Newest Project!

It’s Brittney Bit¢#!

Shaquille O’Neal went into the NBA shattering backboards. And after what is now considered one of the most anticipated drafts in the WNBA, the number one draft pick of 2013, Brittney Griner, is shattering stereotypes. She’s already made a name for herself in the league and has yet to play one game. Only two days after being drafted, Brittney came out publicly as a lesbian in an interview with Sports Illustrated.

Brittney is no stranger to public attention, physically speaking, Griner is quite a specimen; she stands at 6 foot 8, her wingspan is 7’ 4’’. She comes into the league after having dominated as the best center in college. As a student at Baylor University, Griner was a 3 time All American and 2-time AP of the year, and was named Most Outstanding Player in the 2012 Final Four; the year Baylor won the national championship. She is the second all-time scoring leader in women’s NCAA making history with 3,283 points.  She blocked 748 shots, more than any man or woman in college basketball, and had 18 career dunks, 11 of those in her last season. She’s a force to be reckoned with, she can block shots, alter shots, grab rebounds, pass over opponents’ heads and move without the ball.

Brittney is tall, funny, can be kind of quiet yet is very articulated and ready to make a statement. Her presence alone makes you pay attention; she’s 6’8’’ how can you not. This woman is not only athletically gifted; she is also smart and good hearted. She is intent on using her popularity as a platform to motivate others. She specifically wants to reach young people and make them feel comfortable with being themselves; she wants to destigmatize “being gay” and being gender non-conforming. In her interview with Sports Illustrated, Brittney stated:

"Being one that's out, it's just being who you are. Again, like I said, just be who you are. Don't worry about what other people are going to say, because they're always going to say something, but, if you're just true to yourself, let that shine through. Don't hide who you really are."

Not even all the accolades and athleticism protected Brittney from being harassed for being ‘different’. A few times I read postgame interviews or any article about Griner and was disgusted and disturbed by peoples’ comments, questioning her sex, her gender and sexuality and not in the nicest way either. Still today if you enter her name on Google you’ll see search phrases such as “Brittney Griner man,” all because she has the athletic build and skills unlike any other female basketball player, college or professional, we’d seen before. There was even a point during the 2012 season that Kim Mulkey, Baylor’s women’s basketball coach, publicly defended and condemned the comments folks were making about Griner on various social media sites. When asked by the AP what is was like to stand out, Brittney replied:

''It was hard. Just being picked on for being different. Just being bigger, my sexuality, everything…I overcame it and got over it. Definitely something that I am very passionate about. I want to work with kids and bring recognition to the problem, especially with the LGBT community.''

Now as a professional baller, Brittney continues to shatter the limitations imposed on women who don’t fit the norm and to push gender scripts. She is a skateboarding, fashionista who showed up to the WNBA draft wearing an all-white suit, Converse low-tops, orange argyle socks and orange nail polish to match the Phoenix Mercury team colors, where she’ll be starting off her WNBA career. There are so many expectations placed on Griner, the WNBA is counting on her success, as well as Elena Della Done and Skylar Diggins’, the number 2 and number 3 2013 draft picks respectively, to help move the league forward and extend its viewership. But for Griner her eyes and heart are set higher than just basketball.

Griner of course is not the first female athlete to come out, there are other icons like

Billie Jean King, Renee Richards, Martina Navratilova, Lauren Lappin, Fallon Fox and Megan Rapinoe who have courageously come out and transformed their respective sports. But is this precedent of women paving the way for young athletes like Griner, to come out, the reason why her announcement was treated with lack of interest by the media? I haven’t heard anything over the radio waves these last few days. The sports media has been more focused on the anticipation of the NFL schedule (seriously? It’s just a schedule) and now the NLF draft.  The muted response to Brittney’s announcement from the sports world has to do with the sexism and stereotypes that pervade female sports. In other words, it has been assumed for a long time that if you’re a woman and play sports/are athletic/competitive then you must be a lesbian. So Brittney coming is just seen as well, another lesbian playing sports.

Because many straight female athletes have had to fight being perceived as lesbian, many at times have been too busy fighting these perceptions and less interested in being supportive of LGBT causes. Which is another factor that makes Griner’s situation unique, during her interviews she was being supported by Della Done and Diggins. Plus, now the league is not shying away or ostracizing players that don’t conform to conventional standards of femininity. Since taking her post in 2011, Laurel Richie, the President of the WNBA, a long time marketing veteran, has been putting much effort into transforming the WNBA’s image. She changed the league’s logo to depict a player driving to the basket, which is supposed to represent the league’s growing diversity and athleticism. Sadly, despite this and other efforts in women’s athletics to speak out on LGBT issues and challenge the stigma, ostracism and violence that LGBT folks experience the entire sports world is indifferent and is still holding their collective breath for that one professional male athlete to come out and rock our universe, underestimating the contributions that these females athletes are already making.

