Subaltern Schizophrenia

 I’m nobody, who are you?
— Emily Dickinson

Diss-HER-tation speaking:

I am a collage.

I am a woven fabric. I am past.

I am present. I am future.

I am a scrapbook. I am a note.

I am a list.

I am an altar.

*

I repeat myself. I repeat myself. Do you hear me? I repeat myself.

I am relentless.

*

TAMARA MC will not be embarrassed by what her writing was and what it is. It was and is her writing. It is part of her. It was part of her. It is her in time. It is her finding self. It is her finding self as academic. As woman. As spiritual being.

It is not prettier when it is revised. It is only revised. Showing writing here and now and here and there—that is TAMARA MC’s goal.

Her writing is no better as she becomes more educated. It may be more coherent for the academic world, but it is no better.

It is.

It was.

It will continue to be.

TAMARA MC’s writing will reflect her as she changes, transitions, traumas, trances, and trail blazes.

TAMARA MC’s diss-HER-tation is a mash-up, a mix-up of texts. Of past.

Of present. Of then.

Of now.

It is a mix of revised work and work that has had little to no revision. TAMARA MC’s diss-HER-tation represents who she was in vacuums of time. It represents who she would become. It is a life, a life story, a story of living, of being, of “Here I am.”

TAMARA MC’s diss-HER-tation is theory.

It is story. It is fable.

It is fiction and Truth.

TAMARA MC’s diss-HER-tation is.

TAMARA MC’s diss-HER-tation is culminated in time. It is what would have been regardless and what might not ever be.

TAMARA MC’s diss-HER-tation is linear, multi-linear, trans-linear, and not linear at all. Time is not consistent. This was done consciously and unconsciously.

*

TAMARA MC is a moving body. A verb. She is constantly transforming and absorbing word, syntax, and rhetoric.

TAMARA MC’s imperfection is her perfect.

TAMARA MC is multi-lingual and speaks Arabic, Persian, Bengali, Yiddish, Spanish, English and words and phrases of other languages.

TAMARA MC also speaks the languages of experience: trauma, drama, pain, and pleasure. She speaks non-verbal languages too: photography, music, and video.

TAMARA MC speaks no languages. She is always searching for languages to describe her experiences. She is always searching.

This is why she is a linguist, an anthropologist, a social scientist, an educator, a writer, an exploration enthusiast, and a visual artist.

They are avenues for her to find answers.

*

TAMARA MC has family everywhere. TAMARA MC is completely alone on this earth.

TAMARA MC is woman and TAMARA MC is more. TAMARA MC is a body and TAMARA MC is more. TAMARA MC is spirit.

TAMARA MC is literate and totally illiterate.

TAMARA MC is roles: mother, daughter, granddaughter, and friend. TAMARA MC refuses all roles!

TAMARA MC’s words come to her from above. From outside of her body. And because of this, she trusts them. They also come to her from her body. Her heart speaks the words and her fingers type them.

TAMARA MC is body, mind, and spirit.

Here and now. Writing now. Writing from a past, from many pasts, from memory, from many memories, from no memory.

The un-remembered,

un-membered,

dis-membered body.

TAMARA MC writes poetry and prose. She use citations and she doesn’t. She uses APA and she doesn’t.

Please don’t have expectations of her writing. Take what works for you and leave the rest.

*

This is TAMARA MC writing. This will never be TAMARA MC writing. TAMARA MC becomes visible in the text by writing herself into the text,
and by writing herself into the text, she renders herself invisible.

The TAMARA MC

Becomes the YOU

Becomes the SHE

Becomes the HE

Becomes the THEY

Becomes the IT

Becomes the XIR

Becomes BEING.