Femme futures
by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Where does the future live in your body?
Touch it
1
Sri Lankan radical women never come alone.
We have a tradition of coming in groups of three or four.
The Thiranagama sisters may be the most beloved and famous,
but in the 20s my appamma and great aunties were the Wild Alvis Girls.
Then there is your sister, your cousin, your great-aunts
everyone infamous and unknown.
We come in packs we argue
we sneak each other out of the house
we have passionate agreements and disagreements
we love each other very much but can’t stand to be in the same room or continent for years.
We do things like, oh, start the first rape crisis center in Jaffna in a war zone in someone’s living room.
When war forces our hands,
we all move to Australia or London or Thunder Bay together
or, if the border do not love us, we are what keeps Skype in business
When one or more of us is murdered
by the State or a husband
we survive
whether we want to or not.
I am an only child
I may not have been born into siblinghood
but I went out and found mine.
Made mine.
We come in packs
even when we are alone
Sometimes the only ancestral sisterlove waiting for you
is people in books, dreams
aunties you made up
people who are waiting for you in the clouds ten years in the future
and when you get there
you make your pack
and you send that love
back
2.
When the newly disabled come
they come bearing terror and desperate. Everyone else has left them
to drown on the titanic. They don’t know there is anybody
but the abled. They come asking for knowledge
that is common to me as breath, and exotic to them as, well,
being disabled and unashamed.
They ask about steroids and sleep. About asking for help.
About how they will ever possibly convince their friends and family
they are not lazy or useless.
I am generous- we crips always are.
They were me.
They don’t know if they can call themselves that,
they would never use that word, but they see me calling myself that,
ie, disabled, and the lens is blurring, maybe there is another world they have never seen
where crips limp slowly, laugh, have shitty and good days
recalibrate the world to our bodies instead of sprinting trying to keep up
Make everyone slow down to keep pace with us.
Sometimes when I am about to email the resource list,
the interpreter phone numbers, the hot chronic pain tips, the best place to rent a ramp,
my top five favorite medical cannabis strains, my extra dermal lidocaine patch—it’s about
to expire, but don’t worry, it’s still good,
I want to slip in a PS that says,
remember back when I was a crip
and you weren’t, how I had a flare and had to cancel our day trip
and when I told you, you looked confused
and all you knew how to say was, Boooooooooo!
as I was lying on the ground, trying to breathe?
Do you even remember that?
Do your friends say that to you, now?
Do you want to come join us, on the other side?
Is there a free future in this femme of color disabled body?
3.
When I hear my femme say When I’m old and am riding a motorcycle with white hair down my back
When I hear my femme say When I’m old and sex work paid off my house and my retirement
When I hear my femme/myself say When I get dementia and I am held with respect when I am between all worlds
When I see my femme packing it all in because crip years are like dog years and you never know when they’re going to shoot Old Yeller
When I hear my femme say when I quit my teaching gig and never have to deal with white male academic nonsense again
When I hear us plan the wheelchair accessible femme of color trailer park,
the land we already have a plan to pay the taxes on
See the money in the bank and the ways we grip our thighs back to ourselves
When I hear us dream our futures,
believe we will make it to one,
We will make one.
The future lives in our bodies
Originally published in Hematopoiesis Press, Issue 2. Copyright © 2017 by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha.
Most Poetry will post a poem by a LGBTQ+ poet, selected by our members, each day through the month of August.