December 2015

When my blood began to boil

i am so sick of hating men. it feels like rust that sits on the back of my tongue, one that has been there far longer than i would like to say. a slight reminder every time i swallow that there is a whole half of the population that i either am too scared to love, too confused by to see, or too angry to have compassion for. i walk around every day with an insane contradiction of wanting more than anything in this world to be loved and seen by men while simultaneously stuck in how i can even come to love or see them as well. my deep mistrust is sickening. it haunts me everyday. mistrust in myself to be wholly who i am with them and allow them in, mistrust in them for… well a lot, and a mistrust in the society we live in, the one that makes it so that they can act the way they do. it’s not their fault really, everyone falls victim to the larger structures at play, the statured ways society upholds its inherent ways of being. change might be inevitable, but change does not happen overnight. or over a year or even a generation. change happens slowly, but loudly. if people continue to overlook what some are so desperately trying to bring into the discussion, it will only continue. it’s now up to 25% of college women who have experienced rape on campus. that’s probably not even the half of it. the shame and humiliation culture that we’ve created is harming its givers of life. its creation of all that is. but we can’t create without the other half, the two, the combination of the sexes to create new life. life is boundless and bountiful and deserves to be lived without fear or censorship or discrimination. women need to tell their stories, and men need to listen. i have heard, felt, seen, and experienced both singularly but also in a grander way too much loss of faith. a loss of faith in love, in light, and most importantly in men. what i mean to say is hope is what drives the human race. it is what makes people get up every day and decide to accomplish things. but hope is a choice, and it’s so painfully upsetting to see people losing hope in finding love. because the second the hope is removed, people settle. they’re not willing to dream because they can’t bear the pain of one more heartbreak. and then they forgot that they had standards and regulations and boundaries and ways they wanted to be treated and relationships they wanted to have and love they wanted to create, [but at the end of the day i can just fuck whoever’s within a 10 mile radius of me and be fine for today. get that momentary fill. the fix-me-up. the instant gratification of in a moment being seen and needed and loved, even if it is just for my body, my persona, my physical self. but so much of every one of us is unbounded by the restraints of our skin and have spent far too much time settling for a minuscule amount of being known. fully known, and loved, and seen and needed.] and ways they wanted to manifest that love in real time. not in some distant far off future for the hope that one day maybe someone will come along. the time is now. the time to bring back the demand for respect is now. because if we forget to dream that love can exist every single day then we forget to live. we can work and make work our lives all we want but there is something so undeniable about the need that is so deeply ingrained in each and every human being for connection and solidarity… to feel appreciated. being vulnerable is learned behavior and that is something that’s not taught in america. we are taught to be strong, to push through, to forget the sadness or fear or anger and channel it into your work. but people have forgotten that you always need to be vulnerable, it’s the only way to breathe, to walk through your life knowing that you have done everything in your power to live the live that you so badly wanted for yourself. but instead we’re told to be strong. and inherently this procures a different result, one that is driven by results and not by the process, of learning, of growing, of fucking up and falling down but getting back up again. America is a country built on the successes in life. but success doesn’t happen overnight and we have to stop pretending that it does. no one was ever successful without taking a risk, without throwing an idea out there without any way of knowing if it will take off. but people often times today forget to do that in their personal lives, in the ways that they want to communicate but just can’t seem to find the words. in the ways that they talk through everything a million times with everyone around then to calculate the perfect text without really saying what you want, mean, feel… anything. life in the states is missing its vulnerable side. the side where you can cry on the walk home and no one gives you a sideways glance. the side where when you’re asked if you’re having a good day it’s okay to say no. the side where you are too scared to go up to someone in a coffee shop but immediately take out your phone to see if they’re on tinder. we’ve forgotten the vulnerable side. and it shows.