SSDGM

I still have insomnia.  It's that magical time of year in Austin where everything is covered with a thick green blanket of oak pollen, so I lie awake and cough and sniffle and think about what could have been and what shouldn't have and what will be.

The world is a goddamn mess right now.  Everything is terrible.  I try to not let myself spend too much time on Twitter because the world is depressing.  It's very clear to me how exhausted everyone is of fighting for every single inch of progress.  We're so tired that we're handing the fight over to children.

So I've been trying my darnedest to enjoy the little things.  Watching a lot of Jeopardy, because it reminds me of the intelligence still left in humanity.  I've been watching a lot of makeup tutorials on YouTube to remind myself of the beauty.  Listening to a lot of murder podcasts, well, because I like murder podcasts.  Not everything has to have a deeper meaning.  Sometimes you just play Skyrim because smithing a hundred iron daggers is satisfying.

This next piece is about a boy.  Yes, there is a boy.  It's complicated, but so is life.  I told him I was a broken person, and he said he wanted to fill up all of the cracks with gold.  I've never written anything nice about a boy before, so I'm not sure this is any good.  The only critique I got was that it was degrading to call myself a hot piece of ass, but I left it in because I think I wanted that part to be a little crude.  Also: because I'm a goddamn hot piece of ass.

Burning Houses

I love him.
I love the serpentine way he slithers when he's moving closer to me.
I love the shock and terror and awe and pain and moonstruck look in his eyes.
I love the way his body fits next to mine, inside of mine, on top of mine.
I love the wit. The way he makes me laugh until my ribs burst open spilling my crimson juices onto the carpet. The way he anticipates my overthinking nature and slides a cooling balm onto all my fears. The knife point intellect, the razor’s edge that cuts into my skin.
I love the gentle. His soft fingertips lingering at my hairline, the patient kisses in the dark. He wraps me up and protects me from the world and introduces me to the world and embraces the world and shows me off to the world like the hot piece of ass I am.
I love the calm. Long slow days of open windows and stolen stares because glances aren't enough.
I love the storm before the calm. Hot and wet and fast and hard and complicated and twisted and perfect.
I love him because he is perfect.
I love him because he is not perfect.
I love him because he makes me perfect.

Perchance

Hello loves.

I've had some crazy fucking insomnia lately. And before you start, well-meaning internet, yes I've tried all of the things. Whatever things you want to suggest, I've tried them. Melatonin puts me to sleep, but messes with my hormones. Also, when I take melatonin I don't wake up normally; I wake up gasping for air. Which is pretty fucking scary.  Also I wake up on my back with my arms crossed over my chest like a god damn vampire.

Have I ever told you guys my theory on dreams?  I think we as humans exist on the precipice of two dimensions, one we're in when awake, and one we're in when asleep.  Both worlds equally real.  That world just has different laws of physics than this one.  People can die and come back, flowers can bloom into tiny dragons, I can fly.  It took me years to learn to fly over there.  First it was just one foot up.  Then all you have to do is pick up the other one.  Then you can soar.

I can't sleep because the winds are changing.  Not like, literally, but in the Mary Poppins sense.  My life is moving in weird ways that I can't predict.  And that's always terrifying.  Losing control over things is the worst feeling for me, and things are CHANGING.  I need to get back into school now that my health is in a good swing.  I need to have structure.

I wrote today's piece a few weeks ago, and like a real dumbass, I forgot why I started this blog, and posted it on my social media.  It's about ...like when you've been mulling over a problem for years and it finally breaks free, and then a million little things break free and suddenly you can see light again.  And it's gonna be REAL easy for you assholes to think I'm just subtweeting a boy on this one.  I don't blame you, most of these have been about boys.  But this one's on me, trying to climb out of my hermit hole and see the sun again. Remembering how to smile and feel joy.  Remembering I'm alive.

It's also untitled, because I'm fucking tired and I can't think of one.  Eat me.

I feel the electric pins and needles of a limb waking up inside my chest
Like hibernation
No, sleep is not the right word
There isn’t a right word.
There definitely isn’t a right word for the part of me that is firing again.
Not my heart, or my emotions, or my sex drive, or my soul.
The part of me that is alive.
There definitely isn't a right word for the light behind my eyes, the spring in my step, the pain that's been so cleverly concealed
For so long
There isn't a right word for what I've done to that part of me.
Kidnapped and blindfolded.
Held hostage in a dark basement full of leaves.
Self sabotaged the very self.
Why am I punishing myself?
What did I do that was so abhorrent that I needed ten years of solitude?
Ten years of cold
Ten years of lashes on my back paying penance for a crime I can’t recall.
There isn’t a word for the damage I’ve done, for the time I’ve wasted, for the walls I’ve made out of reinforced steel.
There isn’t a word for this reawakening, because I haven’t been asleep.
I’ve been trapped.
There isn’t a word for how I feel now.  Anxious, lonely, heart percussing on my ribcage.
Ready?

