I just wrote this poem: “I Need a System Reboot” about a bunch of things like my recent Audhd diagnosis, chronic illness, having meltdowns frequently again as an adult, the inability to recognize myself— you know, all the fun stuff!

Writing is therapeutic, and often forces me to face all the hard shit. It helps me find the tools to work through all the nitty gritty. I hope you see something you can connect with!

I Need a System Reboot

Please… / I’ve begged now / for far too / too / many ages.
a pastime cursed / deconstructing / every atom / every cell
by cell / week by week / plagued with / forgetting all who I am / with medications
Failed in bringing me back / with each new / trial and error. / Light it up
with each new / brand of fuel / electrify my chest / with a new set / of paddles.
If / I beg / I’ll sign the consent forms / push cold against / the heat of my chest

still red hot / with want / for touch– yes, / electricity specifically
I digest all that’s new / with all the want of a 

baby bird. / the heat / of all my self  
falls / from the nest / once and again / I need a system reboot
ready to pull myself apart / and restart. / for far too / too many ages
I have restarted / regurgitated / replanted
A new set of hands / lips / gray green blue eyes / in the same / dirty soil

for every other / set of / hands / lips / eyes / that have / held mine.
Been labeled mysterious / for far too / too many ages. / How does my mask taste?
Which flavor? / can I finally / devour / all that I / truly am?

I need a system reboot / which language do you speak? / I’ll gulp down every syllable
blast music / with deliberate beats / inject a hot melody / into the cold / of the night
squeeze out / drum beats in the / dark earth

Please… / I’ve been claustrophobic now / for far too / too too too too too / life isn’t life
for poets / with a brain / on fire. / how long is long when / all I see is / the length of / 
my bed / or shadows behind / closed eyelids / without sleep

I’ve been a poet in bed / in the shadow of myself / for far too / too many ages
a pastime cursed / by flashes of a / past that isn’t / even mine / anymore.
How does my mask taste? / without electricity / to kickstart / all who I am
if I ever could. / with all the want of a 

baby bird / I once again beg for a system reboot

Instead of riding it out and putting the least amount of pressure on myself possible, I needed to know why I had zero control of my emotions. Upon returning to my own bedroom, I was so incredibly activated with a broken down nervous system. Any twinkle of overwhelm caused a meltdown. I felt 14 again.

I repeated to my friends and therapist: “It makes sense that I’m exhausted, but I had a good time! I was talkative, had good vulnerable conversations with family members. So, I don’t understand why I also felt like some of me wasn’t there.”

It’s common for individuals, especially neurodivergent individuals to perform who they think they should be depending on the space they’re in. Another word for this is, masking. For autistic individuals in general, masking is:

“ …a way of representing yourself to be more like how others expect you to be. It’s a way of hiding yourself (or parts of yourself) that you don’t want to present to the world. Not in a nefarious way. More like a ‘meeting societal expectations’ kind of way” (Clevelandclinic.org)

If you’re neurotypical, maybe you speak more eloquently at a job interview and worry about how you present yourself, but once you reach your car, you take a deep breath and drop that façade.

However, for autistics, and especially later in life autistics like me— we become experts at masking almost 24/7, without even knowing it’s occurring.

We become the façade.

We may mask due to fear of judgement, and have grown up being punished for our natural responses to situations that feel very abnormal to allistics (non-autistic people). Masking becomes an invisible part of our being. A shield.

Back in 2022, I listened to a podcast episode with a female autistic guest with the autism profile, pathological demand avoidance— sometimes named Persuasive Drive for Autonomy. Unfortunately, this profile of autism is still only recognized as such in the UK. Regardless, with each sentence this guest spoke, wells of understanding tore open within me and pools of tears erupted from me as I saw tiny Leor in my mind’s eye eradicate parts of themself to try and be normal.

I finally recognized my repulsion to authoritative figures and hierarchal systems/ideas in general. I understood my meltdowns, which were misunderstood as “tantrums” at the time. I realized the severe hardships I’ve always faced when trying to meet demands— especially when I was young.

It was that night when I realized I’ve put on a performance my whole life with the world as my audience.

So…Who the fuck was I?

I’ve never been a stranger to questioning my identity and entire being. If you’ve read my other work, you know that I’m Trans/genderfluid, which I discovered in college. That is when I learned about Judith Butler’s idea of gender as performance.

Many of you reading are probably familiar with gender performativity, but in simplest terms: gender isn’t an inherent aspect of biological self, but is socially determined.

Her idea is broken down by revisesociology.com. The author of the article states, “At the heart of [Butler’s] argument is the idea that ‘gender is not something that one is, it is something one does…a ‘doing’ rather than a ‘being’’.

In other words, our individual gender is socially determined by everyday acts we perform.

The author goes on to explain:

“When we behave in ways that are ‘appropriate’ to our sex, we are imitating the norms of gender identity, which are based on how each sex is expected to behave. We are performing a role that does not actually exist. In essence, there is no original template for ‘female’ or ‘male’—the original itself is derived.”

Therefore, similarly to masking my autistic attributes, I also grew up struggling to perform ‘girl’.

Something that helped me break that “this is girl” performance and live authentically as a genderqueer guy was knowing that we get to define our own gender for ourselves and express that ideal in ways that feel safe, authentic and as real as possible.

However, what does it mean to “live authentically”?

A transgender and/or queer person may try to “live authentically,” but that becomes increasingly difficult if the people they have in their circle (usually out of necessity) push against their authentic self. Even if intentions are well-meaning and not meant to be harmful. It is also more difficult if they are multi-marginalized.

Moreover, we reside under those in power who are actively hunting Trans+ people. We’re deemed terrorists, with our rights being eradicated everyday. Trans people of color (primarily trans black women) are being murdered while those in power support such heinous acts. How can young trans+ people live authentically without access to gender affirming care?

To be an active ally, one must know these facts and carry them as we do.

On my recent family trip, someone would constantly repeat that the eldest daughter within a family almost always looks like their father and the youngest daughter looks like their mother’s side. I couldn’t fathom how the child’s sex was a key component, but I didn’t have the space to ask. I already spent my “Leor brings up gender expansiveness” quota for the trip. Instead, I silently reflected on our personal familial roles.

My sister is the eldest daughter and she looks like a carbon copy of my dad’s family, with a similar math and logic-centered brain, as well. I’m still being claimed as the little sister and youngest daughter and I do look very similarly to my mom and her mom and we’ve always been more creative-thinking, artistic brained. This is all language I’ve grown up in. These categories stick like gorilla glue and no one has offered to help me tear it up and start again. In fact, I feel as if I’ve been sabotaged. Therefore, I slip back inside the roles put upon me when I’m with family.

Why are familial language and structures built like skyscrapers built to withstand earthquakes? I’ve tried to shake— not break—us, but nothing will budge. I’ve tried to just be a sibling and it never holds; it’s even a label that has been violently torn off of me. Meanwhile, the role of “sister” now feels thrown at me as a demand, and I still remember when it once was soft—a place of comfort.

Furthermore, I’ve tried to just be a child of a parent, but ‘daughter’ is an unmovable force. I understand when our daughters have always been taught to be strong and unwilling…but why can’t we also be flexible and reinvent ourselves for the sake of authenticity?

Conversations to negotiate my labels— the facts of my identity— are only painful to try and revisit. I feel like a harmful opposing force coming in to disrupt, when I only have a goal of communion. Even so, why is disruption seen as negative when it also allows rebirth?

We’re all scared of loss and change, but I’m only hoping for collaboration and the ability to have a voice in the family room. I just wish to be there.

Alas, when I arrived back home and questioned, “Why didn’t I feel like I was completely there, yet I was still able to be vulnerable?” I remembered how pervasive and insidious both disassociation and my mask are. I performed an act of femininity, vulnerability and “normalcy” that I felt would keep me safe. I performed it so well, that I tricked myself again.

Now all that’s left is to fight or flight. With this act of writing, I’m really just trying to mend.

Mend what? I don’t know yet.

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I don’t know what type of person I’d be, but I do know it would be a lot less of me.

I wouldn’t go back to 2019 and prevent myself from moving into a mold-ridden apartment. If I didn’t get ill then, I still would another time. If I tried to prevent every moment of sickness— where would it end?

I’d need to become an expert in rewriting my own genetic code. Every genetic test I was advised to spend too much money on said, “multi-susceptible to this disease— this and that and ew that too, and damn I don’t have that yet, so I guess I still can. Oh yep, got that and that, etcetera” Each genetic test is a map for a cross-country road trip in a car that doesn’t have breaks. I can’t drive, and there’s no way to stop the wheels that are already in motion.

Even if I did learn to drive and could remap my being— I wouldn’t be me. Where would I even be?

Maybe I’d prefer if a magical being dropped from the sky now and took all the sick away for a day, but allowed me to keep all the friends I’ve made through being ill, I’d hold onto all the lessons I learned. But… where would it end? I’d remain addicted to recreating a life that wasn’t mine, and remain intertwined within grief, false hopes & self-blame.

No, I’d much prefer to remain a sick writer. I rub my chest in gratitude for the pride that blooms within acceptance.

In the beginning— chronic illness will force a writer to carve into their own life with a scythe and redefine what they stand for. A death and a rebirth and a death again, before another rebirth…with each new symptom and diagnosis.

When sick, the artist undresses their perfectionist down to the bones. One may even feel lighter because like an acid, sickness can strip away that anxiety we have to share work, the inner critic and self-sabotage. Then, all that’s left is the body.

However, without my corrosive body, my inner critic and perfectionist would still be alive and well. In other words, being sick taught me to give less of a fuck. When one has an ill body, there’s often only enough energy to open an eye in the morning. When one has an ill body, priorities are shifted to life or death. And usually, sick bodies are just trying to get from Point A. to B. No longer does one have the luxury to care what others’ think.

I’ve already been seen paralyzed with my pants around my ankles. They’ve all seen the drool exiting the interior, and will again. In fact, they’ve seen a lot displayed on the exterior that should be kept inside.

Four months into living in my black mold apartment, I was embarrassed when new roommates brought me to the ER with my gray face and stiff form. One had to move my bra and old period-crusted undies to the visitor’s seat. As I laid naked in front of them and faceless doctors, my first thought was: “At least I’m skinny”.

Many writers feel naked when their piece is read in front of their own timid eyes. The writer is oiled up, displayed just for the reader who has the power to judge each syllable. Sometimes, honest and exposed words will transport you into the writer’s soul.

