I know the ugly, hateful voices you’re hearing. The ones that say you’re less than worthless, the ones that tell you the only thing you’re good for is abuse. They can list with intimate fondness all of the ways you are contaminated, filthy, unworthy of want. They have a running tally of all the reasons you deserve to be discarded.

I know those voices. They scream at me, too. And I wish beyond all things that I knew how to shout them down every time. I wish I could share with you the magic trick of staring into all their ugly yellow eyes at once and telling them to

Be. Still.

But it’s a trick that I have yet to master. I can tell you that it comes, inch by excruciating inch. All you need to start is to find just one thing. One single, infinitesimal reason to believe, really believe, that they might be wrong. (And. They. Are.)

Just that one tiny crack, and you can grow. Up, out, away from the muck and the murk, towards the sun. There will still be many, many days of storm and fear. Their voices get quieter, and yours becomes louder, and the balance shifts. I don’t think they ever shut up entirely, but you get better and better at shutting them down and walking away.

I wish I could gather your tiny sweet, perfect self close to my heart and infuse you with the sure and solid knowledge of your boundless worth. You deserve that certainty. You always deserved it. Not for one second in your life did you deserve to feel anything less than precious.

You are beautiful. Your heartvoiceself is remarkable, irreplaceable, invaluable. The shine of you is magic that will never happen twice on this earth and it should be seen and shared and celebrated, every single moment you are here. And you deserve to hear that from every person you grace with the privilege of a place in your life.

Really. I know it’s hard to believe. But I’ll tell you as many times as you let me.

**************************************

I posted this earlier today, and then I had a pang of doubt and took it down, thinking, maybe, it’s all been said enough. Maybe we’ve all figured out what consent really looks like, and it doesn’t matter what you wore or where you were or who you were with or whether you’re kink or vanilla: an absence of yes means no.

I don’t care what you’re into, what she’s into, or what you think she fucking owes you: you don’t get to touch her, fuck her, use her, abuse her, or do a single goddamn thing with her unless or until she has stated plainly that she wants it. From you.

I really thought, maybe, it wasn’t necessary. But then I was reminded that it is. I’m sick to fucking death of this, but it is. So. With a sad and furious and frustrated heart, I’m re-posting this. For all the boys who still can’t seem to figure out what consent looks like. For all the girls who feel like maybe that is somehow their fault.

Consent. Here is what it doesn’t look like:

I … said no. At every turn.

I said no.

When I invited you in.

Are you free to come and watch movies tonight? Just to watch movies, and hang out. I need company, and comfort, and conversation. But listen, I should warn you – my TV is in the bedroom. But – I only want to watch movies. Is that okay?

Of course it’s okay, you said. I can behave, you told me.

I believed you.

I said no.

When you arrived, and I wouldn’t let you wrap your arms around me, and pull me into the lingering hello hug you wanted.

I said no.

When we settled in to watch movies, and I kept a clear and deliberate space between us. When I refused to climb in to your beckoning arms. When I didn’t allow you to rub my foot, or stroke my ankle, or rest your hand on my leg.

I said no.

And then I relaxed. Because surely, by now, the message was clear. I dropped my guard. And I enjoyed your company, and laughed at the movie we were watching. And shared some drinks.

I relaxed. I got a little bit drunk. And I began to drowse beside you.

And when I woke up, your hands were on me, and my sleep muddled body responded, as bodies do, and by the time the part of my brain that is responsible for consent was awake your fingers were inside me and you were holding me down and taking things I do not remember offering you. And I was terrified confused and not sure what I had done to make this happen.

Because I’m pretty sure I said no.

And because you are involved in the scene you decided at first to read my struggle as play. And you pushed harder, got a little more aggressive, introduced just a teeny bit of brutality to the moment. Sure. All girls who invite their friend the dom over to watch movies are really just hoping he’ll get kinky with no prior warning or discussion. Yup.

(Wait. I’m new at this. Doesn’t that shit get negotiated first?)

I wasn’t playing. And now you have a close-up picture of what happens when you push a survivor into a full body episode of back-against-the-wall, fists swinging, shrieking, hysterical, traumatized flashbacks. Fun, yeah?

But of course it was my own fault. And I’ll carry the guilt for making you feel bad about yourself.

What could I have been thinking, asking a friend to come over and watch movies?

I have begun an unexpected correspondence. It commands a great deal of attention and it leaves me sometimes fever weary with revealing.

My voice is shards everywhere being gathered into what it used to be what it always was and I am awestruck in this immensity of lost and found.

And: I am enrolled in the Algonquin writing program for september, with my spot assured this time. Good and solid progress.

But life is still a cascade of overwhelm and introspection, and waiting to see how things set in motion will unfold.

We all know how I love waiting.

never together

(i think)

i live my inside
out

and outside i’m

unable

to find my way

wherever there
and never

where

there’s meant to be
but

meant to be(s)

just weren’t.

character identities from self identities

stories from realities

submerging

truths

*********************************

I get impatient furious full of vitriol with myself, because I can’t find my writing voice, weave strands of wordthought into eloquence or sensibility or any of what I want to express. It’s just not there.

… too many fractures and fragments and facets that sometimes make it impossible to remember which me is real today, unfurling tendrils that extend from unconscious to conscious and I don’t know how to gather the scatterings to form a cohesive kind of being, too many thoughts unthoughts places times and if I can’t find the girl who belongs in this world, how can I possibly orchestrate the ones who live in my head?

and we just don’t talk of such distasteful things.

My throat closes over anxious thoughts and I can’t tell the difference between safe and not what I want and what I don’t where I am and who I’m not. And then I fly away can’t stand still don’t know where I went but

it was better there. (in the place where you were not)

*********************************

Gathering my thoughts on the silence that falls when I can’t seem to handle competing pressures, and this. I am so not a fan of this particular brand of introspection and I write the difficult things grudgingly, kicking and screaming most of the way. When life gets shaky I’m inclined to disappear until I can return with standard programming of rainbows and butterflies.

But it seems obvious, I suppose, that being programmed to keep secrets would carry over into that static trapped disruptive brain that won’t let me find my way or hear my thoughts even when I’m really trying to listen. It’s voices like this that make me wish I wasn’t really built to be a writer at all. It would be so much nicer if I could process this stuff into flower gardens or abstract art or, ummmmm … interpretative dance? Anything other than this chronic compulsive need to nail it all down in the starkest possible terms. I. Just. Don’t. Want. To.

But there it is.

(Yes … I know. You’re all now trying to decide whose job it will be to take me by the hand and gently suggest that I renew my meds. But … what if these are just things I need to say? What if they need to be heard? It’s all there, whether I medicate it or not. So, I dunno. You could maybe not read my blog for a while, if it freaks you out.)

What’s hard: Standing still and being all in wherever I happen to be for more than 5 minutes an hour a week. Much safer to put it all through the shredder and try a new script at the first sign the plot might be turning real.

Once upon a time there was a boy. And all the boys who came after were the wrong boy. The end.

Yep, that pretty much covers it.

Sun is shining. House is clean. World is where I left it.