I Never Had A Chance To Be Soft. I Was Always Bloody Knuckles And Shards Of Glass. I Wanted People To

I never had a chance to be soft. I was always bloody knuckles and shards of glass. I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me.

quote for 17.01.2021.

The first time you tried to teach me to bake

I was confused

As to how only a teaspoon of baking soda

Was supposed to do anything

"Surely it needs more.

Won't it be diluted?

Lost amongst all the other ingredients?

How is it supposed to make a difference?

It is just

A teaspoon"

And you smiled at me,

Just a couple drops of joy

Of exasperation

Of love

Of something I couldn't quite describe--

No more than a teaspoon

And I realized then,

How a teaspoon of just the right element

Can make something rise

Expand

Explode

Fill to the brim and spill over its edges

How just a teaspoon

Can be enough

To complete

The recipe

How just a teaspoon

Is integral

To ensure

Something becomes

Everything you know it can be

~Lessons learnt by accident~

How long will you stay before you realize there is nothing left here worth saving, love?

...

the men in my life are all good men, or, at least, they are men who are not violent - and that is enough for a man to be considered good; that he could be violent but is not.

the men in my life are good men. recently at a hardware store one of the men in my life let me stand behind him, just a little, in that ghosting way that girls can learn. the disappearing technique we master of shadowing behind our Good Men. this was to protect me from a man who was not-being-good.

i fall down. one of the good men in my life offers me one arm like a knight, we are laughing while i clamber back onto my feet. i give the good men in my life piggy back rides because i like to show off how strong i am. i give the good men in my life run-at-them hugs. i let the good men in my life pick me up like i am a sack of grain; i get the good men in my life coffee, i make them sandwiches, i teach them dancing.

i am a man-hater, obviously. i am gay enough the insult is sort of funny. waiting for the bus, where there are men who are not-known-to-be-good, i google how to make a fist. i can never remember if the thumb goes on the outside or the inside, only that it is imperative that i do not fuck it up or i will break my thumb at the same time the man tries to break me. 

i walk my dog around the track only-at-dusk and-no-later. i made that mistake once, in august, hoping i could take a later run and maybe see the stars - i romanticized the idea of being able to skulk like a fox. the man that followed me across three lawns, two road-crossings, and back to my car - he spent the whole time whistling. the good men in my life say - oh, do you need me to come with you? and are actually asking - do you feel safe?

i fall down in a supermarket. a man i do not know grabs the inside of my knee. i do not know if the man is good, but i am supposed to give men the benefit of the doubt, so i laugh while standing. a man trying-to-be-in-my-life says what, no hug? and i have to decide if it worth it to just take off or put up with it. a man who-might-not-be-good stares at me while i walk by - i have to calculate if he’s just looking or if he’s watching. other men have badly hurt me, physically. the casual remark made is that those men are not real men. but they were real enough, to me.

there are many men who are mad at me. an entire reddit thread once was dedicated to how to dox me for feminist ranting - it was kind of funny, when it wasn’t downright scary. i have been stalked and harassed and treated horribly. they are all good men, in their own lives, you know. they are not violent, usually, unless provoked, and all it takes for a man to be good is for him to not be violent unless provoked, and i am, of course, always provoking.

a man in my life rolls his eyes. “i am sick of hearing this. we get it, all men are fucking evil. get over it.”

a man who-is-not-good shouts something unwritable at me. i have to tell the good man i am standing next to - it’s okay, this is nothing compared to what-could-be, this happens, it’s really not that big of a deal to me. 

“but it should be,” he says. “it should be.”

people lead hard lives. people lead lives on the sole of a sneaker, the tip of a cigarette, trampled and burned, tasted and mashed and held in the lip, like chewing tobacco, spit out, into the industrial park, the office, the kitchen. the empty kitchen. the pots clanging, knives in the sink. they dive headfirst into that big industrial sink and bathe in grease. they bathe in the four-legged dirt of doom. they sweat out the grease. they lead hard lives, people  lead hard lives. they eat alone, they shower alone,  they get into bed, kiss no one goodnight. they handle nights by the neck of a bottle, there’s always Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, there’s always Solitaire, always porn, there’s always someone to eat your change. there’s always change and that’s all there is.   people lead hard lives, abused and shattered on  knuckles and knees, on  razor blades, on pills in  the morning,  pills on the airplane,   pills at the bar, they wake themselves in an  open grave: moon in their eye,  spine through chest, through barking heart,    the cold street cradling a dream of death. they wake on their side, in their bed, sick face eyeing another day, they roast in the heat of undying hellsun. hellsun in eternal torture.  they rise to pains everywhere. they feel a little less than they did yesterday, and that’s nearly enough to break them. people lead hard lives on  the edge of her tongue,  in the glow of his eye, lust turning to love turning to lust turning to nothing. they move and get married, they have children, they have great things they didn’t do and great things they did do, and they can only think of what they didn’t. they grow old, get fat. they sag. their cocks stop working. their cunts dry up. the sex they used to have, they didn’t want it, and now they dream of getting it back.  they masturbate to the glances of strangers. they shop cross-town for the flirty cashier. they have affairs. and they have affairs. and they’re always close to leaving their wives.  just hang on, a little longer… for love, for love   by then it’s forgotten if it was known,  people lead hard lives, their bodies rot and their minds rot. they lose friends, family, and that can be better than 50 60 70 80 crises of age can begin at 30, cars and careers, one-way trips…  people just want something to write, regardless of whether or not they’re writers. they’re always waiting, waiting and the years get faster, harder, but softer in sound like a seed cracking dirt,   death creeps nearer like a spider in the corner, death creeps nearer like a mother to a crib, death creeps nearer from the margins of this poem. death is death. and some times it is wel co m e.

~Thoughts On Breaking My Own Hymen~

And who will ever be more worthy

Of me

Than myself?

And

If a man ever sets foot here

In hopes of laying claim to

Unseeded land

He ought to know that this is

Sovereign territory

That he will be permitted to take

Nothing

And what a man thing it is

To take pride in shattering

Some part of a woman.

To raise blood speckled white bed sheets

As victory flag.

No.

For, I want no man here

That takes pleasure in

Breaking

Things.