Where is / the chronically ill soul? / Is it / as crippled as me? / How do you / reach the matter? / How do / I convince you / that I matter? / when I / refuse / when I / don’t have / energy / to oil myself up / for you first?

Am I sexy? / Can you see my desire / clawing through a shallow breath? / I reach / for that pen on your nightstand / before knowing the ink is already / dried up.

I think a lot more than you think / Doctors forget / I’m human when / I stare blankly from a vegetated state / I prefer a nurse / who will laugh / at my jokes as they / slowly / (& not slowly enough) / pump dexamethasone / in my plump / IV /

Dexamethasone can cause your crotch to light up. However, if the nurse carefully, meticulously inserts the drug into the IV, then the burning sensation can be lesser.

Well, that’s what I’m told. However, I’ve only ever felt a vengeful fire before it’s finally muddled with a light steroid euphoria.

My nurse that day spilled so many sorrys down my hospital gown when I accounted the type of pain she unintentionally induced. She made me burn like I had a UTI from belly button to asshole.

To ease / her pain / of my pain / in a half-vegetated state, / I laugh / and state: / “I’ve got a burning bush!” / Shocked / into silence like many / goyim are / at self-deprecating / jokes / I reply to fill / stale air / with: “It’s okay! I’m Jewish!”

Like I gave her permission, she laughed so hard that other nurses peaked into room 24 slightly concerned. The less fucks you have to give, the funnier you’ll be.

Nurses humanize me when ER doctors study me. Yet, I’m oddly flattered when a doctor asks if they could use my body to teach how my illness is presenting. I feel like a slab of meat— yes, come study me. I’m a mere step up from a cadaver. It can be nice to disassociate inside someone else’s subject for a while.

Sometimes I’ll find space in a student doctor’s eyes and almost ask:

“Am I still desirable?” or “Can you learn a lot from me?” or “Am I useful to you?”

EMTs want my whole story. They ask me about my medications and write its name and dose on a firefighter’s arm. Now someone else can be labeled as “Gabapentin 900 mg 600 mg 1200 mg”. Then they carry me out of my apartment and ask for my arms to remain inside the ride at all times.

EMTs want my whole story. When I physically can’t speak, they find a story mapped across my body. Are the feet cold or swollen, the color of the skin, the slack of the lips. Does any road of flesh flitch with pain? No, but I promise I feel it— I’ll always feel it.

Even today, I’ll see an ambulance buzz past me on the street and wonder if I’ve been inside those particular walls:

“Hi, I don’t remember your face from five years ago, but you’ve seen my tits.”

How many uniformed men have seen your tits? Right before grabbing a sharpie to write she/her across your chest.

Your body becomes their checkbox to fill.

No one has been as enamored with my form than medical professionals. In awe of the rigidity. Fascinated by my calm demeaner like I’m a frequent flyer because I am. They study each inch of skin and claim to know you better than you know yourself.

Yet they don’t know enough to diagnose you.

I’ve never been a full fainter, but I’m the king of presyncope. Although I say I’m the king, it’s my least favorite place to be. Since childhood, I’ve lived in the space near fainting. It could be due to standing up too fast (especially when hot and/or dehydrated), from bending over, from accidentally holding my breath while crying…etcetera. It got worse after living with black mold (go figure). It usually releases its grip on me once the ringing in my ears subside, and sometimes requires that I lay on the floor. It’s best if I can rest my feet above my heart— or at least bend my knees.

But sometimes…I’ll do everything I’m supposed to do and the ringing gets louder and the vomit reaches my chest. I start to get extremely anxious, especially when every scale of skin buzzes with heat and I worry that if I faint…I will die. I only just learned that this type of anxiety is a symptom called “sense of impending doom.” Cheerful!

But I still don’t faint. I crouch in the bathroom like a frog or sometimes lay on the cool tile like a cashew. I almost hope the impending death will bring relief. It’s only then that presyncope releases me. I suppose, I’ve always been more of a prisoner than king.

At the end of 2022, the presyncope and dysautonomia were unbearable and unshakeable. I moved towards getting tested for neuropathy, gastroparesis and POTS that December by different specialists. For a Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) diagnosis, I needed a cardiologist to run a tilt table test.

At the time of my test, I thought that I would need to faint in order to get a diagnosis. I don’t remember if that’s what the cardiologist told me, or if I heard that from friends. Regardless, I was strapped to a table, being injected with medication to increase my heartrate and stood upright like Frankenstein’s monster before three doctors. The experience was so torturous, I’m surprised I never saw Jigsaw ride by the hospital room on a tiny red tricycle.

Doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.

My head drooped in presyncope as my body desperately tried to exist within a climbing heartrate and plummeting blood pressure. How many other chronically ill souls have had to wade in this ringing gray light, to only reach above the surface a few times.

As my ears rung, I just muttered “I don’t feel well” over and over. They would only release me if I fainted or threw up, or knew I’d throw up. But how could I know how a body I didn’t trust, and that didn’t trust me was about to act?

Through the haze, I could still make out the doctors conversing about their weekend plans and the new restaurant to try. They never looked at me. I was a performance art piece they lost interest in and I knew they’d soon leave the gallery.

At this point, a chronically ill patient may realize they don’t own their own soul— or at least not their body. Or maybe they’ll feel that sense of dread after paying the $3k just for more questions than answers.

Because I didn’t faint / I dangled there / Because the cardiologist swore / he kept going back and forth / and back and forth / but the numbers / were too close to call / like my test was a / race / like an invisible component caught up to me at / the last second / or maybe I just / beat my body / but he ultimately / decided not / to diagnose me / with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome / because I didn’t faint

I later learned that many POTS patients don’t faint. I was also later validated when my neuromuscular doctor who diagnosed me with small fiber neuropathy said I 100% have autonomic dysfunction (dysautonomia), and all tests have room for error. And he didn’t deny that diagnoses are important for self-acceptance and unfortunately insurance agencies— but ultimately, we’re just here to treat any symptom regardless of the definition.

A year after the test, a friend of a friend did a tilt table test on their diagnosis journey for a heart condition. I felt validated when he said the test didn’t affect him at all. He was strapped in like I was, medicated and lifted upright, but unlike me, he felt completely normal. I was surprised to feel a weight immediately lifted off my chest in that moment. “I told that Doctor something was wrong with me! I knew it!”

Doctors don’t have the power to hold your soul, nor do they have the power to shape your identity. That cardiologist— who also accidentally saw my tits one time— can’t help me find it all within one diagnosis.

There will always be too many questions that no one knows the answer to. You may not have any fucks left to give, but you’ll also have too many. Your whole life is lived within dichotomy.

However, when you feel like a spool quickly running out of thread, writing will reel you back in. With each word written, each question explored— you remember who you are on and off the page. And you ARE desirable. You deserve to be seen more than just an educational tool.

You are alive and soulful and empathetic. You are who you are because you learned to BE within a breathing, chronically ill body. Your body may not define you, but it’s still yours to define.

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However, in my experience— gender euphoria is much more powerful and often overlooked. If a gender expansive individual doesn’t know how to recognize gender euphoria, or how to define it for themself— they may not know that is also a sign they could be transgender or nonbinary. At least I didn’t.

Before I share my own experiences of gender euphoria, I’d like to define it. I learned last year, while facilitating a support group for trusted adults of LGBTQIA+ youth, that many could define gender dysphoria, but weren’t familiar with it’s opposite. That felt like a confirmation that trusted adults may know the dark and heavy parts of the trans+ experience, but know nothing of the joy and light. In this way, of course they’re frightened for their child’s safety when they came out as transgender.

If we’re only exposed to death and hardship within a community, we’re receiving even less than half of the story. We could be missing a loved one’s narrative and personal experience entirely. We could be missing our own.

According to a study conducted by The Trevor Project, gender euphoria is defined as: “…satisfaction or joy caused when one’s gendered experience aligns with their gender identity, rather than the gender they were assigned with at birth.” The study goes on to mention that although the term was coined in 1976 and easily adopted in trans+ and nonbinary spaces, it has “…remained unexamined by empirical analysis until very recently.”

Why is that? Because gender dysphoria has been pathologized? Perhaps because we’re so used to tragic stories in relation to gender expansive individuals.

Returning to another tale from my previous position as Program Coordinator and Facilitator at a queer non-profit— I was tasked with helping to redevelop our curriculum. My team and I shuffled through pages upon pages of negative statistics about queer and trans+ youth in Colorado until we were all completely drained. That’s when an intern voiced how depressing and wrong it is that there wasn’t enough joy in our slides.

I think when we’re so set on educating straight and cisgender people the importance of caring for queer and trans youth, we forget that queer joy IS resistance. We forget about the power of our euphoria!

I’ve been on my own gender journey for about 10 years now and it’s all incredibly fluid because that’s life! I’ve been lucky that I don’t experience much dysphoria. However, about 14 years ago, I learned gender dysphoria is the “““diagnosis””” and the emotions associated with being trans (plus I thought gender dysphoria was needed to figure out where you fit on that spectrum). Therefore, it took me an extremely long time to even realize I was genderfluid and trans.

I didn’t recognize that the gender euphoria I felt when I dressed more masculine and/or androgynous, plus the secondhand euphoria I felt for loved ones who were on their own gender journey was enough for me to embrace myself as I embraced my loved ones.

Through their study, The Trevor Project discovered that transgender and nonbinary individuals identify four components to gender euphoria:

• Affirming Communication

• Inclusivity and Belonging

• Appearance Affirmation

• Support and Respect

If you’re reading this as a cisgender person, I can imagine that those are components that make you feel seen, as well. Because honestly— we all feel confident, whole, positive and respected when we’re viewed the way we identify.

Okay, finally I’ll share my own experiences of gender euphoria. This is with the hope that you can start to pay more attention to what makes you feel euphoric in your body.

• The euphoria that moved me to tears 10 years ago when I wore this outfit (and all my masc outfits since then):

• The overwhelming euphoria I felt when I sat in the salon’s chair after I finally cut my hair off:

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• When I was invited to my brother’s bachelor weekend and none of his friends referred to me as his little sister, nor reacted differently to me in any way

• When I attended The Heart of It Writing Retreat and was surrounded by many volumes of transness, and every single type of gender expression was accepted and valid

• Even just as a kid watching TV with my brother and noticing we slouched on the couch in the same way

Then, there are the joyous moments of— what I coin—secondhand euphoria when you’re around loved ones as they experience their own gender euphoria. Even though I was just a witness in the moments below, it helped me recognize that same type of wholeness in myself. It’s a way to build bonds and community.

