Image via The Orlando Sentinel
Space, As in Room, Pt. 1
I tell her that if there is a horror like this that she must run.
If we are away from each other–I at the bar–she at the table–she cannot look for me. She must, instead, find the exit and run.
I cannot sleep because I do not want her to die.
Space, As in Room, Pt. 2
Queered spaces, especially when brown, are brick and moral stances. A room when kissing and dancing are acts of activism. We speak of these political outcomes first even though they are secondary. The main purpose for these spaces are for moments to reclaim a completeness; to access one’s humanity because every other place abstracts your identity magnifying the whitest, straightest, or wealthiest of learned postures.
Simply put these rooms are where people go to be people.
Space, As in Rhythm, Pt. 1
Space, As in the Body, Pt. 1
If you have a body a straight white male cannot negotiate with his sexuality you most likely have been unseen. If by the force of you, your visibility cannot be denied, you most likely edge punishment. This is possible in queered spaces, but often the language to counter the oppression has preceded you in the room. The language of power and occupation is contract in the room.
Here, you can speak for your body. Here, the room listens.
Space, As in Space Between Bodies
In a queered space, the space between consenting bodies can disappear without threat of discipline. There is a kind of rapture that sources in the heart to be a woman and, without danger, kiss the woman you love.
Space, As in the Body, Pt. 2
The story of blood begins on the right side. It flows through the vena cava and the inferior vena cava picking up oxygen from the lungs to carry it and nutrients to your gut, muscle and mind.
Space, As in Rhythm, Pt. 2
Space, As in Time, Pt. 1
The Sig Sauer MCX fires 24 shots in nine seconds.
Space, As in Rhythm, Pt. 3
Space, As in Time, Pt. 2
It takes 30 seconds for your blood to travel in your body.
Space, As in Time, Pt. 3 and Space, As in Rhythm, Pt. 4
Inside, after, the investigators walk among the fallen. The pulse of Pulse muted. The music replaced by the echoing phones of the deceased, urgent with ringing. Their loves ones, unconsciously, with their hope, the first to toll the bells.
