Some of the discussion we had the other night on IRC (during which I was somewhat drunk and more conversational than usual) encouraged me to apply to an online workshop with my poetry idol Danez Smith. It's technically a queer workshop and I eternally feel I am not "queer enough" to jockey for a place in situations such as these, but I guess we were talking about bodies, queer-ness, and other similar linked things on IRC and I decided, "What the hell, if I'm not queer enough for this workshop, they can be the ones to tell me after I apply - instead of me just not trying."

In my application they asked me to write about what "queer writing" meant to me and I discussed the disconnect I often feel between my body and what my body tells the world, and the part of me that lives inside that body and how it feels like people see my outside and make judgments about "who I am/who I am supposed to be" while my insides usually tend, and certainly always feel, to me, to be very different from that. So I guess I took the concept of "queer" and broadened it into "a feeling of otherness," perhaps.

It might not be a valid interpretation but I thought it was a lot better than trying to lean on the three lesbian poems that were published in a journal I don't think even exists any more. And maybe it is a valid interpretation. What is queer if not saying "I may look like a certain gender but that's not how I feel about myself" ? What is identity but the struggle between who other people think and expect you to be, and who you want to be or think you are?

Idk, some stoner thoughts there, far too navel-gazey.

I did also confess to them that my primary reason for wanting to do the workshop was the guy running it, that could go in my favor or not I guess.