Love Thyself

Say it with me: There is nothing wrong with being an artist. There is nothing wrong with being a dreamer. I’m never wrong when I reach for the stars. I’m never wrong when I love myself. My emotions are natural and valid. I am flawed, and that’s natural too. I deserve to be loved and respected.

Me, to myself and all of you

Love

I don’t like it when people say “S/he makes me happy.” It implies that your happiness is someone else’s responsibility. I lived that way for 23 years, and all it did for me was bring me heartache and make me codependent. Find a person who is happy, and adds to your internal happiness. A person whose presence means shared happiness; not the person who you can’t be happy without. You should find it within yourself to be happy for the sake of happiness, and in that moment when you’re happily doing some mundane task you’ll think of your special someone and be even happier. Don’t live in misery with bright spots. Be the brightest star in the night sky of your soul, and find the people that add to your internal galaxy.

Speak Out and Be Heard

The things you heard growing up stunted you. “Don’t make waves”, “Don’t argue”, “Grow up”, “Stop day dreaming”… It’s all bull. If you’re hurting, speak out. If you’re offended, respectfully tell the offender. Never lose your whimsy. Never stop dreaming. Your hopes and dreams are your motivation, your individuality, and your truest self. Be who you are; not what others tell you to be. Find people that love the real you. Don’t hide. Don’t be silent. Don’t suffer alone in the pain that’s destroying you. Make those waves - the people that really matter will use them to surf.

Garbage

Ash trays filled to the brim,

With smoke still curling into the air;

Reaching out to steal your breath.

Cans and caps litter the tables like fallen leaves,

As you trip over an empty wine bottle, you wonder...

Is this why waking up ceases to be an option,

And I sit up straight at night,

Soaked in sweat,

With things I cannot remember

Stalking through the shadows?

Astigmatism

I replaced my glasses,

Scratched and irksome,

With contact lenses.

The trouble is

They shift and blur the pages,

Making it hard to read.

With this I am reminded

That when focused on the shallow faces,

The words they speak are lost.

Sidewinder

I am not certain,

But I think perhaps,

There is something wrong.

On the inside,

Where I'm alone with echos.

Looking back,

At my Universal footprint;

My tracks are misshapen,

Staggering,

And winding.

Tracing back, and forth,

Past Saturn, and Ireland, and

Twenty years from now...

I see myself, the Sidewinder,

Lost...

And alone.

Eternal

I do not have a gentle heart.
My heart is overlapping silver scales;
Protected and rarely exposed.

My love, oh my love;
It is fierce and harsh.
My love is the barren desert when it leaves;
The scorned shall howl with thirst for my love.

My love is sharp, and damaging,
A fiery whirlwind designed to blacken lovers to the bone.
But my love, ah my love...
It is eternal.
When my flesh has gone, and my soul shifts from the realm of mortality,
I will love you still.

My heart is armored,
My love is pain,
My icy stare will steal the breath from your lungs;
Regretting...

But until and ever after the world of men crumbles to ash;
Not even a memory for the cosmos to recall...
I will love you still.

Life

Sometimes, when I lay on my bed,
Clad in only boxer shorts and spider silk -
Breast and bone making love to the blankets,
I think “Why couldn’t life be ever this?”

Skin

I just want out of my body. I want to take all the good in me out of here and make a new person that doesn’t feel broken and deficient.
Spiritual Regicide - To kill the King within.
The Queen is Dead - She will not breath without her King.
…and now I ask the dead Queen
“Why did you kill the King if you refuse to live for yourself and rule forever in the Sacred Palace of your skin”?
She does not answer; she will not breathe.

Time is Not Linear

I am a child.
The world is new and bright,
Filled with voices and color.
I was born a few weeks ago,
At the age of 16.
It feels like rewinding a tape;
I use those still.
Pixels on the liquid display feel cold and have no scent.
The plastic is tangible,
Like me.
I was born into this grown-up body,
And mail comes here.
Bills.
They have a name on them.
My name.
I was confused, but I've promised to work harder.
My parents treat me with respect,
And my sister is way too tall now.
I am sixteen.
I am newborn.
There is a house to clean and bills to pay.
There is a sad voice on the phone that
(I remember)
Used to call me "wife" and "sweetie".
I will turn twenty-three in two weeks.
I don't remember where I was,
But I'm going home.

