The Art of Devotion

A Queer self-love story

“Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule” Death Cab for Cutie

“I forgive myself for ingesting shame I did not choose but was fed anyway,” says Aja. “I may not yet be unashamed, but I am wholly unapologetic.” Girlhood, Melissa Febos, 2022

I was a suburban mom’s nightmare. I frequently saw it on their faces and found a way to be mostly amused by it, even enhancing it when the mood hit. I was a teenage groupie and aspiring music journalist. They said I had raccoon eyes, didn’t wear stockings with my red dress for the school dance and was that little brunette outcast among the all American blondes (even when I went strawberry blonde, golden blonde, attempted bleach blonde then back to black cherry cause it drove the dean of discipline crazy along with my Monroe piercing). 

It’s darkly funny to me that “boy crazy”, “fangirling” and “groupie” often become conflated with both hypersexuality and hysteria. Beatlesmania, Deadheads. Blockheads. Same with queerness. Always some sort of negative connotation to something so blissful and magical. Another aspect of the witch wound to examine I suppose, anything that empowers and excites us must be demeaned, diminished and destroyed.