Los Elementos

I

washed across the stones

snatching fragments

moss, bacteria, tadpoles

I

thrust into the River’s bank

remembered how the sun

glistened in its shallow waters

calm, wrinkled with experience.

I

followed the Wind

pointing the way

to the next generation

wild Fire erupts

new life flourishes

feeds off the banks.

Not concerned about erosion

lost in the pollution.

Here me now!

I am Earth

I nurture

I reinvent

to survive.

That’s feminine time.

I change

the name of things

now and forever known

as the former’s cousin

always forthcoming.

Like the Story Teller’s Tale

recycled through the years.

Everything is old under the sun

“You are everything

                        and everything is you”

Every life has been lived.

I rushing

like River’s current

to get through this one

even when I’m dead I don’t want to be done.

SO here

I

stand with my death valley of words

bones poking out, hard as granite

grating, causing sparks

Fire in the sky

I

flash behind your

burning retinas

printed in your memory.

My body turns soul

becoming ancestral. 

Hump day.

Grateful energy
grateful for your arrival
I was expecting you.
You got here!
Just as I planned.
She feels you
I see it in the flair of every
layer of her fur.
The safety of these walls
she brushes against it
swooping up and down
the long hallway
free spirit
drowns in the joy
of you energy
my, how you’ve changed
good, too
It’s good!
Hanging in there
in the balance
of beginning and end
Like hump day.
Energy, never does
end.

Se duplica

feliz día del amor, amor ♥
valga la redundancia
pero es la abundancia
del que te tengo
se duplica
me ataranta
por que lo siento
en mi ser
como Ángel de mi guardia
mi dulce compañía
no me dejes sola
ni de noche ni de día

Respira, chica
respira
te entrenza mi energía
get in a trance
sin hacer tranza
ni chapuzar
no hay que hacer chapuza
en la vida

Va pues
cruza
tu corazón, prométeme
que esto es mas que
un coco
loco
amor

te enamoro
mas me enamoro
enamoro yo
me vuelvo a enamorar
sin demorar.

Spear through the heart?
Spare me.
My love, my trust,
my laughter, dreams
pump through this heart
that loves you so much.
Mejor ingesta me.
Como booty bump.

Perfect timing
our bodies coming
together…
press
pressing
press on you
Impress upon
impress you
Yes you,
for you
I bring home the bacon
X 2
go down on you
line by line
like a
“look -you
ova’
up and down”
Roll camera in my head
capture you like the sunset
look at you long enough
my eyes water,
tears flow down my cheeks
syncronized swimmers
splash into my collar.
You’re sun
I gaze
like spiritual nourishment
spread my arms before you
reach for the sky
dive into my pit
stick into my nodes
impress me.

MENSES

Guess I’m that kind of dyke
with the 1930’s curly cues
in 2013
sometimes slicked
dark, slippery
thoughts, down my noggin
talkin’ about my period.
Oh menses!
Me traes mensa
not like the geniuses either.
My body, the things you
do to it.
Each year, sharper with age
each childless year,
just one more reason to be
sharper, like RAGE.
My monthly drag
have me wrapped in herbs
warm wraps,
my midsection mummified,
have me stiff in bed
afraid of the cold,
afraid to be out
and about since that one time
…weak.
Had me driving like a cholo,
down the 110 South,
when you kicked me
in my gut.
I slouched down in my seat
grabbed my guts.
No better time to have them!
I kicked into control
my emotions
like ANGER
you blurred my vision
like heat on a road.
One hand on my guts
the other on the wheal
I navigated my vehicle
played it cool.
“Focus, stay in the moment,”
like with ANGER.
I cracked my window
the wind dried my brow
then I felt hot
my lips cracked
yet I shivered.
Cranked the heat up
Ahhhh
Breathed a little
cause my heart
you cranked that bitch up.
“Stay in the moment!”
Hair, my whiskers
shivered under my exhales
controlled the vehicle
looked down the road,
an exit
stop, coming up.
Almost there.
There there
my ovaries there
my throbbing vagina, there
the sweat, so much
sweat caught in my hair.
Gurgle, gurgle my guts
about to erupt.
So fucken confused.
Up my throat?
Down my butt?
Explosion…
pulled to the side of the road.
Woooo!
Woooo!
“Remember, it’s all perception”
I remind me
Calm
Feel
“What am I feeling?”
I lean over and dry heave
Calm
Feeling better.
Away,
I move on like ANGER.
I got you menses!
“You and I are right here,”
I arrive
You’re home
to find the bathroom in repair.
My face got paler
the old repair men
inch their way
OUT OF MY WAY!
She’s here, La Lupe
my menses
me traes como mensa.
All pasty my cheeks
so I wipe


