i am starting to think it is enough just to exist
now tell me if this makes sense to you
your body is a narrative

it does not start when you are born
it’s always and always and always
when my mother is beating the shit out of an 8th grader for picking on her little sister
i say to her, “mom, you were a bully?”
she says to me something about how she had to be
in spanish, she says something about survival
then a couple years later and a couple thousand miles away
my father is enlisting in the colombian military
the girl who sells arepas down the street claims my father is the father
to which he denies and i don’t hear that story ‘til 30 years later
but that’s my brother
that’s my son
that’s my alternate universe
why?
because my actual cousin in medellin, colombia is a bisexual

and what does that mean?
it means i would be a faggot no matter where i was born
it is there i hear simón bolívar say my name,
he says jorge
and it is hot
it is romantic
it is empowering
and it’s like, problematic

in a coffee shop in st. louis, missouri
a white queer woman is commending me on the way i weaponize my mother’s trauma
the part of me that is a funny poet wants to be like,
honey, i am not weaponizing,
i am survived by my mother’s trauma
then there is the part of me that is a decent human being
wanting to call me out on what i am doing
this is called exploitation

it is there i hear simón bolívar say my name again,
except this time it’s by my middle name,
ivan,
but there’s a differing resonance so it sounds more like “ivan”
and I think to myself- weaponize trauma?
my skin is white!
i inhabit the colonized body while wearing the colonizer’s face
it’s like a peace sign,
or a white flag,
or a white fag
i’m a white-
bisexual
bitching and moaning about my problems
invading spaces not meant for me then opening up a dialogue about it
virgos,
we hate to be the center of attention
but men,
they love that
and i am a man, or i am socialized as one,
or something and something and always intertwined into amalgamated histories
but it’s modern society
it’s the person i want to be when it’s “jorge”, or “ivan”, or “EYE-VAN”, or “ivy”

it’s there i hear oscar wilde scream
he is screaming behind the jail cell bars he met with
at the intersection of his destiny and his desire
he is screaming something about how maybe we can all be beings of multiplicities
it is then i want to say to him in reply
it is then that i want to scream
then maybe, we can all be latinos
maybe, we can all be faggots too
and maybe, there is potential for love outside of trauma
outside of the burdened weight of our parents’ debts
maybe there is potential for love in the queer body and maybe we are more like souls
we are airy beings with ethereal names
floating and crashing into one another
developing a new language for compassion as we hurt each other

but my discourse is shaped like a halo
it’s maybe angelic in its delivery
but it is circular nonetheless
perhaps ending right where it begins

because if all i have to offer you is my own singular, individualistic, self-serving confusion
then i wonder in what ways this would make sense to you

your body is a narrative
now tell me if this makes sense to you
i am starting to think it is enough just to exist