Some days I feel frozen, overwhelmed not by what must be done but all the options and possibilities of how my attention could be divided in an overstimulating, beautiful and tragic world.

In 2025, I legalized my practice — creating a LLC, opening a business banking account and investing in other workers to collaborate in my founding.

In 2026, I am dreaming up systems.

If all I have are the practices that fill and give meaning to my days -- may I curate them beautifully.

What’s the Least I Can Do? is a practice in self and community accountability —building a business and practices imbued with joy, attention and creativity.

eye want to offer a reflection on my path to Chemistry: A T4T Dating Show, and what it meant to choose visibility in a moment where eye did not feel ready to be seen.

what does it mean to be seen
while the body is still becoming?

while the skin is flaring,
the hormones are shifting,
the reflection feels unfamiliar
and deeply mine at the same time?

eye almost didn’t apply.

there was a form—questions about desire, orientation, relationship status, and a choice: contestant or prize date.

the leo in me said: prize.

so eye chose that and eye spoke about attraction.

about loving when people are good at things.

about the intimacy of witnessing someone in their offering.

sing me a song.

but before the show – there was a camera.
and a version of myself eye was struggling to feel at home in my body.

eye was moving through an acne flare two years into my testosterone journey, alongside the quiet shifts of aging. eye take pride in caring for myself—hydration, nourishment, attention—and still, my skin was having a hard time.

my face held small wounds that would not soften and eye felt self-conscious.

and still, eye had to record.

so eye told myself: this is an experiment. we are practicing being seen.

and damn was it uncomfortable.

because to be trans is to practice becoming.

(a birthright, a calling)

there have been many versions of me—shaved head, no eyebrows, stark and unadorned. and now, a version learning again what feels affirming. what feels like center.

none of it is fixed.

and still, there is a gaze. from community, from culture, from inside my own body.

eye am not impervious to it.

testosterone has changed my body—my face, my weight, my proportions.

eye am bigger now.

and in some ways, that feels like strength.

eye am learning to build my body differently, to inhabit it with more agency. and at the same time, eye carry a history of pain—years of debilitating cycles, dysphoria, and disconnection.

now, there is some relief. not perfect, but softer.

and eye feel gratitude inside that.

everything here is an experiment.

eye got top surgery in april 2024, and eye love my chest. the simplicity of a t-shirt on this body feels revelatory.

and still, care is not always affirming.

my surgeon delivered precision, but not tenderness. and when eye asked for a revision, she suggested weight loss.

that moment stayed with me.

because some comments linger in the body—
in the way clothing presses against skin,
in the stories we begin to tell ourselves.

so eye speak it out loud.

this happened.
eye am taking care of myself.
eye am eating.
eye am staying.

eye think often about how to live in this body with more ease.

how to soften the self-surveillance that was taught early—through dance, through performance, through always being watched.

eye am still unlearning that gaze.

still asking: what is mine? what is not?

recently, eye remembered the word androgyny and felt something settle.

a life lived in between has, at times, made me invisible in ways that felt safe, and at other times invisible in ways that felt erasing.

so eye continue to find center, again and again.

what is authentic today?

eye feel deeply grateful—for access to care, for testosterone, for the ways my body has changed.

and also honest about the complexity of that change.

HRT is an experiment, but it is also a commitment. some shifts stay, some leave, some arrive without permission.

and still, there is a devotion in choosing to become.

because even in discomfort, even in doubt, there is something eye know to be true:

eye want to be seen.

eye want to share my art, my work, my stories.

so eye made the video.

with acne.
with tenderness.
with uncertainty.

and it led me to something sweet.

a day of connection.
a day of celebration.
a day of being trans, and alive, and witnessed.

what a way to honor Black History Month.
what a way to honor this life.

it is uncomfortable being human and being seen.

and that is okay too.

You can watch the full episode here:

MURMURATION

Comrades and beloveds gathered at this tree a couple blocks from my then home.

We walked the bosque to be with our grief, ate together, moved, broke a piñata filled with excerpts of poems. We walked to this trailhead and grieved.

In the years since, eye have watched as those connections that held that project disintegrated.

