Seedling
those who sow seeds, side-by-side 
in the dark, 
would not wish the morning wood 
come sooner,
as patient are they in the practice 
of spring,
of springing vibrantly into action,
of acting vigorously in visceral 
actuality, there is
a finality — leaving nothing 
undone — these planters, 
having fallen fatally from grace,
are no stranger to darkness
no stranger than darkness, than 
divinity,
should they remain grateful,
graceful in the plight of night.
indeed, their appreciation is pen-
etrating in deed,
in seeds planted deep in pitch 
Black
apprehending space-time, these 
gardeners 
gayly gaming the systems, thus, 
find rhythm and rhyme
in celestial soil amidst turmoil,
their toil teams up with totality,
tension reeling at the root of their 
intentions,
vitally vulnerable, visualizing new 
worlds, 
reveling in the initiatory release of 
tender embrace, 
letting go/coming out, abnegating 
power in the darkest hour, 
the morning wood could not come 
sooner
for such lovers whose limbs do 
dwell in dim lighting,
interspersed and spread on botan-
ical beds, 
these are temporal tombs, boldly 
sprouting 
blooming in sleep, fruitfully 
steeped in 
close encounters with the cosmos,
lively drifting in dreamscape, a 
life in death (together)
daringly, at dawn, coming out
they proclaim, “c’mon!” like,
“girl … it’s time to get up!”
yup, sworn in at morn, in time, 
it is clear, that spring — is Queer
— is that verve which revives,
that early rise from past lives,
the girth of rebirth,
blessed at the bounty, 
a body in its most natural state
erecting a resurrection …
in preparation for the perfor-
mance 
of a lifetime — at dawn, they don 

non-dual
adornment in liberating fashion, 
fast 
and far beyond the boundaries of 
beauty,
of binary — at dawn the blossom-
ing, 
the blending of All That Is as 
Queer
as the sky is blue, and
if the morning wood came sooner, 
in sole isolation
it surely would relegate irrel-
evance to the dark, 
depths of soulful, intimate jubila-
tion,
jeering to night, springing into 
eternity … 
instead, we are enlightened in 
Darkness, 
in Queerness, bustling about the 
contradictions, 
querying the demarcations to day 
— toward destiny.
Budding
March, as they say, comes in 
like a lion, and (comes) out like a 
lamb. Mammal metaphors aside 
… that sounds a little fruity to me. 
Though, it seems this third month 
of year does miraculously meta-
morphosize, much like the advent 
of spring does immaculately ring 
with a rather roaring quality of 
Queerness. Forever in flux. Hard 
to define. In between binaries of 
hot and cold, death and life, dark 
and light. And rightfully so, as the 
cycles of existence so effortlessly 
reveal themselves in the poetics of 
their performance. 
While the metaphysics of March 
remind us that we may exist abun-
dantly with/in our multiplicity, 
that it is in our nature, our divine 
right to do so, the modern forces 
of conformity — white supremacy 
and late-stage capitalism prey 
upon our distinctiveness, collec-
tively programming us to proclaim 
sameness, remaining unquestion-
ing of the (illusory) reality of our 
human condition. These antago-
nistic entities usher us into the 
determining matrices of mass con-
trol in the material world, without 
any critical consideration of our 
existential origins, destinies, ways 
to realize purpose and find mean-
ing in this life and beyond.
Such distractions from our true 
indescribable nature are most det-
rimental to racialized and gender 
minorities as well as Queer people 
who in the past have had our very 
being defined through deficit for 
hundreds of years. Thus Queer 
people of Color have been forced 
to live along the margins of a mar-

gin. Historical vestiges of colonial-
ism have fundamentally shifted 
conceptions of gender, sexuality 
and race within communities of 
Color, leaving remnants of homo-
phobic sentiment still expressed 
adamantly to this day. 
Despite our ancient origins, 
Queer 
communities 
of 
Color 
struggle to thrive in modernity, 
striving toward political and civil 
equality. As a result, the health 
and well-being of Queer men of 
Color continues to be under con-
stant attack. But as spring is about 
revival, returning back to what 

