outside, coming out

Video performance and poem.

when i was young my mom used to call me Rainbow which is funny because now i'm queer.
my favorite color i

s a variant of blue but my favorite color to wear is red, because red means passion, it means love, it means heart.

i was never drawn to pink because i said it was too girly but now i like pink because it's soft and i'm a soft person
blue feels sadder and warmer somehow
my favorite color is cerulean.

i played soccer for ten years and did dance for eleven
one time i was a background dancer on the oscars and my costume was pink ad blue and the lipstick was red
bright red and someone said i looked like a mom who discovered her sexuality at last.

my first kiss was at fourteen and i was wearing lip gloss and my first time was at seventeen and i had armpit hair!

my first loves have all been men.

i kissed the first girl at a party when i was fifteen and she was wearing purple

i hate my body.
i feel like it doesn't pass as queer because of my chest and my hair
my hair has been the same since-
my hair has been the same since three people took my body from me
and now my body is a risk
and my queerness is a danger to my body
and my queer feels like a disservice to my body
and my body feels like a disservice to my queer

i feel blue and pink and purple
i feel red and green and growing
i feel all shades and all strokes and i'm still trying to figure out what color my horizon looks like

and my mom stopped calling me Rainbow as much after i told her i was queer.