Moana Mourie The return to love

MES SEINS SONT LES MIENS [MY BREASTS ARE MINE]

“Mes seins sont les miens” depicts my transgender non-binary body,

which is often misgendered as womanly. I employ embroidery, a typically feminine medium, to highlight how my body is usually perceived, challenging us to not take for granted aesthetics and binary constructions. Trans bodies are all so diverse, and mine is one of limitless trans bodies.

THE RETURN TO LOVE

My incomplete musings on relationship anarchy and polyamory - freeing our bodies and hearts from capitalism.

By Moana Mourie (she/her)

It feels right to finally take down the fences, we built around ourselves and others in the name of love and safety. No barbed wire to keep lovers out, No white pickets to keep lovers in. To begin to return to the days of the Commons. When love and responsibility was not private and individual. When communities would meet, to both gather sustenance and to celebrate together. Instead of forests and village greens, our Commons are group chats, house parties and queer discos. But, we still meet in the name of connection, survival and freedom. After centuries of locked up hearts, neglected bodies and switched on minds, we revel in the ecstasy of letting go of sharp thoughts and melting into a community of love. Yet, we know that even freedom needs roles and responsibilities to keep the love flowing and the community strong. We navigate tender connections using the constellations and ongoing conversations. We dance together, we love together and we grieve together. For our joy is experienced as one body and so is our pain. We rush to protect and heal the part of us most in need. Our bodies are both the drop and the sea. We ebb and flow with the tides of our collective dreams and strifes. Our lives not bound together by metal rings, but weaved into a tapestry of vibrant colour and stories. Stronger as one, than as knotted strings swaying separately In this web of communion, my heart feels free. Free to express, free to connect. Free from the slippery, heaviness of the escalators of expectation.

Freedom isn’t just fought for in dark and twisted mazes that never seem to end. Freedom is rekindled when bodies and hearts meet in the space of love. When we release each other from solitary towers and archaic vows, And let ourselves be planted in the Commons. With enough space for each of us to grow and reach the light. We each share our own melody, we listen deeply to the harmonies, so we know when and where to grow. We will soon be a meadow of wild flowers, witnessing eachother flow through the seasons.

And yet, clocks and coins breathe down our necks. Draining our capacity to give and receive. We carve out moments for ourselves and loved ones In the stone face of never ending work. I didn’t realise I was moulded to be a cog in their machine. But now I step back and see their masterpiece Framed in gold and shining in vibrant strokes But when I look behind its face of perfection All I see is blood, the blood of centuries. And when I look down, I see my own hands stained in red. This crimson rope binds even us who were told we were free. And we try everyday to prove them wrong To show them clocks and coins did not change us Did not rearrange our humanity. That we are still the animals that dance, sing and share That tell never ending stories and paint symbols into the history of the earth So, we dance even though muscles are aching, we sing even though our voices are shaking and we share even when it’s been taken.

I wonder though, in my pursuit of remembrance and restoration, and in my sculpting of new paths through these ancient ways, do my moments of bliss and reconnection come from of the pockets of those Less fortunate than me In a system where to climb up a step of the ladder Is to push ten others down Is my return to love, A revolutionary act or just another badge of my privilege?

I don’t know the answers yet, But I know to do nothing, To blindly follow the paved highways, Is to continue riding the production line Until I am of no use to this system. And climbing the ladder to the very top Whatever my intentions can only cause more pain. I must travel beyond the modern wastelands, and find my ways back to the seeds and roots that hold the mysteries of this earth. Take down the fences, Gather all those who remember, those who wish to love in freedom, who dream of freedom for all beings, so we can regenerate as one.