once was, it is now time for us to 
resurrect and reclaim our Queer-
ness in its full form, shifting away 
from seeing our (homo)sexuality 
as scarce to abundant. 
Our mission with this interview 
series was as such — to create a 
multimedia cultural exhibition, 
an in-depth dialogical archive of 
the relational lives of eight Queer 
men of Color at the University of 
Michigan, thoroughly exploring 
the breadth of their experiences 
through a bounty of identities and 
backgrounds. In conducting these 
comprehensive confidential inter-

views, we considered a diverse 
set of backgrounds including race 
and ethnicity, body size, religious 
and spiritual affiliation, class and 
physical ability. 
During this venture, we que-
ried our communities of Color 
about the perceived lack of Queer 
people — on campus and in the 
world — or in other words, this 
idea of homoscarcity, that, as we 
maintain, has been manufactured 
by the mechanisms of capital and 
the white power structure, delud-
ing us to believe that Queerness is 
rare, especially within communi-

ties of Color. 
In the fall of 2022, we developed 
our framework for these inter-
views, conducted in winter 2023, 
as we sought to understand the 
psycho-social wellness of Queer 
men of Color as mediated through 
the experience of body, soul, spirit 
and mind. Unwinding over the 
course of five months, this long-
winded process has been a wildly 
bewildering, 
heart-wrenching 
experience for the two of us, often 
hitting very close to homo.

Michigan in Color
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

The homoscarcity chronicles: Introduction

HUGO QUINTATA & 
KARIS CLARK
Former MiC Assistant Editor amd 
Former MiC Columnist

Design by Sara Fang 

Wednesday, April 5, 2023 — 11

THC Part 1: Performativity and pollination

Queerness exists at the site of 
performance. We act as pollinators, 
allowing others to flourish, plant-
ing seeds of inspiration in the souls 
of others. Everyone grows when we 
show up as our true selves. 
Content warning: mentions of 
sexual assault, drug abuse, racial-
ized violence and homophobia. All 
names have been changed for the 
sake of anonymity. 
While you read, listen to our col-
lectively curated playlist of planted 
seeds/songs at your leisure!

Ezra Kim — Freshman — Kore-
an-American
Top 3 Songs/Seeds
“Never Wanna Fall,” by Talia 
Goddess 
“Cool People,” by Chloe x Halle
“Inn Blue,” by Declan McKenna
This interview has been edited 
and condensed for clarity.
How does your Queerness 
(or Queer identity) inform your 
other social identities (thinking 
along the lines of race, ethnicity, 
nationality, body size, gender, 
sex, spiritual affiliation, reli-
gion, class, physical ability, etc.)?
It’s mostly affected my religion. 
I would go to church and hear that 
you shouldn’t be gay, and if you 
are, that’s OK, just don’t act on it. I 
was very active volunteering in my 
church so my journey as a Chris-
tian has been affected coming here. 
I grew up with a lot of religious 
trauma and my sexuality has made 
it more difficult for that. 
I’m not really out to a lot of Kore-
an people (in my community). It’s 
very tricky. Koreans like to talk a 
lot. In Korea, there’s very set stan-
dards and rules everyone follows; 
it’s very organized. There’s not 
really room to be exploring or open. 