• Going with my bestie to CVS when she picked up HRT for the first time

• Taking care of/spending time with that same bestie when she got top surgery

• Going thrifting with my partner to help them find more feminine wardrobe pieces and watching them twirl in the skirt we bought

• Hearing my co-worker talk about how gender fluidity presents for her

These are just some moments. Flashes within my 31 years of life that I’ll always hold onto. Because joy is our most powerful weapon against hate.

If you’re trans+ yourself, I hope you have a joyous and relaxing trans day of visibility. I hope you take some time to reflect on how magical it is to be gender expansive.

If you’re a cisgender reader, maybe this essay can help you learn to recognize when your loved one(s) are experiencing gender euphoria and when they’re not. Ask respectful questions, take part in their narrative when you can. Notice when they want to confide in you.

There’s a lot of darkness and hate against the trans+ community right now and it is important to stay informed. It is important to fight. In that same vein, it’s vital to embrace your euphoria, and your loved one(s)’ gender euphoria. And always remember what all the fighting is for.

Momma and I would crawl together in the nursery’s trenches in search of anything with a mushroom cap, a miniature swing set, bluebell flowers, foxgloves — anything feminine, yet gritty enough to entice faes to our rest stop.

Then we’d crawl through the Los Angeles dirt with our fingertips melting into mud. Momma, Orchid and I created a village in the corner of our backyard at the base of our tree.

I loved being dirty.

In Elementary school recess everyday, my friends and I would roll in the grass and transform into an endless grass stain. We were menaces who would sneak behind classrooms, duck under the jungle gym, act like we were in battle. In reality, we just creeped under the feet of our crushes to eavesdrop and hopefully find out who they liked.

All car rides home were caked in mud and sweat. I felt accomplished, the ‘good tired’.

I also brought dolls everywhere— Bratz and My Scene dolls were my favorite as I became a human in the late 90s/early 2000s. We’d go on submarine adventures through soapy bath water— long after it turned cold.

These objects, that I put soul into also helped me discover sexuality. Even while alone in my room, I’d flush red when my spindly fingers pushed girl dolls against other girl dolls and boys against boys. While playing with friends, I’d study their expressions as I allowed the Bratz to kiss naked. If I witnessed a glimmer of intrigue in their transfixed stare, I’d pull that string and analyze what being attracted to my girl friends meant.

My comrades and I would strip our dolls naked and chase the boys across the school yard until our pubescent victim stood atop the highest point of the jungle gym. We made each boy kiss the shiny plastic lips. I never said I was an ethical kid— I had too much of an itching for second grade domination.

I also loved to run. With wind buzzing past my ears, I’d beat most the boys in sprints. However, all I cared about was defeating my biggest competitor and crush, Salmon. We were pretty solid friends and I’d invite him to all my big sleepover birthday parties. He’d be the only boy when another male friend couldn’t make it.

Even at seven, Salmon had many admirers in our friend group. Most blatantly, a girl we’ll call Clover would casually and “accidentally” fall into his lap. She’d pretend to ignore his fearful face layered with surprise. We’d fight for his attention, but at least I got to sit next to him in the theater when we all went to see Spy Kids 3.

I also connected to Salmon because he was half-Jewish on his dad’s side. My family would invite him and his dad to high holiday dinners at our house, even though neither of us were religious. Being some of the only kids at these get-togethers bonded us. Orchid was often there as well with her dad who was Jewish and I felt honored to have them in this little pocket world. The memories we made over dreidels and gelt warmed me up for a long time.

Play has always been rigidly gendered. However, I subconsciously blurred that binary of gender expression and luckily Momma never questioned it. I loved collecting small models of fancy vintage cars that I’d gather into Momma’s cart at the grocery store. I also collected specialty, niche baseballs, even though I’ve never had an interest in the sport. In both cases, I was enamored by the design and enjoyed meticulously opening and closing the doors of the cars— packing in imaginary families. I’d also collect tiny figurines of dragons, animals, fairies, etc. and kept them close to where I rested my head at night. I called them “My Guardians” to protect me from nightmares and the shadow man that stood in the corner of my room night after night.

As I got older, my girlhood muddled into a gray shadow, slipping further away until everything I did as a child felt like an embarrassment. I thank teenage-hood for that.

My body filled out, my baby face didn’t go away and in middle school, and high school, I was bullied for my weight. In response, I drowned myself in giant hoodies. However, as time went on— I just wanted to be desired. So, I draped my skin in feminine fabrics with silhouettes I was told were flattering for my ballooned shape. By 15, I started to straighten my tummy in Spanx everyday. I attempted hyper-femininity as a weapon against my fat— a way to suppress insecurity. But all it did was make me extremely aware of my own body and the world, and how my body squeezed within folds of the world.

My brother is six years older than me and always was an athlete. We’d eat breakfast together at the small ornate table in the nook of our family’s galley kitchen. His bony chest remained hidden under a blanket taken from his bed that he always turned into a cape before trekking to the table. I felt as if he were showered in waffles, maple syrup, more cereal, more more more of whatever he wanted. I, on the other hand, would complain of hunger and desired as much as him. Time and time again, my pleas were redacted because his fast metabolism called for more food. He became a comparison and it always felt gendered to me.

He’s an athlete and frankly, he always needed to gain weight. As an adult, I do understand those reasons, but I still don’t understand why it affected my food. Why couldn’t I have more? Well…because he was underweight, while I was fat. I wasn’t shrinking fast enough, so something had to be done.

As I got older, it became frowned upon to blur the lines between boy and girl. Even though my sister and I were encouraged to play sports, and play “as tough as the boys,” we were still divided into an us vs. them.

I felt the battle between us vs them inside myself, even though I couldn’t place where it came from. Was I the us or them?

I resented that I had to start wearing a training bra and shaving my legs just because I was told to. I got punished for wearing basketball shorts and an over-sized shirt without a bra at family gatherings, even though my brother was in the same outfit. It always felt gendered to me. A binary that I was in trouble for crossing when all I wanted was to walk further and further away from that border.

Moreover, I enjoyed creating videos with my friends. We’d direct silly movies, practice storytelling and interview each other. In one tape, a friend filmed me from below. She laid on my bed as I hovered above her; my feet planted on the mattress out of frame, so it appeared like I was flying. My loose breasts slightly flapped in beat with my arms that I lifted and lowered like wings. Soon, Momma’s voice came into frame calling my name, so the image paused momentarily. In the next recorded frame, I hovered above the camera in the same position, but this time, my breasts remained inhabited and stagnant under a training bra. I waved my arms half-heartedly toward the lens.

I would be compared to my friends in an argument for contorting myself to female beauty standards. For example, “Just look— Venice has started to wear a bra, don’t you want to be like her?”

I’m sure Momma tried to illustrate that I wasn’t alone in “developing” into womanhood because— “see! That friend is too, and her over there!” However, all it did was deepen the crevice separating myself from my friends. I didn’t know why I was like them, but felt completely unlike anyone.

Girlhood is deep, complex and has shaped who I am today. I will forever be grateful for the girl I was— even though I tried to force myself into what I thought was expected— not who I truly was. I’m here now, and that is all that matters.

In 2016, while in college in the bay area— it finally clicked that I belong beyond the gender binary. I owe that revelation to watching The X-Files for the first time— when I fell into a deep love affair with both Mulder and Scully.

As a baby, Momma’s coworkers would say, “Wow, Leor looks like she could be Scully’s child!” (This would have been around Scully’s first motherhood storyline). Obviously I don’t remember those encounters, but more and more in the past 9-10 years— as I’ve lost weight— people have said I resemble Gillian Anderson and of course I’m insanely flattered because GILLIAN ANDERSON.

However, I connected more to the eccentric spooky Mulder. I would look in the mirror and be sad he wasn’t looking back at me. With each episode, and each solemn, tearful trip in front of a mirror, I started to connect that maybe I wanted to be Mulder. As I continued to imagine us as one and expressing myself through more androgynous personas, I also dissected my past. I yanked apart my girlhood, created diagrams and poems searching for me within it all.

I do not denounce my girlhood. I was quite girly growing up (while covered in mud and grass stains) and of course I don’t know if that was me or societal pressure— but it literally doesn’t matter anymore.

I became who I am through girlhood.

I enjoyed shooting zombies with my brother on his Xbox AND we played with my Barbie’s together. My siblings and I grew up on Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast and would also rough house. We created forts with our uncle for slumber parties, and moved our mattresses to the living room to avoid the lava wood floor. In other words, we’d PLAY.

I don’t know where gender lies and I begin, but I literally don’t care anymore. And nor should you. As adults, we’ve all been conditioned to stop play, and gender exploration. It’s time for a revolt already!

Remember what you were like as a child, and all you enjoyed— bring them back out!

I look at pictures of young Leor and I remember loving all the dresses I was in. I loved to prance and twirl and do cart-wheels with my underwear in full view. I appreciated beautiful treasures, silky-soft fabrics AND I also begged everyone to just let me be comfortable.

Fellow queers often show their childhood pictures and point to the poses and moments that give them away as LGBTQIA+. As I examined my girlhood through photographs, I almost felt broken not finding that thing— whatever it is. However, whenever I re-examine my history now, it’s impossible not to see my queerness. I spent days upon days dressing up in Momma’s lavish clothes with Aba’s loafers jutting out on my feet. I’d also prance in Momma’s heals, jut out my hip and put on a theatrical production for my family. I was fabulous!

I fondly remember how weird and hilarious I’ve always been and smile at the young feminine queer boy I can finally see in my mind’s eye. So, maybe my past was a boyhood all along, or a girlhood, or all of the above. That’s okay too. Regardless, I won’t omit her— a her who is also myself.

I do sometimes grieve that I didn’t have a boyhood. But then remember I’m creating my boyhood now.

I digress.

I’m reflecting on a writer’s event I went to as the only masked attendee. My journey there didn’t start particularly strong while in traffic in the back of an Uber. I opened the car door hopeful because I caught a glimpse of a medical mask looped around the driver’s earlobes. However, I soon noticed that he merely utilized the tool to keep his chin warm. My face turned towards the window hoping to find the strength to ask him to wear the mask properly. However, as he gurgled his throat and erupted in saliva— I only found my exhaustion and fear mirrored back to me. I disassociated via the music in my earbuds.

