BENT OUT OF SHAPE, Sam McBean
https://www.thewhitereview.org/reviews/bent-out-of-shape/
At some point, on the dance floor, my ex put her hand on my waist to move me so she could get to the bar. It was just a small moment of contact, but it shocked me. The touch was firm, her hand displayed a familiarity with my body. My body, in turn, remembered so clearly what it felt like to be touched by her. Here we were, after many years, dancing together, our bodies in intimate proximity. Only it was different than all those years ago, reconfigured. What had been a relationship of desire is now something else; those past touches structure the care we show each other now. I can feel that first relationship running underneath this new one. She reached down and touched it when she touched my waist.
[...]
In her book CALAMITIES (2016), Renee Gladman describes relationships with lesbian ex-lovers as like building âbridges on top of ruined bridgesâ. For Gladman, these relationships produce an âelaborate architectureâ of lovers who tried to make it work, failed, but then kept supporting each other. Why are exes so frequently described via the language of failure? I like Gladmanâs insistence on ex-lovers as infrastructure, ruined bridges as somehow supportive, seemingly against all odds. None of [Ren] Hangâs images have titles or dates, an invitation perhaps to read the works not as discrete or finished objects, but rather as an ongoing and accumulative exploration in making new shapes. Queer people have always had to invent their relationships with few available templates, and I sometimes think it is these creative acts, more than anything else, that are the most challenging to heteronormative culture.
