Waxwing Literary Journal: American writers & international voices.

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First-Person Privilege

Tiffany Midge

A rectangle in the middle of the page contains a quotation attributed to Alyssa Milano: ‘I’m trans. I’m a person of color. I’m an immigrant. I’m a lesbian. I’m a gay man. I’m the disabled.’ Flowing around that rectangle is a poem: ‘I’m everything. And so are you. I’m a single-celled amoeba. I’m an asteroid belt. I’m a single grain of rice. I’m an eyelash on the cheek of a Trappist monk. I’m a dish of cream left out for the stray neighborhood cat. I’m a slightly used Toyota Camry with side airbags and V6 8-Speed Automatic transmission. I’m everything. I am the fuzzy down on the petal of an orchid. I am the orchid. The orchid is me. I’m everything. I am the trickle of water spilling over the mountain. No specific mountain, just “the mountain,” just as I am the definite article “the disabled.” I am “the” wheelchair for “the” disabled, for I am everything, everywhere, and meant for all things. I am an indefinite article, I’m every letter of the alphabet…also, I don’t see color.’

about the author

Tiffany Midge

Tiffany Midge is a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation and was raised by wolves in the Pacific Northwest. She is the recipient of a 2019 Pushcart Prize, the Kenyon Review Earthworks Indigenous Poetry Prize, a Western Heritage Award, the Diane Decorah Memorial Poetry Award, and a Simons Public Humanities fellowship. Tiffany is a former humor columnist for Indian Country Today and the author of Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese’s.

Other works by Tiffany Midge

Live, Nude Model
First-World (Story) Problems: Brown Girl Multiple Choice Edition
Re-Writing the Great American (Indian) Novel: Classics Edition
Indigenous Erasure Poem