can you write?

“can you write,” she asked me.  

i shrugged it off, “of course i can write.”

but now, days later, at home, I really can’t.  not even a status update.  all is well-enough for four months after rachel hung herself.  but that’s not all that well.  

work helps.  busy work.  

but can I write?  syllabi, course materials, assignments, plans, documents, paperwork, reports.  i can write these documents.  they have end-dates.  clear goals.  though but a good evening’s worth of distractions.

but can I write?  fuck no.  i can’t think.  i can barely breathe.  i can’t think about coding or analysis or the “gold mine of data i am sitting on” (to quote a reader/mentor/friend).  he understands.  

but, i can’t feel. so, naturally,  i can’t write about how i feel.  all i can muster is “sad.”  sometimes I can repeat “very sad.”  but that isn’t enough.  

there are words.  i know that.  but i can’t find them.  they are lost to me, and that leaves me so alone.  without words, i can’t communicate, and without communication, i can’t function.  

“happiness is only real when shared.”  chris mccandless 

without words, i can’t share. without feelings, i can’t process. i am sad.  

and stuck.

my summer in cape town: or, i am sorry for using you

returnthegayze:

They will ask you

Whether your project can inflict ‘harm’

And you will respond: “minor discomfort” to expedite the review process

 

Her name is Cym,

And the arc of her smile mirrors her painted eyebrows,

On Mondays she asks you what you did over the weekend.

You do not tell her. You are guilty of the conversion rate, how you can afford a club, a skin, a language that she never will.

She wants to know what it feels like to live in America

If you have a handsome boyfriend there who will buy you dinner sometimes

 

In your field research class they will teach you about the importance of obtaining consent.

 

Cym cannot sign your form

So she communicates with the earnestness of hazel eyes

Smiles, tells you how she used to let heroine and men

Inside of her and sometimes couldn’t tell the difference,

Laughs

Tells you how the cops would beat her in men’s prisons

 

In the international research workshop they will tell you not to get involved in your subjects’ personal life.

 

Your palms are sweaty, do not let them smear the ink. Keep writing as she laughs and encourages you to ask more questions

 

An aneurysm is a blood-filled bulge in the wall of a blood vessel. When the size of an aneurysm increases, there is a significant risk of rupture, often resulting in death.

A researcher is an ambitious distraction at the back of the room. When the amount of information increases, there is a significant risk of an epiphany, often resulting in a published paper.

 

She will die suddenly nine months after your interview. You can still remember the scent her smile

 

One.

Dear Cym: In America I am learning how to think that I am better than you.

In fact, I am majoring in you. Don’t worry, they don’t use your name, keep it confidential

 

Two.

I am turning your body into a new theory

Academics work like Johns sometimes don’t worry,

Don’t worry they will pay me to use you,

I will cut you some of the profit in my acknowledgements.

 

Three.

My thesis will be in English,

In the accent you heard on re-runs of friends, Cym I’m sorry we weren’t friends, but I wanted to keep it professional

I promise I will print it on the whitest paper I can find,

So they can see the black in your words

 

Four.

I will bury you in a library,

I hope you will find home there

In this haunted house of quotations

Hanging on the shelves like skeletons

 

Listen to the recorded transcript on repeat,

Feel her laughter crawl into you,

Watch it spark the timber wood of your bones,

And burn your paper in the flames

And cry because we refuse to let people inside of us in fear of imploding

And cry because you have the story of a woman nested in the back of your throat and you do not deserve it.

 

What I really meant to ask is:

What theory did you use to stay warm at night?
Is, Can you teach me?

________________________________

if you like this poem please consider supporting the artist at returnthegayze.tumblr.com

 

(Reblogged from returnthegayze)
hipster-kanaya: rebloggable by request. View high resolution

hipster-kanaya:

rebloggable by request.

(Source: kanrose)

(Reblogged from liveoutsidethelines)
bidyke: [Image: a bust image of Gloria Anzaldúa in white and blue. Her head is surrounded by swirls in red-brown and yellow, spreading toward the edges of the image. Background is grunge pink, and the image has a grunge red-brown frame around it]. Gloria Anzaldúa, one of my favorite queer women of color<3 From “La Prieta”: I am a wind-swayed bridge, a crossroads inhabited by whirlwinds … You say my name is ambivalence? Think of me as Shiva, a many-armed and legged body with one foot on brown soil, one on white, one in straight society, one in the gay world, the man’s world, the women’s, one limb in the literary world, another in the working class, the socialist, and the occult worlds. A sort of spider woman hanging by one thin strand of web. Who, me confused? Ambivalent? Not so. Only your labels split me.   View high resolution

bidyke:

[Image: a bust image of Gloria Anzaldúa in white and blue. Her head is surrounded by swirls in red-brown and yellow, spreading toward the edges of the image. Background is grunge pink, and the image has a grunge red-brown frame around it].

