Worship

The stars I worship are dead 

  By the time their light reaches my eyes 

And dazzle me beyond belief 

           They are dead 

    What does that say of me,

The depressed girl who finds hope in the 

Shining, sparkly specks in the too light night sky 

Who seem so alive, but have died long ago 

When I can find a space that is dark enough

              (In the literal sense) 

I lay upon the ground, be it gravel, grass, pavement, or sand. 

And stare, stare, stare in wonder 

     At those glorious specks of death 

Notes written on the backs of letters

Parts of a woman 

Society having picked her apart 

  But there she remains , 

A full human being 

Who appreciates all of the parts 

Disembodied 

  No that isn't the word 

Sore and weary from her 

Tumultuous exploration of herself 

She finds solace in her wholeness 

This wholeness sometimes being 

Tangible 

Put together these pieces 

And see a human being before you

Life

Life. The walls you live inside, they feel safe and at the same time still confining, suffocating. The floor boards and their familiar creaks, the ones that give you away. Your habits, repeated, again, and again. The worries, the overwhelming desire to become something other than yourself, that self that somehow clings to the hope and prospects you are fully capable if achieving. The desire is to lose yourself in inadiquity, to be the ghost. That everlasting whimsical of wandering, not wondering... But WANDERING. For certain you are lost without those who love and support you. What to do with the ever present thought in your somehow smart analytic and unique mind. How can such a mind be this inadequate at a life that many layman seem to master. 

Stars

Those stars I fervently wish were brighter

     If you're wondering why 

        The reason is this 

Even in their dim sparseness 

     I find hope and a feeling of utterly 

       Captivating beauty 

Unhindered by the future worries of 

           Everyday life 

Their brightness fills the void of infinity 

A bad night in September

I wonder what the people at this pub think 

Distraught young woman seeking refuge

In drink and journaling? 

   A writer onto a story, given the rapid pace of my writing? 

     Or a ghost, come at last to bring more patrons.... The unusual one covered in blood, writing feverishly in her unseen journal. 

    She'll tell your fortune you know. 

      I heard it by a patron near by. 

She's good at predicting deaths, 

  Especially her own. 

.... I'd rather they fancy me a young writer, consumed with the passion of her writing, a story for the ages. 

A bad September day

And what's worse 

    I'd given myself hope 

I had given my family a glimmer of hope. 

And in one stupid day I have smashed it all. 

With the letting of mine own blood, 

With the consumption of spirits. 

The thought of committing totally 

to this 

Idea of madness is often tempting. 

More from that night

I cannot write of what will be. 

The future is easy, the present is hard. 

It is this present from whence I am 

Supposed to build a solid foundation upon which my glorious future will rest 

Problem, this present is shit and has been for as long as I can remember. 

That one night filled with blood

Time moves slow

Sluggish as molasses 

Always it seems,

  To remind you of 

     Your progress, non progress 

Whether the air be crisp with cold

Or heavy with heat

It seems a constant reminder. 

    Of 

What you want but haven't achieved 

 Of prospects so distant in the future 

    As to seem almost invisible 

You see life in the cold, 

  Stifling pressure in the heat 

Your mind struggles to find 

               Balance 

Whence at last you grow weary 

 And throw yourself into that 

 Light or heavy wind 

Where you land, you have no care 

    At least it's done 

Down the rabbit hole that is my street at 4am

    I awoke at four am in the morning. Not terribly surprising as I had been tossing and turning all night. This is simply to point out that I am not sure if it was my sister's cats howling that indeed what woke me or if it was simply apart of the nights general pattern. In any case, something was different, a strange noise. Upon straining my ear while I laid in bed contemplating my state of awakeness, I heard a howl, and it was not a happy howl (to be fair I don't think a cats howl is ever a good sign), not being one to ignore an animal (and my sisters at that) in distress I got myself out of bed and through the front door. 

    My arrival outside the house seemed so surreal and sudden, and for I'm sure many reasons, I wondered if playing fighting cat noises outside late at night was perhaps a rapists m.o.. Naturally I got a little worried, I looked to my left and right but saw no signs of danger so I continued on and began softly calling his name. Ten seconds or so later I hear a response (I hope not directed at me), another loud and mean howl. I can barely see him, there at the end of the street and there isn't another cat in sight, yet. I begin walking in such a way as to make haste yet not scare the god damned skittish bastard off (he was my sisters cat after all). When walking to the semi illuminated corner I even had the time to say to myself, "This is rather an odd situation I find myself in". 

