non-binary as in spirit first
spirit first is a term coined by ann daramola. it's used to describe how some of us live these lives encased n embodied
I am a first and a third born, ever since i can remember have struggled with being inside a body. Wording it that way has come with age and learning, and over the years the realisation that we’re an embodied thing has been ludacris. I’ve always found more comfort in the inbetween states way before i knew what they were called.
It was a running joke in my family that i looked like a small old man when I was a toddler. I was rotound, heavily bowlegged and bald. The older i grew i remember being told off for being clumsy or being in grown peoples business. Somewhere between meditating on these memories, meeting my nephews, sitting in the eye of absolute chaos, i happened on being non binary, again and again. I saw the words, they made sense pertaining to my experience of gender and expressing it. A space, not really in the middle, but an allowance to meet the me’s that pattern and shift in the world.
Non-binary to me, defined is not something i owe anyone, but as a practising human being it’s imperative i use the words, the flesh words. To human requires recognising and honoring divinity, and as we approach the season of by force ritualchoosing and its capitalist displays, i guess i wanted to let you, the reader, in on these other aspects of who this we is, who youse experience as a me, as buitumelo. Being simple and straightforward was coding I yearned for growing up. i believed in continuous external validation and how that was what would serve/save me, the compartmentalisation of my thoughts and external actions where strictly on or off, the faces were fighting the head. The secret things were hidden and separate to me. A lot happened in quick succession, notably by way of two igbo authors, one of them a literal god, i began to expand in this context that was of mine and Gods co-engineering.
Language, prayer and “boredom” gave space for my becoming to happen. Choosing to double down on God, on myselves, is how we get here. With you reading this. My non-binary means yes i do not identify as neither man or woman, I do however identify as a black lesbian. I have to give and use flesh terms.
I am non-binary, with black womanhood at the centre. Meaning, i am born in this life as response to black women before, i am non binary in response to spirit being called upon with tasks to do, things to write. We don’t exist or thrive in a vacuum, i am a descendant of ubuntu and forgetting im never really alone was one of the biggest mistakes.
I am a lesbian who loves hands, yearns deeply and makes zines, and also the dyke who’ll also peg your boyfriend with consent and it’s okay because we’re growing our polycule. lol
I am here to subscribe to the human experience, i am here to human in ways causing no grievous harm, centering love and doing my little rituals.
Non binary like choosing to release what is not mine and is unsustainable for whats to come, non binary like actively knowing when we’re consciously engaging with energy
Non binary like it’s a task to exist in human form and we all should praise God that this bui is here, and breathing and clicky clacking on this laptop. We had to exist deeper in ritual choosing.
Writing has felt like a secret I need to keep, I’ve been saying I’m a writer with more confidence but had to fill out an official thing at my day job and realised again that my obvious (nonbinary/androgynous selves) is not necessarily everybody elses obvious, so I reached for the substack. 2023 has started off like a Max Roach solo and we are grateful. Busy and grounded, ritually choosing, love or neutrality as far as possible.
In conclusion, i am thankful, dear reader, for you reaching the end of this account of my identity, written down and referenceable. I’m acutely aware this is all subject to questions and an excuse to verify for clarity. And i can be present for that, discussion and exploration done with values and boundaries in mind.
Peace and ease
buitumelo, u.i K. M
Practising human being, gender non binary, black lesbian
Writer poet model existentialist artist