Gloria Anzaldúa, one of my favorite queer women of color<3

From “La Prieta”:
I am a wind-swayed bridge, a crossroads inhabited by whirlwinds … You say my name is ambivalence? Think of me as Shiva, a many-armed and legged body with one foot on brown soil, one on white, one in straight society, one in the gay world, the man’s world, the women’s, one limb in the literary world, another in the working class, the socialist, and the occult worlds. A sort of spider woman hanging by one thin strand of web.
Who, me confused? Ambivalent? Not so. Only your labels split me.
 
(Reblogged from bidyke)
weedleinthehay: Can you see the chevron design? Gold inside and silver outside…mint strip I should post the pendant Rachel got from my mom. Blue and gold chevron. I coveted it so, but she cherished it. Bittersweet that I have it now. View high resolution

weedleinthehay:

Can you see the chevron design? Gold inside and silver outside…mint strip

I should post the pendant Rachel got from my mom. Blue and gold chevron. I coveted it so, but she cherished it. Bittersweet that I have it now.

(Reblogged from weedleinthehay)

thepeoplesrecord:

http://www.mamasday.org/

Strong Families is a home for the 4 out of 5 people living in the US who do not live behind the picket fence—whose lives fall outside outdated notions of family, with a mom at home and a dad at work. While that life has never been the reality for most of our families, too many of the policies that affect us are based on this fantasy.  From a lack of affordable childcare and afterschool programs, to immigration policy and marriage equality, the way we make policy and allocate resources needs to catch up to the way we live.

We see the trend of families defining themselves beyond the picket fence—across generation, race, gender, immigration status, and sexuality—as a powerful and promising development for the US, and we want to help policy makers catch up.

Our vision is that every family have the rights, recognition and resources it needs to thrive.  We are engaging hundreds of organizations and thousands of individuals in our work to get there.

(Reblogged from theblackamericanprincess)

For runaways, throwaways, and the unmothered who learned to hold their own hand when it hurts

by Van Ness

*Sincerity warning: shit-heads will be shit-canned, rightly, with no hesitation or regret.*

High fives and forehead kisses, open arms today and my whole heart for fellow runaways and throwaways; to you who were deemed unlovable or very-conditionally lovable; to you who were cast in the reject pile by the hands you trusted most; to you who were dismissed and not believed; to you who gathered your strength in mandatory hospital stays; to you who dug your way out with dirty fingernails, and with no time to grieve all the losses or feel the exhaustion, miraculously carried your own young and frightened body to strange places where you grew up far too quickly or never quite grew up the way you should; to you who secretly weened yourself off of the meds you were prescribed to make you quiet; to you who can’t keep the scab on for long; to you still stuck in the thick of it; to you who are still learning how to feel whole or safe; to you who lost more than a mother when you ran for your life or your sanity, who lost entire families and had no one familiar to cry to or comfort you when your heart was broken and you had to begin again, often repeating mistakes, naively devoting your heart to substitutions you later found out to be deplorable as anyone or anything you fled before; to you who had to mother yourself through the muck and trauma when you were so vulnerable. 


I want the day back from the women who did this to us. If you mothered yourself, this is your day. I want pebbles and lipstick kiss-marks on the headstones… I want home-spun descansos…I only know to call them descansos…a spanish word…resting places, markers of painted scrap wood raised on the dark hills and the grass near highways… for every one of us who didn’t make it out alive or fell midway. I want love and power to all of us who ache up something special watching today’s tributes to blood and biology coming from all directions; watching the spectacle of other people’s sheer luck; watching quietly from the outside, the way we’ve done for a long, long time.

Love and power to you over the days following this one, listening patiently to all the stories about “what a nice weekend,” or “argh my family is so annoying,” while you remember holding the camera for other people’s families upon request, or being terribly lonely, or having flashbacks, or being scheduled to work because the boss knows “you have no one to celebrate, so…” Love and power to those of you who suffer the heirloom statement that goes, “she is your mother, so of course you must love her.” Love and power to those of you incessantly reminded about “the christian thing to do.”

Love and power to you who found your life’s calling in resistance, to you who bare your teeth and snarl and snap before every interlocking system of terror this world imposes; to those who lash out at the true source—at that which made our mothers vicious in the first place.