    I'm there, close enough to make out that there are indeed two cats involved, in an apparent standoff. This brings some relief that he isn't injured or simply insane, howling into the night for no reason. (I keep fucking thinking of Allen Ginsberg). When I get close enough the two cats part ways and I squint and approach, "Kitty?.... Is that you?... Come here Kitty". He doesn't come here, in fact he walks the fuck off underneath a neighbors car, but not before pausing. He seems to taunt me with that pause, because I know it means he's recognized me, and dismissed me because I am indeed not my sister. I stay for a few minutes more, attempting to coax him out from underneath their damn minivan. All the while I keep thinking maybe it's the Vicodin I took and what if I'm somehow tripping or something. I softly say "fuck it" and begin my short walk back down the street to my house, in my pjs without my shoes. 

    When I open the door and step back inside my cat Penny is waiting, seemingly anxious. I pick her up and bring her with me back to bed, where for a few minutes she furiously demands a great number of pets. I can tell she was worried and feels lovey because she bites me while I pet her, a gem my cat, a real gem. After she feels satisfied and dismisses me, I lay back down and write this, because my god; what a weird event. And now if you'll excuse me, I'll lay back down and cuddle my giant stuffed white rabbit. 

this is depression

Here's the truth she said

There is no truth

It's in your head 

Fake it till you make it

That's what they say

And I must admit I'd take it that way

Because no one fancies being in this pit

One day soon

And then not far

You'll glance at the moon

And accept the scars

Life is beautiful, even when it's not

You are in control 

Even when you are distraught 

So go on tilt your head back and drink it in whole

Your life has been waiting 

Now you feel ready 

No more debating 

It's finally time to feel steady 

Sometimes Instagram comment arguments beget productive things

This piece I wrote is in response to the misconception or belief that feminists seek to gain equality at the expense of men, either socially, politically or economically, or some combination thereof. I have attempted to explain how generally most feminists do not believe in gaining equality at the expense of men because we do not blame our inequalities on all men in society but rather view the oppression as a by product of patriarchy in its historical and contemporary functions. An easier way of understanding this concept is to view power relations or oppression not simply as top down processes but as a process that exists within a larger matrix of domination. 

Oppression or power isn't some easily seen or defined thing, a singular force from whence ideologies are made and disseminated. To view it this way would be only looking at one aspect of the process. It's like if the oppressed or the individual affected by a certain type of power relation were a rock, and this rock was being pushed into the ground by the palm of someone's hand and you only saw the person doing the pushing and assumed that that was the only force at work. Where in fact there are many other things to consider in how far down that rock goes. Is the soil wet or dry? Or some variation there of? What type of soil is it? What is the reason for the person pushing the rock? Is the rock digging into their hand and making it difficult to push it into the earth? How strong is the person? Did they get enough sleep or food etc to be able to actually do a good job of pushing the rock into the ground? Is it raining or really hot? .. The list can go on and on and on. The important thing to notice is that that power relations or oppression is being affected by many things other than one single force. We don't think that there is one man or one thing to blame for the oppression of women. The oppression continues because it is influenced by past ideologies that we still cling to, because why would the dominant want to relinquish power (when in fact the only way anything would be taken away is other peoples level of tolerance for any misogynistic actions or beliefs)? In short, the oppression continues because the way in which power relations work for this particular category are no longer appropriate or valid for a world and a country that claims that women are equal to men . We have moved on in many aspects but still cling to views that have no relevance in the way the world is experienced and the direction the world seems to be going. Power is omnipresent and it comes from a seemingly infinite amount of directions and is influenced by a seemingly infinite amount of conditions and situations. We cannot change the presence of power and power relations but we can attempt to analyze it more thoroughly and identify areas that for one reason or another have come to oppress millions of people, in this case women. To raise one person up to the level of another does not mean that we have to drag the other down. We do not seek to drown men in an attempt to save ourselves from drowning. We want to be thrown a life saver and ride it out with the men at our sides as our equals; equally deserving of respect, economic and political equality, and a feeling of relative reasonable safety in our everyday lives regardless of how we look or act. 

