BACKTALK

BY PARDIS ALIAKBARKHANI

growing up in brampton is a paradox of otherness. it is home to brownness and not-so-subtle white racism. pretty white girls with blonde hair and blue eyes that wrinkle their button noses at your arm hair, whisper over your lunch, sing chorus to insecurities that you carry into your 30s. growing up in brampton was sean paul playing in the value village you frequent with your mom for back to school clothes shopping. growing up in brampton was microwaving your third jamaican patty of the night while your mom is pulling a second factory shift. growing up in brampton was gestating a unique brand of strangeness that you give birth to years after you graduate university.

amendment: queerness. amendment: queerness juxtaposing colour. queerness juxtaposing poverty. queerness juxtaposing beauty that falls against western convention. queerness in a fat body. sometimes this city is scar tissue i trace over and call my childhood. the first time a girl called me a lesbian i was 12 and everyone laughed. amendment: this city is scar tissue because it taught me how to heal.

the first time a girl, shannon, called me a lesbian because i thought she was my friend and i hugged her, i remember wanting to die. i remember sinking so deep into myself for a moment that i left brampton and momentarily woke up in my mothers’ womb. but wombs have eviction dates. and so does shame. we choose what we wish to carry.

the first time a girl called me a lesbian she followed with braying laughter. told me to order a prostitute to fulfill my needs. oddly specific thing for a 12-yearold to say. cutting in the stares that followed. two-set daggers in prepubescent bodies. “call a prostitute, call a prostitute.” blue-eyed, blonde-haired shannon caws. another girl chirps disapprovingly, flying onto the empty seat next to me. “that’s so mean! how do you even order a prostitute?” the other girl asks, her brows so furrowed i could build nests in them. silence. lips shaking as if more laughter is about to spill from them. brampton paradox: i am simultaneously beaten down but keenly aware of the fact that this freckle-faced, anemic girl with manicured fingernails has never nursed a broken wing. silence. “how do you even order a prostitute?” i’ll probably get my ass handed to me tonight when i go home for not folding the sheets right. for sitting improperly. for getting toothpaste on the bathroom vanity. i’ll nurse that. i have no choice. but does my gay ass need to listen to this squawking? no. not today.brampton 101: if you intend to puff out your chest, prepare to have the wind knocked out of it.

“that’s so mean! how do you even order a prostitute?” slightly-less-mean girl asks.

“you just call shannon’s home phone.” i say.