Love and power to those who sheltered us temporarily in basements, on couches, on carpeted floors; who loaned us clean clothes and winter coats; who let us use their showers and washing machines; who fed us; who generously offered us their extra anything; who often risked their own safety for ours; who told us we were good; who told us it was not our fault; who put a hand on our backs as we hyperventilated in panic; who compassionately challenged our misplaced guilt; who let us use up the entire tissue box; who took us on long and weepy car rides when the afternoon was terrifying, or walked beside us late at night when we had to escape. You are warriors, comrades, and the loves our our lives.

And so, here’s to another Motherless Day, like every day,happy as we can make it, which isn’t very much, and oh god, I know it hurts. But you who held your own hand through everything, who had no choice but to hold your own hand through everything, know that we are feeling this together today, and that you are beautiful, inspiring,and heroic to me. Here’s to the finest revenge in the fact that (short of being born) we have lived despite our mothers and not because of them.

I am in more pain than I have ever been.  I am also happier than I have ever been.  Is this balance?

Using the Moon to Manifest

by 

Ritual plays an intrinsic part in the human experience. Through ritual we find comfort and meaning in actions or words. A few years ago, when I was in a particularly dark period on my life, I started paying close attention to the lunar cycles within the context of astrology. There was comfort in the marking of the new moon as if I had another chance at a new beginning.

Somehow, probably due to the power of the internet, I learned about new and full moon manifestation rituals. At the time, I was unbelievably broke. My life looked like a bomb had gone off and I needed the reassurance and focus that came with these rituals. I needed to feel like I was in the driver’s seat of my life again. And so during the new moon I wrote out a list — pen and ink to paper — of the things I wanted to manifest in my life. I dated the piece of paper, folded it up, and tucked it away. Two weeks later, during the full moon, I took the piece of paper out of its storage place, placed it in a bowl, and carefully lit the piece of paper on fire, scattering the ashes to the wind.

I remember the first time I did this ritual and the feeling of energetic release that overcame me as the paper was consumed by flames. Through my written intentions, which took my thoughts and brought them into the physical, I gave the Universe a list of what I needed. Low and behold I started to manifest my intentions.

New and Full Moon Rituals

The new moon marks the beginning of a cycle and the full moon the release. During the new moon we plant our seeds of intention and during the full moon we watch them grow fruit. To manifest with the power of the waxing and waning moon, here’s what you need to do:

  1. Look at a calendar of the moon phases. Find the dates of the new and full moons.
  2. On the day of the new moon, take a sheet of paper, date it, and write the following:“I accept these things into my life now or something better for the highest good and the highest good of all concerned.”This is called thekarma free clause. Basically you’re saying to the Universe, I want these things, but only if they are in my highest good and the highest good of everyone I know. And by saying “or something better” allows for the Universe to create something that is beyond what we can possibly imagine.
  3. Below your karma free clause, begin to write out what you want to manifest in your life. Nothing is too small nor too big. Write your statements in the affirmative “I am” and not “I need” or “I want.”
  4. When you are done with your list, put it away until the time of the full moon, which always happens two weeks later.
  5. At the time of the full moon, find a bowl or vessel tosafelyburn your list in. (I use a large bowl from my kitchen.) Burn your list and when it has completely turn to ash and cooled, take the ashes outside and scatter into the wind, thanking the Universe for being a co-creator with you.

This is basic Law of Attraction stuff, which states that we have the power to manifest everything that we need in our lives. Yes, all it takes is getting clear about what we want. There are a couple of caveats though —we’ll never manifest more than what we think we deserve; we’ll never manifest more than is in line with our karma. But those caveats aside, it’s a very powerful ritual and a surefire way to get stagnant energy moving in your life. If you want healing in your life, ask for healing. If you want a job, specifically outline the sort of job you want. Take time to mentally examine any blocks you might have to manifesting what you want in your life. Dismantle any feelings of unworthiness or anything that cancels out your manifestations such as saying, “I am getting a new job,” in one breath followed by, “No one will ever hire me,” in the other. You’ve just canceled out your manifestation!

So get crackin’. The Universe is waiting for us to be co-creators with it.

Today is the New Moon.  Time to start phase one of your manifestations.  Peace and peaches to all <3

I played my role in this farce. A dying leader will guide the people to the blah, blah, blah…frakking blah, blah. I’ve been there, I’ve done that, now what ? Is there another role that I have to play for the rest of my life ? Do you remember what we said on New Caprica ? How we talked about trying to live for today ? Well you better think about that because maybe tomorrow really isn’t coming, maybe today is all we have left. And maybe, just maybe, I’ve earned the right to live a little before I die. 

(Source: catelyn-tully)

(Reblogged from freibiergesicht)