Radio Chthulucene 87.9 FM

I’ve made a great deal of progress on my work in the last week. My project is finally beginning to take shape, though it has taken several weeks of contemplation and drafting for it to start clarifying itself to me. 

I had been circling the point of it for a while. Honestly, I still am. I don’t think the topic I’m working with—manifestations of heteronormative dynamics in homosexual relationships—is something I’m fully equipped to consider, understand, synthesize, and produce into a finished-and-ready spoken word project within the next couple of weeks. 

However! I recognize that. And I care a lot about this topic and this work, so it’s taken me the last week or so to come to terms with the fact that this project will simply not be able to cover the issue in full. But it is offering me an entry point. 

The aforementioned topic is rooted in sound. And vocabulary, and language, shifting voices, code-switching. It’s difficult, even still, for me to begin to explain how. It comes down to the way I talk. I use words with my father—and with men who intimidate me like he does—that I would not use with my friends. Sometimes, the voice I use to talk to men resembles that of my father’s when he speaks to my mother. Other times, I hear my father’s judgment, sternness, and disapproval in the voices of others.

I can’t help but assign myself labels. The gay community is full of so many. We honestly put each other into boxes more readily than those outside of the community do. But that’s also because their boxes are more generalized. Everything has its own set of issues. 

My voice is a constant point of tension between me and myself. I’ve struggled for years—and I am still struggling—to find the right one. I wonder where my voices come from, and where they go when I’m not using them.