I love performing spoken word. I love witnessing the surprise in real time as I, the introverted writer steps upon the stage and my voice emerges in front of the microphone. Each piece I read becomes a screenplay I act out. Even as I write each piece, I do so with the intention to be read aloud for all of you seated in total rapture.

I believe the astrology queers would describe it as my Leo mars and Aquarius mercury taking center stage. It’s a time to be whacky, radical, and bold.

In 2017, during my senior year of college, it was expected of the graduating writers to host a reading to celebrate our senior creative thesis. I was stoked! Before this point, I only performed my work once.

As part of our preparation, our thesis advisor (shout out to Eric) taught tips and tricks for spoken word through practice rounds. This process helped my confidence grow.

That thesis reading became one of my favorite college memories. I had an abundance of friends crowd the back of the school café. One of my best friends surprised me with lowkey horrific cut-out (unflattering) pictures of my face displayed on popsicle sticks with each friend waving at least two each. Even my parents were present, bouncing a couple baby photos in excitement. My three roommates noted I arrayed myself in a floral dress, so they also illustrated themselves in head-to-toe floral.

All this to say— the support was palpable.

I took center stage and the audience bloomed. Sometimes, I still watch the recording of that night and smile ear to ear when everyone erupts in laughter and gasps on cue.

At the end of my bit, a younger student writer strode towards me and praised my writing and admitted she looked up to me. I smacked my dumbfounded mouth closed in awe. Incredibly thankful, but without the words to express it.

I read a few times after that, but nothing substantial until my showcase at The Heart of it Writer’s Retreat this past summer. I picked the first night, even though the only slot available was as first reader.

So there I was— awkwardly tumbling off a bean bag chair to kick off the whole darn thing. I balanced my phone, Remarkable, and journal on my palms as I strode over to the podium. My phone featured OLD SHIT, whereas my other two writing tools featured lots of REALLY NEW SHIT. I sat in front of a myriad of ultra-talented queer writers and I lunged my voice at them, as if my chronic illness poem was an attack.

I felt right at home.

Toward the end of the retreat— lovingly dubbed “gay poetry camp”— I meandered around the kitchen, probably waiting for KD to make me eggs when Laura reached me from across the room with her welcoming, ethereal smile.

She casually said I was a genius. She said I masterfully interweave comedy into my writing and I perform the words really well. I don’t remember what I said in response. I hope I said that I was able to perform and write well because The Heart of It (THOI) was my audience and community. I knew it was a safe space— safe to be our authentic selves, which is what allowed me to feel inspired and confidentially perform.

In preparing for this writing retreat, THOI staff were extremely thoughtful and methodical in ensuring a COVID-conscious and safe environment. I followed the rigorous rules presented to all of us upon acceptance— including proof of testing multiple times before the retreat, masking beforehand (which I always do anyway) and receiving the latest booster for those who were able. I applied because I knew there were multiple chronically ill writers on staff and therefore trusted the safety rules.

I believe it was Des, the founder of THOI, who said that it was important to ensure everyone’s accommodations were met to the best of their ability because one needs to feel as comfortable and safe as possible to have the mind space to be an authentic writer. I couldn’t agree more.

Therefore, once I arrived at that aforementioned writer’s event as the only masked attendee— I automatically became an outsider removed from the rest by a foggy windowpane in a community that was supposedly mine.

The program started by denouncing fascisim, white supremacy, and highlighted the importance of community care. Audience members clapped and whooped while I felt myself start to dissociate.

Disabled and ill people, and maskers in general witness this type of irony everyday. I felt like I was left out in the cold because no one inside thought to unlock a door.

When you don’t mask (especially at an event), you automatically help build a hierarchy between the chronically ill and you. We’re separated by the fact that I’m the only one there caring for my health and safety. (This doesn’t apply to those who can’t mask for health reasons). It’s almost worse that it’s not intentional. We’re not even seen enough to be an afterthought.

As the danger isn’t seen, you choose not to acknowledge it. However, eugenics has silently taken up all the empty space in the room.

I sit silently with my fingers clasped around a second beer and gaze at the featured readers as they each take center stage. I unfortunately don’t hear a lot. Instead, I reflect on if I were a featured reader here. I’d step up to the mic with my lips wrapped in an N95 and worry about audience members expecting me to unmask before I speak. I’d worry about their judgement when I don’t unmask. As I perform, it isn’t really me up there, but my anxiety mimicking the words on the page. I rush line breaks in a poem— like Eric taught us not to do all those years ago— because I just want off that stage.

After, if someone were to say I did a good job, I wouldn’t believe them. I would know I didn’t do my words justice, because I couldn’t do myself justice.

In their memoir, Touch Me, I’m Sick, author Margeaux Feldman discusses the relationship between trauma, chronic illness and the desire for connection. Specifically, the essay, “Ambivalent Desires, Ugly Sex” introduces the term “disorganized attachment”, or “fearful-avoidant style” coined by Mary Main and Judith Solomon (70). As someone with complex trauma and chronic illness, I connected to this attachment style the most. Reading this essay helped me re-examine my feelings during that featured readers event.

Feldman states, “Children who develop disorganized attachment vacillate between anxious and avoidant because they learned that their caregivers were not safe. Main termed this response ‘fright without a solution’ ” (70). It is my understanding that “not safe” can be in regards to psychologically unsafe and/or physically.

Scholar, Amy Edmondson defines psychological safety as “a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes, and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking” (Randstad USA) In other words, it’s the mutual understanding that individuals within a workplace or organization/community all arrive with different point of views, abilities, narratives and contexts. Each individual context is valid and each individual should be encouraged to share ideas and concerns without fear of being silenced or reprimanded.

However, this concept is hard to believe when constantly working through a fearful-avoidant cycle and the person or community that used to provide comfort is now the same source that’s creating the psychologically (and physically) unsafe space. As I previously mentioned, the evening started with denouncing fascism and our government to a crowd of non-maskers, I embodied “fright without a solution” as a freeze response. I couldn’t see any allies who would support my position if I were to complain.

Yes, it could be argued that I could just stand and leave if I felt uncomfortable— nobody tied me to the chair. However, am I not allowed to desire inclusion and connection to my fellow writers? My mind “…[vacillated] between the desire to be close and the desire to pull away” from the group of creatives (Feldman 71).

“When we are afraid, our attachment system gets activated to seek proximity to and comfort from our attachment figure, but what happens when our attachment figure is the person causing the threat?” (Feldman 71). In this case, my “attachment figure” was a community that pre-pandemic provided comfort and comradery when my invisible illness could stay invisible.

Now in the year 2025 when COVID is supposedly eradicated because capitalistic systems and the government decided it is, it’s impossible for the high risk to be invisible any longer. It becomes the responsibility of those who are most high risk or marginalized, like seniors and BIPOC, poor LGBTQIA+ folks, disabled and chronically ill to provide mutual aid and COVID education.

I utilized that writer’s event as an example, because that’s where all these thoughts burst out, but it’s not solely their fault I had an existential crisis as a disabled writer. This is a systemic problem that has unfortunately eroded many in-person writing and creative local groups.

How can a creative space, and/or organization or any leftist community preach collectivism and community care if you’ve shunned the most vulnerable?

Want to learn how to protect your community and ease back into masking?

Visit your local COVID safe mask bloc where you’ll find several resources/educational sources, ways to gain free masks & tests, and COVID safe events to check out!

Here is the Covid Safe Colorado page.

Two Ghosts

our voices crack like meat on a spit

your eyes apply 
enough pressure to     tenderize


moon leaks from your lips

hair parted down the middle
like tendrils--        gray roots sprout

I focus on the white teeth of your shirt


voices sizzle on low heat

you twist towards me:
“please don’t be gone when I get back” 

summer humidity       drips 
in my waist-band

i sit up as you beckon 
like a puppeteer

when I realize it’s me 
pulling the strings

- published in Humble Pie Literary Journal Vol. 18, 2020

Let’s talk about it:

For all my fat insecure kids who lost a lot of weight as an adult (especially in your early 20s) OR for kids who were insecure and/or bullied growing up — have you ever had a moment when you felt the power shift? A moment when you could no longer ignore the fact that other people did find you attractive? And you had the power to lock people in place when they felt that attraction for you? That’s the idea this poem explores.

“Two Ghosts” spans the two years of a situationship (horrible term, but it does describe it best) and the narrative is not chronological, but instead juxtaposes first date feelings with the last time you see this person two years later.

This poem means a lot to me and therefore I wanted to bring it back into the fold— especially because I can no longer find vol. 18 of Humble Pie online. It represents an experience from almost 10 years ago before I was disabled and was doing a lot of soul-searching and unlearning— what your early 20s are for. Therefore, it both feels like me and not me at all. I think a lot of readers can relate to that.

When Siblings Visit

tighter than his own hands,
a familial hive claws his throat

prepped by tender olive 
juice varnishes 

the wood vinegar 
against august trauma 
now prepared for pickling

our railing indents the melancholy
splinters rise once again
and plead

to trace his face
connect the dots
of our generational trauma

born of the Mediterranean 
feral freckles cut like diamonds

seeped in displacement and addiction

deep strawberry hair, darker in sea’s salt
feet like talons                  gripping sand

- Published in South Broadway Press, 2025

Let’s talk about it:

I think I wrote this poem back in 2019 or 2020 and then slowly edited over the years, which honestly is one of my favorite ways to write a poem. My ‘process’ for writing poems varies depends on the subject matter, and if I feel that deep PULL to get that image and/or narrative on paper. Then, sometimes poems need room to breathe (aka I need time away from it), to edit it.

I’ll often write a loose— sorta longer form of a poem, then edit it a bit and if it still feels unfinished, I’ll come back and that’s usually when I’ll chop out words and rearrange stanzas. That was my process in writing “When Siblings Visit”.

This poem describes a moment when you try deeply to connect with a sibling and in that process, you can see how generational trauma— which you’re only familiar seeing in yourself— is now displayed on your sibling’s face. It’s when you see how you’re both so alike, yet such different outcomes of that generational trauma. Therefore, you still feel disconnected, when you want so much to connect.

When this poem was recently published in South Broadway Press, someone reached out to me and said they deeply resonated with the words and then shared it with their siblings, as well. That’s the shit I live for.

Introduction

I’ve experienced Israel in five parts. Traversing the terrain twice as a child with my family and three times as an adult while working at different NGOs in the Bauhaus inspired metropolis, Tel Aviv. Within each stretch, I learned more about my own context and that of the state, as well as how I fit amongst the fold.

