I Get Creative

Last night I did something I haven’t done for years: I shared a piece of my creative writing. While I do a lot of writing just about every day, I had taken a loooong break from writing the poetry and experimental short fiction that once flowed freely out of my pen.

But it was a friend’s birthday, a friend who was quite pivotal at a particular moment of my journey exploring identity, self, and creativity. In his honor I decided to resurrect this piece and rework it. I read it aloud at his celebration.

And now I present it to you.

This is dedicated to all the mixed-race, alt-sexual, gender blurry people, & everyone else who finds that “check only one box” doesn’t work for them.

1.41421…

After years of dichotomous choices
leading into an adulthood surrounded by pairs,
I begin to identify with the square root of 2. 

Beyond the visible
Between what is whole
On stone tablets and papyrus
it arises 

A secret so unsettling it warrants murder
proof

it is irrational
uncountable
frankly: unwelcome
but  

real

My own
ethnicitysexualitygenderrole
triggers
murder
legislation
demands for proof

My own
ethnicitysexualitygenderrole
only fully encompassed by the square root of 2
more than 1
a numerical quirk
which multiplied unto itself is the perfect sum of my parents’ love.

On my own:
a conundrum which cannot be entered into a census’ computer
fouling up the simple and harmonious duality of an endless
0 1 0 1 0 1 on off yes no either or black white
make a decision
declare yourself

my self tumbling along the square root of 2′s digital extensions
ever changing and ever endless
slipping like a ribbon between whole numbers
elusive but flirtatious enough to maintain interest
a mathematician’s dark-haired mistress 

I am at home in the space between integers
an orienteer given a compass of genetic codes with endless variation
following the decimal point of my birth
without discernible patterns
coyly evading resolution.

Now I see I will never be fully content or at peace.
No, that’s not it. 

I will never be done.

and
the square root of 2
and I
will hold a place in the rational world nonetheless.

——————–

If you want to know more about the history of the square root of two, read the Wikipedia entry