Some leaving & some coming home.

"If owning a gun and knowing how to use it worked, the military would be the safest place for a..."

Sat, 04 May 2013 13:36:16 -0400

“If owning a gun and knowing how to use it worked, the military would be the safest place for a woman. It’s not.

If women covering up their bodies worked, Afghanistan would have a lower rate of sexual assault than Polynesia. It doesn’t.

If not drinking alcohol worked, children would not be raped. They are.

If your advice to a woman to avoid rape is to be the most modestly dressed, soberest and first to go home, you may as well add “so the rapist will choose someone else”.

If your response to hearing a woman has been raped is “she didn’t have to go to that bar/nightclub/party” you are saying that you want bars, nightclubs and parties to have no women in them. Unless you want the women to show up, but wear kaftans and drink orange juice. Good luck selling either of those options to your friends.

Or you could just be honest and say that you don’t want less rape, you want (even) less prosecution of rapists.”

- A Short Post on Rape Prevention (via howtodresswell)

Hum something, anything is fine.

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:09:53 -0400

Hum something, anything is fine.:

I’ve been meaning to write; so much, for so long. I’ve also been meaning to go to the gym, but tonight, before I could engage in the mental pep talk necessary to lace up my sneakers, I found myself…

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Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:05:49 -0400

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Wed, 17 Apr 2013 00:53:00 -0400

"If they label you soft, feather weight and white-livered, if the locker room tosses back its sweaty..."

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 11:22:19 -0400

“

If they label you soft, feather weight and white-livered,
if the locker room tosses back its sweaty head,
and laughs at how quiet your hands stay,
if they come to trample the dandelions roaring in your throat,
you tell them that you were forged inside of a woman
who had to survive fifteen different species of disaster
to bring you here,
and you didn’t come to piss on trees.
You ain’t nobody’s thick-necked pitbull boy,
don’t need to prove yourself worthy of this inheritance
of street-corner logic, this
blood legend, this
index of catcalls, “three hundred ways to turn a woman
into a three course meal”, this
legacy of shame, and man,
and pillage, and man,
and rape, and man.

You boy.
You won’t be some girl’s slit wrists dazzling the bathtub,
won’t be some girl’s,
“I didn’t ask for it but her gave it to me anyway”,
the torn skirt panting behind the bedroom door,
some father’s excuse to polish his gun.
If they say, “Take what you want”, you tell them
you already have everything you need;
you come from scabbed knuckles
and women who never stopped swinging,
you come men who drank away their life savings,
and men who raised daughters alone.
You come from love you gotta put your back into,
elbow-grease loving like slow-dancing on dirty linoleum,
you come from that house of worship.
Boy, I dare you to hold something like that.

Love whatever feels most like your grandmother’s cooking.
Love whatever music looks best on your feet.
Whatever woman beckons your blood to the boiling point,
you treat her like she is the god of your pulse,
you treat her like you would want your father to treat me:
I dare you to be that much man one day.
That you would give up your seat on the train
to the invisible women, juggling babies and groceries.
That you would hold doors, and say thank-you,
and understand that women know they are beautiful
without you having to yell it at them from across the street.

The day I hear you call a woman a “bitch”
is the day I dig my own grave.
See how you feel writing that eulogy.
And if you are ever left with your love’s skin trembling under your nails,
if there is ever a powder-blue heart
left for dead on your doorstep,
and too many places in this city that remind you of her tears,
be gentle when you drape the remains of your lives in burial cloth.
Don’t think yourself mighty enough to turn her into a poem,
or a song,
or some other sweetness to soften the blow,
boy,
I dare you to break like that.

You look too much like your mother not to.

”

- “For My Son”
Eboni Hogan
[x] (via oiltipped)

Practice Resurrection.

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 14:36:50 -0400

Practice Resurrection.

"We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten..."

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:20:49 -0400

“We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive.”

- Thich Nhat Hanh (via asongwithnoend)

"If rape were a disease, it would be a pandemic. If it were an economic downturn, it would be the..."

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:18:24 -0400

“

If rape were a disease, it would be a pandemic. If it were an economic downturn, it would be the biggest depression in history. 90% of rapists know their victims. This means that a woman is far more likely to be raped by the man walking her to her car than the stranger in the parking lot. 37% of women in emergency rooms are put there by their male partners.

With these statistics in mind, being a heterosexual woman is an extreme health risk.

”

- Dr. Rachel Luft discussing gender-based violence, University of New Orleans (via poemsbydes)

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Mon, 01 Apr 2013 20:07:50 -0400

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Fri, 29 Mar 2013 14:47:06 -0400

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Wed, 20 Mar 2013 23:23:33 -0400

CNN Reports on The "Promising Future" of the Steubenville Rapists, Who Are "Very Good Students"

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 23:37:00 -0400

CNN Reports on The "Promising Future" of the Steubenville Rapists, Who Are "Very Good Students":

For readers interested in learning more about how not to be labeled as registered sex offenders, a good first step is not to rape unconscious women, no matter how good your grades are.