Even within such a narrow country, each corner is distinct and weighted. Interlocked within symbols and cultures that encompass both the East and West, citizens and travelers navigate the spaces–whether the cobbled streets of Jerusalem or cracked concrete of Tel Aviv–with their specific identities as their guide. In other words, we traverse a variety of spaces with our context first depending upon ethnicity, sexuality, or gender. The built environment dictates which manner of being is welcome and who must stay behind or hidden. Thus, each movement in the public sphere is a performance of identity.

The built environment negotiates territory with the culture of the inhabitants as well as historical context. Therefore, each district in Israel has its own identity depending on the mixture of citizen and/or tourist, religions, ethnicity–specifically Jewish and Arab–as well as gender and sexualities. City dwellers will manipulate the boundaries presented as a way to create anew and to fit their need and identity, whether in reclaiming or placemaking. In this way, the built environment, and complex identities of traversers are constantly in conversation. These malleable elements then give each intersection within the country its own identity and purpose, constructing power structures that remain permeable. Utilizing my own experiences, I showcase how those who are historically silenced, utilize everyday action and movement throughout urban spaces to reclaim territory.

Self-Positionality

This research project comes from the perspective of an Ashkenazi Israeli-American Jew, born and raised in The United States to an American mother who converted to Judaism and a Jewish Israeli father. My identity is split between nations with a father who didn’t divulge Israeli history— except from the psyche of his romanticized nostalgia. I rarely visited Israel as a child and was left to my own devices to discover my Israeli identity for myself. It wasn’t until 2014 when the Gaza War shook international airwaves, that I found out Palestine existed. Therefore, I write this map of Israel, to a degree, as an outsider and from a place of privilege. When working in development and communication at the educational non-profit, Sadaka-Reut: Jewish-Arab Partnership in 2019, I started to notice that one’s mobility within Tel Aviv differed depending on their background and abilities. Through my Palestinian and Jewish female co-workers’ narratives navigating the metropolis, along with Lauren Elkin’s travel memoir, Flaneuse: Women Walking the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London as a backdrop, I questioned: why/how are cityscapes built with only one perspective in mind, and is that from the perspective of everyday people? How can a city be planned more equitably? I kept my eye on the street, studied the narrative of Tel Aviv and “...read the city like a book” (Elkin 98).

The Land as Feminine

It’s impossible for me to pull readers along Tel Aviv’s disjointed walkways, between blocked off construction sites, or open-air cafes while cigarette smoke wafts and voices overlap in Hebrew and Arabic before placing us first in the North of Israel within farmland and open space. For me, this tiny young country starts with familial history and connection to kibbutzim. Therefore, a short history on kibbutzim will be the first stop on this map. Kibbutzim–the plural for a kibbutz-- are agricultural and/or industrial collectives founded in socialist ideals which played a vital role in “...pioneering...new Jewish settlements in Palestine and their democratic and egalitarian character had a strong influence on early Israeli society as a whole” (Britannica). It’s important to note that in many contexts, the word “pioneering,” has a negative relation to colonialism and destruction of indigenous land and peoples. This is especially pronounced in connection to the continued building of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the protests since May 2021, which erupted in response to further Palestinian displacement in the neighborhood Sheikh Jarrah (Gadzo, Jubeh). Pioneers are often associated with trailblazers, while ignoring the histories and cultures already present that are being obliterated. However, in the historical context of Mandatory Palestine, kibbutzim became an avenue for Jewish women to practice agency and build community through farm work while fostering connection to land and self. Therefore in this setting and era, kibbutzim represent freedom, mobility and collectivism.

In her essay, “Adam and Adama, ‘Ird and Ard: En-gendering Political Conflict and Identity in Early Jewish and Palestinian Nationalisms,” author Sheila Hannah Katz states that through collective agriculture in the early 1900s, “Jewish women in Palestine became notorious for trespassing the boundaries of conventional gender roles” (Katz 97). This was due to cultivation of land being mostly associated with masculinity. Male Zionists took on the role of conquerors and “...[their] desire to possess [Palestine] made them imbue it with feminine characteristics” (Katz 89). In other words, the land was feminized and represented womanhood that men were expected to tame and fertilize. Therefore, women who tended to the crops and cared for the acreage automatically bended gender expectations by feminizing a masculine space.

Author Alice Evans, describes this phenomenon as “...women demonstrating their equal competence in socially valued, masculine domains” (389). Initially, women did not take on this role, but viewing the importance of it, they inserted themselves into the part. In turn, closing the gender gap. Katz further states, “Women organized all-female agricultural collectives when they were excluded from or subordinated in men’s settlements” (97). It was through these actions that women paved a path for future Jewish girls to plant their stake in Palestine and contribute in similar avenues to their male counterpoints, which led to further opportunities for Jewish girls. Indeed, Manya Shohat, seen as the “mother” of these collective settlements, was the main initiator of the kibbutzim (Katz 97) that is integral to my personal familial history. Through growing intimate with the land everyday, in the same capacity of the men, “...[women’s] demonstrations of equal competence gradually came to be regarded as typical rather than exceptional” (Evans 406). Women’s agricultural collectives started as separate but equal to men’s work and in the beginning seen as irregular. However, it soon developed into kibbutzim which allows strong and important roles for all genders. Therefore, Shohat and others in her community performed within patriarchal hierarchies until they eventually took down the systemic barriers to start anew.

The Orchard for Abraham’s Children

As previously alluded to, Zionists’ connection to land is contentious as it often disregards the lives of Palestinians. However, I do not define myself as a Zionist and I acknowledge my connection to Israel’s soil while recognizing the loaded context to how that attachment came to be. Moreover, the cultivation of land has deep roots within our family as my father was raised on Kibbutz HaOgen and I have family living on Kibbutz Ma’agan Michael. Maybe it’s this familial tie to land that connects me to farming. I feel one with the soil and learning that the kibbutz movement started primarily with women helped stretch my roots even further. One’s relationship with land and placemaking is complicated and debated. How can we ensure that we’re creating place and community while honoring cultures and homes already established?

While I worked at Sadaka-Reut, I also taught in a Jewish-Palestinian kindergarten in Jaffa. Located in the southern quarter of Tel Aviv, Jaffa is one of Israel’s mixed Jewish and Arab cities. The Orchard of Abraham’s Children was formed by a Jewish mother and Palestinian father who wanted an oasis for their baby’s education. Therefore, they created a “kinder-garden” with farm animals, and several small gardens divided by age groups in hopes to teach their students empathy for one another through the caring and feeding of the land. Working closely with my Jewish co-worker Efrat, we tended to the plants and I communicated gesturally with five year olds. Their miniature palms fit within mine as we dug holes with our fingers. It amazed me how tender they tended living stalks. Mud caked the inside of my fingernails the full five months I worked there. Efrat, my other co-worker Itamar, and I cleared the backyard of grime and concrete, planted vegetables and cooked meals with the children over fire-pits that we first encircled with stone. Twice or more a week, I’d come tend the gardens and work with the kids; their ungainly legs following me back and forth practicing their English in my wake. It was through seeing the amazement and wonder of children, and cultivating the garden that I created a sense of place within a corner of Jaffa. The Orchard provided a sense of holism and encouraged me to bring my whole self to the work.

I worked primarily with both Jewish and Palestinian women at The Orchard. Hebrew and Arabic sliced through the gardens at any given moment, not in conflict, but unison. I clung onto both languages along with the children, who also learned by hearing and experiencing. The languages became just another performance of resistance in a space of bi-national partnership. In her piece, “Somatic Sovereignty: Body as Territory in Columbia’s Legion del Afecto,” scholar Allison Hayes-Conroy explores the concept “body as territory” and states, “...the role of bodies has been described as either ‘becoming’ a space or territory of resistance (the body as its own territory) or transforming spaces and territories through bodily presence” (1302). In other words, through actions and context of space we make those movements, we carry place within us as well, make lasting impressions upon the space itself and shape it through our performance of identity. At The Orchard, It was through melding language and culture, physical labor, and the care for nature and future Palestinian and Jewish generations that we gained power for peacebuilding. By just existing as a Jewish and Palestinian mixed kindergarten–cultivating the soil together–we resisted and subverted the popular narrative about Israeli-Palestinian relations. Therefore, it was collective action and coalition building that reclaimed the territory and thus, narrative.

I kept a journal of research and observations during my five months in Tel Aviv-Jaffa that Winter and Spring. In late April towards the end of my stint, I left the following anecdote:

I went to The Orchard, but found the gate to the vegetable garden off its hinges. [Violent vandals wrecked the space]…The Orchard doesn’t know how to stop it. Efrat has quit as she wants to take legal action, but the founders disagree, worrying about Israeli officials in a Palestinian space. The plants died as no one has watered for two weeks with the sun beating down nonstop for a week…it feels symbolic. Ora [the co-founder] begged me to save the dead plants. Itamar says there isn’t a point. I wonder how much the kids can comprehend. Why can’t children just have their space?

Even when reclaiming territory, outside forces still have power to wreck peace that has been built. The environment reflected the conflict of the region. Nature literally and poignantly died in response to miscommunication and hatred. I’ll always carry the before, during, and after of the vegetable garden within my body as the weight of it holds me down. In her piece, Hayes-Conroy has a section titled “Body as Territory Is Not a Metaphor” in which she discusses “...embodied emotions and feelings” (1302). She states:

...pain...is something that connects a person with the sacred not only because it reminds them of their own being--their humanity, their breakability-- but also because it reminds a person that other bodies are equally human and breakable (Hayes-Conroy 1303)

Our bodies are as breakable as our environments and we reflect each other like a mirror. This quote spoke so heavily to me because it instantly connected me to being in Tel Aviv. In March of that year, I became quite ill because of my environment. Winters are quite moist in Israel and caused mold to rage within our apartment, which then worked through me. The aforementioned anecdote was from my last few days at The Orchard after being ill for almost two months. I felt more like toxic mold than my actual being. Disconnected from my body, I hoped fostering the land with a community I connected to would help ground me as it has previously. Alas, the territory I found merely reminded me of breakability, and I connected to the environment as I’ve never known before. In other words, my singular pain transformed into our collective pain and I felt connected to my co-workers as well as our environment. Hayes-Conroy describes peacebuilding as “...[focusing] on reshaping the world on a corporeal level” (1303) through concrete, everyday action. Not only is this what The Orchard taught me, but I also experienced how separation and conflict can also reshape our spaces, self and connection to our bodies.

