fuck the 4th: happy disability pride month instead

i dont fuck with holidays that celebrate colonialism. i never have. don't ask me how i became this way, my parents aren't as anarchist as me but in some ways i see trails of their ideologies in my own. i read a lot. and think a lot. and then of course i spend a lot of time writing. it is development. i don't do fiction really. it's essays and streams of conscious. my brain is a chaos factory, and if you're reading this you know that by now.

i do however fuck with disability pride month. perhaps living in this disabled body is how i became so radical. sounds about right. this year's pride month vibe: i'm SO over explaining my conditions to people, ESPECIALLY THOSE CLOSE TO ME. LIKE READ AN ARTICLE. FFS. I WILL DIRECT YOU FURTHER, JUST ASK THEN SEND ME SUM ON CASHAPP OR DO A LIL SUBSCRIPTION HERE*, CUZ IT'S DISABILITY PRIDE MONTH AND I'M NOT DOING (MUCH) FREE LABOR. i say that, and yet yesterday i went into it with my partner in the car. he's of the mind that if i give it energy it's gonna replicate and persist, and while i see where he's coming from, i had to point out that there have been plenty of times in my 32 years when i've said "i'm fine,, this is all in my head" only to be knocked out by ignoring signals that my body sends. i have conditions. if you didn't click the links, i got hypermobility, slipping ribs, orthostatic hypotension y mas. and it all started when i was like un bebe, so don't give me that "you're too young" shit. i do not have time for ignorance. i really only have time for baddies with walking sticks and wheels, so if thats you, holla. lets hang, from bed or in the shade of a tree. i am in a constant state of management of various aches pains and flares. if i hang with you, or talk to you, know i must love you because honestly i can't hang with most people besides myself and my crip sibs and a select few radical allies.

i am humbled and grateful that i've seen some pretty dope shit on this planet. the atlas mountains. stargazing in the sahara desert. beaches and jungles full of waterfalls in vietnam. but it was while i was struggling to breathe ascending a mountaintop in bolivia that i realized, something is seriously fucked with my body. and that despite wanting to do more hikes, and more backpacking trips to foreign lands this might be the last for me. and in many ways it was. i wore those ugly ass five finger shoes when i did my global trek in 2016, wore the toe spacers a lot of the time in my other shoes, and my foot pain was at an all time low. but my heart, my skin, my stomach, my joints, it was becoming clear at time that i was disabled, and that my food allergies counted toward that. rest in sweet peace Dominique Brown. for all the trekking i have done, i have done a lot of sitting on various terrain in lands near and far, recovering, long before i knew what dysautonomia (the orthostatic hypotension) was or how to treat it. i coulda had a much easier time with salt tabs in my backpack. fucking medical neglect.

i saw my first doctor for pain at age 11, my knees. 12, my feet. 16, my hips. so i don't know why it took me over a decade to identify as disabled. i guess to an extent the word was demonized and misunderstood. there is also the fact that my diagnoses remain "rare" or "confusing" to most medical personnel so they didn't piece it all together until I pointed some shit out after reading on the internet and getting to know people with loosey goosy joints and lacking collagen. as a result my understanding of disability at 11, 18, and up to 23, was limited exclusively to conditions like blindness, deafness, intellectual disability, and fulltime wheelchair users. i had no language to include dynamic disability and chronic illness to be included under the disability umbrella. but here we are, at 32, educating the masses...32 people and counting, please if you made it this far, share this with someone who is currently abled. go out and seek the work of another disabled artist. learn about disability pride month. don't play the ignorance card because we the only group you can join at any time. prepare yourself.

this week a friend took me for coffee and let me fuckin bitch about shit. i had my cane. i used it emphatically as we walked to cuss out people who don't comprehend that we exist, that we walk and limp and roll among ya. that we deserve respect. that at any moment, you could become like us. no amount of green juice, ginger shots, tylenol or tape is gonna fix this shit. i did tape my ribs this week. with pretty decent response, but i really don't know what i'm doing I just slap it on and some compression gear and pretend i'm spiderman. contorting my elbows and hips by accident as i adjust with the heating pad. ouch.

im tired of advice. if you dont have a medical degree fuck you, and if you DO have a medical degree and you say some fuck shit, also fuck you. yea, its pretty clear that i just want to rage. i want to cry, but i don't most times. i'm too fuckn tough. im unbreakable. im bendy. im hurting. make it stop. we cant. soup wont fix this. needles might. so that's what i'm off to do. put a couple little pokeys in mis pies y mis piernas. adios amigos.

*best believe i redistribute 30-40% to mutual aid or bail funds in a good month. we share here.