NODAPL

Home safe after the #nodapl protest all the way around midtown tonight. We wove our way from Columbus Circle across town a couple of times and landed at Times Square (a.k.a. the swirling cesspool of doom). Our group almost got left behind at one point, but we managed to stick with the march with Cops swarming around the contingent the entire time.

Someone threw some ice out a window at us.

At one point I thought we might get arrested.

A couple of people none of us knew did.

It was very scattered after we first left Trump Towers and began to feel frantic.

Then we built up steam, and it began to feel like energy vibrating together.

August fires

August fires make ashes for
September embers

The Girl Who Wore Armor

I started writing this story on the subway after a rant I had, either at work, or at a friend's house.... I kinda can't remember. Anyway it's about a girl who wakes up every morning and reads the news. She is frightened and disturbed by everything she sees until she can't get herself out of bed for days at a time, so she decides to go into the toxic junkyard behind her house and make herself some armor. After collecting all her materials, and starting her work, she nearly catches her house and the neighbor's houses on fire, and to make matters worse, she can't reach behind to weld the back plating on. She sets out to solicit help from her neighbors, who each have very legit reasons for not wanting to help her (ie: you're going to burn my house down and give me what in exchange? etc).

I'm currently looking for illustrators and folks who are connected with publishers who might be interested in the piece. I'm very happy with where it is and the themes and stuff, but am totally open to collaborative feedback and constructive criticism that will ultimately make the story stronger.

The themes are community based healing, trauma, and resilience in the face of oppression.

I want to stand next to my Siblings

I want to stand next to my Siblings.

I want to stand here next to my Siblings.

I want to stand here next to my lost Siblings.

I want to stand here next to my lost Siblings and hold them.

I want to stand here next to my lost Siblings and share our love and hold them.

I want to stand here next to my lost Siblings and share our love and hold them and never, ever, let them go.

I want to stand next to my Siblings every day until we can't stand still anymore.

And then I want to fight.

Chromosomal Sex

I'm reading about conception, pregnancy, and childbirth for my human behavior class, which is, you know, a minefield for cissexist language and blind acceptance of the genetic gender binary. The thing is, it's gotten me thinking. Since "male" and "female" are two separate results of chromosome combinations with Y as the dominant sex chromosome, and given the many variations we now know to be true (XXXY, XXY, XY androgen insensitive person, etc), what we have are humans who respond to cellular reactions to proteins and enzymes that shape and form their bodies, beginning in their development beginning in utero.

So the place I go as a trans woman in this socially constructed genetic maleness or femaleness, is that being trans is somehow often seen as going against our genetics. We are seen as defying not only the environmental and social influences over our sex and gender, but the very genes within us that are informing hormone operation, which guides the production of proteins and enzymes to certain cells, thus influencing genetic expression.

It is with this notion of harnessing our hormones to influence our very own genetic expression that I find the most appealing about this cellular experience of being trans. We at our very core do not defy our genetic nature, but embrace our relationship to it. By defining the way our genes express themselves, we are making art out of our own developing bodies and shaping ourselves with the bodies we were taught to hate.

I can't think of anything more empowering a response to the doctrine of trans as equivalent to being a genetic "mistake". On the contrary, we are in fact very skilled genetic artists.

I want wings

Ever since I was little I remember wishing I could fly. Not like superman could fly. I wanted wings. I wanted to grow them and feel them burst from my shoulder blades.

I wanted to feel my warm blood dripping down my back as the delicate, feathery wings quiver and twitch while they expand. Large brown hawk's wings, like the color of my hair. And a rounded fanned tail that could sweep the air beneath my body as I fling myself into the sky and be above the trees in seconds.

Sometimes they were scaly wings and once I learned what gargoyles were, I envied their resilience. Their patience.

A few days ago I wanted wings of fire and feet curled under me, hanging loose, but engaged. Talons dripping with flaming embers. These wings do not get me much farther than the flame they burst out of, but I needed them and they were there.

Then I woke up again and my wings had fallen asleep. I can still feel them, brown and feathery, tucked sweetly beneath my shoulder blades. They itch and pop beneath the skin, moving the flesh around as they patiently await tonight, when it's finally cool enough again to fly.

You are not a fraud.

You are not a fraud.

This is for you now, or maybe later when you need it more, for anytime you need to read the words "You are not a fraud." I write this also for myself, because I need to read that too from time to time, and remember that my thoughts, my ideas, my identity, my fears, are valid.

The thoughts and feelings that come from you do not have to define you, but they are meaningful and true in a way that no one else can take from you. And you have a right to remain undecided about the ways that you interpret these thoughts and feelings no matter how much pressure others and the world place onto your ability to understand and interpret them.

The love that lives inside you can never die. It can never be killed, exhausted, extinguished, poisoned, or stolen. You can replenish it, no matter how long it has been since you last were able to feel it. Sometimes this takes a lot longer than others, and that is okay. Sometimes you need to feel safe in order to let it thrive. That is also okay. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. Least of all yourself.

<3

<3

Light behind paper.

That thing I put on paper. It was a secret thing. A special thing. It was a tiny, private, ignorable thing. Until I put it down onto paper.

Now there is light behind it, light that's not mine, projecting an image of the thing on the paper on the walls. Everywhere it points, it becomes real, makes itself true, shows what it is to me. To everyone.

The light that's behind it is a light that's not mine and I can't control where it goes or when it comes on.

The walls that it points to are sometimes blank, and sometimes too busy for the thing to project on, and that's when I'm thankful, when there is so much behind the thing that if someone were looking, even longer than a short time, they might still not see the thing that I put on the paper.

