REMINDERS
An ongoing documentary project about tattoos in the queer community. For many, tattoos are reminders. Reminders to remember an identity we fought so hard to be able to embrace, reminders of healing from trauma, works of art to remind us that we are beautiful, reminders of queer love and friendship, of youthful bad decisions and the people that we are, were, and will become.
"queer me
shift metransgress me
tell my students i'm gay
tell chick fil a i'm queer
tell the new york times i'm straight
tell the mail man i'm a lesbian
tell american airlinesi don't know what my gender is
like me
liking you
like summer blockbuster armrest dates
armrest cinematic love
elbow to forearm in the dark
humor me queerly
fill me with laughter
make me high with queer gas
decompress me from centuries of spanish inquisition
& self-righteous judgment
like the blood my blood
that has mixed w/ the colonizer& the colonized
in the extinct & instinct to love
bust memories of water & heat
& hot & breath
beating skin on skin fluttering
bruise me into vapors
bleed me into air
fly me over sub-saharan africa & asia & antarctica
explode me from the closet of my fears
graffiti me out of doubt
bend me like bamboo
propose to me
divorce me
divide me into your spirit 2 spirit half spirit
& shadow me w/ fluttering tongues
& caresses beyond head
heart chakras
fist smashing djembes
between my hesitations
haiku me into 17 bursts of blossoms & cold saki
de-ethnicize me
de-clothe me
de-gender me in brassieres
& prosthetic genitalias
burn me on a brazier
wearing a brassiere
in bitch braggadocio soprano bass
magnificat me in vespers
of hallelujah & amen
libate me in halos
heal me in halls of femmy troubadors
announcing my hiv status
or your status
i am not afraid to love you
implant dialects as if they were lilacs
in my ear
medicate me with a lick & a likei am not afraid to love you
so demand me
reclaim me
queerify me"
— a queerification by regie cabico
