Things I Never Asked For and Do Not Want

capture

1. The pile of bricks my ex brought home from Restore when I wanted to re-landscape my backyard, bought without asking because they were a good deal, $150 worth of bricks I still have not paid him for, will never pay him for

2. A familial predosiposition towards anxiety

3. Phone books delivered to my driveway

4. That time another ex was breaking up with me and on our way out of the bar, in one swift motion that astounded tipsy, weeping me, she pushed me through the door to the bathroom and up against the tile wall and kissed me, aggressively, without space for yes or no, and I kissed her back because I still wanted her to want me, but she didn’t, and then she walked out as though nothing had happened

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My Body’s Not a Flower

I hate being fat but I hate being fertile even more. I hate that feeling in my body just before my period, like my body is a bag of swollen meats the keep incohering, with every brush against a table this feeling of something open, unprotected, a bodily vulnerability that I didn’t ask for and can’t shut down.

I count the ibuprofen as I pop them in my mouth. One two one two one two all day long. They keep the hot stones at my center quiet; the stones steam dully, never quite gone, until I sleep or forget to take the pills and then they are RED HOT HOT squeezing me open and shut until all there is to do is curl around the center of the pain and ride it, let it fill me, there is no way to stop fighting something that wants to wring you out from inside but you can hold yourself together with the muscles at your core, the world liquefied, the bed your raft. I cannot imagine a worse pain, although I am certain they exist.

I remember sitting in the library at lunch with my friends in middle school, reading the embarrassing stories in Seventeen. Story after story after story of the Ultimate Horror in Life: a period revealed to the world. I remember the second time it came, at a swim meet, my mother trying to explain tampons to me over the door of the crowded bathroom stall, the frantic hopelessness as I got it wrong over and over again, and later my race being called, climbing up on the block and leaning over to take my mark, MIDDLE SCHOOL IS FUCKING BRUTAL. And the split that opened over my breasts in the lining of my racing suit as my body slowly but assuredly betrayed me through the year, became something I did not recognize and did not want.

I remember thinking: I’ll never have a child. What if I had a GIRL? Thinking: I wouldn’t wish this torture on my worst enemies. Thinking: this happens to my worst enemies, actually. That didn’t make it better.

You can get used to anything, or so they say. I don’t know why they say that. Month after month and at 32 I am still not fucking used to this. I have to change my bra to run across the street. I buy Dear Kate period panties; I try a menstrual cup, but the learning curve is steep. Life is livable. Of course! But my body still does not feel like mine. It feels like a hostage to the promise of a child that will do an even better job of ripping me open from the inside, an even better job of taking the most basic parts of me and making it their own, I will not be my own again, not truly, not ever again, but it will be ok because I will love her, I will love her like she is part of me (I will love her much more than any part of me), and she will be magnificent, so magnificent it hurts me, and still, on top of that all, the bleeding will come back, like clockwork, to remind me just how much my body isn’t mine.

Welllll hello there!

Hey there cats and kittens! It’s been soooo long since I’ve posted here, but lately I’ve been getting the itch, so hi! Here I am!

So much has happened in the past couple of years — my first serious relationship after coming out, the end of that relationship, plenty more semi-awkward OKCupid dates, lots of other shenanigans, and lots and lots of thoughts and feelings posted to the comments section of Autostraddle, where the community is absolutely lovely and supportive. Hopefully I’ll get more thoughts and feelings and essays up here soon as well! In the meantime…

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My Revolution

 

Sometimes I write really bad poetry. Sometimes, for some reason, it’s necessary. It’s one way that I work stuff out. This was, of all things, inspired by the Comments section on some article I’ve forgotten now. Thanks for bearing with me. 

 

My Revolution

 

He told me he’d spent a lifetime lifting women onto his back.

He told me he remembered a time when there were two columns in the classifieds,

Jobs sorted by sex.

He told me he’d done all he could to fix the world.

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There is Magic in the Dark

Trick-or Treat.

I’ve always hated scary movies.

For one thing, the spells they cast last far too long. I saw The Ring when I was twenty and for years, for YEARS, I was scared of my empty television at night. (I don’t even need to tell you how it was after I saw Blair Witch at sixteen, when I still lived with my parents IN THE WOODS.)

All my life it’s been the same. I’ll watch a movie and think, I’m fine, this is fine, this is totally fine, but then the hours pass and the sun goes down and I’ll be walking down my hallway under the entrance to the attic crawlspace and something in me quickens and I have to dart underneath and to the other side as fast as I can.

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Prioritized

In which I rant about “pro-lifers.” (I stand with Planned Parenthood. You’ve been warned.)

I am so tired.

I am so tired of the smart, lovely people in my life who refuse to acknowledge that other people’s experience may be different from their own — that while they are privileged enough to be able to care for multiple children in their home, not everyone has the financial or emotional resources to do so.

Tonight, on Facebook, a family member suggested that women who undergo abortions be forcibly sterilized.

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Quicklinks: @HHoagie knows what @HHoagie Means, and Other TV Stories

You can trust me.

Hi Everyone! Wow, long time no see, huh? Don’t worry, I’m working on everything. I’m seven chapters deep on that Furiosa fanfic, and I’ve started work on this super personal graphic short about depression (don’t worry: graphic as in graphic novel, not graphic as in blood and guts), and I’ve been submitting a few personal essays here and there with very little hope of getting them published, and poor little QGB has been kind of neglected!

Also my partner and I broke up. Mooooooooooooving on.

Over on Autostraddle, Heather Hogan has been absolutely killing it with the Pretty Little Liars recaps this season. But I guess there’s a whole armada of straight teenage girls who think Heather is out to murder their puppies, and by puppies, I mean their Ezra Fitz. That’s right, sweet sweet Ezra Fitz, high school teacher, stalker and sexual predator extraordinaire. Check out Heather’s Tumblr now (DO IT DO IT) to see her mic-drop of a response and be reminded of why she is the Hermione Granger of the queer intrawebz. 

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Everything’s Coming Up Rainbows

Hey all of you beautiful people! I hope it won’t be too unprofessional to tell you that I am hungover AF right now still recovering from an amazing, beautiful Pride weekend full of rainbows and happiness and the completion of another important step in our quest for legal equality.

They lit up the White House. The White House. Think back a few years. I don’t think anyone could have predicted the breakneck speed with which Pride has gone mainstream.

Yes, there is still so much to be done, both in our country and across the globe. But this was a good week. When love wins, we celebrate. And oh, what a celebration it’s been. ♥