New Moon Intentions

Where I'm at in my life right now

Is protecting my peace

And seeing how I perpetuate dynamics I don't want to be in

There are situations beyond my control

And I want them to have less of an impact on my life

So I'm going to focus my energy on what I'm creating 

With my daughter and my world around me

And deal with the difficult things as they arise

But mostly 

My life is magical and amazing

And with my kid

And the rest of the people in my life

I'm constantly creating more of that

And that is fully where I want to be

The Personal Is Political

I woke up 

With a fire in my belly

A rage that can't be quelled

The world is upside down

And I'm angry

I'm angry at war and needless death

I'm angry at homelessness and starvation

I'm angry at propriety and silence

I'm angry

At our society

And every single one of us that upholds it

I'm angry at how I've been treated my whole life

I'm angry for being silenced

And always pressured to conform

To contort myself in ways that are pleasing to others

To the point of illness

I am angry

Not just for myself

But for every single vulnerable being on the planet

And all the ways that society perpetuates harm

I am angry

About silence

And propriety

I am angry about societal norms

I am angry at blaming individuals

Devoid of contexts and systems

I am angry at over-simplification

Watered down stories

And black and white thinking

I am angry

At the dumbing down of society

And all the ways that people think that how they behave is ok

Your ideas of propriety are not important to me

The ways you think I should be different?

I disagree

Wholeheartedly 

Me, and others like me

We might be the only thing right with humanity

I won't say "the world" because the world is bigger than human beings

And would be better off without us

How fucking sad

That we came here and destroyed so much beauty

Both outside of us, and within

We are only as great as the impact we have on others

And look what we've done

All of us

So when I left my husband

And fought for my daughter

And fought the lawyers and the court

When I allow my daughter to take up space

To express herself and feel seen and understood

That is me, correcting humanity's harm

The humanity that brought patriarchy and silence and exploitation

And abuse

And isolation 

And alienation

The more I fight

The more I am criticized

And it only makes me stronger

So bring it the fuck on

I've lived 39 years of life

Ostracized and imprisoned in a body that rejects injustice

At every turn

From my childhood all the way to apartheid and genocide across the world

Do you not see how it is all connected?

The abuse we experience at home

And the abuse that is enacted globally?

Do we not see?

How the personal is political?

Everywhere we turn?

Everyone is so afraid of looking like a bad person

We can't bear to look at the evil societies we all uphold

If you can't look at it

You can't change it

And that's where I have made use of my courage

I choose to sit with myself

To look deep within

To parse out where I like myself and where I don't

And why

What can I change and what can't I?

What do I support and what don't I?

And the more I deconstruct and put myself back together

The more I stand up for what I truly believe in

Whether it's against a family member

Or an entire society

I know what is right and wrong

Not because someone told me

But because I feel it in my bones

So tell me

Do you still have the capacity to feel?

Or have you still not reclaimed what was stolen from you?

You must reclaim your own Self

In order to reclaim your connection to All

And if we don't

We are no better

Than the ones enacting genocide

Does that make you uncomfortable?

Surely

You don't want to think of yourself as a genocidal maniac

And yet...

What have you done

To stop it?

Love Is A Feeling

I 

Was almost loved

I felt love

I knew love

But in the end

The only love

That ever felt like love

Couldn't love me

Fully and completely

So now

It's a memory

Stitched into the fiber of being

My body knows what love is

In a way that it wouldn't otherwise

Funny

When you experience love 

And realize

That's what it is at its essence

A feeling

And everyone has to decide for themselves

What to do with that feeling

Love

Does not mean

Anything in particular

It is simply an experience

That can inform you

Can change you

Can broaden your horizons

But love isn't experienced the same way by everyone

It isn't a prescription

It doesn't come with a handbook

Love is only another layer

Of the human experience

Without it

We are incomplete

But that doesn't mean

That we ever know what to do with it

Love

Is just

A feeling

A New Love

How many of us

Classified as "women"

Categorized as "women"

Organized as "women"

Have felt the ache of loving

In a way that could never be returned?

How many 

So-called, so-labeled, so-decided as

"Women"

Loved those

Who were identified as "men"

Who labeled themselves as "men"

Who were viewed under the category "man"

At the expense of our own selves?

How many

"Men"

Claimed

To love 

A "Woman"

Because they were mesmerized 

By what society labeled "beauty"

Because they liked the way

She made him feel

Throughout history

Throughout time

Women

Have loved

Endlessly

Thanklessly

Invisibly

While never being seen

As whole people

Themselves

While never being loved

Or cared for

Or listened to

Or understood

In return

And so men wonder why

Women

Don't care about them anymore

Must we spell it out for you?

After screaming it for centuries?

Do you still feign ignorance?

Obliviousness?

Incompetency?

