“Same Angels” -

For Judson Memorial Church’s “The Q in Question / Queering As an Act of Constant Curiosity” series: song 5/6. Week 5: Queering Our Practices.
Here’s a new song draft for my fifth week of writing around the current sermon and service series from my friend Rev. Micah Bucey @revmicahb and all the staff and artists at @judsonchurchnyc Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. This week we talked and thought about disability and how it can be created by the systems that refuse to support and sustain all abilities. I got my bridge inspiration from the colors of the disability pride flag. www.goodhousek...
I want to note that my intention was/is not to roleplay or “imagine myself” as a person with any particular disability when I wrote or when I sing this song. I am thinking about my own relationship to and participation in ableism and about my community including people of all abilities who deserve love, care, and respect.
Note on the idea of “queer,” in the words of Bell Hooks, this is “‘queer' not as being about who you're having sex with (that can be a dimension of it); but 'queer' as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and that has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”

[@NewUkeNewYork]

I spy with my blind eye
The way the world’s on tumble dry
I’ve got wounds; put your hand inside
You’ve got scars I can certify
My sight is not a metaphor
This body’s why I’m made for
Bending worlds to fit my time
Bending time to fit my mind
New wine, new skin
Same angel within
You call me broken, call me strange
Call me foolish, use my name
Take me as I am; you cannot heal
The things that make me real
My movement’s not a metaphor
CHORUS
Gold is in the air, it’s coloring our thoughts
White is for the solid ghosts they don’t know that we brought
Red says “go” to breath and moves within our blood
Green knows what we can and what we cannot touch
Blue is for the color-wash that sometimes paints
Across the black of mourning loss, protest, and rage
Our thoughts are not a metaphor
Our bodies are why we’re made for
Bending worlds to fit our time
Bending time to fit our minds
New wine, new skin
Same angels within