People cancelled, new allegiances formed, beloveds turned to stranger.

My life is, in large part, filled with a whole new cast of characters.

Lightweight like when they recast Aunt Viv and acted like we wouldn’t notice, we noticed.

And even if the fit is better, there’s greater harmony and ease. What the f**k are you supposed to do with the memories? How do you grieve the relationships that held your hands while you began to tend grief?

eye planted those loves like crops, watering them, attending to them, singing them songs. And one day eye turned around and all my crops were gone, ripped from the soil, stem and root.

Last year, eye moved back to that neighborhood and found myself living in a cemetery. Surrounded by the location of past hangs and the sight of arguments, wincing at every car that passed by saying, “eye can be here. This is my home, too.”

Walking with ghosts. An ex-husband here, a once friend there – trying not to have a fucking PTSD meltdown at the Country Club Market.

There’s this tragic beauty of love failed

“reaching in the dark.”

Peut-être c’est amour perdu, ou complet, mort?
j’sais pas vraiment mais ça me pique.

Now, eye visit this tree. This tree that was a marker of that work of MURMURATION, of a community practice. The memory of those events. Now the practice is sitting with the discomfort of the end of love.

What do eye do with the love eye carry for people eye no longer know? Wear it proudly? Adorn it. Take it on the town. Shout it from the sandias. eye loved, proud, and loud. It happened before work, after dinner.

eye tweaked the recipe until it cooked, smelling of me and hope.

And what comes after? You know that trite saying “it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.”

Oh for sure. But like then what? What is there to do other than dance on the bones?

Questions for Reflection:

1. What rituals give you solace for grief that doesn’t involve death?

2. What actions and movements encourage you to live among the many little deaths that happen while living?

3. How many times have you pivoted? Died, in small ways? Ended a life you believed you would lead forever in favor of a life that fits more perfectly?

4. How do you celebrate the end of love?

5. And, does love ever end?

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I still miss her some days. I catch my mouth salivating in the familiar – go outside, smoke real quick kind of way.

Humans said to me, “Congratulations! Wow! That’s fabulous you quit smoking.”

Those words confuse me because – is it fabulous?

               Cigarettes were my friend.

               Cigarettes were my lover.

In this one short Black life – I enjoyed something thoroughly.

I had a gay ole time —

One day you start smoking because a hot kid from Madrid smokes reds and you will do anything to get close to him.

Fall is falling and with that the temperatures. The smokers stand tight, blocking wind. Cupping hands to get a light.

Your arms touch.

You stand next to your crush and talk shit. Saying “gimme that,” before taking his pack and making eye contact as you put the filter in your mouth.

You inhale deep until the rum and coke mixes with the nicotine and the room starts to spin.

The next day, you buy a pack and keep it in your schoolbag. You frequent every doorway smoke session endeavoring to repeat the encounter.

Smoking is romantic.

Cigarette smokers know an intimacy non-smokers don’t get access to. Like a hazy portal where secrets and anecdotes are currency, “hey can I bum one?”

Maybe a smoking habit wasn’t a good idea.

But what’s wrong with bad ideas?

Naughty ideas

The only person I hurt was myself (and the landfill).

I could make an altar to self-harm and to keep it a buck — smoking was not the worst of it.

Someone I loved said, “you smell of cigarettes and cocoa butter.”

I relished it.

Cigarettes were my best friend. Back when most folks called me Bree – including myself.

They were my (albeit, expensive) ride or die. In key moments of breana-discovery cigarettes were present.

Cigarettes were an excuse to pause. To reflect. To connect.

A cigarette on a foggy morning with a cup of something hot. A cigarette after the worst shift of your life when every customer was an asshole, your feet hurt and your period arrived three days early with a fucking vengeance.

A cigarette when you’re waiting, anxious, socially uncomfortable and autistic.

Thank you to cigarettes for finally giving me something to do with my hands.

We were best friends – cigarettes and me.

I have better friends now — no doubt. But there are times I miss my naughty, consistent, slightly pain and panic inducing friend. We were friends in the queer co-dependent way where I couldn’t get enough, got entirely too attached and stayed too long.

