not
sometimes i can still feel the disguise on my skin,
when i look at this picture, no matter how much i smile in it.
it also scratches my skin and underneath until it reaches my heart,
that i have mildly disappointed you, again and again, like a german summer.
i can’t distinguish that from the possibility,
that I didn’t know that I was disappointing myself because –
I am not slim like you
I don’t dress like you
my attempts to escape your/my expectations –
that brought barbara, not as a scratch, as a big thorn.
mom, you said „barbara schöneberger, she’s a woman, too.
a woman, full-figured and look how beautifully she dresses in her clothes!“
fast forward, i wrote you a kind of letter and sent it to a publishing house,
„if this gets published, i’ll tell her i’m non-binary.“
the years of scratching are perhaps a concept, not a material.
this kind of letter was published. can we talk, mom?
lineare (linear) barbara
published in „Realities – 30 queer voices“, etece Verlag Berlin 2022
what is a good child, you wish for a barbara from the tv.
in front of the house a forest and flowing fabric and red lips, mom.
the discomfort is conceptual, the good child in the mirror is –
a sky, in love with the sea and fleeing the land.
it’s that quiet or that loud, you don’t ask, you answer.
i think you pray in stencils and dream of barbara.
failing in pairs, i lie in the foam with my eyes open, years.
more fabric draws up, more looking away, more tears, you are silent.
hours in front of the mirror sit in my throat, you know that.
but what shirts are to me, blouses should always be to you.
i hate your linear, lowered gaze, three-quarter reproach.
barbara lies down on the straight lines, you just smooth everything out.
who decides to live instead of being a good child?
who benefits from being everything, nothing and new at the same time?
i just choose not to be the barbara from tv, mom.
the rest has always been mine and yours, like everyone’s sky.
now
you were sitting in the audience and i was on stage saying:
we talked and she’s here & i’m so happy.
we exist & are not gone, i said, people were sitting in the audience
and sighed and had tears in their eyes, smiling.
at the end i was asked: for my mother i no longer exist,
but i miss her – can i hug your mother?
you said yes and i had to cry myself, secretly,
I am every stranger, every stranger is me.
but then a happy ending is not the one beautiful summer’s day
in the midst of moderate changeable weather here and somewhere else.
you don’t really use my name, not for two years, the thorn,
who was barbara is simply you, of all people.
you get upset when i talk about queer-hostile people,
but you don’t feel included, mom, but that’s not enough.
i think we need to talk – not about barbara,
not about your daughter, but your child ani.