Shrapnel

Shards and bricks and pieces of things that I used to know float round me still.
They prick me at disquieting times, whispers audible as they brush and bruise my skin. "Return to us," they hiss, their voices peppered with embers glowing dimly from the violent explosions that have rocked my world in recent years. Obviously evil, yet terribly enticing. Familiarity is always enticing.
I suppose I'm in mourning for the life I once lived, for the foundation of supernatural knowledge I unwittingly lorded over fellow travelers, the one that supported my fragile and fatigued existence.
It was easy to believe that I knew everything, that the something that I had was the one and only true something. It was easy to believe that I was truly incredible in the scheme of the universe. I am, but now I know it's for more fantastic, wonderful, incredible reasons than I could have hoped to conceive upon my pedestal.
This particular moment of realization was the atom bomb to my fantastical foundation. That there could be a more pressing, wonderful purpose for life had never even crossed my previously distracted mind.

Star stuff.
Life in the freezing, churning methane oceans of a distant moon.
The lives of titanic, indestructible monsters on this planet, and then their sudden and very final  disappearance.
The consistantly astounding and ground breaking evidences of the power of the mind.
Sophisticated language in creatures here on earth that are not, in fact, human beings.
The ever increasingly clambering claws of society to keep it's control over equality and self worth.
The discovery of true humility.

These are the many things that have blown apart my entire world.
The shrapnel remains. It fades, if slowly. It does at least that much. But the ghosts of my pedistal taunt me almost always.
I want to know. I want truth. I want real love.
I will have no less.

I am not chocolate ice cream.

Maybe you clicked expecting something satirical along the lines of, "comparing women to frozen treats is a terrible and dramatic example of promoting unrealistic expectations."

While a piece that would be hipster and ironic, you may be surprised to learn that I have literally been compared to ice cream by another human being. It was an innocent comparison, I think. It was not meant to be demeaning or offensive. I wouldn't have been offended at all if the compare-er in question hadn't used it in an attempt to excuse himself from responsibility for his actions. Chocolate ice cream rules.

It was quite a while ago, but the words still ring in my head once in a while, late at night when they'll pester me most. Something along the lines of, "It's like a little boy who's allergic to chocolate, and it's his favorite flavor. He LOVES chocolate, but he can't eat it. It's bad for him." The quote isn't exact, but it's close enough to convey the message that came across to me: I was chocolate ice cream, I was bad for him, it was all my fault.

As a young lady--Nope, doesn't quite cover it... As a young perso--Still no. Hm... Welp, as a human being in this day and age, my body gets compared to a plethora of inanimate and emotionless objects. While not precisely useless, chocolate ice cream is incapable of thoughts and emotions(no matter what those darned vegetarians say), and therefore cannot be blamed for the boy making choices that might hurt him or the ice cream. Nor is it comparable to me as the living, breathing, emoting creature that I am. But that isn't the only time I've had my body compared to food.

I once heard that if I lost my virginity for whatever reason outside marriage, no one would want my cupcake.

Teacher:"See this cupcake?"
Youth: "Yes."
Teacher: "Who wants it?"
-everyone wants cupcake-
-teacher licks cupcake-
Teacher:"Now who wants it?"
Youth: "Um, ew?"
Teacher: "That's right. If you have intercourse outside of marriage, will the kind of man you want to marry want to marry you? The answer is probably no."

That's an extreme version of the story that I heard multiple times growing up, but it makes my point: I've been compared to dessert too many times in my life as it is.

When I was a child, I was molested. Yikes, I know. While the above lesson and others like it may have been well intended, they did a lot of damage to my self esteem as a child. I was dehumanized, so it is unsurprising that being compared to chocolate ice cream might strike a nerve.

Three specific thoughts here:

I am worth no less because I was taken advantage of, nor would I be any less of a human being if I had willingly participated in the sexual contact. My cupcake looks delicious, thank you very much. Also, I am not a cupcake, and my sexual exploits are not actually a good measure of my worth as a person.

Second, objects do not work well as a metaphor for humans or their relationships: Your actions are yours to own, and it's not the ice cream's fault that the boy is allergic to it. It's still delicious. It has no say in whether or not the boy will choose to be around it or not... Or if he'll try to sleep with it, then feel guilty and throw blame all over the place in the form of bad metaphors.

Finally, I'm a young woman, a human being. I am not chocolate ice cream.

The Ghosts Upon My Back

I want my wings.

I'm trying to climb out of this place,
This dark that has clipped and torn and pulled out my feathers.
Beautiful feathers woven of innocence and blind belief,
With quills of tear hardened resolve and a wingspan strengthened by how swiftly I've had to fly in order to escape reality.