You Said Your Name was Neon

You said your name was Neon.

Life isn’t ones and zeroes, hacker-boy;
I’m not binary, and I’m not logical.
I react, and you analyze.
I miss you, and you count the messages.
Come back to me, Dark Prince.
Your name was never Neon.

Tank Michael S. - Someday

You were old, for your kind,
And I’m still so young.
I had just reached full flower when my heart
Bloomed open and you nestled into the petals.
We had enough time to love one another,
But not enough.
Love, when lost, was never enough.
When we left the house,
I’m glad I told everyone to say they loved you -
Not goodbye.
Death is never goodbye.
Will I see you someday, peering out from green eyes
I’ll swear I’ve seen before?
Or will we keep each other waiting?
If your journey is done, love, I only hope you don’t mind;
I may take awhile to join you.
But I’ll be there, with you, stroking your ears again
Someday.

Untouchable

My throat feels raw;
My eyes sore and red with tears
Pain flooding out through my face
In all its sad and ugly raging.
You are gone, but not gone.
You're near me now,
But I cannot touch you.
I'll never again reach out and feel you
Warm and sleepy beside me in bed.
Never again will I hold you close;
Our hearts reaching out and entwining in the smallest of gaps
Between our breastbones.
I remember though,
How you lifted your head to look into my eyes -
Yours were deep green, and so tired.
When we sat in the hospital,
Hoping for good news,
There was a baby - squalling loudly in his mother's arms.
He looked just like you.
He was small and frail, newly born,
And you,
Small and frail, soon to close your eyes for all time.
I'm crying now, and fighting not to cry.
I cannot touch you,
But you are here.

American Politicians: Stripping Women of Our Rights

For years, things like abortion have been debated (or more accurately, fought over). Now, basic health precautions are under debate, and some people would like to take those away as well.

• Abortions; to save lives and to terminate involuntary insemination (Read: Pregnancy by Rape).
• Birth Control; to prevent unwanted pregnancies, regulate our hormones, and alleviate cramps and acne.

The problems are going deeper than these issues as well. In Arizona, as many of you know, politicians are trying to get a bill passed that would allow companies to fire women for using birth control to prevent pregnancy (only allowing it if they are using it for other reasons).

Women throughout the country are also in danger of losing their jobs because they ARE pregnant.

Further disturbing is the possibility of women being forced to carry a stillborn or dying fetus to term, or until “natural labor” has occurred, even when carrying the fetus may cause the death of the mother or twin. Rep. Terry England even went so far as to compare women to livestock.

While there are a great many men that are appalled at these bills (and please, DO encourage the men in your life to stand up for the women in theirs), these are women’s issues, and as women, we need to stand and fight; together. A unified front against these violations against our right to have control of our own bodies.

Speaking of body autonomy, some Republican individuals are apparently trying to ensure that the Violence Against Women Act is not reauthorized, or changed so that illegal immigrants can be deported for reporting a crime, such as domestic abuse; members of the LGBT would likewise not be protected and offered services/shelter in the event of abuse.

There will be no White Knight, ladies. We may not be shot at, or thrown in jail, and we still have our rights… For now. Our country is moving towards making we women property again - a state of existence most women in America have not, and SHOULD not experience. Stand up, or be tied down. When making your choice to join hands and fight back, or to sit down and keep quiet, think of this: Do you want your daughters, sisters, mothers, and friends to have their rights stripped from them? To have no choice in matters of their own bodies?

Morning

I awoke with the sun today,
Blinking slowly in disbelief.
So rare it is, for myself,
To watch it rise from the other side of sleep.
The gray sky erupted slowly into
Vivid blue and gold,
And a single glittering ray descended;
A wish, alighting on my face.
I let it fill me, hopeful, and
With wishing,
Dared to dream awake.

The Whoreflower

My role is clear in the
Virgin, Whore dichotomy.
I stand beneath the red lights
in your mind, waiting.
Stop trying to save me.
And, please, stop trying
to enslave me.
Your words are chains,
And my defiance will shatter them,
As you once shattered me.
A lotus,
Splashed with cyanide.
Fractured in the sanguine illumination;
Yet unbroken.