Tricky

Your small words 

Fall between my fingers

Your slippery and eels aren't my style

That silver letter

Between my breasts the thrumming hums

A constant beat that speaks my life story 

Pain strength and an unbelievably analytic mind

Fuck the what ifs 

Let's talk about the why's in so many layers that we get lost 

Stumbling grumbling under my breath

This life will never cease to amaze me

Nursery rhyme

Honey baby darling dear

Lay your head and don't you fear

Those that creep 

Have lost the ability to weep

And though you may think this is a blessing

I ask of you to attempt some reassessing 

The loss of tears is great

For nothing else can abate 

(a hate filled heart) 

That cannot part

With those tangible forms of pain

Shall indeed suffer in vain 

This crick in my neck

Shall I relate to you 

The way in which I saw those stars

It seemed that only I 

Could truly see them for their wonder

A wonder pure and untechnical 

Every night I craned my neck 

Just to glimpse those

Shiny specks of hope

I fancied I saw the faintest hues of 

Blue and red 

A promise of other masses out there

Floating in that infinite amount of space 

Where my pain looks quite small and insignificant 

As the days passed and my wonder grew

I noticed others did not crane their necks as I did

Did they not see and feel the infinite amounts of hope and doom and desperation? 

Again I wonder

Can't they hear ants walk

•

As I walked along that winding path

I thought of all the things I wish I could be

The small gestures I was never sure that I articulated well

Can they see the shift in my eyes?

The way my voice may drop, or fall short?

Or is it only me who can hear ants walk?  

when in desperation forward seems backward

Here is the place that I sat
Here is where my soul weighed me down 

I marked it as mine 
So long ago

But you're here now
And I can't say I like the way 
The way in which you fill that space

That spacespot where my soul
Churned, burned. 
I remember how it was brought to boil

How can you say you know
How can you say that
When I can still smell my own burnt flesh 
When with mine keen eye I can still spot the indentation that I made

If I must I'll remove you myself
I cannot stand your weight replacing mine
I'm not ready 
But you wouldn't understand

How can one so cold 
Know the lingering feeling of oneself burned for so many years
Discomfort became comfort
Shifting sands made wet with tears from pain 

They had given it strength to stand on its own 
And now you expect me to welcome the piercing sun and thank it for drying up my strength 

Search

We like the movies about heroines and heroes because in our indulgent and contemporary society we somehow realize that we miss that feeling of adventure and decisions made in the heat of the moment. We want to KNOW what type of person we are. But in our state we mostly guess and hope we are on point. We walk in the cold and at the same time that we relish the cold we loathe the cold that seeps into our bones. LIVE LIVE our souls are calling and it's so desperately hard to muster the initial burst of the deepest form of strength to step over our own inhibitions and plunge head first into LIFE 

hopscotch bitch

stars in her eyes and you fancy yourself an astrologer

your preDICKtions are worthless

this starry eyed girl 

   finds herself in pain

so you change your job description

your vain,

in vain

          try to match her

not even a forensic scientist could correctly interpret her 

blood begot by pain

it's broken path is unintelligible to all

(but herself)

her story 

her life

alone she allows the darkest parts of herself

bring into light all that she forgets when she is in this

cardboard plastic fake world

your worthlessness she values

this show she can at times enjoy

but truth is her motive

and truth comes by way of drink

she isn't scared

you think she is forlorn,

but that's something she knows

she isn't a step ahead

she doesn't walk

but she floats above it all, 

at times you can see her toes touch the ground

cardboard won't stand the rain

you're twisted

(uninterpreted, badly explained, unknowing, ignorant)

 words hurt my heart

you're illusional truth 

cuts my soul

cardboard cutouts of equality cannot fool me

my gut along with my mind knows the 

truth

i cut it from my soul and from my mind

i am more 

a 3-dimentional version of your reality

the scars

   and the verbal 

are tangible 

keys are not only a weapon

they open the doors of truth

see it before you fall victim 

to being a perpetrator of inequality 

harm