by DK Cowan
They tore me limb from limb, but I returned, stronger than before, and I prevailed. My own family, my blood kin denied my place and power, cast me out. But I returned, and when I returned, I was the stronger. In all my journeys among you I have been reviled, scorned, called less than my fellows, but each and every time I have faced down my detractors, and they have called me God. I have claimed my birthright, and it is time for you to follow.
I am the ultimate girlie man and from that I draw my strength. Why? Because I embrace it. Because I own it. Because I offer it as my gift. My gift is madness.
It is madness for a man to deny his active lust and learn the pleasures of the passive. It is madness for a woman to abandon her hearth and home to roam wild through the fields. It is madness for a woman to kill and a man to refrain from killing. It is madness…in Their eyes. And every time we force them to see themselves in those positions, their madness grows, and with it the seeds of their destruction, for unlike me they will not be reborn with will and memory intact. So fuck ‘em. You all know better. In you I see my visions come to life. Like me, you are reborn out of adversity. Like me, you challenge the rules of acceptable behavior and gender binaries and in so doing force your fellows to see past their limitations to the truth: We are One.
Yet again I hear you crying out in pain, reviled, scorned, called less than your fellows, trod upon like the grape. Do not be like my brother bemoaning the loss of a beheaded flower. Be like my Father, snatch the baby from the fire and hide it away, ready to be born another day even stronger than before. Don’t need a hero, Be a hero. A wise man once said “all the world is a stage and we are merely players upon it.” This is your moment in the spotlight, make the most of it! Command that stage and own your pain, scream your pain, use your pain to make them cry, so that when they leave this theater and walk onto their own stages they are inspired to change the lines. But do not become addicted to the pleasure of pain, for this too must pass. Overdone Tragedy becomes Comedy, and overdone Comedy becomes boring. Tonight’s Diva is tomorrow’s day old drag queen—Lipstick smeared, eyeliner clumped, heel broken, making the walk of shame.
Everything changes. Everything is born and dies and is reborn yet again. The agony of the crushed grape becomes the ecstacy of the wine soaked revel. Life is short. Life is sweet. Life is all that you know you have. Why waste it living by someone else’s rules? Find your joy in the vine, let my madness fill you, take back your nights and fill them with your heart’s desire. And be grateful for the invention of plastic as it makes some of those desires much more easily fulfilled. When I fulfilled my vow to Prosymnos back in the day, I ended up with so many splinters up my ass that I couldn’t sit down for a week?
Does it surprise you to hear a god speak this way? “What about the children?” they say. Turn that question around. What about your children? I speak not only of those you have sired, birthed, or raised. I speak not only of those children who follow in your footsteps. I speak of all your children. An ancient sculptor shared your appreciation of his fellow’s form, and this child of his has lived on for thousands of years. Another wise man in a state of ecstasy taught him by his beloved Shams exclaimed, “The wine I drink is the fire of love and God Himself pours it into my mouth. “ This and thousands of other poetic offspring sprung from this man’s love continue to inspire us a millennia later. Reclaim your broken spiritual heritage that your children will know their importance, release your power that your children will be safe, and remind your fellow man that there are other ways of being and all need to be honored and protected. Difference is not an aberration. Difference is the point of existence. If uniformity were the point of creation then a floating bed of algae would be the highest evolved creature and humanity wouldn’t exist. So claim your peculiarities and differences, embrace them, learn to make them necessities and hone them until they are fabulous. Every glass is always full, and this wise man says “Drink Up!”