We loved you

Endlessly

Tirelessly

Until we realized

That you could watch us bleed out

Or worse

And do nothing

A woman's love

Couldn't do the same

Women love

With their entire beings

And usually only halfway through their lives

Do they realize

That they have always loved more

Than they have ever been loved

That's why now

We are choosing ourselves

If it needs to be said explicitly

For you to recognize

That we mean what we say

When we say that we are better off without you

Because if we don't love ourselves

The way we have always loved you

We won't survive this world

That is determined to hate us

Our survival

Rests on our ability to love

And when men show us

That all they can do is betray us

We find solidarity in each other

I didn't grow up hating men

I had no reason to

The men in my family were kinder than the women

It was only when I stopped trying to please people

That I saw men’s hatred for what it was

Men

Have been my biggest disappointment

I never believed in categories

I never found a need

Or want

Or desire

To organize people in that way

Until I started to recognize

How differently men treated me

Compared to everyone else

Until I started to realize

That being too nice to men

Had consequences

That being too nice to others

Didn't

I learned late in life

That men are selfish

And I understood later

Why

So now

I keep them at a distance

And pity them from afar

Because they hold enough pity for themselves

That I don't need to add to their self-victimization

Men have been harming everyone else

For centuries

So now

That they are becoming the outsiders

The ostracized

The exiled

Of course they don't know how to cope

We've been working through our pain for generations

We have been building

On the generations before us

Men don't know the work we do

Because they haven't bothered

To pay too much attention to us

So instead of learning from our pain

From our injustices

They'll have to learn for themselves

The hard way

And while we do pity them

We don't pity them too much

Because at any point in time

They could have chosen something different

Even now

But they are so used to the pedestal

They can't tolerate their own humanity

That's the crux of it

They were always invited to join us

Always

And some of them did

Some of them

Had the courage

To let go of society's definitions of "manhood"

Some of them

Had the awareness

To recognize

That they were also not free

Under society's prescription for them

"Men"

Is the last category of human

That has yet to be dismantled and deconstructed

But men have never had to do anything for themselves

Men have never had to "figure it out"

What we all learned

The more we were afforded the privilege

To share their spaces

Was that most of them

Do next to nothing

For their pedestal

For their award

For their spotlight

For their applause

We learned

That we, too

Can learn from the mediocre white man's ethic

We realized

That our systematic scrutinization

Has made us perfectionists

Has made us thorough

Has made us evaluative

Progress oriented

Used to being perceived

As always doing something wrong

We're not afraid

Or at least less afraid

To reflect on ourselves

And choose to grow

When we surround ourselves with each other

We find we are met with kindness and compassion

Rather than anger, hate, and resentment

We know how to love

Because of the centuries of loving men

Who hated us

Who used us

Who abused us

And threw us out when they were done

The more we love ourselves

The less we need them to love us

Because we realize

That they never really did

Good Luck, Babe

You ask us

To exist in binaries

Male/Female

White/Black

Logic/Emotions

You tell us

These binaries are real

Valid

Scientific, even

And the implication is

One

Is always

Better

Than the other

We don't believe in binaries

Science

Doesn't believe in binaries

But if you insist

We'll tell you

Your binaries are backwards

Your hierarchy is upside down

You see,

You,

On the top,

Are the most twisted of all

And us, on the bottom

Hate you

We hate you

We don't laud you

We don't worship you

And we in no way wish to be you

We fantasize about your death

Your downfall

Your inevitable crash and burn

Because you won't listen to us

When we tell you

That your way of being is unsustainable

You are so arrogant

That we have no choice

But to let you

Find out for yourself

Alongside all the men before you

That your methods are untenable

No matter how cruel

No matter how many lives are lost

And lineages traumatized

You never win

You

Never

Win

So,

We'll let you make believe again

Reconstruct the binaries we've already deconstructed

Cling to your hierarchies that we don't buy into

You have built a house of mirrors

And we aren't interested

Some of us

Have learned our history

And know exactly what you're doing

And while we put our energy into creating the realities we want to live in

We have no choice

But to watch history repeat itself

A life of violence

Only knows a life of violence

You can't have peace

If it is so foreign to you

That you can't tolerate the quiet

The stillness

The space 

For new ideas

And ways of being

And so,

As I create my forcefield of peace around me

I let go

And I let go

And I let go

Every time the old way pulls at me

And makes me question my reality

My inner knowing

My values and priorities

I know you have a greater hold on others

And I may not be able to free them

But trust

They'll find their way

Because to live a life of conformity

Is suffocating

And that's the choice

That's the price we pay

Conformity

Is not better

Than railing against the system

And at least in railing against the system

I am connected to my humanity

The same can't be said of you

A Woman's Worth

We are born

And immediately taught that we exist for others

I felt anger

I felt injustice

And was told I was the problem

Over and over and over again

My brain

Constantly calculating

Constantly assessing all sides of a situation

Constantly questioning

"Am I the problem?"

I felt like the problem

I kept feeling like the problem

Why was I the only one

Who could ever see what was wrong

And say it out loud?

