The Argonauts

by Maggie Nelson

And I have long known that the moment of queer pride is a refusal to be shamed by witnessing the other as being ashamed of you.

My writing is riddled with such tics of uncertainty. I have no excuse or solution, save to allow myself the tremblings, then go back in later and slash them out. In this way I edit myself into a boldness that is neither native nor foreign to me.

But is there really such a thing as nothing, as nothingness? I don’t know. I know we’re still here, who knows for how long, ablaze with our care, its ongoing song.