Triptych

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{Circles}

It was by accident that you found yourself meeting the marker that symbolised a circle. Anniversaries, birthdays, the recurrence of your losses. You don’t like numbering your days but when you do, the wasted ones that fall away are lessons you needed.

Time has wound itself back and closed the loop you had been lost in. It was an anomaly. Tangled up in something new and beautiful, pause and take cognisance of how far you have come. A thousand soft mutterings of gratitude rise up, joy gripped by fingers that clutched at the hairs of joy.  Happiness was here, in those unexpected places. The cul de sacs you did not dream of wandering and avenues you didn't look at befoe. Here was far away from him, finally. Goodbye is a sweet relief.

He had called out to you. Of course, he had on this day that meant more to him than it ever meant to your reluctant heart. He strained for the last hint of softness from her summer soul and was given a cool pebble. He needed to swallow those rocks he had piled on your body, in his rivers of tears. Wash the chambers of your heart and rub bleach into the walls, where it had grown dark and smoke stained.

There are more pressing concerns that wait in draughty corridors and in coffee shops that smelled of cinnamon. There were untold joys waiting for you that seemed unfathomable. Take delight in the unknown form they will take. Leave everything else behind.

🌓

{Those parts between}

I know that my mind is a wild tangle of far too many things at once, and you shouldn’t feel burdened with the task of untangling them to lay in straight lines. Leave them be, in the knots and twists that I enjoy running my fingertips over. I don’t mind the tangles, the way you don’t mind the curls that frame my eyes softly. I know how I can seem all the time. I run the risk of being a little too much, which is also ok.

Of course, I know how it comes across, it can seem that I have spread my heart out far and wide.  That the embers of my soul have dappled many faces with soft light. That the space you occupy between my ribs is a waiting room that you might soon be asked to vacate. Don’t misinterpret this seat you have, it is not a proposal of continuity. It is merely where you are. You don’t owe me a seat between your sternum and next to your lungs.

Because people like me give out that sort of affection, it seems. The kind that seems to wash over you. And the question arises about whether this is how I am with everyone. I know how I can seem sometimes. That my heart overflows with buckets of empathy and nostalgia and that the cool relief of practicality does not often grace me with its presence. It does, sometimes.

But do not misunderstand my affections, dear.

It is that cusp on the edge of not knowing and knowing everything that intrigues me, despite my tendency to ramble down long paths of naval gazing.  I want to know, although I seem to forget to ask the questions that need asking. I know I can be a thunderstorm of words, baring my soul in that casual way that I hope you know doesn’t need reciprocation. None of it requires reciprocal action. I am surprised at how content I am with this, as it is. The faded lines that could be here or there. But it leaves so much open to misunderstanding.

Because I know how I can seem, and truly it is far simpler than that.

  🌑

{Futility is a Loop}

You are ribbons of satin braided into my hair and tough sinew caught between my teeth. Taking up space in my lungs, tracing the outlines of my dilated pupils and the thought that comes when the world goes quiet. Don’t mistake my softness for emotions that should not be there. I can see the form you take and it is terrifying beauty.

Just because kindness is an unfamiliar daisy, growing through the pavement cracks- it shouldn’t be seen as more than it is. Misunderstanding my affections would not bear the fruit you think it would and I seem to misunderstand you all the time.

Retracing my steps, descending from the mountains- I misunderstood you at every turn.

I must run the frayed ends against a flame, cauterise the wound and try not to salt it with tears. Sew the edges up again. Close the loop because it is one of futility. Go on, forget, move on. Why didn’t you run sooner?

You are right to flee. I am a force of nature. But by god, you were a magnificent tragedy too.

An open letter to homophobia

Dear bigots/homophobes/ scourge of humanity

So I saw the following "Proudly homophobic " on Facebook and it really got me upset. 

My views on homosexuality, bisexuality and heterosexuality all boil down to one thing: If you love someone and they love you, it is NONE of anyone else's business what your orientation is. Love is this profound emotion that surpasses all other forms of feeling. It's insane and then at the same time so calming. It's the stuff of legends that fills books and poems and music. Gay, straight, diagonal, whatever - love can take root anywhere and we have no place to judge this sacrosanct connection between two people. 

So what baffles me is when people get on this moral high ground about homosexuals "ruining society" and how there is a problem with someone having a different sexual orientation to them. To aptly explain how I see them, here is an anecdote:

There's this man who I see everyday on the way home, he stands on the side of the road and just shouts hate and resentment to passersby. He swears and spits and raves for a few hours every afternoon, on the side of an intersection. I feel immense pity for him and the amount of hate he carries within him. I also am saddened that he goes out of his way to spread his animosity to society. 

Those people who rave about how dangerous homosexuality is, you guys are that man on the side of the road: everyone else is moving forward and making progress and you continue to spit and spread hate. 

These are my top 3 justifications/flimsy excuses/ bigot backups for being anti- homosexual, bisexuals and basically anything or anyone outside to the small spectrum of "normality":

1) "Its corrupting society"

It must be chilly and windy up on your moral high ground. Also warped. Honestly- humankind is characterised by our tendency to be corrupted by money, greed, power, anything really. If someone could remind me of the time in history when the gay people overthrew society and spread havoc then it would be highly helpful. You know "Hide yo kids, hide yo wife " chaos? Obviously History 120 doesn't cover that revolution because I was totally unaware of the continuing threat to society by people of a different sexual orientation. I should probably ask the department of Education about is lax attitude with regard to my education!