I liked how she tasted and finding her lingering scent on my fingers, in my clothes.

I rejoiced at the abundance of a fresh pack and the ritual of the *smack smack* on my hand. Flipping two over: one for luck and one for fuck.

Have you ever been sad – opened a window and smoked a cigarette inside?

That is what dreams are made of.

Or sat pensive in a bath gone cold where the smoke mixed with the wet on the walls?

Cigarettes remind me of my Mother on her Mother’s porch: needing a reprieve from familiar chaos.

Cigarettes remind me of my Father in his tractor trailer in the Financial District in downtown San Francisco with two Peet’s coffee cups.

One hot with caffeine elixir, the other from the day before collecting old butts.

Do you know about the horror of being drunk and lighting the filter on fire? ESPECIALLY, if it was your last one.

What about the joy of a bump from a recessed filter?

               Crying and smoking

               Laughing and smoking

               Cigarettes as a lover

               Cigarettes as a companion

I didn’t have to be alone – because I had my habit to keep my company.

“I’m going to smoke a cigarette,” the most simple and perfect exit strategy.

—

Shoutout to cigarettes for teaching me the joy of a deep breath.

For getting me outside when I wouldn’t have found a stoop otherwise.

For making me friends, even if they only lasted five minutes.

Shoutout to cigarettes for holding my hand until I found other coping mechanisms. You were a real one and I will always remember you fondly.

Love,

b.

Because for real, for real – that’s my wet dream. And it has been for as long as collectivism has taken root in my heart. Encouraging my belief in pimping the system and finding a path forward together.

I can’t make it through a day without a homo or tranny explaining the importance of community or saying “in these times” or “given the political climate.” I understand the sentiment but also side eye at the (often) class-stable, mostly resourced human in front of me.

Our dreams outweigh our skills – by a long shot.

We need systems.

We need networks of care.

Humans to rely on –

I notice the ever increasing stakes are not improving the results.

In the delicious but small town I live in, I have seen so many ruptures and break-ups.

I don’t ask myself if I will be cancelled but when. By a rolodex of humans who say fuck12 and then police each other instead. For fun – for shits and giggles.

I have watched as lovers and besties become humans to ignore at the watering hole. How basic conversations or the word NO are replaced with earth shattering parasocial conflict amplified by social networks.

It terrifies me. How easy it is to make oneself over in a night. To surrender love to the drain, pack one’s things and carry on.

How love can be so all consuming on Monday and yet unimportant to maintain come the weekend.

I am the black cloud at the function asking:

Hey do you want to talk about queer community rupture?

Have you been betrayed?

Why do you think it's like this here?

Is it like this everywhere?

I pray it's not like this everywhere.

Please let there be homos somewhere who spend less time in conflict and more time in pleasure. More time resting. More time resisting the shit that’s deserving of resistance instead of each other.

Queer folks aren’t special in their rupturing – but I do find it more haunting.

How many intersections can we share and we still can’t get along? Can’t make eye contact. When what’s actually vital is dropping off a meal because the homie got sick again –

In 2023, the nonprofit JUST LIKE US from the UK found that 46% of LGBTQ+ young adults are estranged from at least one family member.

I, thank God, am no longer a young adult but the shitty statistic still applies. We need family. Or rather – we need people who communicate and show up when shit gets weird.

And I doubt it will get less weird from here.

I fear the word family at this point.

I have been in numerous relationships where the word was thrown around with pie in the sky plans to build the commune. To purchase goats and chickens and bunnies.

Family — this six letter dirty word that I could have sworn I understood. But now, I back away slowly adopting less charged words like comrades and acquaintances.

I pray for a queer love that is resilient and extends past clout.

I pray for a queer love that will shroud my beloveds through chronic illness.

I pray for the skills I need to live in a small town, love, have my heart broke open and see it as a good thing. As a life well loved.

I have no answers, only heartache and hope.

—

This post is dedicated to Allison Kenny and Lynn Johnson.

Thank you feeding me and sitting with me during heartbreak.

If only we each had Als and Lynns to have dinner with – to grieve and celebrate.