Pride

2023 ~revise~

My long outstretched arms softly wrap his body, the night has slowed down, the conversation flickering like the candles in my room. We talk through the usual third date convos, what I want to do, where he wants to be, how we plan to readjust ourselves.

"Fuck it” he says revising the pace of conversation.“we are queer you know.. we can do anything!" 

"Some people say we shouldn't exist… and yet here we are" I say, squeezing tighter.

This work has come to mean a lot of things for me. Reflecting light in its silica coating and meaning in its temporal form, my interpretation of this ceramic shard has transformed as my sense of self has shifted. Multiple descriptions of this work may have been re-written but one thing has always stuck; the title, Pride. 

Pride is considered dangerous by the gilded hands of the clergy. For without shame and guilt how could these custodians retain their power. In accepting one's full character and embracing ourselves we can retrieve this very power, long since sequestered by these traditionalists. 

Between a cappuccino, one sugar and a flat white I express this to my friend. 

"I've never felt more masculine than while sucking dick" I quip.

A laugh, a small inhalation of coffee and a cough emerge from the other side of the table. A punchline only hitting the mark both for its gratuitous shock value as well as its play with the presumptions engrained by a conservative society. To accept how you can appreciate yourself is what pride means. To not fall into pits of thoughts created by others but to find your own definitions of what fits you, that's what pride means. You do you, they used to say, well now I'm finally doing me. 

I am finally accepting and participating in the pansexual connections that I have held myself back from, I am finally disposing of that poisonous sewer of catholic guilt, I am finally detaching myself from those toxic presuppositions of masculinity. From the way I hold my head, to the playfulness I present myself, to the shit I no longer put up with, I can finally say I am proud of myself. 

Happy Madi Gras,

Your clay clad queer signing out,

Rory xx