Modernization and Spatial Hierarchies

After several months living in Jaffa, I became a “Tel Avivian” just like the locals. I wrote the city with my two feet, each step a new word to describe the transients and permeable cityscape. In this way, meandering and observing became my way to savor and protect the ever-changing mix of people and overlapping histories. Furthermore, it connected me to the landscape and allowed me to plant routes through concrete. Wandering from quarter to quarter, I noticed how each district was broken up–bound to the cultures and ethnicities pushed into those circles–whether voluntarily or forcefully. For example, just besides Florentin, Tel Aviv’s “up and coming” artistic hub for 20-somethings, South Tel Aviv houses many Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers, refugees, and migrant workers who are then left to their own devices in tight and deteriorating housing. Dubbed the “Black City” by Israeli architect and theoretician Sharon Rotbard or often the backyard of the “White City,” which Tel Aviv is often coined, South Tel Aviv received:

...the arrival of tens of thousands of refugees who did not speak the local language and some of whom were traumatized overstrained the existing ailing infrastructure; the doubling or tripling of the number of residents in some streets was too much to bear for those who had lived there for a long time (Cohen, Podjarny)

These multicultural newcomers were treated as vermin by Israeli authorities and therefore stigmatized within Israeli society. Quite literally, these individuals are destined to be stacked on top of each other and expected to create a living without resources, while disallowed to “...[disperse]...throughout the country” (Cohen, Podjarny). In doing so, Israeli authorities could preserve the Western ideal of modernization that Tel Aviv was built to represent and control the “unwanted” population. South Tel Aviv became one of the many hidden casualties of westernization.

The Jewish march towards modernization started back in Mandatory Palestine in the 1900s. In her essay, Katz discusses the progression of female mobility in relation to modernization and control. Katz states, “…‘the status of women in society was the popular barometer of “civilization”.’ Education, freedom of movement and monogamy became hallmarks of ‘civilized’ modernity” (93). In this way, imagined women became both “...vehicles of and objects of civilization. They were a measure of the advancement or backwardness of a culture” (Katz 93). In the context of Mandatory Palestine, Palestinians began to be ‘othered’ as Jewish communities became more secularized and promoted the education and movement of women. Therefore, Palestinian women who weren’t condoned freedom of movement were seen as lesser and ‘backwards’ as Jews became ‘forward-thinkers’ and inventors.

Of course, there isn’t anything inherently bad about women having freedom of movement and getting an education; in fact, it was a step that allowed Jewish women to be free thinkers and mobile on their own, leading to the creation of the aforementioned agricultural collectives. The introduction of modernization prompted Jewish women to simultaneously act “...consciously on space, however, variously complying with and resisting dominant gender ideologies” (Rankin 119). In this way, space is both gendered and politicized, while still malleable by those traversing the land. Jewish women were utilized as tools of Zionism, and responsible to produce Jewish culture through everyday practice of spatial movement. They weren’t allotted certain freedoms because it was their right, but instead because it helped develop the Zionist image and shift the power hierarchy in the region. Progressiveness, specifically modernizing Jewish women and providing them with agency over space and education “...[legitimized]...one’s claim to Palestine” (Katz 95). In other words, Zionists’ utilized modernist gender ideals to construct space as a way to “...[produce] and [maintain] power relations” (Rankin 115).

Movement towards the West and modernization is heavily reflected in Tel Aviv and is utilized as an ‘us versus them’ power structure. As aforementioned, asylum seekers, refugees, and migrant workers are continuously lumped into the utmost southern quarter and discouraged from expanding past those invisible borders. These boundaries are reinforced by right-wing politicians who spew monstrous words. As Cohen and Podjarny describe:

Instead of cooperating with the residents in order to work out concrete solutions, ministers and political decision-makers availed themselves to the effectiveness of resentment and blamed the refugees for all ills. Knesset-Member Miri Regev, who is today Minister of Culture and Sport, called Sudanese refugees in Israel “a cancer in our [nation’s] body”. Minister of Interior Eli Yishai threatened to “make their lives miserable”

The authors continue to list more examples of Israeli politicians and leaders verbally demonizing the “other.” Therefore, Israeli officials systematically manipulate language, media and space to shun non-Jews to reinforce the power hierarchies they have set.

As an Ashkenazi Israeli-American Jew, I have the freedom to meander through the different quarters of Tel Aviv quite freely. Starting from the rich and kept North Tel Aviv, which many Israeli families dwell in, to the white beaches of Central Tel Aviv where many tourists are directed towards and where most of the cultural images of Tel Aviv are taken, my wanderings were accepted. Bars and hip restaurants line the many paths from Central Tel Aviv to Florentin, connecting the capitalistic tourist/international quarter to the artsy and ‘off-beat’ Florentin, before ending up at my home of Jaffa and then South Tel Aviv. I recognize my power in being nomadic and practice my agency in picking a variety of paths as I don’t meet many invisible barriers, at least when traversing in daylight. I discovered my favorite spots within Jaffa, Florentin and Central Tel Aviv, including cafes, bars, beaches and grocery stores that either others’ recommended to me or I stumbled upon. In this way, I created a sense of place by repetitive action and curated my experience of the city. As aforementioned, many people residing in Tel Aviv don’t have that privilege.

My selective navigation of the Israeli metropolis connects to the teachings of political theorist and revolutionary socialist, Fredrich Engels. Engels introduced the idea of the built environment as a systematic contribution to the erasure of the working class for the comfort of the bourgeoisie in enhancing the city for their overall betterment. In his work, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, Engels describes Manchester, England as two separate cities and realities. Engels states:

The town itself is peculiarly built, so that a person may live in it for years, and go in and out daily without coming into contact with a working-people’s quarter or even with workers; that is, so long as he confines himself to his business or pleasure walks (4)

In other words, privileged city dwellers can easily avoid those below their social class who live in environments lesser than their own. Those not searching for working class slums, will find it hard to stumble upon them as roads leading in and out and lanes between encampments look like a maze to all except to those who reside there. This way, bourgeoisie Manchester is a mere façade to hide its seedy underbelly.

In connection to Tel Aviv, one’s experience of the city is heavily reliant on social standing, as well as ethnicity and nationality. If one were to compare Manchester’s “working-people’s quarter” to South Tel Aviv, there’s a clear correlation between the two. Furthermore, Tel Aviv houses many different realities and micro cities broken up by each quarter. South Tel Aviv, for example, is strategically hidden from Tel Aviv’s marketed image of white sand beaches, LGBT+ acceptance and façade of ‘modernization’ that we often see. I, for one, didn’t know about the history of South Tel Aviv until 2017 on a tour organized by an NGO. Therefore, it could be argued that the Israeli government is succeeding in hiding their dereliction. This paper can act as one way to combat that.

As aforementioned, Tel Aviv has adopted a culture of LGBT+ acceptance. As a queer person, I originally felt seen and protected by the rainbow flags that line Central Tel Aviv. Rainbow Israeli flags hang from shop and apartment windows on every street one walks by and line the boardwalk in chalk. While lounging in the sand of Frishman Beach, one will be greeted by the bright rainbow paint that covers the entire side of the Dan Hotel. A short stroll from the golden beaches is Meir Park, home to the LGBTQ+ Community Center. In 2016, during my first summer in the city, I wandered through Meir Park everyday and the same-sex couples I saw holding hands on the street and even the colorful Tel Aviv geotag on Snapchat created an aura of acceptance. Tel Aviv was my hub in Israel where I felt safe as a Jewish bisexual, gender-fluid person. In this way, the construction of the city and culture within it empowered me to feel secure and uplifted in my identity. However, it wasn’t until I returned home and discovered the term pinkwashing that I understood the complexity of queer culture in Tel Aviv. Does being Ashkenazi and queer grant me more mobility rights than queer folk of color in the same space?

Pinkwashing is defined by queer Palestinian activists and their allies as, “...drawing attention to a purportedly advanced LGBTQ rights record in Israel in order to detract attention from Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights” (Atshan 72). This suggests that the queer spaces I felt protected within are also utilized to deter from the occupation on Gaza and the West Bank. In his text, Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique, author Sa’ed Atshan gives the example of Americans being more distraught about a lack of gay clubs in Gaza than the fact that the United Nations deemed Gaza inhabitable due to Israeli siege hindering access to clean water, electricity and a proper sewage system (72). In interventions Atshan speaks at, “...the questioners contrasted Palestinian homophobia with the existance of queer spaces and expression in Israel” (71). This detraction connects back to Jewish westernization in Mandatory Palestine. In essence, Israel is deemed open and modern for providing queer spaces, and therefore inherently better than Palestine. This black and white messaging discourages people to critically examine how Israel manipulates messages of queer acceptance to eradicate images of how non-Jewish peoples navigate the space, including the lack of access they grant to other groups.

As an example of varying queer experiences within Israel, Atshan travels as a westerner to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv-Jaffa from The West Bank with his queer Palestinian friends, Hosni and Rayan who haven’t seen the Mediterranean in many years, as well as, a blonde European friend. Atshan states, “As a Westerner, the European friend had a yellow license plate on his car and could access Israeli settler roads” (67). The Israeli officers wave them through to Jerusalem without a glance as the license plate and the white driver are tickets that grant mobility. In response, Hosni and Rayan scream in joy and relief as they’re accustomed to their agency being eradicated. However, in the shadow of their Western counterparts, they’re able to slip through the cracks undetected. This is further illuminated once the group reaches the Jaffa coast in Tel Aviv. They check into a hotel under the European and Americans’ names because according to the Israeli National Policies, Palestinians from the West Bank are unable to do so (Atshan 67). To take this hidden operation to the next level, Hosni and Ryan dressed “...in beach attire, which helped allow them to pass as tourists alongside their friends” (Atshan 67). This suggests that Palestinian queer folk, who are indigenous to this land, must ‘pass’ as those visiting the Mediterranean shore. Therefore, Atshan’s experiences with his friends showcase one way Israel favors Western queer comfortability over queer Palestinians, and Palestinians in general. As the ‘other,’ Hosni and Rayan’s bodies in Tel Aviv become an act of resistance, similar to those fostering The Orchard for Abraham’s Children. Atshan describes it perfectly when he states:

It is a travesty that a queer Palestinian couple must go through such a struggle just for the ordinary act of seeing a part of their ancestral homeland, but their material pragmatism reflected the spirit of queer Palestinian resistance and resilience (67)

Therefore, Hosni and Rayan act as an example of how permeable bodies, environments, and power hierarchies are. They challenge socioenvironmental boundaries through exercising their power and therefore reshape their perception of agency. In this way, action and movement turns power into a performance and not a fixed hierarchy. As professor Andrea J Nightingale states:

All processes of subjection involve a moment of ‘recoil’ wherein power as domination is transformed into the power to act, the power to refuse, or even, a stepping out of hegemonic relations altogether to claim entirely different subjectiveness (692)

Thus, Hosni and Rayan fight back hegemony by just existing in Tel Aviv-Jaffa and slipping through concrete boundaries with a yellow license plate. Furthermore, they defy cultural perception of Palestinian violence by just ‘sneaking’ in to bask in their homeland.