my brow on my sleeve.
I feel tired
so I wipe
then flush and wash.
My clean hands guide
me to bed.
I crawl in breathing slowly
count to 10
like with ANGER
then I’m out in a cloud
of fatigue, passed out
from passing pain.
Severe, my ovaries
feeling nipple-clamped
my uterus feels grated
not sexy like
nails down my back.
My back, you get it all
tight- pinche corset!
Crisscrossed
muscles, nerves
my wires all crossed.
Assume the position!
Hands clasped.
Knees to my throat.
Eyes…tight, shut
down my system
in penance to you.
Lupe, my menses
bring me to my knees,
I am weak
with your force.
For you I bleed
but suffer no more
like ANGER
no more.
Oh, menses.

Bus Stop

It was hot outside, the air was thick with the kind of heat that warps roads when you look down them, the kind of heat that makes Las Doñas keep cool by balancing objects on top of their heads- they way they did back in their homelands. It was the kind of heat that makes peoples ignore two women holding each other, displaying their love publicly. But to me the heat was like a million pins piercing my skin. Your hair was up in two ponytails that said little girl inhibition but the Baby-T you were wearing framed your tetas with a deep smile and shouted out your lust with every inhale. At least that’s what my hunger heard. You caught my eyes buried in your cleavage and flirtatiously pressed your chest against me. Had you put your hands down my pants your fingers would’ve discovered that my pussy had already licked its lips in anticipation for yours. With one bite I injected my cravings for you into my bottom lip paralyzing my urges till we got home. We looked down the street to catch sight of the graffitied- ghetto chariot that would take us back to our apartment. Back to our bedroom- the trenches of our lovemaking, where we left a queen sized bead looking disemboweled, the linens strewn about like flaccid limbs and some red, lacy, sticky underwear speckling the floor.

When finally saw it coming, our chariot, and our hearts like our clits did a big flip with joy. We saw its bug and dirt smeared eyes full of desperation as it struggled to make it over the hump in the road. It stopped before us and let out a drawn out wheeze from its tires and engine as if it understood the sadness, tiredness, hunger, frustration and now our yearning, it carried in its entrails. We clasped our fingers around each other’s so we wouldn’t get separated on the battle to get on board as people pushed and shoved diving for available seats. I saw two free seats and headed straight for them. As I walked towards the back I hit my knee against some guy’s suitcase and tripped over a ladies bag of groceries sending her onions across the gummy floor of the bus. The lady looked at me with crinkled eyebrows that looked more like a writhing caterpillar, not until you came up behind me and picked up her onions dusting them off on your jeans did she flash a jagged coffee stained smile.
From the back of the bus, our shirts stuck to our backs with sweat, peoples heads bobbed back and forth as if they were jamming to the same tune inside their heads but really they were asleep- soothed by the bus rocking in the bumper to bumper traffic. You traced your finger over the palm of my hand silently weaving my love line and present line into a future line with you. I pressed my nose to your head and wished to be forever braided into your thoughts. It seemed like an entire day had gone by and even though globs of people spilled out at every stop more filed in and still our stop was nowhere in sight.

Finally arrived at our stop! We busted out of the double-doors and stretched out the stiffness in our joints like two lazy cats and walked home. But with each step our home seemed to be getting farther and farther away and my legs felt like I was dragging two wet mops. I couldn’t wait any longer and the packets of spit on the sides of my cheeks exploded flooding my mouth with the memory of being next to your naked body. So I took off running. I wanted to catch up to our house, to stop it from running away with our bed. You took off running after me, and the wind played Double-Dutch with your ponytails. I heard your tenny -shoes slapping the pavement behind me as I reached for the air in front of me with each stride. I pounced onto the front steps. Panting I dug in my pockets for the keys and got the door open. I wrapped my arms around you, pressed my sweat streaked face to yours and gave you a kiss that was more breathtaking than the sprint we had just completed. Within minutes we were naked, our clothes melted off with the heat of our craving for each other. We wrestled to our bed where we remained glued together for hours by the juices of our lovemaking. We fell asleep with our bodies throbbing with satisfaction and woke the next day with love bites tattooed over our breast, thighs and backs- sheltered in our bedroom.