Summer

In the shining August,
Slick with honest sweat,
I lay, chest heaving, on the floor
And smiled to be alive
In spite of you.

Lost

Someday, I'm going to get lost in a strange city. I'll sleep in public bathrooms, and be reminded of the reasons my father is a hero. Maybe I'll look through dumpsters to find things to sell in a pawn shop. During the day, I'll sit calmly on a park bench, letting the sun restore me, and I'll imagine I'm my mother, sitting in her garden; happy to be alive in a world of sunshine.
My clothes will get ragged, and I'll have to wash my hair in a bus station sink. I'll be hungry, but I'll know how to feed myself. It won't be the first time I couldn't eat. Hopefully I'll have a camera, and hopefully it won't get stolen, and I'll take pictures of neon signs and big, strong men carrying their children on their shoulders. I'll want to call my father, because he's a hero.

What is Rape, to me?

What is rape?
To me?
You never even asked this.
A simple creature, undisturbed by
The horrors that did not apply
To your own life.
What is it to me?
Rape is when my love held me down
Whispering words meant to trick me;
Blind me.
Drunk, blessed drunk,
When he took me for the first time.
Rape is when the fear came,
Long before the pain.
Rape is how I felt
In the moments that were
Precursor to my shame.
Rape is what I felt,
When he turned me over, roughly,
And took his liberties with my body,
Tearing my flesh and splashing my blood
Across my own sheets.
Rape is what I felt
When he hit me;
Saw my tears and struck me hard enough
to make my ears ring.
Rape is what I felt
When the man I trusted more than myself
Beat me bloody in my own bed
And told me I was
NOTHING
and no one cared.
Rape is what I felt
When my friends and family ignored
My screams for help.
Rape is what I felt.
And now,
Years later,
I still feel that pain.
Your jokes don't help,
They desensitize and hurt;
They cause me anguish
While you're sitting in your room laughing
at some shallow joke,
I'm here wishing you had a fucking heart
and could, for a moment,
Put yourself in my place
And ask
"Is it funny"?

Arguments about Gay Marriage: The Breakdown

  A lot of people have this strange notion that legally allowing gay marriage (or even allowing homosexual sex between consenting adults in their private homes) will pave the way for other sexual/romantic relationships that others find abhorrent.

• Marriage to animals
• Marriage to family members
• Marriage to inanimate objects
• Marriage between adults and children

So, for discussion's sake, I'm going to break these down and explain why gay marriage does not encourage these unions, and will not somehow make them legal or acceptable.