Somehow I'm making my thing become something more clear, more specific. I'm making it a statement, a purpose. I want a real human thing.

But I want it to be harmless. I want it to be a bicycle, or a sandwich, or a dress, or a subway story. I want it to be material attachment. I want the thing to be so unbearably unscary to say that it is easy to put on the paper. But it is not. It never is. And if it were, the light would not come, and people might not want to look.

So I put blood on the paper, and the times I fucked up, the car I hit and drove away from, the boys I used, the girls I hurt, the harm that I did to my family while harm was being done to me, and the pain I brought on people I love. The trust I lost and the trust I gave away.

I put it all down and now it's not just a thing anymore. It breathes. It bleeds. It betrays. It lies, and tells inappropriate jokes.

I put it down and I can't burn it, or throw it away, or take it back in. And I'm so scared.

Freewrite!

Please be a ghost if you aren't I couldn't see you. What do I want to say? I don't think this makes any sense and I'm kind of in a block. Mostly what I do when I'm blocked like this is drink. Oops. Then I play guitar for a while until I get out whatever feelings I didn't want to feel are out. Check. Oops. Then, finally I sit down and am like, crack crack knuckles, lets get to clackin!

Then of course I still don't write anything good.

Fuck.

I'm doomed.

So speaking of doom I have wanted to jump on this post-apocalyptic wagon for a seriously long time and I've had a super secret not-so-secret story brewing for a hell of a long time that I am dying to write. But now I have this fucking witch story in my way and I am stuck on it. I love the witch story, don't get me wrong. I'm just sick of it. I'm sick of writing it, workshopping it, I'm tired of thinking about it. I think I may have over done it and basically ruined a major part of it by tinkering too much. So now. I'm stuck.

Then there is this completely alluring Mars story that I am dy-dy-dy-ying to tell everyone on Earth at once and it is so terribly disorganized that I am afraid it will become the same mess that the witch story did if I do anything to it. ART AND FEAR BABY. SHIT IS REAL.

Then I guess I need to collect myself, fuck being professional, fuck being polite, fuck fuck fuck it all and all the propriety. I want to scream, foaming, and I want to be a fucking animal. I want to jump up and down and slam my fists on the roofs of cars. I want to drink and dive off a ship into the ocean. I want to fly high the black sails of piracy and never come back.

If magic was real...

If magic was real, I would practice it every day. I would go to work, come home, write, cook, clean, do my laundry, and then sometimes when I felt the urge coming on, I would practice magic. It wouldn't be much, at least to start out with. A little levitation here and there, maybe some telekinesis. I think it would take a while to learn it, but I have always wondered about teleportation.

If magic was real, I wouldn't have to go to work, but I would anyway. I would get there on time, even if I slept in, because I'd be a bit savvy with the space-time continuum. I'd practice a little healing, a little empathy, a bit of calming of the nerves. I would offer my magic as a free service to those who need it the most. At least I think that's what I'd do.

If magic was real, I would be able to fly.

If magic was real, I would shapeshift as often as possible, and learn how to become any animal I ever dreamed of becoming. Oh and I would also talk to animals.

If magic was real, there would be no poverty, no war, no disease, no inequality, no oppression. Everyone would be given equal access to services, and the world would be a better place.

If magic was real, I would still read fantasy and sci fi books. I would try to write them too, although I would have an unfair advantage. Would everyone be able to do magic, if magic was real? Could I gift it to others? Would I gift it to all? What if I could only bestow magic on one hundred people before my power was drained completely? Would I still share it?

If magic was real, would Donald Trump be able to, like, do magic? How would we stop him?

If magic was real, I am pretty sure that there would be a lot more chaos in the world before there was order, but that's also kind of a good thing.

Would there be dragons?

Would anyone need cars?

Would we be able to save the planet then?

Would anyone care?

Disembark

There are all these tiny anchors pulling downward under my skin. Each joint has one. It feels like a thousand ships sailing on my blood, my ocean, all stopping at once and becoming a great heavy weight across a planet.

I don't know what I did, but I know it was something bad. Something to make them turn away. Betrayal is familiar to me, and comes on quiet. It starts with anxiety and it's the kind that you want to wish away, or tell yourself is your imagination. But you know that it's real. I do, at least.

The way you tell someone has betrayed you is when they won't look at you. Then they start to avoid. I knew it when she blew me off without asking again for a better time, more specific. Friends who know what it's like, don't do that unless they mean to erase something they are ashamed of. Friends don't lead you down a road they can't walk on and then disappear.

For those who have felt love taken away by the people closest to them, she should know better. She should take more care, be more sensitive, give a bit of herself. Maybe it's wrong to expect this. Maybe it's wrong to ask. Maybe I'm just as fucked up as it seems like she thinks that I am. And how can I tell what is real when all I can feel is shattering?

So I go to work and pretend like it's not happening. I'm tired of pretending for other people. I'm sick of being the one who always has to say sorry. I'm sick of needing to apologize for being myself, having feelings, needing assurance.

I don't know what I did. I probably didn't do anything. I just was. I am. My being who I am sometimes isn't what people want to see in me, or want to like. My feeling my feelings always hurts people. I don't want to feel anymore.

So I let the anchors pull me again and I try to stay as still as possible. I can't do anything but wait this out, until the ocean fills back up again and the ships aren't afraid to set sail.

Limerence

Trembling limerence, deliver me
from bondage.

Believe in the skin that floats up like feathers
coated in dry paint, comes off in flakes

To continue their ascent
And allow me to recede from mine.