pacman

    It was on the same day that I came out to my brother Anthony, at a Kanye West concert of all places.  I still tell people what he said, “Explains the bad haircut!”  It was a bad haircut, I still have the pictures to prove it.  
    After everyone slowly filed out of Grant Park we drove over to the North Side to the apartment of one of my brothers’ friends.  Henry.  I hardly caught it when we did all the welcoming and greeting and introductions.  But by the end of the night I sure remembered it.
    The party was kind of awkward, all twenty-somethings drinking beer, and there I was fifteen, having only ever drunk once before(with my brother) and sitting there trying not to be annoyed by my clingy and even more awkward older sister.  I got myself a beer and sat in one of the lawn chairs.  I tried to make conversation with some of my brothers friends whom I had become acquainted with over that last two days of music in Grant Park.  None of it really amounted to much.  I was sitting alone thinking, probably about how I didn’t even like the taste of beer but drank it anyway, when I looked up and saw that my brother had taken a cigarette from his chain-smoking friend’s pack.  I was shocked.  No one I looked up to smoked cigarettes, it seemed so out of place. His friend, Brian, noticed my surprise and laughed.  My brother, looking uneasy, said “It gives you a better buzz.”  I guess I wanted to feel more buzzed so I asked for one.  He said I shouldn’t.
    “If you say no to her now she’ll be smoking forever!” Brian said to Anthony.
    Anthony conceded and I pulled one out of the pack Brian was holding.  It was a Parliament or some other brand of cheap light cigarette.  I didn’t even know how to smoke it.  Inhale that is.  I just sucked the smoke into my mouth and let it come out on its own.  I guess I liked it, because for the rest of the night I kept asking everyone at the party if they had another for me to smoke.  Eventually my mouth got really dry so I drank more beer.  But I decided it was pretty gross and started pouring myself rum and cokes.  I’d heard of them, as I had heard of so many other mixed drinks and figured, “Hey, I like coke, I’ll probably like this.”  It just made the coke taste bad.  But some mixture of social pressure, wanting to keep my buzz going, and trying to look older and more mature kept me drinking them throughout the night.  
    I was at the point of stumbling and clinging to things instead of walking when a lot of us were on the third floor of the balcony.  Henry’s house had a walk out balcony on each floor all connected to each other by stairs.   My brother, Henry, my sister, and various other party goers were all out on the third floor talking.  Of course the conversation wasn’t very well-informed or directed and somehow it came to be about politics.  The general sentiment was that of most liberal twenty-five year olds in 2006, that the current administration were a bunch of idiots, the war was a bad idea, and the current economic problems were going to continue to worsen.  Then some girl(I don’t know, are twenty-five year olds still girls?) with short hair wearing a formfitting black dress starting talking about how there were some good things that came out of the war, like freeing oppressed people and that the economy would be able to fix itself and blah blah blah.  So Anthony whispers to Henry, who was by this time sloppy drunk, “Get this girl out of here.”
    And somehow, Henry did to everyone‘s relief.  He got her into his bedroom which was right off the third floor balcony and his solution to the problem was to start making out with her!  They started doing everything!  Henry fingered her asshole while they were kissing, she took his shirt off, and then they just went at it!  Completely unprotected he sucked her, she sucked him, 69, frontwards, backwards, him on top, her on top, on the bed, off the bed, all around and around, and up and down.   And everyone outside of his window saw everything, through the slats in the window shade.  At some point during the peep show one of the ladies out on the balcony shouted, “I didn’t know Henry was gay!” Somehow, while watching a man and a woman perform every sexual act my fifteen year old self believed was possible, she had mistaken this girl for a man because of her short hair.  
    When there was nothing left to watch, Anthony turned to me and my sister and said, “Don’t tell anyone about this okay?  Especially Dad.”  Tessa and I nodded, agreeing not to mention anything about the party, not the booze, not the cigarettes, and especially not the full nudity free live sex show.  

everyone knows the red cross is fucked up.
it's not disgusting, "donna morrissey."
"no faggots allowed,"
sounds like them to me.

