we think about where porn comes from; how it has purveyed its way into what many deem good sex to be; who it satiates the most; and the many other countless ways in which it has disturbed boundaries, embellished fantasy, and even has made us joyfully consume violence enacted on others, we find our conclusion to state that it is inherently violent. We have to realize, when partaking in its consumption, we cannot pretend we do not have a stake, for then we are being willfully ignorant.) . Can the performance ever be ethical?

The orgasms we experience alone; let’s think about how they are

different. Do we mold ourselves into the shapes we think someone wants us

to perform in? Or, do we un-mend. Sit there naked and vulnerable.