The Pearl And Queerness
The first time I touched a real pearl, I was 18 years old, and I immediately put it in my mouth. This action wasn’t entirely spontaneous: a classmate of mine in a community college jewellery studio gave me a handful of half-drilled freshwater pearls as a gift and informed me that I could verify their authenticity by rubbing them against my teeth and feeling for grit. However, in the fictionalised theatre of my memory, I imagine that I put the pearl in my mouth not to determine its authenticity, but because it was born within flesh, and it felt fitting for it to return to flesh.
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