Love in the Time of Banned Books #5 | "I woke up to your smile" by Eric Luo

Art by Rajveer Parekh

Introduction by Tessa Kats-Rodgers

"I woke up to your smile" by Eric Luo

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"Solace." Artwork by Rajveer Parekh

59 cm x 63 cm 

Acrylic on cardboard 

“Solace” represents the comfort a bathtub gives me, represented by the warm and bright tones of pink, contrasted with the dark or neutral tones. The chess tiles represent losing control of my life. The dark brown and black tones in the wall represent mold which symbolizes me losing hope while on the chessboard & being forced to see the abyss, meanwhile the gold on the central figure symbolizes resilience.

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Introduction

“I woke up to your smile” by Eric Luo delves into the queer experience– the pleasant, the challenging, and the reasons why sexual minorities persevere in the face of adversity. His craft is distinctive in that it uniquely intertwines metaphor and symbolism, which he uses to examine societal views on sexuality and the stigma that comes with being different in a world that demands conformity.

The piece opens with a sense of comfort, as Luo masterfully blends contentment with the first threads of distress. It gradually shifts to focus on the crux of identity, shining a harsh light on the shame often experienced by the LGBTQIA+ community. This is expressed through imagery-rich phrases such as, “identities I never agreed to” and “demonic wrong-love kisses.” To further illustrate his themes, Luo alludes to Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland. Both Luo’s story and the beloved classic explore alternate realities, highlighting society’s villainization of those that diverge from the norm. This pervasive stigma seeps into non-conforming minds, leading to a profound sense of resignation, and within that: acceptance. Moving forward, the prose hints at the ebb and flow of progression and regression. Luo works this message into the text by using the narrator’s mannerisms and facial expressions to indicate how feelings of guilt cloud queer people’s lives. The story ends on a hopeful note, suggesting that despite hardships, love will prevail.

At the close, Eric Luo’s touching piece encapsulates yearning, contrition, and the inescapable whirlpool that is love, providing a glimpse into the reality of being a queer person. By weaving his themes together, he invites readers to reflect on their own journeys to acceptance.

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"I woke up to your smile"

by Eric Luo

And blinked a couple times, trying to remember 

How I ended up sharing warmth and holding hands 

Through the night with the boy I spent the past year 

Fantasizing a life with. He’s been in my head for so long…

I pinch my cheek softly, making sure it’s not another lonely daydream at lunch.

“Are…are you ok?” you ask with an awkward chuckle, 

Staring at me with the same daze I had for you. 

As a child, I related most to Alice,

stuck in a strange, illogical world with baffling rules

And identities I never agreed to. Sixteen years ago,

I must have tumbled down a rabbit hole 

Into a confusing alien land of magical true-love kisses 

Where princes and princesses strolled down halls adorned with

White gowns and picket fences and skin as white as snow.

But unlike Alice, I’d never wake from this dream.

The first name I heard for this wonderland was “美国 (Mĕiguó),”

And the second was “America.” But my skin and eyelids spoke of the place I was really from. 

At my culture’s mad tea party, amidst Mahjong and clinking china,

I heard tales of a special American monster - one hard to distinguish but uncanny. Queer, even. 

With white knots and picket fences and skin, they were colonizing

The descendants of Five Thousand Years of History and Tradition

With baffling rules, unwanted identities, and demonic wrong-love kisses;

I learned to protect myself from those rummaging to find me. 

I mastered an ancient recipe rediscovered each generation, though with American ingredients:

A wrinkle of the nose, a furrowed brow, a fascinated glimmer in the eyes,

Lips curling into a smirk of political self-righteousness,

A voice of simultaneous acceptance and disgust at the queer monster they hear in tales.

Wear the mask. 

Push your jaw closed when your soul craves sunlight. 

Don’t bother solving the riddles; you’ll only hurt yourself.

I learned to play sexuality chess in this upside-down mirror. 

But at this eternal moment in this room, 

All the confusion, gaslighting, and lying are just memories

Reduced to dust from a darker age. Now, it’s only us

On that soft bed. The “gay gene” that spans space and time

Across an ocean to a continent our ancestors never knew

Finally awakens in us 

After two centuries of dreaming.

“My arm kind of hurts,” I whisper,

Squinting at the sunlit window blinds nearby. 

“You’ve been sleeping on it all night.”

I shuffle closer to you. My cheek on yours and

Our breaths mingling in our sweet cocoon,

We…

My heart jolted as reality knocked on the door, echoing through the room.

I jumped off your bed, and you quickly sat up, pulling out your computer.

Drooping my lips out of a smile, I opened the door and stepped back through the looking glass 

To my wonderland of past fakery and future fantasies. 

That’s my fairy tale. 

That’s my queer joy. 

It’s warm and fuzzy. It’s liberty and justice. It’s perfect. 

It’s finally waking up from some nonsensical dream,

If only for a little while. 

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About "Love in the Time of Banned Books"

In this series, we seek to celebrate LGBTQ+ identities and experiences, while critically examining book bans and how they impact the LGBTQ+ community.

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