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Fri, 15 Mar 2013 22:19:50 -0400

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Fri, 15 Mar 2013 13:50:33 -0400

"There is so much cedar wood in my belly; there is so much sawdust collected on the floor of my..."

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 16:25:16 -0500

“There is so much cedar wood in my belly;
there is so much sawdust collected on the floor of my love.
I have been sweeping it up for so many days now.
But each day i sweep up just a little bit more.
One day that floor will be clean.”

- Anis Mojgani, My Library Has 17 Books (via inbrokenplaces)

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Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:10:55 -0500

stuartsometimes: when people talk about the way girls dress and say “respect yourself ladies” I...

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 19:31:27 -0500

stuartsometimes:

when people talk about the way girls dress and say “respect yourself ladies”

I get

so

fucking

mad

because like I respect myself I think I’m awesome I am an A+ human being

but I also know my ass looks great in this dress

"The path of grief is not a straight line. You don’t start off in the deepest slough then climb up..."

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:12:06 -0500

“The path of grief is not a straight line. You don’t start off in the deepest slough then climb up each step to get back to peaceful. Grief moves forward, but in a looping line. You’re going along, making progress then you hit a loop and your stomach lurches and everything is flipped upside down and you land right back where you were a few weeks or months ago. Eventually, the loops get smaller and spread farther apart, but they’re still there to…well, to throw you for a loop.”

- (Baddest Mother Blog)

Bleeding and Breathing (by Kate Schwartz)

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 00:15:33 -0500

(I only hope to one day write as well, and have a soul as beautiful as my sister.)

This morning I woke up early, quietly collected my things (books, etc.), and sneaked out to parking lot J. It was overcast, but not dark. It was quiet, and the air was cool—refreshing on my skin like water. I checked my mirrors, exchanged a mix CD for the Avett Brothers, and took HW99 to my hometown. It was a forty-minute drive on an empty, two-lane highway between fields and farms. I cracked the window and sang loudly.

By the time I reached Mac, I had a headache from a lack of caffeine, so I stopped at Starbucks. (I had a giftcard). I walked in and immediately heard someone say my name. Coming home is like that—familiar and good. We chatted and I bought some coffee. It was comfortable and nice.

From there I headed to Glacial Rock—a geological viewpoint on the outskirts of town. I’ve made a lot of diverse memories with a lot of diverse people at that spot, so I knew it was the place to go. When I got to the top of the hill, I saw that an old man was there with his dog. We greeted each other with smiles and nods and “mornin‘“s. Soon he left and I was alone.

I stood on the rock, breathing.

I held these shoes in my hands—a pair of knock-off Birkenstock sandals that I bought at a grocery store in Schladming, Austria. I looked down at them—at the holes in the soles. They had been well-worn and well-loved. The first time I wore them, they rubbed blisters (which turned into scabs which turned into scars) on the tops of my feet. I wore them when I flew home a month later and all summer long after that. I wore them when I moved into school in September. Then the weather changed, and I began to wear them with socks. Then they got so worn down that I couldn’t wear them without ending up with wet heels.

I never stopped loving my shoes; they just became dysfunctional and unwearable.

So, today, I placed them on that big rock, and left. I walked away feeling a lot—the heaviness of the symbolism. Those shoes started in Europe, carried me home, and helped me take my first steps at school. And as I stood there this morning, looking at my shoes, breathing, I just thought:

That’s life. One journey bleeding into the next. And that one seeping slowly into the next. Life isn’t a game of stop and go. It’s fluid—gradual. There are seasons, but they don’t have boundaries. Life blends together. McMinnville leans into England leans into Belgium leans into Austria leans into Monmouth leans into McMinnville. It’s an intricate, confusing dance of shoes coming and going, but always leaving their mark on my feet. I still have those little scars, and just because I let my shoes go doesn’t mean that the miles I walked in them don’t matter.

They do matter. And so do the people who walked them with me.

It seems that all at once everything is meaningless and nothing is meaningless.

Shoes and people and journeys come and go, but it all matters. And it never stops mattering.

Now I’m sitting in my room, in my house, in my hometown. I sip coffee and tuck my feet under the covers on my bed. How many hours have I spent in this room, writing like this? It’s been my room for fifteen years this Spring. There is a box of full journals just like this one under my bed. My dresser is half empty and my closet only holds the clothes I don’t really wear anymore. I am slowly moving out. I only partly live here.

Life is happening to me. Shoes are coming and going. Journeys are bleeding into each other, and I’m okay.

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Thu, 28 Feb 2013 19:39:08 -0500