And why

Did that make me a problem?

My questions have been answered

My experience

As a woman

Comforts my inner child

Who felt neglected and abandoned

Validates my inner teenager

Who was angry and resentful

And heals my inner young adult

Who felt lost and lifeless

I carry the pain, the loneliness, the ache

The anger, the resentment, the loss

I carry it all

In my heart, in my skin, in my organs

In my nervous system

Every part of my psyche

Is connected to every part of the rest of my body

And as I heal

Each and every wound

That threatened to kill me

My body starts to believe something different

The loss becomes interlaced with being found

The complexity of emotions and experience

Start to swirl around each other

Everything hurts

And everything feels magnificent

All at the same time

I realize

There's power in my Autonomy

In my Self

There is power

In my kindness and in my anger

In my love and in my resentment

In my knowledge and in my intuition

There is power

In knowing my own Self

In choosing the Self I want to align with

In choosing the environments

I believe are worthy of me

And that I am worthy of

There is power in claiming what I never had

Never knew

Never experienced

There is power in who I am

In the way I make people uncomfortable

With my words and intelligence

With my anger

Yes, I do have a right to be angry

No, I don't care

If you wish to stereotype me

Because you are afraid of my intelligence

My discernment

The way I can judge your character

You should be afraid of me

Because I can cut you up into pieces if I want to

No, I'm not afraid 

Of being alone

Because I lived my entire life alone

Surrounded by people

I am more loved, more cared for, more seen and more appreciated

As my own person

Than I ever was

Trying to appease those I would never be able to 

Because I was never the type of woman

They wanted me to be

That would make them comfortable

I reject all tropes of "womanhood" placed upon me

Because I see the oppressive contradictions that exist to suffocate me

And I will not play that game

Women are rediscovering

Their Divinity

You should be scared

Because We Are Angry

The Male Contradiction

I am

An angry woman

And yet my home is peaceful

My interactions are kind

My relationships are loving

My mind is focused and clear

I am an angry woman

Only when pushed

Only when disrespected

Over and over and over again

I am angry

After a lifetime of being undermined and underestimated

How long does it take for a man to become angry?

The moment he doesn't get his way?

The moment he isn't regarded as the best or smartest in the room?

The moment

He doesn't get his expected spotlight and applause?

A man's anger

Despite it being the greatest source of destruction on our planet

Is somehow

Normalized

And rationalized

Oh the way men love to rationalize their violence

Men cling to patriarchy the way white people cling to white supremacy

Even the "good" ones can't give up their precious seat

At the head of the table

Equality feels like oppression

When you're accustomed to privilege

The irony of it all

Is that the most privileged perpetuate their own unhappiness

Dear men,

Dear white people,

Dear white men,

We all suffer under white supremacist patriarchy

You are no happier at the top

Than you are when you are called out for the harm you perpetuate

To step aside

To 

Make

Space

For literally anyone else

Dear men,

Dear white people,

Dear white men,

You would be so much happier

If you could be kind, and empathetic, and loving, and caring

You don't know

The fulfillment of reciprocity

Of intimacy

You don't know

That when you care for others

They'll care for you

Not because you force them to

Not because you manipulate or coerce

Or beat them into submission

But because they care about you

Because caring

Begets caring

You wouldn't believe

How simple it is

How possible it is

To live a life imbued with love

Instead of power

The world the rest of us envision

Includes a version of you

That is kinder and more loving and caring

A version of you

That seeks out joy

Instead of pain

You don't know

That when we fight for ourselves

We're fighting for you too

You're the only ones

Who think you are alone

Because you make yourselves alone

It's lonely at the top

We don't envy you

We are worried about you

Because your violence and manipulation and control

Are symptoms of a much deeper

Scarier problem

You have internalized our violent, twisted system

To worry for ourselves

Is to worry for you

You are sinking this ship

Willfully

You are forcing the rest of us

To exclude you

Because you are unwilling to listen or adapt

You are missing out

And you know it

So you want to make us suffer

We all see the terrors of this world

We've already been suffering

We have been glazed under the fire

We have courage

Because we know what life is like without it

We aren't better or stronger or more insightful than you

We have simply experienced more

And your inability to learn from us

Puts you at a disadvantage

What the colonizer doesn't write in history books

Is that there has never been a time of oppression

Without its continuous resistance

They love to depict their "conquered" as inherently weak and submissive

Inherently less than

But at no point in time

Has the oppressed ever accepted their oppression

The "progress" we have made

Is the progress of resistance against repeated oppression

It makes us smarter and cleverer and wiser

We learn from experience

You will never fully conquer this world

We will never go quietly and peacefully

And it begs the question

Why are you so dead set on domination?

Why is that so important to you?

Why do you need a constant struggle?

Why do you need to hoard your treasure

When there is plenty for everyone?

You could be so much happier

If you learned how to share