If you ask a homophobic person what they mean when they say that, they really have no answer that can be backed up. They mumble about how it's "just wrong". My stance on what has "corrupted society" is that there is an acceptance of violence and the sexualised notion of women in music and television. Because society would rather accept that the growing porn industry is "okay" even though it contributes to the sexual exploitation of thousands of young women who have been trafficked, drugged and abused to make many those films. The defence of the "legitimate" porn industry is one I don't care for. Why? Because the dark underbelly is always a larger beast than the pristine surface that is regulated.

The rise of this sexualised portrayal of women has contributed to the cycle of violence and sexual crime. Criminologists actually acknowledge porn as a factor  in the rise of sexual violence. But you're gonna tell me that a man holding hands with another man in Woolworths is a bigger issue?  Wow.

 

2) "It's against God."

Please. Don't. 

The golden thread of most major religions is one of acceptance, love and spreading kindness to your fellow man. Do not quote verses to justify your bigotry. Don't do what people who promoted the slave trade did. And the same sort of  people who manipulated that message to make it okay to burn women at the stake in Salem. And if you're going to take things so literally then banish all women during their periods for being unclean. 

You use religion to make you feel better about hating and hurting others? And you wonder why people have such a harsh idea of theists. I believe in God and what I understand about Him and His Son is that we must love others and accept others for what they are and who they are. The church gets a terrible reputation for being so judgemental about people who don't fit the norm, people forget that when the Christian church started- they were the outsiders of society who were not part of the norm. They were the ones who were hurt and attacked for being different. 

So please- stop that excuse. Stop putting people into boxes and acting holier than the rest of us. When has hatred ever been holy? When has rejection ever been seen as a positive thing? 

Never. 

3) "It's just not natural"

I'm going to direct you to the male penguin couple that raised an orphan baby and many other instances of homosexuality in the animal kingdom. If you want to talk about what's not natural I have a list of things humans do that isn't "natural". 

- Remove bodily hair that's meant to protect our orifices 

- Jumping off high places with nothing but a rope separating us from death

- The cabbage soup diet

- Homophobia- this is my favourite unnatural thing because it is a learnt behaviour. It's taught and shouldn't exist naturally

Yesterday I saw a girl give her girlfriend the last sip of her lemonade in the boiling heat outside the train station. It was such a selfless gesture but people around them looked uncomfortable. If it was a boy and a girl, it would still be a selfless gesture but people would say "Aww". 

 One of my closest friends is gay and if I am free to love someone openly- he should be able to as well. To love without fear of being mocked and insulted by narrow minded people. I have tears every time I hear Same Love because I believe so fiercely in that principle of acceptance. My friend is still my friend if she chooses to like girls or boys or both.

Who we choose to love is no one else's business. Are we so scared of things that are different to our idea of "normal" that we cannot let people who are different to us be happy?  Love is so damn confusing as it is, how dare we try to set limits on what it can and can't be?

How dare you?

Yours sincerely.

To love a bookworm- A letter for him

My dearest friend,

To love a bookworm is a romance unlike any other. She may be 17 or 68 but she remains the girl who just bought her first novel and feels that same rush of delight when she buys a new book.

 First of all, you must be patient with her silence when her lips hint at a smile. Her thoughts have become lines of poetry that are entwined with thoughts of you. At least they are... Sometimes.

 She might scribble them in the margins of a notebook but to read them to you would render her shy and gauche. But her mind does compose poems for you. She does wonder about practical things like shoes and the straightness of her fringe. Walk along the shelves as she hunts for a new treasure , hold her hand or the books she considers.

 Miracle if you get to choose a book for her- never mention the book again. She will tell you how you just have to read it the moment she closes it. She will not beg but heed her wisdom. Until then, she is likely to have a stock of books that are either read as soon she walks out the shop or she will let it lie until it calls her name out. But mention it and you awake a dark beast of guilt for not reading the book you picked out for her. And it will taint the reading of the current book in her hands for a chapter or three.

You must remember that you are a romantic hero of sorts in her mind. Since she was a little girl she wondered about you before you knew her. She created a mosaic of all the "perfect " men. But one hopes she realised you are not going to fit that muddle of Darcy and Heathcliff and Marius.... But she sees all the little glimmers of all her great literary loves in your smile. You might be practical or sporty or you may read but not the way she does. But she knows that you cannot be expected to live up to her ideal and instead you begin to define the idea of love that she has. Romance her in the way she pines to be romanced- to be courted and written letters (a thoughtful email will suffice, dear boy). She may have a secret love of umbrellas(Because Jo in Little Women found herself confessing love under one) or she might run her hand along brick walls to chance upon Diagon Alley. These quirks may be secret or she will tell you. Don't ridicule her little dreams that she builds on clouds of fancy.

Her moods may be strange. After all, Mr Rochester broke poor Jane's heart and left your beloved inconsolable for a week when she put the book down and refused to go any further until she felt calm again. Her tears may fall while reading The Notebook and it is the cruelest deed to laugh at her. You don't understand how deeply she feels for Noah in that moment. The next time she has a book she may burst into laughter and feel no shame in rocking in her chair as she tries to explain the joke to you. (Nod and try to see the humour). 

She will have ebooks, old books, new books, bits the dog chewed books. She may have all those or just one type. They are her family and she will likely hold them dear for as long as she lives. Enid and Roald will stay, even if you don't. There is a list of books she wants to keep for her children and a list she will ban from her house . She will scrunch her face up in dark anger if you or anyone suggests she gives her old books away. Because what if she has the urge to reread all the Anne of Green Gables books (which should be read every 4 years or so... Just in case) and she could not find them? Exactly.

She will have a mind that always craves a story and a heart that yearns for the kind of love she thinks doesn't happen in this century anymore. Surprise her and read a book(or try). Her eyes will sparkle like the heart of the mountain and you will be the one to rule over her heart. 

She will never say it - But try to love her as much as she loves you and her books.

Kind regards.