I want my wings back.

The ghosts protruding from my back are weak and fallible.
They want to be wings, but wings lift you.
These useless things weigh me down, make me heavy.
I am heavy and I cannot climb out of this darkness.

I find menial hope here and there,
Reasons to wait through the dark night to greet the sunshine,
But my feathers grow back slowly.
They grow differently.
They grow with great determination, with wills I didn't know I had.

Wills for others outside of myself
Wills to be strong enough to lift them, us.
To give us hope.
Wills to lift myself,
To escape breezes made of pretty lies and forced morals.

I must climb out of this darkness.

My quills seem to come in more painfully this way, but I shoulder it.
Embrace it.

I must have my wings.

I need to fly out of this place,
This angry pit of shame dug by cons and tricks.
I was deceived into believing that the only way forgiveness can be given is to make payment,
To shore off wings, to sacrifice sons.

The feathers blossoming on these heavy ghosts of mine are pale gold
They are silver and rose colored
Brilliant and shining.
Strong.

I will fly again. I will have wings.

Wings borne, not of innocence, but of knowledge.

Wings strong enough to make me free.

Hashtag

Look at me,

Please look at me.

A voice in this strange void.

Hear me please,

See my words for a moment.

Look at my life,

Am I interesting yet?

Favorited by the same old people.

Look at me,

Just look at me:

Each thought meticulously preened,

Typos eradicated so you know I'm bright,

Each post well worded and witty.

Look at them,

Just look at them!

Are these words good enough?

My voice is gone and I'm alone.

See me!

Look, am I pretty yet?

I think this is the right angle.

A favorite.

A like.

So this is validation?  

Little red notifications

-Empty thrills.

Look at me.

Please, just look at me.

Anyone?

"I do it for you"

Only words, but they turn my world upside down. 

My heart expands and bursts through ancient shackles, and tears roll down my cheeks at the unexpected pain that comes with relief. 

Warmth floods corners of my heart that I'd forgotten exist. 

I had closed those doors, locked memories away within them and forgotten the combinations. 

Now those memories flood out, maddening emotion ripping apart my resolve and drowning the mask that I have convinced myself is me. 

Is this what healing feels like? 

I don't want to pull you into my chaos, but I have an inexplicable and unshakable impression that you will hold my hand as I stumble into and adjust to the light of possibility. 

Of worth. 

Of happiness.

 I'm both elated and terrified. 

Silence

Silence is a rare commodity these days.

Ears ring in the nothing.
Rhythms with no origin fill heads.
The echoless freedom is almost blinding.

Madness comes quickly to the lonesome.
Ideas bloom as the madness seeps.
Or is it madness, this odd new pattern of thought?
Patterns born of rhythms born of nothing.

The influence of chaos lessens as it's studied.
What are we doing, what is this nonsense?
Clothes, hair, stereotypes. Made-up faces.
Lies, really.
Lies photoshopping pretty pictures we'd rather believe:


-Love requires a painted face.
-Our little footprints we leave mean nothing.
-Crowds are objects, cattle, really.
-That brand name on your tag spells out your soul.
-Change is made of cattle prods and needles, is preached by devils.
-We are canvases to be painted by the world.


-We are alone.


A barrage of lies typed out by fearful masses.
In the disconnected silence, they're finally challenged.
Unplugged, staring into nothing,
Alone with the mind,
In company of the stars.

Being stumbles through lines of pure thought,
A light unfettered and unfiltered by chaos
As knowledge unfolds, dawning.


-We are not here to be painted.
-Every print carves safer paths for new feet.
-Each mind in the masses is singular, changing, infinitely precious.
-No soul can be summed up by a generic set of letters.
-Change is not always synonymous with growth, but without it we grow stagnant.
-We are here to paint the canvas of this world.


-We are not alone.


The mind's universe inverses,
Silence carries comfort to the exposed soul.
Thought to be unplugged, it finds itself finally connected,
Finally with purpose.

A return to chaotic, photoshopped lies is not only inevitable,
It is necessary, a responsibility.
Surrounded by the noise, but not drowning in it,
Painting beauty over the anger, order over the chaos.

Because we are not alone.

Silence is a rare commodity these days.

I've got love pooling in my finger tips.

It pounds itself out gently through little white keys,

All the while it dreams of leading my hands toward your soft hair, 

Your perfect face that can only try to distract from the brilliance of your whirring mind,

Hoping that it might brim enough to finally force the words

"I love you."

They live just behind my lips,

Belonging to you, but too shy of you to risk an appearance.

They will wait, I suppose,

Until the love in my fingertips brims

And the glow growing behind my ribs shines through my eyes.