The Bard College Berlin Student Blog
“Why do you have to make your whole life about being gay? Like, WE GET IT. Not everything in life is about who you want to date. Maybe people would accept it if you didn’t make it your new personality.” That’s the Instagram message I received from a cis gay man after I had confronted
(translated from Spanish) From far away I hear their songs and their screams The ground rumbles Charged by restless spirits Tired of making themselves small To fit into lines drawn to cage us We all hear it from birth and learn it as children The life lessons all women must know calladita te ves más
Was the Moon A witness Or an accomplice? I can’t tell But, Both times It was there Sleepless Swollen eye An overripe orange That I mistook For the sun Why did you twist me up? I ask the staring eye Who, Clutching every reply Doubts to confide Even a hiccup Hollow Pulp-less fruit With
Film tapes turned to ashes Bare feet on the shore, unable to walk The tied ropes that suffocate me Holding you tight while you slip off My naked ego goes to its knees Carrying the stale bitterness of crying too much Will I wake up from this nightmare again? Will I remove all the blades
Adaptation of Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet VII. The Death of Enkidu “For his Friend Enkidu Gilgamesh Did bitterly weep as he wandered the wild: ‘I shall die, and shall I not then be as Enkidu? Sorrow has entered my heart!” *** ერეკლეს სიკვდილი გიგლა ეწევა ბოლო ღერს, სანთელი ანათებს პალატას. მისი გული ღრიალს ითხოვს,
House Arrest I was once a prisoner. Prisoners are often kept behind bars and gates, under lock and key, but not me. I was a prisoner behind a screen. A window screen, a wire mesh stained with blood and the putrid flesh of a hundred flies. My keeper kept me under, complacent. My keeper kept
Far behind the house’s rear, among moss and dead leaves was a spring. Connected to the spring by a small staircase of large rocks lie a stream that flowed as a river when it rained and ran dry through summer and winter. Insects–gnats, mosquitos, flies–danced above puddled water in the day, the light giving shape
Like many queer children, I felt out of place growing up. Although I was not uncomfortable with femininity, I experimented with masculinity by cutting my hair short and wearing more “masculine” clothes. My family and acquaintances often displayed their discomfort with my gender expression. Even if their comments were not always negative, I remember being
Berlin is foreign. Berlin is new. Berlin speaks to me in voices that I do not yet understand. It is loud, and alienating, and frustratingly unfamiliar. German signs and words are thrown at me left and right, clouding my surroundings and ensuring that I am merely an observer incapable of deciphering the simplest of phrases.
