Fag hags: Allies, Breeders and Idols

Called by an injurious name, I come into social being, and because I have a certain inevitable attachment to my existence, because a certain narcissism takes hold of any term that confers existence, I am led to embrace the terms that injure me because they constitute me socially.

Sometimes I touch the things you used to touch, looking for echoes of your fingers.

Violence is redirected toward those who do not participate in violence, or those who try to challenge violence. Each time you say no, you have to be prepared for increase in the intensity of the violence. […] You have to keep saying no when there is an effort to stop you saying no.

Alienation is studious; you learn more about wishes when they are not what you wish for. We can think of alienation then as wonder: we wonder about things; we marvel at their assembly. […] It is when we are not attuned, when we do not love what we are supposed to love, that things become available to us as things to ponder with, to wonder about.

The sons of our sons will marvel, Paging the textbook: “1914 … 1917 … 1919 … How did they live? The poor devils!” Children of a new age will read of battles, Will learn the names of orators and generals, The numbers of the killed, And the dates. They will not know how sweetly roses smelled above the trenches, How martins chirped blithely between the cannon salvos, How beautiful in those years was Life. Never, never did the sun laugh so brightly As above a sacked town, When people, crawling out of their cellars, Wondered: is there still a sun? Violent speeches thundered, Strong armies perished, But the soldiers learned what the scent of snowdrops is like An hour before the attack. People were led at dawn to be shot … But they alone learned what an April morning can be. The cupolas gleamed in the slanting rays, And the wind pleaded: Wait! A minute! Another minute! Kissing, they could not tear themselves from the mournful mouth, And they could not unclasp the hands so tightly joined. Love meant: I shall die! I shall die! Love meant: Burn, fire, in the wind! Love meant: O where are you, where? They love as people can love only here, upon this rebellious and tender star. In those years there were no orchards golden with fruit, But only fleeting bloom, only a doomed May. In those years there was no calling: “So long!” But only a brief, reverberant “Farewell!” Read about us and marvel! You did not live in our time — be sorry! We were guests of the earth for one evening only. We loved, we destroyed, we lived in the hour of our death. But overhead stood the eternal stars, And under them we begot you. In your eyes our longing still burns, In your words our revolt reverberates yet Far into the night, and into the ages, the ages, we have scattered The sparks of our extinguished life.

[S]ome bodies more than others have their involvement in the world called into crisis. This shows us how the world itself is more ‘involved’ in some bodies than others, as its takes such bodies as the contours of ordinary experience. It is not just that bodies get directed in specific ways, but that the world is shaped by the directions taken by some more than others.

[I]t is often a requirement upon oppressed people that we smile and be cheerful. If we comply, we signify our docility and our acquiescence in our situation. […] [A]nything but the sunniest countenance exposes us to being perceived as mean, bitter, angry or dangerous.

Affection had appeared, but through a fissure, a crevice, in the person, through which, behind affection, came all the winds of fear. For the act of love is a confession. One lies about the body but the body does not lie about itself; it cannot lie about the force which drives it.