By Nani Sidney-Keith
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Mentions of unhappy/unhealthy family dynamics growing up
I am an amalgamation of not-things. Of the unexpected and everyday disappointments.
The not-woman with the not-quite-girlfriend. The lover with too much love and not enough boundaries. The artist. The dreamer. The dreams of others.
There is nothing about myself that I have not cannibalized from something else. I am the solemn acceptance of my matriarch, a mourning dove with the most tragic song. Every day we rise, and we sing, and we bear the load of being everything for everyone else and nothing for ourselves. I mimic the set of her shoulders and tone of her voice. I try to embody the gentleness she so desperately wants to foster here. I pick apart her mannerisms and put them inside me to remind me what tenderness feels like, to remember love instead of ignorance
I embrace this form of compassion sifted from femininity to hide the darkness masculinity festers within me. The Man is loud. The Man is tired. He yells and complains and nothing is ever up to his standards. He is the hardest working member of this house with a fist of iron and rules in stone. He wants to be softer, to be undone, but he is held back by his own lofty goals. He lets past disappointments dog him ragged, hunted like a bleeding wolf, and what do hurt animals do if not bite? Too caught in his death throes, he doesn't realize who he's dragging down with him.
You cannot grow up with a wounded animal without absorbing the worst of its habits. You do not survive without becoming wounded yourself. And no matter what you do, no matter the methods and the healing, some parts of you will always reflect the ugliness of the man that raised you.
Black not-girls-yet-not-quite-boys will always be a marriage of the roles they're familiar with, of the worst of their blood, but they'll never stop trying to be the best of the ones they love.
Nani (he/they) is a queer neurodivergent punk writer and artist from Philadelphia. Influenced by love in all its forms, he draws ideas from the varying facets of his identity. Nani wants to add more queer Black media that decenters trauma. He strives to be genuine in all he creates. All around, he’s just a fun dude who listens to music and writes about lesbians. Nani is set to graduate with a BFA in animation this Spring. You can find him on Instagram at @honeeboi and Twitter at @honeeboi.twt.
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