Vulnerability is hard. My asking for help (always, it seems) is hard. It’s my medicine this round, I suppose. This world isn’t built for it, vulnerability. Not yet anyway. But I see you out there, fighting against that in your myriad ways. It inspires me, so here we are. 

The labels that are both necessary and a problem… I’m 47-years-old, Black, genderqueer, and reluctantly human. Carved in the urban portions of the Piney Woods and bayous of the Gulf Coast, I currently sneak, in awe, about the gigantic gods and ancestors of the Salish Sea. 

When I was 33 years old (the Christ Year—oh, drama!) I had a bilateral mastectomy after being diagnosed with an inherited form of breast cancer. Initially, instinctively, I didn’t want implants. I’d never been comfortable with my breasts and gettin ‘em gone was an easy choice. 

I was okay for a hot sec. 

I’d like to think that I was strong enough to just be where I was at that moment. Hadn’t I built my entire life on doing whatever I wanted, by being that digestible weirdo? After a few months, in a mix of shame, confusion, occasional numbness, all during an especially painful breakup, I got breast implants put in. At the time, my resilience had to look familiar. 

It’s been an interesting trip since then—a private, indescribable though not always un-beautiful, mess of genders and diseases both new and old—one that I may never fully have language for.

On January 7th, 2020, I’m getting surgery to remove the breast implants that have been in for five years too long. They’re causing a lot of pain as scar tissue forms. We suspect that they may also be causing some of my autoimmune issues. I’ve wanted them out for some time, but until recently, I didn’t have insurance. I’ve had to get a second job to get it (and to pay rent in an increasingly expensive city), meaning that I work about 60 hours a week. It’s not sustainable and I’m exhausted. But I need this. The three weeks that I’m taking off of one job will be unpaid. The sharing of this fundraiser, or a little cabbage, some moola(la), some bones, some dead presidents, are most welcome. Bills still gotta get paid. I still gotta eat. 


Infinite blessings.