Sassafras Lowrey
Copyright (c) by Sassafras Lowrey, 2008.
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Sassafras Lowrey is a queer history obsessed genderqueer high femme, militant storyteller, author, artist, and activist. Ze believe that everyone has a story to tell, and that the telling of those stories is essential to creating social change. An accomplished storyteller, ze was an original member of "The Language of Paradox" founded and directed by Kate Bornstein, contributor to numerous anthologies including: LGBTQ: America Today, The Femme Coloring Book, Gendered Hearts, and Visible: A Femmethology. Sassafras and was honored as one of Portland's top emerging writers by In Other Words feminist books in 2004, and is the editor of the highly anticipated Kicked Out anthology (Fall 2009) from Homofactus Press. Sassafras is also the author of GSA to Marriage: Stories of a Life Lived Queerly (Homofactus Press, Summer 2010). Ze lives in New York City with hir partner, two puddle-shaped cats, and a princess dog. www.pomofreakshow.com
GSA to Marriage: Stories of a Life Lived Queerly weaves a tapestry of raw and honest tales to explore the paradoxical nature of one queer’s life. Memories of childhood sexual abuse, coming out in a conservative semi-rural area and being kicked out as a teen for being queer emerge in these tales of survival, escape, and triumph. Following Sassafras through multiple gender changes from butch, to FTM, and finally to high femme, the stories play with fluidity and the politics of passing. GSA to Marriage charts a sometimes perilous journey to adulthood through the lessons learned in escaping the demons of one’s past.
Where I Come From a reflection of queer history, and butch/femme culture is an excerpt from GSA to Marriage included with the permission of Homofactus Press
Where I Come From:
an excerpt from the memoir GSA to Marriage: Stories of a Life Lived Queerly to be released from Homofactus Press Summer 2010.
Bar
New York
1945
Butches sit posed
Scuffed saddle shoes
Half smoked cigarette
Black and white
Postcard
99 cents
Yuppy card shop
Fingering cardstock
Bent edges
Stare into faded eyes
Smiles
Smudged with times fingerprints
What would two old butches think
Of me
Purchasing there
Anonymous photo
61 years
After the flash
Bar
Checkered floor
Wrong
To be buying
History
In card stores
Purchasing truth
That someone came first
Beside
Whoopee cushions
I've always loved butches, hearts of stone. Found my body pulled close, trembling beneath a firm touch. In the moonlight I can make out the faint line of scars. As darkness envelops us, your fingers stroke calluses, aorta, ventricles, valves, and chambers. Our hearts pull toward one another, songs of pain and longing spew forth as our veins sing as if a harpist's hand strums them together. Our journey, a harmony of collective pain, sorrow, and strength planting firm intertwined roots.
Bruises find one another. We know better than to shy away from the pain. Our hearts press into each other. Bruise to bruise, the sweet exquisite secret pain, which only the injured can ever adequately appreciate. Old wounds weep together with thick red blood. Pressed tight. Plasma trades aortas, telling fingers where it is safe to grip. Eyes locked, pupils focused on the first to understand.
Mouth to mouth we resuscitate each other. Our heat brings blood from trickling creeds into mighty rivers: Columbia, Clackamas, Willamette. Through your mouth I taste desert summers chasing lizards, through my lips you find your tongue coated with the metallic grit of dirt.
You hold my heart in your hand, callused fingers tickling my aorta as your nails and cuticles are dyed crimson. My blood warm and wet seeps through your fingers as they staunch its wounds. I beat tenderly in your palm, your fingers laced in intricate bondage around the subtle pounding. Don't let me go. Your touch, the most real I have ever felt.
Garage sales, flea markets, trashcans
Our families of origin
Burry our truths
Burned in oil drums
At the end of long gravel roads
Love letters charred
Marble fireplaces
Photographs left to rot in landfills
Buried under
Coffee grounds
Banana peels
Dirty diapers
Those rescued
Remain nameless
Circa 1943
Two men in polka dotted aprons
Stand thigh to thigh over a sink
In a kitchen that looks like the one
My grandma had
During the war
Circa 1954
Leather jacket
Jeans with rolled cuffs
Bound breasts
Beautiful woman on the back of the bike
Short-sleeved blouse
Stockings
No helmets
The way my cousins would ride there
Girlfriends
Through small hick towns
I want to know where we come from
Make a habit of scouring old photographs
Looking for faces of people
I can recognize
Family
Searching for pieces of history
Buried
Lost
Destroyed
Telling us that people came first
Is dangerous
Convincing us we are alone
Abominations
Unnatural
Keeps us scared
Quiet
Circa 1957
Four women pose together
An east coast beach
Three in black stripped swimming clothes
The forth
Whit pressed pants
Button down shirt
Dandy sailor cap
Arm around the femme closest
I stare into their faces For clues
About who they are?
Clues
About myself
Who are we without histories?
We don't raise our young
Not guided to adulthood
With stories of people who have
Come (out) fist
Survival
Flower gardens
Picnics
Circa 1943
Circa 1947
Circa 1954
Circa 1963
Circa 1948
Circa 1959
Circa 1964
Circa 1946
Circa 1952
Circa 1951
Circa 1957
I place them
Folded corners
Smudged images
In a box
Time to time
Finger the rough edges
Stare into faded faces
Begging them to tell me their stories
Circa.
