you think you are the ocean
and you offer me a raft
of blackness
or womanness
fatness
or queerness
dis-ability
or my migrant nature
or something other other other

you say my humanity can fit there
can be defined by the surface
by what is seen
you don’t even grant me the depth of icebergs
the more beneath the sea
because you believe that you
you are the water
the essence of the world

i tried to make this raft my self
to string a few together and call it vast
but even though i make it gorgeous
an intricate slip of mystery and memory
it is always dry or drowning
always too small for all of me
and everyone else you want me to share it with

we are all seabed to bay
we are all storm and calm
we are
each of us
the whole realm of the moon
we are tired of clinging to the raft
we are not born of scarcity
there is no rule in heaven or earth
that we must follow

i am as god as you are
i reject your raft
i move away from you
towards forever
in wave after wave after wave

– to the slightly racist individual who (didn’t mean to but) thought she could shrink me