• Marriage to Animals: In this country (I am writing from America), we frown on any unions of any type that are not consensual. This can be classified as rape or slavery. We do not yet have a way to coherently and completely communicate with species outside our own, since humans evolved with a spoken language. Even if two humans speak different languages, there are ways of translating for each of them adequately so that they can understand the others desires. Humans do NOT have this capability with non-human life forms. Since there is no way for a human and non-human to reach an agreement, no choices or unions are consensual. This union would be slavery/rape, which is abhorrent to nearly all peoples of Earth, and is a punishable offense in Western culture.
• Marriage to Family Members: Incestuous relationships are RARELY voluntary and consensual, usually taking place when a person has power over a younger/infirm family member that cannot (for various reasons) resist their advances or wishes. We also know that human beings are hard wired to find family members unappealing sexually. This is because, like most life forms, we wish to diversify our genetics and create stronger beings after us, not distill our familial short comings. Again, any instance of forced union is rape. Any instance of having sexual contact with someone incapable of consenting is rape/sexual assault. So we can safely say that forced, incestuous pairings will remain illegal and taboo. (I am not going to comment on adult consensual incest. I simply do not have time or desire to do so.)
• Marriage to Inanimate Objects: I don't even understand why this comes up in debates or smear campaigns, but I have seen it. All I really have to say here is that there are already people in devoted relationships (and yes, even marriages) to inanimate objects. For example Erika La Tour Eiffel is married to the Eiffel Tower. She has a condition known as Objectum Sexuality. There are approximately 40 OS people in the world (all women) that identify as OS. These people are not doing anyone harm - certainly taking a guitar or statue of a building to bed with you is no different that adult aides designed for that purpose. Erika has changed her name to reflect her bond, and visits her Tower when she can. At home, she has pictures and replicas of her beloved. This is a victimless crime, as these women are attached to inanimate objects. I'm sure that you have a favorite song, or pair of shoes, or you love your car a little more than your friends think is normal. But you are not hurting anyone, and neither are they.
• Marriage between Adults and Children: This is pretty much the same argument I've made before, but I feel that I can expand on it. In Western society, children stay children until they are around 18-20 years of age, and most are not expected to have moved out, gotten jobs, or found a partner yet. This is because in our society, education persists through the teen years, children are allowed to live in their family homes longer, and American daughters are not "married off" as soon as they are physically mature. As such, Western children's minds and knowledge are not complete enough to handle many issues until much later than other parts of the world. It could even be argued that there is more to learn for children of developed, advanced cultures. Knowledge of banking systems, how to succeed in business, continued education to specialize in whatever they desire... Simply put, they are children longer. Because we value education and personal growth for all our country's children, they cannot be expected to make decisions of a sexual or romantic nature until they are much older. They do not have the knowledge base or even enough understanding of themselves to make these choices. Therefore, all relationships between adult and child are not consensual. This would be rape/molestation, and we've already all agreed that forced unions are wrong.

What do all these points and explanations have to do with homosexuality?
Absolutely nothing.
Any questions?

Thoughts on America

Issues America has:

• Drug cartels in other countries, because they bring in an illegal substance, cause death and destruction, and the money is used to further perpetrate a corrupt system based around fear and death.
• Gay Marriage (because reasons, I suppose).

Here are some things I think about these issues:

• We can all acknowledge that drugs are going to be used by people that want to use them. If we stop other countries from getting drugs into ours, we will then have to contend with the drugs being manufactured and/or grown in our own country. The logical step to prevent other (perhaps hostile) countries from giving our people unsafe, unregulated drugs that were brought here by people forced into said trade under penalty of their families being murdered by drug lords would be to legalize and regulate drugs. Perhaps even set up facilities for those that insist on using said drugs. This does not fix all problems with drugs, of course. Many are dangerous and can kill our people. But these selfsame people will find ways to obtain drugs by any means necessary, and if it comes to that then we, as a nation, should do our best to keep them safe, educated, and monitored. It is not ideal, but (in my opinion) much safer for our country and its individual people.
• Being “anti-” anything gives the idea or object power. Do not acknowledge that which does not affect you if you must. Homo-eroticism and Homo-romanticism have existed and have been documented for all recorded human history, and is observed in many other species. These species did not die out, and neither has humanity died out or become overwhelmingly populated by same-sex inclined persons, pedophiles, or deviants (I list these persons because these are common arguments of the hyper-anti-gay collective groups). Marriage is a religious term. Not all people have one religion. America is a country meant to be a land of religious freedom. HOWEVER, many non-religious persons are “married” (as in, a committed partnership wherein assets, duties, and domicile(s) are shared). THEREFORE, no one married outside the Church is technically married, but “marriage” has become vernacular describing a union. If we can agree that these things are true, and agree that “marriage” can be described as a consensual union between people, then the Church and State have no grounds to disallow a union between persons. (I flatly refuse to discuss the quibbling over “union” and “marriage”).

We Tell Ourselves

"And in the darkest hour,
Through it, soon, shall show the day."
I told myself, alone, one night.
A prayer, and a hope,
of new Light to come forth.
Yet on and on stretched the night,
With a single star,
So distant,
Seemingly unattainable.

Nihilist

When I left her,
She was, at best,
A broken thing.
Full of tears and remorse;
Piteous and poorly used.
And then, slowly love,
She evolved into the fine essence
of Nihilism.
Her world had it’s shape,
And she hers.
To better find the proper fit
She examined, sought, and pondered
The world’s many faces and
Promised - so gently -
To find the Truth.
Awakening, done dreaming,
the Truth
was simply Her.