Trigger Warning: This is about disabled, neuro-divergent, queer love. Words used to describe sexual organs are used. Read at your discretion.
For Context: You are not being solicited. This is to get you thinking about the ways that ableism makes seeking joy in this world difficult for disabled bodies. Also present in the story is how ableism is violent and shows up in our intimate partner relationships, friendships, relationships at large. In these words are the many stories both experienced personally by me or second hand through storytelling or in providing support and love. Every time that you harm a disabled person because of their disability there is a whole choir of us who are reminded we deserve violence for the things we can't control in this society.
While this is specifically about seeking love, a perfectly natural function if your body so needs it, you can apply this to anything. In what ways are you harming disabled people in your lives?
I love and appreciate all my fellow disabled folks who hold space for me and each other to always practice our truth-telling so that we can be seen. We deserve to be seen and loved and cared for.
Dear Future Potential Lover,
Before you decide to disturb my peace and potentially find yourself caught in my gravity because I am so much fun, there is something you should know. My body is composed of a hundred million moments. Some are so painful that they collapse into black holes of pain through which I imagine my body is slipping away into. It sounds tragic; try hard not to save me or worry about loving me until death. Or some shit like that.
You should also know that some Boricua women decide they are dying and then take decades to go. Like Abuela Flora. I was born into the preparation of Abuela's funeral. She took 20 something years to die.
On a beach in Puerto Rico my friend shares with me her aunts were the same. Presently, we are both young and ailing. I find love and community in her for this. Our stories tie us to places and people. Our stories make us a people.
"Es que es cultural mi Amoooooooorrrr."
The expectation that youth is the dominion and home of health is just an expectation. A wack-ass-expectation that is mistaken for truth. Do you know your truth? Please come correct as my body ALWAYS will.
It hurts where it hurts. No hay mas nada que decir, ni hacer. Solo hay que entender.
"Y aunque quise bajarte la luz para ti, no pudo ser. Hoy me pides tu las estrallas y el sol, no soy un dios." La Lupe tried to tell us.
Papi introduced me to La Lupe. He thought I could relate as she did what she wanted to and bent the rules of gender. He said they called her "loca". La Lupe was the truth. She was right.
Your momma was too. You just weren't listening.
With me, you’ll learn that you unknowingly hold wack-ass-expectations as one by one are never met. I mean, what do you mean I owe you this moment? When this body you seek a stable moment from promised me it would disintegrate with time. No matter how much you want me to, I can’t alchemy my way into fulfilling your fantasies when my body is where they seek affirmation if I die. And I do. And so do you.
Also, if I could alchemy my way into eternal life it would not be because of you. You'll feel the presence of those expectations as my truths rub up against you. Like I said, wack-ass-expectations.
It is not that I don’t want to lay in bed wrapped up in your essence and other things. It’s just that my body aches in weird places and if I don’t move often I might lock up. One by one, the fibers in my body from which your fibers seek pleasure tense up. I find my body rejecting my being and so I can’t make space for yours.
For the record, I’ll recognize your rejection of my ailments and the demand that they bend to your will as violence. Y mi amor, I can’t love you when your love feels like violence. Ableism is violence. Can your love heal and nurture or will you create new holes in old wounds?
You see, I am really trying to see a couple of things or maybe more like imagine something new. Like, can these black holes also warp time and space and matter so that we become time travelers living lifetimes one night at a time? No se, let’s see. Do you see? Can you see? I MEAN HOW do you see?
Pain is my everyday existence. What do you know about pain? Are you familiar with the highways of nerves that connect my clitoris to my brain and my fingertips? Do you also know how they all communicate when the cold settles in? Or the rain? Or the thunder? Or arousal?
How similar they ALL are?
At this point, you are probably wondering if you can find pleasure in a body that reminds you of your own death. I’m trying to see that too.
I hope you are taking notes.
There are hints of my needs and my wants in the questions I ask. Like I’m just really trying to see how masterful your hands are. I want to see how they maneuver my pain. Will you lay your hands where it hurts? Will you know how to make them heal?
Does your love heal?
Can you do ALL this without fear?
Don’t waste my fucking time.
And, if all this sounds like a wonderful clear ask what up boo? Ha. I can't wait to witness all the ways that you are beautiful and experience what we co-create.
Sincerely,
A Disabled Bori Seeking Love