The first time I was at a cafe and all these really straight looking girls kept coming up to me and proposing that I have a relationship with them similar to the one I had with Carmen. One of the girls was someone I sort of know who lives in Portland and we started to have that kind of relationship. We were in my bed where I was kneeling. She was straddling me and I was holding her and we were making out and kissing and I took her shirt off and she had on a purple bra. I went down to kiss her stomach and she got up and rushed to get her shirt and said "Fuck! We're just friends we can't do this!"  It was really shitty but now I really want to see her.  I feel really close to her now but I don't know her at all.

The second dream was about Cameron. It was of his past but I was there with him for all of it and really just a passive observer.  So I was with him when he got kicked out of his house
,which I think actually happened in real life, and then we went to go live with his aunt. ]She got really angry about him for being the way he is and we got kicked out of there too.  We had all these bags and luggage to bring and we tried to find a bus station but the schedule was all weird and we couldn't find the right bus. I just remember he had some chronic medical problem in the dream that required him to wear a device in his back.
He does have a chronic medical problem, bipolar.

I listen to you
and there is then
only so much
I can hear.
We cannot be
all the things
you see
out on the street.
Attend now
to my words
I am telling you
the things we cannot hold
the lives we cannot pretend.
I won’t let us.
You want to
but I won’t let you.
Come back here
and hear
what you ears never allowed
what we feigned to know
that there is more
for us
than the world lets on.

the stars are unseen
between this night and the next.
when day comes, they leave.

Take a newspaper.
Take some scissors.
Choose from this paper an article of the length you want to make your poem.
Cut out the article.
Next carefully cut out each of the words that makes up this article and put them all in a bag.
Shake gently.
Next take out each cutting one after the other.
Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag.
The poem will resemble you.
And there you are—an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.

i am ellis dietrich.  a belgian born in 1900.  female-bodied.  i ran away from belgium when the central powers invaded and headed to zurich, changing my name and becoming ellis dietrich.  i became friends with a young romanian poet, tristan and performed at the cabaret voltaire.  it was poetry that brought our international group's feelings against establishment and war and nothingness into existence.  with nonsense and mockery reality stopped being real and no one had to take themselves seriously.   we were different from the americans because we had a real war in our backyards to be running from.  a ravaged home town and an army encampment to sketch from a distance and try not to hear.

Humans;
Ugly
Men
And
Nihilists

Humans are defined by leaders and by history and by the Ugly Men who control the ability for Humans to achieve their capacity for good and the Nihilists who don't believe in any of it.  Ugly Men, who plan the destruction and reconstruction of various parts of the world take the meaning of being human and hold it hostage.  Their opposites, the Nihilists, cannot and will not try to stump the Ugly Men because all that they can recognize is the futility of it all.  These two groups, the Ugly Men and the Nihilists, have taken what it is to be Human and defined it for us.  Thousands of years of history cannot now be changed.  Human is already defined.  To be Human is to be an Ugly Man or a Nihilist. 

things that are not hot:

smoking/cigarettes
drinking/being drunk
smoking pot/being high/smelling like weed- go ahead and pull your synapses further and further apart but i don't want anything to do with it
mohawks- cultural appropriation is fucked no matter who you are
excessive piercings- is all that metal there to hide your face?
excessively colorful tattoos- i know that's what SG is all about but c'mon i'm not attracted to a box of crayons either
capitalists/capitalist pawns- no, i don't want to see the new shoes you just spent $80+ on, their neon laces are disgusting
PEOPLE WHO FUCKING LITTER AND DON'T RECYCLE

things that i think are hot right now:

genderfucks of all kinds
girls who don't shave
anarcho-feminists
anti-capitalists of all kinds, except the ones who do it o get laid
nipple piercings- i've thought those were hot for a while now though
girls speaking french
all queer people who don't hide and raise their voices to shout against oppression
poets
people with purpose

i don't want to smoke cigarettes
or be ellis d anymore
i can't just knock back a twisted tea  
ie haven't done any of it.
i try
to praise it for its power
freed by Xs on my hands.
let them down gently
with pride and passion.
add it all up
and wait
until they announce
"Please make sure your seatbacks and tray tables are in their fully upright and locked position."