No, that somehow isn’t right.

Lady-like

In the past few years, I've started being more into makeup.  Buying it, playing around with it, watching tutorials, you know.  I've been told that I've become a different person.  I've been told that I've become a shallow person.  I've been told I'm addicted.  I've been told that I look great without makeup, so I should really just stop.  While all of this is true, it's not the whole story.

The excuse I give (jokingly) is that my mom told me a few years ago that I had to stop buying makeup if I didn't start wearing it.  The excuse I give is that I was sick for a long time, and I had too much free time.  The excuse I give is that I don't need a fucking excuse, that judging a girl for wearing makeup is a gross kind of misogyny, that people have created little boxes for women and girls to fit into and when they don't they're wrong.  While all of this is true, it's not the whole story.

The whole story is this.

Between my sexual assaults, my abuse, my constant pain due to endometriosis, my abortion, I adopted this idea that all of it was due to my being a woman.  And while partially true, this notion caused me to hate the things about myself that made me a woman.  For most of my adult life I wore jeans no matter what the weather, never a skirt, a dress, shorts.  I didn't shave my legs.  I used sex as a weapon, against others, and against my own body that had betrayed me.  I refused to carry a purse, or wear makeup.

Now I would never say that these things are empirically wrong, lots of people act this way for other reasons, but I was waging war on my own femininity.

So along with other things I've seen myself change and grow into as I've gotten older, I've seen myself start to wear makeup.  I bought a pair of shorts last week, and worn them in public.  I bought a purse because I thought it was cute, not just because it was black and discrete.  I see all of these things as a fucking joy.  JOY.  Because they mean something more than what anyone really thinks.  They mean that I'm coming to accept myself, accept my looks and my personality and my womanhood.  And that is nothing short of a miracle.

Today's piece has fuck-all to do with what I just talked about.  I thought of this whole post last night, and didn't really have the time to write a companion piece to go with it.  Although, I'm sure if I had, it just would have been about how much I love this new mascara I just got, so consider yourself lucky.

Basically, I heard the third song in a row on the radio that said something about owning the night, and I thought about how completely self-centered that sounded, and how the creatures that actually owned the night would laugh and laugh and laugh.  So I wrote this, which is the first thing in a long time I've written, and is a first draft, insert more self-effacing stuff here.

Own the Night

Young people love to say they own the night.
But we.  WE own the night.
The liquid blackness comes as we beckon, like it did for our great ones before us.
Don’t let your young supple flesh go astray.
For we will whisper into your chest
We will draw our thumb down your sternum from collarbone to navel.
And you will be broken again
Baptized by fire

Dark Night

Have I mentioned how I dream about Batman all the time?  It would be nice to say I've had a dream here or there, but Batman shows up pretty regularly in my dreams.  Usually I'm Catwoman (FUCK, I forgot to put her in my list of hot badass ladies [which by the way now has more views than any other post, holla]), although occasionally I'm Harley.  The Joker is always my husband, and we're usually plotting how to finally get rid of that darn bat.

Batman has always been a favorite of mine.  I mean, him personally, but also the entire franchise.  He's a superhero without all of the annoying shit that usually comes with being a good guy.  He's the epitomal (this is apparently not a real word, and I am apparently in love with some parentheticals today) anti-hero, and it is wonderful.  He's not bogged down by all the rules of conduct that most heroes are, he's dark, and instead of being obsessed with what is "right", he's obsessed with justice.  Also he has the BEST villains.  I hate to keep comparing to Superman, but really, I can't understand why anyone likes that guy.  Superman has EVERY power, so he's stupidly invincible, except for his major downfall, a rock.  A rock.  Lois Lane is an idiot, and Lex Luther is just some rich corporate tool.  Whereas the Joker is the ultimate badass villain of all time.  He's brilliant, unpredictable, resourceful, psychotic, determined.  Not to mention the hoards of other amazing villains Batman has working against him, Ivy, Zsasz, Harley, Two-Face, Scarecrow, Grundy.  And amongst all this, Batman has to face his toughest enemy, his own fucking crippling torment.  I love it.

This next piece has absolutely nothing to do with Batman or dreams, and more to do with my own need to sack up and start being the ultimate amazing ruler of worlds I need to be.  I wrote it in my car on the way to a doctors appointment while I was stuck in that fabulous traffic that Austin is so known for.  So if it seems odd and jumbled, just remember that so am I.  In the words of the inimitable Kanye West, "I'm the only thing I'm afraid of".

