Marriage Material
Words by Nina Donovan | Art by Gabi Magaly
From a glance, do I look like marriage material? (Pokes out booty)
How about now?
Let’s make this like the eye doctor.
Better (strikes pose) or worse?
Better, or worse (shakes ass)?
Well, thank you to everyone who thinks yes, I am marriage material, because I don’t always feel like it.
I get that all humans have their flaws, but I feel less human, more flaw,
more Curb Your Enthusiasm plot line in the flesh.
I accidentally killed my second hamster.
I forgot it existed and forgot I was real, so I didn’t feed it for like a week.
I was young and dumb, a kid! 17 is a hard age, I don't know.
I was recently seeing this woman
and things were going so well, that after the second date
we made things official, started looking at Uhauls, she was the beneficiary of my 401k.
Then after about a month, I wasn’t hearing much from her anymore,
and I really started to panic that I had somehow messed everything up.
So, I was like,
“I’m just gonna leave some presents and a nice letter on your doorstep, like a desperate leprechaun,
because we spent New Year’s together, you’re a Pisces, and you met my dog- so I’m already in love with you.”
And this is just how lesbians date.
I’ve been queer for a couple decades now, so I have been on this roller coaster quite a few times.
I’m basically a walking episode of The L Word at this point.
And this journey hasn’t been easy.
Queerness is not something that’s accepted in my home, or my old high school, the great state of Tennessee, most religions, The Salvation Army, the Boy Scouts of America, any Chik Fil-a.
My mother unknowingly met my first serious girlfriend in college and one of the first things she said to her was,
“If Nina doesn’t learn how to cook and clean right, she will never find a good Puerto Rican husband.”
Because that is all a Puerto Rican girl is good for.
Serving ego on porcelain white dishes.
Scrubbing sin out of the home until your fingers bleed holy wine.
Finding men to bless your backyard but burying your own bones.
To be a good Hispanic woman
is to be woman when you are still girl.
To watch boys get Sex Ed while you get the rose “talk”.
I remember sewing my lips into silence as my mother sat me on her bed.
Picked at the petals like they were pieces of my body to be thrown away.
Told me if I had sex before marriage there would only be thorns left.
As if thorns weren’t grown out of self defense.
As if my body is just a single spiked stem
and not an entire garden, growing in and out of my own seasons.
Do you realize the rose is already dying the minute you pick away her freedom?
Rip her out of her own soil and force her into a vase she didn’t ask for.
I was raised to believe men are my brightest source of worth, but my water and roots have no say.
Cracked vases and pure white dresses trapped my breath before love and sex ever could.
Most Hispanic mothers will swear you can find womanhood in a David’s Bridal.
This is because they are squeezing their perfect, Barbie girl daughters into virgin frills.
And being the kind of girl I am, I once shit my pants in a David’s Bridal.
And when I say shit my pants, I don’t mean turtle peeking out of the shell, or even a shart,
I mean my parents should’ve called Tim Cook, because that shit was streaming so much I bet I could’ve sold it to Apple Music.
That shit was running so fast down my leg, I bet it would’ve qualified for the Olympics.
Bringing home that liquid bronze.
And I like to consider this historical event, “Shitgate 2005” is what we’ll call it,
to be the first time my body ever expelled the shame that raised me, pieces of the apple that bit back at Eve,
lessons on how to send my love to hell.
Shame is the biggest part of hell I have ever experienced.
I wonder how many of you think my story is of sin and not struggle.
I believe there is room for everyone at the table, but we are the ones who have to set it.
When I pull out your chair, it is not just so you can sit in my truth. It is so I can give you a space to offer yours back.
From high school lunches served in scared bathroom stalls, to family dining rooms.
The bread you serve should taste like community, not conditions. We should be allowed to wrestle demons and tradition, but still be offered water.
The women I date should feel less like gossip, and more like love that only grows and never dissolves.
Like lessons that only teach and never punish.
Like freedom that should exist as a parade, not a war. How often do you project your ego onto your children?
How often do you step on someone else’s cracks to straighten your own spine?
Judge all the wings that can’t fly as if your clouds are the only place to rise.
I’m learning to find a sacred union between my own bones, and not in your reflection.
I hope you can find joy in your own mirror while celebrating the differences in mine.