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To be honest
By Diamante Maldonado ('16) To be honest I am a gentle soul Or I try to be Even I act in anger Make mistakes and get it wrong Very wrong, I feel like And maybe that’s being too hard on myself I’ve had more collapses in my relationships Than edifices left standing Something I don’t care to admit The ones that remain Are like monuments to myself that it will be okay Buildings that, with time, gain historical significance In the landscape of my life And yet I care nothing for the time alone Quality is important too My stay in a quaint space That may not be there in a year or two Can be more impactful Than a mansion that stands forever But is always too big, cold, and lonely The quaint places are an experience A touch on my life I can hold in my heart Always A place I might not have frequented the longest But the days there are, and always will be, meaningful Happy Warm Sad Hard Sure…you get a mix But always meaningful To be honest I simultaneously want to talk And hate speaking I don’t want to dump too much I don’t like conversations where I dominate I don’t want to discourage a voice with the sound of my own So I do want to hear I do want to give silence I do want to hear all of the not-so-great stories I do want to hear the silly, seemingly miniscule things I do want to help And that will help me too Since we’re being honest No, support cannot solve All of the problems I can’t fix them all I can’t make them all go away I can’t guarantee you won’t face them later And you know something I don’t care I don’t care I honest- to-God don’t care Let me be the vent If you should need it For the emotions of the moment Let me be the soundboard If the only person you have to hear you Would be yourself Or simply…if you’d like one more Let me be the silence If all you need is a presence Maybe some punctuations made with nods As if to say Yes, I am still listening I am still here, though I may not say much And maybe there will be no words Nothing I can say Nothing I can do That can make a problem better And sometimes the thing You will ask me to do Is act like I do not see Do nothing Sit quietly Because it is not time yet And you’re not sure it ever will be A time that you can or will ask for more And that’s hard especially for someone like me Why? Because it matters Because I care To be honest If I lived life the way I wanted I’d care nothing for money I’d spend all my time meeting people Helping people Getting to know people I like details Especially the details Of something as complex as people And of course I’d be writing too But not just that Reading too Reading is like a soul Perhaps with its body long gone Taking the time to talk to me across an immense span of time I’d still be really into technology too Isn’t it amazing, all the things to be done All the programs that are available so one can create? All these paths Because what is cyberspace If not streams of consciousness converging? With computers As our sailboats Our stepping stones Maybe a touch of photography too A frozen moment A still life Of life captured While it’s in motion A memory given tangible form Emotions passed on the face The body’s language preserved Life slowed for an extra glance Because life, in general, is a rush So, you see, if I lived life the way I wanted I’d spend all of my time with people To be honest I once had someone close to me say With the best of intentions Despite it coming in the heat of an argument “I think you’re open to certain things, but not to whole idea” At the time I understood this And at the same time didn’t How could I be open without being open So rather than brush it off, I sat with it As I often do with words from important people You can be this way by accepting As in, you never say or do anything That would hurt that, or any, person or group While that is good Being open means Not just knowing, but understanding Supporting, rather than just refraining Being open is a process, not just a goal A journey, not just an end point or a checked off box A continuous path With two main modes of travel Experience and education And it was already in my nature To be curious, to seek A trait that dwindles In the rush of life But does not die And thank goodness, too For there are many people Walking the streets Plenty moments of sonder to be had Thus even more layers to explore When your view has opened To be honest I know myself To be a person whose personality Seems to consist of rarities and contradictions That somehow manage to be here every day And there are a lot of buildings here Some standing and others collapsed Technology and art Cause many combinations of consciousness to converge here If only for a moment There are a lot of people here, strolling in the streets Each one a whole world’s worth of complexity Coming together into even more intricate communities And to be honest That is me But isn’t it also A city A country A world Isn’t me Just a smaller version of we If we’re being totally honest |
With utmost candor
By Diamante Maldonado ('16) You were the first person I came out of the basement to About being Ace Figuring out that I am ace Took about two years’ time and plenty of research Or should I say it took two years to be comfortable Saying it without a timidity or an uncertain tone attached A lot of time was spent on Aven The hub of the asexual community As well as the founding place of its sense of being a community at all We are thought to be one percent of the population Or one in every one hundred people This underscores the stories of Erasure Confusion And a general sense of loneliness Told in the Ace community Surfing through Aven’s many forums As well as other sources outside of Aven Has revealed one response to be amongst the most common That show a level of erasure The phrase “You just haven’t found the right person yet” Particularly harmful, I think, to people first identifying Take this comment with patience As it often isn’t said with bad intentions However, thick and heavy bars Are being placed on emotion If an Ace dare tread Into the already unpredictable waters Of a love, and by societal definition, A sexual and romantic dating life Then they are not actually Ace If they dare, for whatever reason To engage in sex Then they are not Ace Because after all, how would you know If you’ve never tried, they say Any expression of interest in a relationship Be it physical or emotional Is considered not typical asexual behavior Perceived as “frigid” or “emotionless” As if the heart stopped functioning The moment you identify with A It’s these reactions That cause the happiness of self-discovery To be chased by loneliness and confusion You ought to count yourself lucky If the person across from you Has heard of the term asexual Much less the shorthand name “Ace” and anything beyond it Especially when it comes to the older generation Offline the community is scattered few and far between Even within the LGBTQIA community Many aces have said to find themselves uncomfortable And the meaning of the A has been heavily disputed Ace or Ally Further still Our acceptance hinges on How many battle scars you have How many miles you have marched How many laws have been made against you Turning equality and acceptance into a contest of My pain is greater than your pain With more still We are accused of turning the LGBTQ community Into the alphabet soup movement After all, just anyone is let in now And the acronym is far too long |