Agnostic Zetetic

There is, in fact, no safeword for chemical burns under one__ fingernails.

My body is a political battlefield.It is a place of war, of death and suffering, of triumph and victory, of damage and repair, of blood and tears and sweat.It is a place where memories go to find purpose for their existence.It is a place where humans cast all inhibitions aside to discover what exists at their very core.It is a place of growth wearing a mask of destruction.It is a challenge, not for the faint of heart, beckoning us to face it with eyes wide open.The only war is within. When you are ready to fight it, the field awaits.

Fighting makes us feel alive, until it kills us. If it doesn__ kill us, the pain of sitting alone with ourselves, quietly, under constant assault by our own thoughts and memories of war can easily be enough to make us wish we__ died in battle instead.

If it__ convenient to love you, you__e lying to someone about who you are or what you need.

Even with the very best of intentions, even with the ambition of making the world a better place, when we cast judgment upon people whose lifestyles, beliefs, or predilections we dislike, we add to the emotional filth of hostility and make the world feel a little less safe for the folks we__e genuinely trying to help.

I could go into their reality any time I chose to, but they could never come into mine. This is what I called 'helping' them.

We__e all just people making decisions and accepting consequences as we march toward an impending and inevitable death.

Let__ be very clear about this, asshole: I__e been a woman in Arkansas. I know damn well what it means when a man says to me 'Calm down.' Being raped comes next, and that__ a fact I__ never going to forget.

All I__ saying is that I want you to be happy. I don__ care how it happens, or what it takes to facilitate it. I don__ care if it happens with me or without me. I don__ care if you use me to get there, or if I__ entirely irrelevant to your process. None of me is attached to how your happiness happens; I care only that it does.

Should' assumes that when either willingness or ability is lacking, it may be compensated for by an abundance of the other. This is simply not realistic.

THIS IS WHAT A MAN LOOKS LIKE. HE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE AESTHETICALLY PLEASING; HE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE MUSCULAR; HE DESERVES NOT TO BE PHOTOSHOPPED. HE IS HUMAN, AND HE HAS BLEMISHES. HERE HE STANDS, VISIBLE. HE SEES YOU ALL, COUNTLESS INVISIBLE OTHERS LIKE HIM. THIS BODY IS ACCEPTABLE _ PUBESCENT, AWKWARD, MARRED. YOU DON__ HAVE TO BE INVISIBLE. WE ARE ALL GOOD ENOUGH. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH OUR BODIES.

What you call 'contradiction' I call 'complement'.

Most days, I__e got this impermanence thing down just great. It doesn__ bother me; what__ to bother? Most days, I sit comfortably with the knowledge that I__l die alone, and I feel nothing so strongly as my embrace of my nothingness. Most days don__ really matter, because there is only this day, and right now I feel like fear is all I am. I don__ want you to leave. Just let me pretend you won__.'He wrapped his arms around me and we slept. For that night, we would last forever.

May we each find in ourselves the courage we forgot we have, to see the beauty we forgot is inside us, while battling the demons we forgot we can slay, on a battlefield we forgot we can win.

It__ the process of being minimized, invalidated, silenced. It__ the process of being subjected to whatever someone else thinks I owe them. It__ the process of being used, examined, explored, and thrown away. It__ the process of being convinced to comply with the orders of someone who does not see me as their equal, someone who sees nothing wrong with the notion that I__ somehow lesser than they are. Rape isn__ about sex; it__ about all those other things. It__ about power.

Relinquishing control to another person is like death: it__ only scary until it finally happens.

We__e not broken. We__e not in the wrong bodies. We__e not inadequate. We__e not lesser. We__e not unwanted. We__e not fraudulent. We__e not undesirable. That__ all just a set of lies we tell to soothe the experience of the prisons we put ourselves in.

One day, while life is being incredible and interesting, I__ going to die.