Reclaiming Territory through Bi-National Partnership

Atshan recounts another instance of Palestinians redefining hierarchies within the built environment in the context of the West Jerusalem bar, Shushan, the only gay bar in Jerusalem, and has since closed their doors. Photojournalist Tanya Habjouqa created a photo series of Israeli and Palestinian drag queens utilizing a shared space to redefine cultural and “...political expectations...with rambunctious displays of heels makeup in colorful denial of the darker elements of greater society” (Atshan 66). Similar to Hosni and Rayan, their performance of power symbolizes how spatial dimensions can reshape hegemony depending on how one utilizes said space as well as self. In the context of Shushan, both Orthodox Jews and West Bank Palestinians who “...snuck across…” (Atshan 66) from the East Jerusalem border partakes in bi-national partnership through the collective action of performing their gender in a way in which resists cultural perception. One drag queen, Eman’s body, becomes politicized by just existing as being a part of the Afro-Palestinian community, “...coupled with her open display of affection towards her Israeli counterparts added even more layers of her defiance and resistance” (Atshan 66). In this way, body and territory are interwoven to reflect one another and body becomes territory. Furthermore, bodies— in this case, queer Palestinian and Israeli— are interwoven to create an enlightened territory upon mutual hardship. Hayes-Conroy speaks upon the concept of the chemical symbiosis that occurs because of “...shared feeling and sensation in violence-affected areas” (1303). Both queer nationalities can come together from the shared feelings of being ‘othered’ and ostracized in the religious city of Jerusalem, both East in Palestine and West in Israel. Therefore, they share the pains of one another that allows them to “...no longer...feel empty...and [create] this symbiosis and fill these spaces that have not yet been filled” (Hayes-Conroy 1303). Their mutual agreement to create anew in safety and bi-national partnership is what allows them to reshape the hierarchical forces which built their context and dimensions.

I learned the difference between bi-national partnership and coexistence while working at the grassroots organization, Sadaka-Reut. This is a women-lead peacebuilding movement in Israel, working towards empowering Palestinian youth and bridging gaps between Jewish Israelis and Palestinian citizens of Israel through open-dialogue and education. During my first week as a content writer, Co-Executive Director Rawan Bisharat voiced, “Coexistence is just sitting around a table eating hummus and laughing together.” In other words, coexistence symbolizes a comfortability in staying the same or accepting reality. Conversely, partnership is calling out differences and similarities while building something together to promote change. As stated on SR’s website:

This partnership will be achieved by recognizing and taking responsibility for the inherent injustice in our current reality and by correcting this injustice as the foundation for a shared future for both peoples, together with other minorities that live in Israel (Sadaka-Reut)

Therefore, partnership is an action in recognizing responsibility and injustices. Whereas coexistence is an image of peace that can’t exist yet. In relation to the bar Sushan, the drag queens are refusing to merely coexist by not remaining the same, but instead, embracing difference and diversity as a way to demand change. Furthermore, Habjouqa hopes to correct injustice by sharing these images to the world, so more people are aware of “...the full range of queer Palestinian subjectivities, beyond representations of the dogmatic activist and the helpless victim” (Atshan 66). Habjouqa’s photo series is another example of women and marginalized folk manipulating spatial dimensions to practice agency and put their future in their own hands, both through the act of photographing and the movements of her subjects within said photographs. All of which symbolizes how “...ordinary acts in ordinary spaces take on such extraordinary meaning…” (Atshan 66).

My Next Path (Conclusion)

I’m not sure when I’ll once again cross paths with Tel Aviv’s winding intersections. As of September 2021, The Economist has titled Tel Aviv as the most expensive city in the world, therefore dubbing the metropolis even less inhabitable than it was before. I can’t help but wonder if this deepens the divide between the different ethnicities dwelling within the built environment, further separating South Tel Aviv and Jaffa from Central and North. I wonder if Florentin will sever completely from South Tel Aviv as gentrification inherently deepens and creates a greater divide. I haven’t been back in Israel since 2019 and honestly, I don’t know when I’ll feel strong or healthy enough to carry the weight of modernization and its loaded history. But when I do return, this project has helped me prepare further questions to solidify my research. Women and marginalized genders and sexualities have historically carved their own path within the region encrusted with conflict, proving that Israel-Palestine represents so much more than the geopolitical crisis that fills Western news sources. Israel-Palestine is full of culture, hope, and the preservation of cultural expression. We all navigate urban spaces differently based on our own context and unique perspectives; our individual paths are interwoven into a lattice work between buildings. Therefore, the built environment is only as expansive as the diversity of culture within them.

References/Further Reading

Atshan, Sa’Ed. Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique. Stanford University Press, 2020.

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “kibbutz”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 29 Jul. 2010, https://www.britannica.com/topic/kibbutz. Accessed 8 December 2021.

Cohen, Tsafrir, and Einat Podjarny. “South Tel Aviv: An Essay.” Rosa Luxemberg Stiftung, Sept. 2019, https://www.rosalux.de/en/publication/id/40958/south-tel-aviv-an-essay.

Gadzo, Mersiha, and Dareen Jubeh. “Sheikh Jarrah Is ‘under a Siege,’ Palestinian Residents Say.” Al Jazeera, May 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/21/we-dont-sleep-at-night-palestinians-in-sheikh-jarrah.

The Economist. “Tel Aviv Is the World’s Most Expensive City.” The Economist, Nov. 2021, https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/11/30/tel-aviv-is-the-worlds-most-expensive-city.

Elkin, Lauren. Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.

Engels, F. 1845. The Great Towns. From The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.

Evans, Alice. “‘For the Elections, We Want Women!’: Closing the Gender Gap in Zambian Politics.” Development and Change, 2016, pp. 388–411.

Hayes-Conroy, Allison. “Somatic Sovereignty: Body as Territory in Colombia’s Legion Del Afecto.” American Association of Geographers, Dec. 2017, pp. 1298–312.

Katz, Sheila Hannah. “Adam and Adama, ‘Ird and Ard: En-Gendering Political Conflict and Identity in Early Jewish and Palestinian Nationalisms.” Gendering the Middle East: Emerging Perspectives, I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 1996.

Nightingale, Andrea J. “The Socioenvironmental State: Political Authority, Subjects, and Transformative Socionatural Change in Uncertain World.” Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences, vol. 14, 2018, pp. 688–711.

Rankin, Katherine N. “Cultures of Economies: Gender and Socio-Spatial Change in Nepal.” Department of Geography, University of Toronto, vol. 10, no. 2, June 2003, pp. 111–29.

Sadaka-Reut. “About Us.” Sadaka-Reut Arab Jewish Partnership, https://www.reutsadaka.org/about-us-2/.

I’m bent forward like a folding chair in the backyard. The Colorado sun is close enough to have its way with me— the back of my neck bare and pale. It’s weighty and relentless. The arm rest stings the space between my freckles.

My eyes have since lapsed closed, so I focus on the sound of Sully’s breath at rest. If only this golden retriever could carry me upstairs.

I know the sun is deceiving. I know it holds a comfortable weight now, but the instant I stand, I’ll want to fall over. The instant I stand, I’ll have to face the fact that I’ll again cancel on friends tonight.

I unfold and it’s palpable that I’m too sick to exist— but at least Sully follows me back inside without complaint.

I don’t want your pity, I just want the fall of capitalism.

Pet-sitting is what I do, and what I can do, but I haven’t been able to rest between gigs, as my parents’ dogs have demanded my attention more and more recently. Capitalism won’t allow me to listen to my body. I can’t cancel upcoming dog-sitting gigs and I can’t stop my mom from visiting her grandchild, so instead of sleeping like my body demands of me, I walk down another flight of stairs and pour kibble into bowls.

I’ve already crashed. I crashed several days ago and I’m crashing as I type these words. Like many other instances, I was on autopilot when I taught my first poetry workshop the other day. I didn’t have any spoons left to be present. Everyone said they had an amazing time though; said I did a good job, and was eloquent. That’s all I can hope for.

Please don’t give me any pity, I didn’t consent to your sad eyes directed at me.

I barely have enough energy to forage for meals. However, we’re not hunters nor gatherers and I must pay for my overpriced salad to be delivered to me. Don’t forget to budget the extra funds for your food to arrive safely. I’d drive myself, but the risk of becoming paralyzed at any second isn’t worth it. So, feed me your lettuce, Doordash, and those meaty vegetables that I eat to try and help this constipation cycle. Yet, it doesn’t help at all. We’re not surprised.

I seldom showered while I attended the Heart of It writing retreat. If I showered as much as I desired, you never would have seen me. I couldn’t shit the whole week and my pain meds seemed to forget how to decrease inflammation. My head found its new favorite frequency at a constant buzz that only ever shifted to a worse tempo to fuck with me once in a while— like a woodpecker burrowed a tunnel behind my left earlobe and explored the circumference of my skull. She found shelter there and would only simmer down to a low-heat when I could take a hit of a friend’s vape.

When I did shower, I laid in my cabin afterwards and took deep breaths under the comforter. I’m still so thankful that I had my own room, and therefore the space to decompress. The first two full days of the retreat, I had to spend every class break in bed. Intently, I pressed the tender points of my brain into the pillow in attempt to suffocate the woodpecker. I condone heavy violence against my own pain, but she’s relentless.

With pain and all, no one pushed me with pity. I was handed my space to advocate for my own body, when needed. We checked in with ourselves every morning and disclosed how we wanted to disclose. When I asked for help, it was lined up with action. When I didn’t ask for help— we all just existed with our individual pain, wrote from within our individual pain. We sat in sloppy circles, claimed bean bag chairs as our own, and trusted that everyone could handle their own bodies as their own.