You just have to do everything as 
planned. The way I grew up has 
been kind of opposite as a Queer 
man.
Even within the gay commu-
nity, there are such set standards 
for what a gay man should look 
like. There’s a beauty standard that 
everyone follows or longs for in a 
partner that’s made me, especially 
going into the arts, more aware of 
how I present myself. Sometimes, I 
wonder, “Do I look good? Do I look 
gay enough?” But also like … “Do I 
look straight enough?” … ‘cause I 
don’t wanna be like out, you know, 
so you’re always like aware of the 
way you’re presenting yourself. 
How has Queer representa-
tion in media informed your 
sexual 
orientation 
(thinking 
along the lines of film, television, 
music, news, fiction and non-fic-
tion books)?
I grew up in a weird generation. 
A lot of new things were brought 
to light in my middle school years. 
In elementary school there was no 
Queer representation that I saw at 
least. And then in middle school we 
were more exposed to Queer art-
ists. I remember watching “Love, 
Simon,” and there was all so much 
good representation of it. Nothing 
of the dark side. So I always like 
damn everybody’s so happy being 
gay, why am I not? So there was 
kind of like a longing for it but I was 
also just jealous of it.
I think once I became old enough 
to understand the idea of the gay 
community, pride month, I went to 
Pride this last summer and it was 
crazy. It was so liberating because 
everyone around me is just like me. 
And now I’m old enough to know 
everyone is going through shit 
and went through shit. So I never 
felt so safe, even though I’m liter-
ally outdoors in Manhattan, any-
thing can happen but I remember 
just thinking, “Lemme just live in 
the moment ‘cause when I go back 
home it’s not gonna be like this.”

There’s a stereotype that a lot 
of theatre students are LGBTQ … 
I think it’s true, which is kind of 
funny ‘cause in a way I was able to 
find the perfect community with 
the thing I love and the people that 
will love me and that I will love in 
return. And just seeing perform-
ers on stage, like Queer performers 
even if they’re not playing a Queer 
character — for me when I see an 
Asian-American Queer person, it 
gives me hope. 
A few weeks ago Telly Leung vis-
ited us. He’s a Queer Asian-Amer-
ican theatre artist from New York, 
and just seeing him thrive gave me 
a little hope. But there’s also that 
fear of … “Will I ever be able to get 
there? How did he get there?” It 
must have been really fucking hard. 
But at least we have those people to 
look up to. 
How would you describe your 
experience on campus as a Queer 
man of Color?
It has not been easy … but (the 
School of Music, Theatre & Dance) 
is a very welcoming environment. 
Everyone is very accepting and 
that’s pretty known. Especially for 
me coming from New York City, I 
was shocked when I came here to 
meet real white people who have 
genuine questions. A lot of the time 
those questions are microaggres-
sions…
Also being in (the Music, Theatre 
& Dance School), I’m not the most 
social person … I’m pretty quiet, 
especially to professors. In Korean 
culture, age difference is a really big 
thing. You have to speak formally 
to elders. You don’t speak to them 
if they don’t speak to you. There’s 
a very set hierarchy. Coming here 
and seeing my white friends joke 
around with my professors and 
being so comfortable and my pro-
fessors obviously liking that and 
favoriting those students — it’s so 
unfair because my body just won’t 
do that. I’m not just gonna be mak-
ing jokes. It’s been hard because it 

makes me feel like my professors 
don’t like me. There’s a white stan-
dard that we’re expected to follow 
in terms of being a social person, 
or a fun person, or a good person 
to work with. There’s so many of us 
that prefer to do the work and stay 
quiet or be respectful. So it’s been a 
little hard navigating that.
As Queer man of Color, a lot of 
times people are looking for white 
people. Or they’re just fetishizing 
me and into my Asianness. There’s 
like a set group of people that I 
know that goes for Asian people. I 
often feel like an animal. They’re 
so fascinated by me when I’m lit-
erally just a person. And it’s like I 
get it, you’re just trying to know me 
but I’m not asking about you being 
white. Oftentimes I leave kind of 
disgusted, I almost kind of blame 
it on myself. Like I knew that was 
going to happen, why would I even 
try? But it’s like, I shouldn’t have to 
do that. There’s plenty of mediocre 
white men that just get to have a 
normal experience.
And oftentimes, there’s like this 
Infinity Stone analogy. There’s 
certain people that just love to be 
around people of Color and treat 
being an ally as an achievement. 
With making white friends, I’m 
often more careful ‘cause often-
times I’m just like a check on their 
checklist. Ultimately, it’s people of 
Color I feel safe around, or really 
fully loved not just for being myself, 
not for being Asian, but for being 
Queer. 
Do you think there’s truly a 
lack of out Queer men of Color 
on campus and in the world? If 
yes, why? 
I wouldn’t say there’s a lack of 
us. We definitely are scattered 
around everywhere. I just think 
when you’re Queer person of Color 
you have to come out or be a really 
extroverted persona and people 
have to know that you’re gay or 
Queer. I feel like when you’re a 
Queer person of Color you have to 

