When I knew I needed to stop smoking weed, finally. From Bleed-Throughs, March 3, 2014.

Besides recent experiences, I’d always had a hard time relating to other women sexually, because of bad, deep, under-the-skin memories getting triggered. “Shadow Manifesto, Part 3” dealt with how the most difficult person to negotiate sexual consent with tended to be me, because I wanted so badly to be immune to the anxiety that came up when I got intimate with someone.

merritt and I dated for only a short time, but it affected me deeply. I told my friend, the artist Sab Meynert, about how freaked out I felt about my feelings, and they said, “Time isn’t linear.” This jibed with all the ideas I started exploring with “Shadow Manifesto,” about art that excited me that dealt with personal modes of perception.

Relating to another trans girl, as a trans girl, helped me feel whole in my body. As Whitman said in a context of closeting and queerphobia, “Divine I am, inside and out.”