Sure, I had a migraine everyday, my pelvic floor was a bitch and I was groggy and grimy. However, I sat surrounded by several disabled writers. When anyone requested relief, we shared our medicine in intimate community.

Therefore, each publication and each job-related photo represents a different mode of me. You need to find every place I’m online to discover the full spectrum that’s Leor— like a puzzle still missing several pieces.

This all bubbled up to the surface because I recently submitted poetry to South Broadway Press and was presented with the task of providing a headshot. I asked myself (probably too many) questions like:

• Which image correctly represents the vibe of my current poetry?

• Which image looks the most like who I am now?

  • Is it okay to have multiple headshots of myself spewed across the internet?

• Is it appropriate to pick an image that doesn’t quite look like me anymore, but I still really like it?

  • I may not look like that anymore, but I still connect to the vibe.

These research questions caused me to spiral into thoughts of gender, public perception, weight loss, the publishing industry??? Can you tell I’m an overthinker?

So please, indulge me for a sec and let’s delve into my headshots of recent and not so recent past.

I honestly love this image because it showcases my calm demeaner and rivers are one of my safe spaces. However, when asked to upload a headshot, I over-thought the “femmeness” that I no longer am and work hard to separate myself from. I hate the need to calculate public perception because even if I still feel akin to this image, I’m not willing to be misgendered or misunderstood for it.

However, this image also hasn’t had the opportunity to live anywhere. I was seriously ill during this time. Our trip to Golden was my first slow walk around a river in a long time. Due to being ill, I wasn’t sending or posting my work anywhere. Therefore, she doesn’t have a gripping memoir to rest upon, and maybe never will.

I worked up the courage to cut my hair off (FINALLY!) in April 2021. I failed to hide my tears in the salon chair as I searched and found myself under each chunk of hair sheared off. However, like the previous image— I still don’t relate to this past version of me. This is mostly due to the fact that both images represent a time when I was my skinniest because of chronic illness-related weight loss.

Weight loss is a whole other essay, but it always appears when questions about my authenticity, fear of misrepresenting myself and not being understood surfaces. I crave to be inside all of your heads and understand every single person’s perception of me. Then, I can learn how to teach you to see me clearer. I’m autistic if you couldn’t tell.

From having long hair in quarantine & needing a grad school ID photo, to work-related headshots to just being bored while dog-sitting— each image is a different story told over the years, and I can’t stop overthinking each one.

Feeling a lack of self is a broader conversation about what our society celebrates and perpetuates, as well as growing up— socialized as a girl— in the shadows with a low self-esteem. We’re sold that there will be a time when we all find ourselves, and I say my journey was in college. However, that was just the beginning and now a completely old version. I have the opportunity to meet a new me multiple times a year.

It’s exhausting to be 30 and know that there’s still more to carve out and find about myself, and I may always be searching for resemblance in old photographs. But it’s also exciting isn’t it? It symbolizes growth. Maybe we aren’t meant to recognize ourselves within the past versions.

This essay doesn’t have an ending. There’s no bow to help me wrap up and decorate my last ideas. I don’t think there’s a clear cut answer to how to pick the best headshot for your LinkedIn, job website, poetry publication or gripping memoir. Just choose a fucking headshot or commission a photographer to take a better one.

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Almost a lifetime ago, my mom gifted me: California’s Best Emerging Poets. The anthology was wrapped in emerald tissue paper, lightly placed inside a gift bag that had the photograph of a tree trunk on both sides, showcasing its rings. I know that’s how you map a lifetime.

Recently, I went to Wash Park here in Denver and my friend, Brynne, wrapped herself around a tree right next to the Ohio street exit. Cars buzzed by, dachshunds sniffed the grass by her toes, and she pressed the side of her face into a living being older than that park, older than the city and maybe even older than the world. I guess it wasn’t sick, but sturdy and unflappable. A place where bugs and other living things could find a home.

I didn’t count the rings in the tree, and you’ll never be in Wash Park. Therefore, I despised California’s Best Emerging Poets– the last collection your poetry will live– or at least the last one you witnessed in print. At first I thought my mom didn’t know you were housed within the palm tree pages. Maybe it was a bizarre coincidence.

I was wrong. She exclaimed: “I got this for you because your friend who passed is featured!”

Like I didn’t know. Like I didn’t google the collection multiple times, see where to purchase it, and then close the browser when a rush of air got caught in my lungs.

I hyperventilated into the anthology; spit caught on descriptions of you carving the bright skin of a grapefruit. I tucked you into a deep, dark corner of my chest.

Here are some definitions of e·merge as a verb and emerging as an adjective:

“Become apparent or prominent”

“Recover from or survive a difficult demanding experience”

“(of an insect or other invertebrate) break out from an egg, cocoon, or pupal case.”

and lastly, “...come to light”

You were a proud Scorpio, the first I’ve known of your kind. I don’t know the time and date of your birth, and now I never will. What I do know is we met in college when you transferred and moved your life to San Francisco. I never confessed how heavy my crush on you was, nor that I had one in the first place. I was still extremely shy when I met you, but you carved at me as if creating a clay sculpture of what you knew I could be. I never told you how disappointed I was that it wasn’t a date when you invited me to a showing of “The Watermelon Woman” at the New Parkway in Berkeley. It was my queer education, you said it was insane I’ve never seen it and you were right. Every queer woman should see it. You don’t know I still haven’t seen “But I’m a Cheerleader”.

During breaks of our “Queer of Color Critique” class, we’d lounge on the steps of SF campus and lament over our shared woes. Neither of us could eat and I was still figuring out why. You gave me words of encouragement and told me about your gastroparesis. You quickly became my lesbian chronically ill mentor. Not because I asked you, as I never would– but that was who you are. A bright light when that semester was otherwise full of heartache and mud.

You don’t know that many years later, after you’re gone, I thought of you as I ate my radioactive eggs for the gastric emptying test. I think of you every time I’m paralyzed and I’m carried to dumbfounded faces in awe of the medical anomaly that’s my body. I thought of you the first time my dress was pulled over my head in lieu of hello and my hip bones pointed to my terrified roommates from beneath my underwear. In every ER room where I’m asked the impossible task to rate pain, I wonder if you ever learned a system because it was through a poem of yours that I first learned about pain’s complexity and its lack of definition. I think of you, I think of you so constantly.

You’re a permanent ache.

Your piece “Rank Your Pain” with accompanying selfies in hospital rooms was up for display. I wish I knew where, but it was 2016, not long after I met you and we weren’t as close yet. I do know the dedication: "For those who, in Audre Lorde’s words, were never meant to survive: because this world was built against their survival."

When people die, you included, they say you’re “survived by…” I suppose because your memory lives on within them. Therefore, I don’t exactly know what it means to survive. I don’t know your parents who you're survived by, and so I try to find where else you’re housed. One way is simply through my memory of you and our connection to chronic illness.

You eased me into having a sick body before I knew I was sick.

In 2017, during our first semester of Thesis, Hugh asked us to bring a book that reminded us of our own writing and/or what we wanted it to become. You brought Tender Points by Amy Berkowitz. Your fingerprints tenderly poked the holes in the front cover. Similar to a massage, you rubbed Tender Points into us with your sincere description of Amy’s memoir about fibromyalgia (among other spiky things).

I devoured Amy’s Tender Points that Summer and texted you every thought. Neither of us knew that I’d be diagnosed with fibromyalgia five years later. Neither of us knew you’d be gone in three.

What I knew was that you had chronic lymes, gastroparesis, Type 1 diabetes (among other invasive beings). I wouldn’t be surprised if you had mast cell activation syndrome and me/cfs too, but maybe I’m just trying to merge your body further into mine.

You’d express how stigmatized lymes was and brought me into the story of how the parasite adopted you. All the while, you spent time with me as I discovered my new gender identity and encouraged my growth and exploration. You were proud of me when I dressed as a male character for Halloween, despite how terrified I was. If only you could see me now.

If only we knew then that I’d be diagnosed with chronic lymes in 2019. I don’t remember why I didn’t message you– probably because it was new, terrifying and all I could do was stare out at Conifer trees. If only I knew you had just a year left.

In September 2020, I wanted to text you about it all, about my struggles to rate pain, my fear with covid as an already sick person, how I missed chatting with you and sharing each other’s writing. Sprawled in my bed, on my laptop that day was how I learned you passed away–

May 24th 2020. I was too late.

I was never a best friend. I was a little more than Marnie’s classmate for three years. However, she had a light shone on the people who needed it most. Marnie pulled you in with her works of creative non-fiction and poetry and you settled into her luminescence because of her dedication to queer advocacy, her openness about being ill and the magnetic way she was proudly herself.

I haven’t been able to write about her for five years. Even though she’s present every time I write. I then attended the Heart of It writing retreat and I couldn’t ignore her. She emerged like the redwood trees, as we drove closer to the farm and sprouted higher and higher with each footstep. She emerged among the 15 other radiant queer writers I met along the way.

Marnie, there were disabled writers on staff! I was accommodated and given the bedroom by the kitchen and bathroom because I asked for it. You’d be proud of how often I vouch for myself now! I’d sit in the stunning sunroom surrounded by the reaching plants and I always conjured you as the afternoon sun warmed my skin. I crafted a story of how you’d exist in that space because I knew how much you’d be at home there.

I breathed you into existence every time I shared my work with my cohort and I finally grasped how prominent you are in my writing. I wish there was a picture of us to solidify our existence, but at least we exist together here. At least we exist together every time I type in your favorite font: Montserrat. At least I can find you in Oz Farm and every time the juice from citrus drips down my wrist. I flip to “Grapefruit” by Marnie Cozzens in California’s Best Emerging Poets when I need a reminder of all the ways you’ve survived.

Grapefruit by Marnie Cozzens

I’ve become fond of grapefruit now that I’m in my midtwenties

It makes me feel dangerous

when gnawing out its innards as I sip coffee

knowing my heart could flutter too fast

When sucking on its flesh it makes me feel giddy

knowing it could burn a hole into the smooth muscles of my stomach

Or how when I swallow a seed, it could shred my throat

Like how nails leave marks on raw leather

I’m fond of grapefruit one bite in

when my taste buds go numb from acidity,

knowing that I survived its pucker,

knowing that with a little bit of sugar

my open wounds will be soothed and filled

with vitamin c

(p. 54, 2017)

Images courtesy of marniecozzens.com