Pinch Me

I will be a vicious bitch, all teeth and claws and flying fur.  I will stop shaking at their lecherous leering and hold my gaze steady until they look away in fear.  I will not shy away from the night, I will be a brutal queen whose slippered feet crush my enemies.  I am an Amazon, and I will protect my own self in this sweltering jungle of concrete and asphalt.  I will dance and sweat and sing to the heavens without thought of my physical form.  I must crawl out from this fucking cave and rejoin my light to the universe with all its novas and quasars and swirling nebulae.  I must wake up.

List Time

My shit has been god-awful depressing lately, and for this I am sorry.  I promised I'd make it up to you, my wide readership in... Russia now?  Blogger stats are weird.  Anyway, I'm sorry about being a fucking dark depressing mess, so here is my penance.  I present you with...

Embobly's List of Super-Hot Badass Women of Sci-fi/Fantasy!

Highs and Lows

Ok, so I lied.  I said this next post would be lighter.  Well, I guess it'll be lighter than a whole post about rape, but it won't exactly be a bunch of pictures of grumpy cat.  I'm working on a list of my favorite hot Sci-Fi/Fantasy ladies, so stay tuned for that coming up soon, it'll be light and nerdy and more than a little gay.

I've been having problems sleeping.  And I don't mean insomnia per se, I've been having nightmares.  Every night, all the time, where I wake up shaking and can't get back to sleep until I've searched the house with a baseball bat and checked all the doors.  Apparently this is a very common occurrence after a trauma, but I'm sure it also has to do with the fact that I was raped while I was asleep.

Anywho, I've tried everything.  I've tried benadryl and Advil PM and chamomile tea and herbal supplements and aromatherapy and opiates.  And nothing has been working.  But recently I remembered that back when I used to smoke weed all the time, I didn't dream.  Or at least, I didn't remember doing it.  I remember when I first quit smoking, I was so startled that I could dream again.  It was like a whole part of my life that I didn't even realize was missing, along with reading and being able to have quasi-normal social interactions, and not being terrified of cops.  So I acquired a little bit of bud and bought myself a tiny little one-hitter (Side Note: When I told the guy at the head shop that I only really needed something big enough for one hit he said, "Where have you been all my life?") and a little air-tight box so my whole house wouldn't smell.  Shit's skunky.

Last night I decided to give it a go.  I got my pipe and put maybe a cubic centimeter worth of weed in it, which I thought was a super tiny bowl, if I remembered right.  I grabbed a cigarette I could have afterwards and a glass of water and a lighter and went outside.  I was so proud of myself for not coughing on that first hit, "I'm still a fucking pro" I thought to myself.  I got cocky, I misjudged my tolerance, and I misjudged the amount I put in there.  The first hit felt so wonderful, like I was instantly transported back to my youth of smoking and not giving a damn about the real world.  Then I took another 5 or 6 hits to clear the bowl, and didn't feel so wonderful.

The room was spinning, the world was fragmented and going whomp whomp, I couldn't remember more than 3 seconds at a time, walking was HARD.  I went into the bathroom, sat down, and forgot why I was there.  I wondered if I was dying.  I had brilliant epiphanies about the world and promptly forgot them.  I could tell that my dog knew I was high, and was judging me for it.  In short, I got WAY WAY WAY too high.  But I didn't dream.  So I'm gonna try it again, and maybe not get so mother fucking blazed.  And maybe eat some cupcakes I made.

I wrote this piece the other night directly after waking up from a horrid nightmare.  I ended up driving to the gas station at 6 am to buy cigarettes because I knew I would calm down if I could get some nicotine and I had run out.  I took this piece with me to my support group this week, and read it to the ladies there.  They were all really nice about it, and had really flattering things to say.  One of them told me that it would be an excellent way to show someone who had never been through this how it felt.  Which was a huge compliment.  I don't have a creative title for it, so sue me.  I'm fucking tired.

Nightmares

Fight or flight or freeze and I am a motherfucking ice cube.  I can feel myself pressing full frontal against the cellophane membrane between sleep and the real world, stretching to grasp something real and break through, away from the dark and shadowy creatures that never stop coming.  Mentally scrambling and yet physically so inert, trapped in amber for all of eternity.  I finally crowbar my eyes open to look around my inky room, still drenched in sweat from my epic battle for life, raspy breathing and a heart that pounds the beat of a savage drum.  My head feels drugged; I can feel the spinning of the world beneath me and it is SO. FAST.  I can't even remember my otherworldly enemy, but he lurks in every dark corner, waiting patiently for the clock or himself to strike.

Rape Culture

I am so fucking sick to death of rape culture and horrible people.  So, just for my own benefit, if not for anyone else's, I've decided to compile a list of links to articles that I have found to be useful/horrifying/heartwrenching.  Peruse at your own discretion, trigger warnings like WHOA.