Woman

Growing up Queer
Written By Ted
Photo credit: Ted

Photo credit: Ted

Woman,

You spend years wrapping me up

in your selves

Wind me tight

Blueing breasts and juiced out abdomen

Lips like yours taste sweet

Honeyed by all the ones afraid to exist before us

What language are we?

Where do we exist on this

island that belongs to out of many one people

But not us, never us and “How you do?” for day time

milk we, wring we out clean hang we out to dry till night

Casual nods like those in the daylight are scornful

mocking. Loneliness and heartbreak sticks like honey and tears draw fruit flies.

You laugh ‘True you too sweet,’

Our lips find di others and fire burns hotter than the Kingston hateful sun, fingers runs in all the parts

Men think is fi dem

Breasts and tongues fit together molded by what must be kissed by Gods, hair sticking

in places

rivers run, fast like the gossip of

man

voices poisons the air of morning

Then it’s back to muted stone pretend

till night again

Ted

Ted (they/them) is a queer non-binary writer from Kingston, Jamaica whose work is influenced by their relentless questioning of self and the heteronormative presuppositions of this lived experience. Their relentless questioning of identity and navigations within a homophobic state is what led them to put pen to paper to make sense of, affirm and validate their incongruent way of being. As a result, language, voice, identity and the current state of queer existence is a primary motif within their work.

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