An Origin Story

 

 

i lay / awake / wrapped in layers of clothes / and blankets / and fear / the night hums / hisses / i hold vigil for my innocence / a constant attendance / attention / to detail / the way the light shifts / under the door / the fact that there is no lock / that protection is a bedtime story i havenโ€™t heard in years / and no one can hear me / here / anyway / i pass the time / creating galaxies between the stars on my ceiling / parallel universes where there are no threats / or where i can protect myself / or where the nightmares donโ€™t follow me into my dreams.

 

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iโ€™m scattered across this / now barren place / i have been / picked at / scavenged / i have fed / everyone / and now / there is nothing for me / here, so i / leave / i haunt the space between the stars / until the hunger for a home / catches up with me / i return / i bury my hands in my earth / and it remembers / wilderness / must be kept / unconquered / everything, i create / everything, i destroy / everything / is mine.

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there is truth / here / in each moment / every ruining / every revival / I skip between worlds / and they are all me / what is a universe / but possibility / infinite / the chance to be new again / i / supernova / and summon the shattering / begin again / i gravity / and am no longer alone / in this becoming / i manifest / i will / i black hole / i am / everything / i inhabit myself faithfully.

 

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i flux / light and chaos / promise and imperative / i donโ€™t know how not to cycle this way / canโ€™t be anything other than what i am / sometimes / i still try / i asked the moon / she said she doesnโ€™t know either / but hopes to find a better system soon / one where love knows that / this phase / is as true as / the next / i donโ€™t know how far away that might be / but / when she tells me / iโ€™m her favorite constellation / i know / i donโ€™t ever want love / that donโ€™t glow / just like that.

 


 

โ€œWhat does genre mean to you and how does it build/unbuild your work?โ€

 

iโ€™ve always struggled with the truth in my writing. feeling compelled to tell it and letting that choke my process. as much freedom as i encourage in others, reflexively, i am relentlessly rigid. It only occurred to me recently that I *could* lie in my writing, or tell impossible stories. cathartic ones. the ones i wanted, wished for. the ones i maybe shouldnโ€™t tell.

 

recently, i had a health incident that upended a lot of my internal shit. in wading thru it, iโ€™m realizing that choices that i made when i rebuilt myself the first time no longer seem quite right for the me i am now. different parts of me have surfaced and i want to try out some other possible selves. other possible stories.

 

while iโ€™ve always done mixed, or at least maybe not strict, genre work

i used to be interested in telling the t r u t h the way it n e e d e d to be told.

now, Iโ€™m more interested in telling the s t o r y the way i n e e d to tell it.

 

iโ€™m still learning how to be new. changing. i want something for myself this time. genre builds/frees my work, helps me to resist shaming and silencing. itโ€™s risk, understanding where i exist beyond what i tell myself to settle for. i am here to re/create, and sometimes that means discarding boundaries that arenโ€™t even real in the first place. iโ€™m still learning.

 

 


 

 

Chahney Young is an educator, advocate, and maker from the US Virgin Islands and based in Brooklyn, NY. They are a dreamer, insufferably concerned with nuance, and think that everything is possible whether we like it or not. They learn and love adventurously. Chahney is a 2018 Pink Door Fellow, and will be published in theBeyond Resilience: Sick/Disabled Realities Folio November 2018 issue of Nat. Brut. You can find them on ig @chahneymakesstuff and on their website if they ever stop getting distracted.