Free

I will smile the day I see men from my community trying to show women, who have internalized the scars of weak men, to be free.

Small Talk

I’m trying to become better at conversing with people. I’m quite socially awkward, I prefer to be alone, and much like everybody else, I hate small talk. And just as my luck would have it, small talk for me typically turns into smaller talk rather than better talk. Most of my interaction with unfamiliar humans happens at work. Usually, I run into someone that I don’t know very well but well enough that I’m obliged to say a few sentences. I’m not sure where I picked this up but my conditioned response is to act delighted for being graced with their sudden and unexpected presence. I’m actually surprised at how convincing I am in seeming delighted, even though common sense would dictate that I couldn’t possibly be that delighted at all. Both parties are aware that we share no special connection or have ever engaged in any meaningful conversation before. These people are usually middle-aged women, so I’m certainly not romantically or sexually excited and chances are that they are not either.

In Lieu of the Hallmark Holiday

Humans desiring love is not unusual–we are social creatures. Even anti-socialness seems to stem from a preoccupation with social interraction. What’s quite stupid is the exessive obsession and focus that is placed on heterosexual, romantic love. I can’t articulate if this is a recent phenomenon, but there seems to be indication that it’s not. We seem to have preserved these shitty conceptions of love throughout time: (heterosexual) romantic love over everything. (With exposure to some recent feminist readings that have enriched my life, I am making a conscious, although most likely poor effort to identify heteronormativity, irrespective of the fact that the direct goal of this piece is not necessarily feminism/gender politics.)

In conversations, people refer to having a partner as definitive of or essential to an individual’s being. Granted, high school is chalk full of foolish ideas and conversations, but it was not uncommon for me to hear girls say to each other as a compliment, “you are such a great girl; pretty and funny. I can’t believe you don’t have a boyfriend!”, which even at that time, perplexed the shit out of me. Why? Why can you not believe that this person is great and not in a relationship? Why does this person need a significant other to validate their existence? Is it not sufficient that you believe they’re great? Is it something about another individual’s commitment to this person makes them a safer investment for a relationship for others? And here I thought that these ideas were confined to young, school aged people. Silly me.

Home

Culture is when
overheard conversations
have an appealing
personality.
Deja vu:
the dialogue you
began participating in
long before you
encountered it.
Comfortably resting
in the arms of your
true community.
All this time
you were searching
for home and,
even though temporary
when found,
your eternal home sickness
escapes you
briefly.

photocredits to a dear friend.

Tranist Rides

Everybody wants to
speak up and be heard out
but nobody is listening

Everybody wants to
show off and be seen
but nobody is looking

Senses are meant to
perceive
and perhaps express
but not display

The tools to interconnect;
where did we learn
to use them this way?

The way we live–half
dead
learning and feeding
only the ego of self.

Love II

While parents were busy
teaching competition and hate
you were demonstrating
care, affection, love
for communities
not individuals, how you were
building instead of
destroying
how your lessons are for the
soul. How your
lifestyle harbors the strongest
homes; how the beauty of your
mind can withstand turmoil alone.
How everything you touch
might not turn into gold,
but rather,
into the very best that it can be.
How the way you heal and soothe
gives destruction hope.

Love

The truth and beauty
of lonesomeness
without anyone
to bicker to,
complain to.
Community relations
that irk you,
you must reconcile
on your own.

Naked, raw, brave
you must face
your community.

Nowhere to coward
nowhere to cover
you must show yourself,
and you might choose
integrity.