Voices

Ready for a bad joke?

I can call you dirty-minded without even trying.

What starts with V and ends with S, that women can use to get what they want?

Not that.

Nope, there is something else though. I'll give you a minute-okay fine I'll put you out of your misery then:

Their voices.

Okay. What's this about Red; you've embarrassed me and now I'm RED like a tomato. Explain yourself!!! 😡🍅

As you wish, my friends.

Voices. I was reading about someone who was an activist. An activist at a time, the 1980s, of intense discrimination. Globally.

1980s...discrimination.....activist...Nelson Mandela?

Yes and no?

David Wojnarowicz, the AIDs crisis, and the discrimination that the LGBTQUIA+ community faced.

I've seen the play called Angels in America which follows Prior, a gay man who is diagnosed as HIV-positive, and his story as a prophet...And an Angel crash-lands into his bedroom it's very magical-realism but incredibly heart-wrenching and enthralling okay!***

***All of what you've heard is a vague and incredibly out-of-context recollection of a much more detailed play. Forgive my excitement and lack of time.

And I've read and learnt about David Wojnarowicz, an incredible artist not because of his artwork, but the grief and love and worlds he faced simply because he was seen as "different".

But what do these people and characters have in common. Why are they relevant right here, right now, and why do I bring them up?

They have voices. Something in common with us, too.

Protests are entering a new age. I don't rebel against traditionalist expectations of women by going to work or shortening my skirt or smoking, or cutting my hair.

Or worst of all, and brace yourselves...

GOING OUT AT NIGHT, UNCHAPERONED.

A moment of silen- nope. Gotcha.

David Wojnarowicz wrote essays about mortality, about the wide expanse that is the American Dream, things I see reflected in the quotes I read in the Great Gatsby, where nothing is ever good enough, and you either crawl and hack and force your way to the rich,

Or you die at the bottom of the snake pit, mortified by and terrified of the invisible, hunting pythons that stalk you with yellowed eyes and panther's claws.

David Wojnarowicz I admire because there is pain and truth in his words, his words which I endeavor to read because I feel I owe it to him, I owe it to him because he used his words, his VOICE to do something, even when he died thinking it would not be enough.

In his final essay, titled The Suicide of a Guy Who Once Built an Elaborate Shrine Over a Mouse Hole, the final sentence is the most confronting, repeated, in the words of Olivia Laing in this article, "an incantation [that] repeats like a tolling bell. 'Smell the flowers while you can.'"

I think this is close to home for me right now.

Being my vague-but-specific self, I want to let you in on something:

People assume that because I do not speak often, that,

Because I am not an outward person -TO THEM-anymore,

I am silent.

I am a, "pushover"

Will let things slide.

Ohoho. How they are wrong.

It is stupid to assume because someone is not bright and bold and happy around you that that is their whole life.

It is stupider to assume that because someone does not have what you think you can gladly boast with your fake smiles and trophy laughs,

That they are weak.

Ohohoho. Do you even know me?

Sarcasm is my title, I am a graduate of the National University of Sarcasm and I am proud of that.

I am humourous, debatably, with the right people. But in the right scenario, when I try and the vibe is right,

I can be funny. I can let myself show a bit, and there's a brightness to me that wasn't there before.

Talk to me about my Nonna,

About languages or history.

Mention musicals, or a play, or a good book. Or even a mediocre book. It could be good to us, mediocre to someone else...

And you'll see someone so, SO different.

It's strange: this voice is mine. But you can't hear it because you don't know me.

Not literally.

Definitely, if you've read anything of mine - metaphorically, in a way.

It's strange. I am raw here, but I am still hiding.

I am raw away from here, but I am hidden a lot more.

Hm.

Voices.

Sarcasm, in all its pleasure, comes from a voice.

Protests, change, they come from voices.

Voices that are here and away from here,

Voices on the news and shouted in Times Square.

The song of the poet and the dance of the soldier

The reign of the king with the crystal thorn crown.

In its simplest form, the voices are what root us here.

It's inevitable that someone will try to conquer, divide and hack them down.