actively put yourself out there so 
people know. I think that’s why we 
have a perception that there’s not 
as many of us. It’s a lot of work to 
come out. 
A lot of us are able to explore 
ourselves here but go back home 
to a closeted life. I think a lot of 
Queer men of Color here are just 
going too fast. They’re not able to 
have the full experience of grow-
ing into their body or their identity; 
rather they’re just trying to meet 
people, trying to hook up, trying 
to just be gay because you can’t 
do that at home. It’s hard to find 
friends or people I can just be with, 
be safe with because a lot of times 
they’re just trying to fuck. Trying 
to get stuff done ‘cause I can’t do 
this when I go back home. Get stuff 
done. It’s so funny when talking 
about (Winter) Break. For me, I’d 
rather be here because of the free-
dom I have. When I go back home I 
can’t explore. I can’t just be myself 
because I’m gonna have to have a 
double life like I’m Hannah Mon-
tana. We’re all out there. We’re all 
just unfortunately not able to find 
each other in the right way. 
It was crazy — the second I got 
here. It’s like everyone’s on a mis-
sion to fuck someone. I get it’s the 
college experience. But within the 
gay community especially, it’s very 
boom, boom, boom, goodbye. Very 
unsafe, but I honestly get it. It’s not 
because we’re Queer men of Color, 
it’s because we grew out of being 
a child. And now we’re given the 
freedom, so we do whatever we 
want. But I think I’m at the point 
where I’m just trying to find people 
to be comfortable around, to be 
loved around and not have to pres-
ent myself in a certain way, just be 
myself and they’ll be OK with that. 
I’ve been especially trying to find 
more Asian (Queer) friends because 
I’m just so sick of the everyone just 
trying to fuck or everyone just hav-
ing a little interaction and just leav-
ing. 

How might Queer men of 
Color find purpose and meaning 
in a life of multiple marginaliza-
tion?
When we stay fixated on all the 
shit we go through, it’s harder. 
Especially when straight people 
and businesses want us to talk 
about it. My life is hard enough. 
There’s a lot of joy in my life too, 
and those things get blocked out 
by people who want to hear trau-
ma stories. Staying fixated on that 
isn’t helpful in my opinion. I think 
allowing yourself to live in the joy-
ful moments and really cherishing 
those. Those are the things that 
keep us going and living — allow-
ing yourself to just celebrate all the 
time. It’s OK to talk about the chal-
lenging stuff, but it should be out of 
pride and out of being happy with 
the way we are. 
Jack Nathan — Sophomore — 
Black/white
Top 3 Songs/Seeds 
“Versace on the Floor,” by Bruno 
Mars 
“Melting,” by Kali Uchis 
“Dat Way,” by Tay K
This interview has been edited and 
condensed for clarity.
How does your Queerness 
(or Queer identity) inform your 
other social identities (thinking 
along the lines of race, ethnicity, 
nationality, body size, gender, 
sex, spiritual affiliation, reli-
gion, class, physical ability, etc.)?
The Black community needs to 
wake the fuck up a little bit. In big 
cities probably less so, but unfor-
tunately I think class has to go 
into it too. I think more privileged 
Black people are allowed to express 
their sexuality more freely than in 
a marginalized community. In my 
hometown, the Black community 
was not tolerant of Queerness in 
any way. 
Black Queerness here is more 
accepted. 

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

HUGO QUINTATA & 
KARIS CLARK
Former MiC Assistant Editor amd 
Former MiC Columnist

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

