Grey guts
If someone sliced my belly open, they would probably find out that it’s all grey inside. No blood. No squirming masses of wet, red organs. Just grey shapes, intricately compressed in there. Like the realistic filling of a messed-up stuffed animal. It is not inert, though. It is very much alive and it vibrates. Sparks flicker here, sometimes. Plenty of strange and small phenomenons take place in the grey folds. This place is a fragile biome, with its own rules and precisely set mechanisms, and it would certainly collapse if it was disturbed. Just leave it be and protect it.
Grey is the colour of what doesn’t fit. The colour of things in between, things outside of the binary. Chimeras and ghost. Alien things, blurry things. Schrödinger’s cat. Smoke, broken glass, dilemmas. Stuff that doesn’t belong. Things that can’t or shouldn’t be labelled. It is interesting then to see how ‘grey’ can become a label in itself. When one says ‘grey’, it can designate all the greys in the world, but it also mashes them up together, flattening nuances, reducing them to a simplified version, to what is generally understood to be grey. That is to say something purely in-between. Something neutral. And it can happen that grey things are brushed aside, because no matter how grey they might be, they are not deemed to be really ‘grey’.
That’s the thing with language. Words have sharp edges.
For a while, I though that I needed to find a place, somewhere where I would belong in my state of not belonging. I though I had to
find a ‘perfectly grey’ place, where I could be ‘perfectly grey’. As if I was one of these stray animals, lost, with a shabby coat and wet eyes. Suddenly I would be found, and there would be a heartstrings-pulling video posted on Youtube showing my ‘recovery’ and how happy I am now that I am all slick and have a family. People would cry watching it and then share it on Twitter.
Often, I wonder if I am grey enough. Can I still claim to be grey if I act within the outlines drawn out by the fantasized binary? Or is it just me surrendering to it and finally dropping the masks? The scam exposed. Scandalous. All this time, I was just messing around. Shame on me, the imposter, for making such a mess with my shenanigans. But worry not, I’m finally brought back where I’m supposed to be. Back where I belong. I’ll just sit down, now, and I’ll stop making a fuss, I promise.
At the same time, I often feel sorry for being grey. I’m sorry that I’m not a ‘true’ girl, even if the way I present myself can be interpreted as womanly. I’m sorry I mislead you. I’m sorry that, no matter what I do, I will always be a grey thing, a pale excuse for something else. For something more ‘real’.
So sorry Mum if I gave you hope when I bought that colourful swimsuit.
Grey is the colour of what doesn’t fit. The colour of things in between, things outside of the binary. Chimeras and ghost. Alien things, blurry things. Schrödinger’s cat. Smoke, broken glass, dilemmas. Stuff that doesn’t belong. Things that can’t or shouldn’t be labelled. It is interesting then to see how ‘grey’ can become a label in itself. When one says ‘grey’, it can designate all the greys in the world, but it also mashes them up together, flattening nuances, reducing them to a simplified version, to what is generally understood to be grey. That is to say something purely in-between. Something neutral. And it can happen that grey things are brushed aside, because no matter how grey they might be, they are not deemed to be really ‘grey’.
That’s the thing with language. Words have sharp edges.
For a while, I though that I needed to find a place, somewhere where I would belong in my state of not belonging. I though I had to
find a ‘perfectly grey’ place, where I could be ‘perfectly grey’. As if I was one of these stray animals, lost, with a shabby coat and wet eyes. Suddenly I would be found, and there would be a heartstrings-pulling video posted on Youtube showing my ‘recovery’ and how happy I am now that I am all slick and have a family. People would cry watching it and then share it on Twitter.
Often, I wonder if I am grey enough. Can I still claim to be grey if I act within the outlines drawn out by the fantasized binary? Or is it just me surrendering to it and finally dropping the masks? The scam exposed. Scandalous. All this time, I was just messing around. Shame on me, the imposter, for making such a mess with my shenanigans. But worry not, I’m finally brought back where I’m supposed to be. Back where I belong. I’ll just sit down, now, and I’ll stop making a fuss, I promise.
At the same time, I often feel sorry for being grey. I’m sorry that I’m not a ‘true’ girl, even if the way I present myself can be interpreted as womanly. I’m sorry I mislead you. I’m sorry that, no matter what I do, I will always be a grey thing, a pale excuse for something else. For something more ‘real’.
So sorry Mum if I gave you hope when I bought that colourful swimsuit.