Coloring Outside the Lines (Rewrite History)

You told me years ago that you wanted to bring the

word “orgasmic” into everyday conversation, like

“this food is—” “that take was—” “you’re looking—”


don’t.


You think you color outside the lines, like anarchy

exists to create instead of tear people down, like we

have to take out all that is to see what could be, and


I think of the argument I had with a roommate my

sophomore year of college, her arguments that a

world with no gender at all is possible, her argument

that my identity was putting me in a box (I’m a color-

ing sheet, I guess, same outline, different inside,) and

we went back and forth for hours, how boxes are not

bad, it’s the impulse to put everything in them, like

okay, I’d like to see you move houses carrying your

books one by one, like

okay, I’d like to see you describe the world without

shapes and colors and numbers, but that doesn’t

mean they can’t bend, it doesn’t matter if not every-

one is naturally flexible, that’s what stretching is


for,


and I think of the coloring books in my desk drawer,

unfilled, unfulfilled, but maybe that doesn’t mean

failure, don’t you see? Maybe it just means potential.


If you think you are different, special, you are just


making a new box,


because we are all the same, and how beautiful is

that, how glorious, how orgasmic? Like everyone

is special so what’s the use of another box? No one

is more than this—human—and we have to work

with what we’ve got, so give me one good colored

pencil, give me one good reason, and then let’s get


to work.