“Sexuality is fluid.  Whether you’re gay or you’re straight or you’re bisexual you just go with the flow.”



Recently I had a conversation with a good friend of mine about how I am questioning the idea of queer.
The idea of queer; that queers are “everyone-but-the-heteros.”
What about it?
My friend said, "Institutionalized homophobia and hetero-normativity create the need for the queer identity, for it to exist as an entity, a community, an alternative for everyone outside of the straight, hetero, mainstream world."

I don't know for sure but I bet there are straight and heterosexual-identified people who partner with/date/fuck transgender folx and don't see it as anything “alternative,” strange, different or “other” at all.

I don't have a word for my sexuality and I don't like being confined to the “other” because of my fluid gender and that the people I am attracted to vary greatly in gender. I do not feel empowered by being considered “alternative” because the people I am attracted to are not consistently of the “opposite sex.”
I am lumped in with bi-curious people and gay men because my gender and therefore my sexuality go against the heterosexual binary.  Two people may have nothing in common except the fact that they are both non-heterosexual and yet they are placed in the same category of queer.  It is impossible to define any people on the basis of what they are not.

Sexuality is not concrete. It changes with every person we meet and are attracted to.
Having four or five fixed words to encompass all sexualities is confining and exclusive.
Gay, straight, bisexual, pansexual, queer, questioning, not sure, fluid.  I am all of these terms and none of them.  It is absurd to think that sexuality which encompasses our life experiences with people of all genders, all sexual and romantic experiences, every person encountered and involved with can be summed up in one word or lengthy tongue-twisting acronym.

Describing everything that is not straight or heterosexual as strange and with the word “queer” is even more absurd.  It may have been taken back or reclaimed by “queer” folks but it is still a derogatory term. Would the term “nigger” ever be reclaimed in the same way?  Would society ever say “Nigger Community” to describe all people of African descent? Would people with mental disabilities reclaim the word “retard” and call themselves the “Retard Community?” No.  Oppressed groups have found many ways to empower themselves other than using an insult as their main descriptor.  Frequently when I try to use queer in an empowering way I am called out for using a word that is both degrading and offensive.  Queer is being used to insult, attack, and target people of all sexualities and gender expressions right now.  Applying the broad term “queer” to describe “alternative” sexualities despite reclaiming it and providing new meaning is accepting that queer people will never be “normal” and that it is still acceptable to mistreat them.  Queer people will never be fully integrated into society if they continually describe themselves as the “other,” the “outsider,” the “alternative.”  Where are all of the radicals calling for all sexualities to be valid?  Where are the people shouting that no sexuality is dominant, better, normal, or mainstream?  Where are the people rallying against the common belief that non-heterosexual identities are an “alternative,” as if they are not as good?  No sexuality is purer, more dominant, or better than any other sexuality.  Recognize that they are all equal.  No sexuality is better or worse; all are an expression of human connection.  Mainstream and “alternative” society must recognize that everything comes in variation, especially sexuality.  What word describes someone who is attracted to male-bodied drag performers and male-to-female transsexuals?  What word describes someone who is attracted to all types of gender fluidity?  There are not enough words to describe all unique sexualities.  Freeing our minds from the need to label ourselves and each other will be the true liberation of us all.

And our bodies
are poorly built machines
we draw out in figurines
we pour salt
on our wounds
just to feel them.

-get people to vote against more spending on police forces and prisons etc

-get people to support organizations that rehabilitate prisoners and work towards community building and "crime" prevention

-redefine what is considered a crime and who is considered a criminal

-take an officer out to lunch initiative, take a cop out to lunch and discuss the views of the anti-police organization(PUPS?) and suggest they get a new job

-more?

I came out to my mom. I cried and all she really said besides, "I don't understand," was, "find a man and fall in love."

Today my therapist/counselor/social worker started calling me Ellis. Yesterday I bought men's underwear for the first time. I'm feeling pretty good about myself. My mom might even consider calling me Ellis and then maybe the rest of my family will start using that name as well. If all things work out I am going to legally change my name to Ellis David Perry on or shortly after my birthday even if I have to do it by mail due to being in college. I like how I am making my way towards being me.

i got into college and have a crush on a boy.  wow mom.