When dawn breaks,

Wooden floors creak,

Pecks the soles of your frigid feet,

The alarm robs you,

From a rest marked by sanctuary.

Miss sun unveils herself through glass,

She blinds your senses with her glory,

The finch taunts you with a liberation tune,

To upstage scattered laughter with coworkers during lunch.

When dusk arrives,

City traffic isn’t loud enough to muffle

A hitch that breached your throat,

Preceding a wail,

Long and unwinding,

For something your soul has yet to find.

Despite being informative, the event felt deeply impersonal. Something was missing.

I didn’t know why until I befriended a drug addict.

After breakup #1 (there were 2 more to go through), I manically word-vomited a vent on my close friend’s story when, all of a sudden, a concerned acquaintance from my sophomore year of high school called me to invite me to her home.

At her place, she held me while I cried, drafted breakup texts for me when my hands were far too jittery to type, and told me in the nicest way possible that my boyfriend was abusive. Despite her thankless efforts, I didn’t send that well-thought-out message or kick him to the curb. But she comforted me as if she already knew I wouldn’t.

“It’s like a drug. If you go back, I understand. I’m always here for you.”

After I stopped sobbing, she pulled out a dime bag and asked if I was okay with her snorting the last of her coke stash.

I dabbled with drugs once or twice back in my sophomore year of high school — mainly at rich-white-kid functions.

I’m aware of the tone-deafness in pairing “dabbled” with “hard drugs,” but that was my reality — albeit privileged.

There’s one trip I can recall in particular. Not because it was exciting, but the exact opposite.

Oxy time-traveled me to Sunday nights before my 2nd-grade classes, when Mommy would reprimand me for reading in the dark before draping a freshly dried comforter over me, kiss my forehead, and tell me she loved me. She felt warm, safe, yet deceptive.

Mommy and I.

Hours later, I woke to clammy skin and metallic saliva. I had bitten my tongue until it bled. This time, Mommy wasn’t there to comfort me.

My parents lost their fathers to addiction —one to alcohol, another to heroin. Both were found aspirating on their vomit.

Despite having a book’s worth of stories to soothe the posthumous curiosity I have of my paternal grandfather, one morbid question remains: What did he feel before he died?

Was he aware, terrified of his fate? That my nine-year-old father would discover his cold and lifeless body with a needle still attached? Could he feel his organs shutting down one-by-one? Or was he too lost in the feeling of his mother’s kiss?

After my newfound friend finished her lines, we watched S1 of Euphoria and platonically spooned. The next morning, she cooked me fried eggs and brewed chamomile tea with clover honey.

Later that week, she invited me to a party with the knowledge that I’d be utterly alone the day of Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, she clung to a bottle of cheap red wine. She looked empty, as if her soul were tucked deep within herself. Anyone with a pulse could conclude that she wasn’t okay. So, I made an effort to sit beside her at all times and keep her away from the creepy “male friends” who surrounded us that night. I was sober enough to withstand all the feels they copped if it meant stopping them from doing what I think they would’ve had I not been there. It was the first time in a while that I felt a duty to protect another person. I’m not a hero; I just cared.

When they wanted us to sleep over, I refused on her behalf, insisting they drive us home.

I didn’t care enough about the drugs to stop her from using them.

Does that make me awful? Maybe. Truth of the matter is, my care for her superseded my personal morals.

When she snorted that coke, I wasn’t angry at her. She wasn’t seducing me to try it. I didn’t feel like dropping to my knees and giving her an ultimatum to stop. I had the choice to leave, and yet, I didn’t. I sat with the discomfort and uneventfulness of it all.

Society has a weird way of looking at addiction. I remember being a pre-teen and seeing all those “truth orange” commercials that warned you about the “evilness” of peer pressure, or the anti-smoking PSA’s that would show old, wrinkly cancer patients on the precipice of death. All these PSA’s came with the message of,

“Don’t end up NEAR addicts, don’t end up LIKE addicts.”

The only piece of media that made me develop an aversion to hard substances was from the perspective of an addict. More specifically, Trainspotting. It’s dually horrifying and beautiful. In one scene, a“Perfect Day” by Lou Reed is playing while the main character has a heroin overdose. You can feel the euphoria in his tango with death, juxtaposed with the world surrounding him —one with scorn, concern, judgment, and impersonality.

Yes, my friend is an addict. She is also deeply intelligent, creative, and beautiful. She writes the most fascinating of poems and short stories, has an affinity for theatre, and speaks with the wisdom of a 90-year-old woman. She also has bipolar disorder, like me, and we get each other in a way that others do not.

Our friendship is marked by unconditional care and the deep understanding that being Black, intelligent, and mad lands you in a reality foreign to those outside of you.

When she’s back in NA, and there’s a meeting in my city, I offer lunch and a walk. We don’t text daily, and we don’t get mad when the other person doesn’t respond for days, weeks, or even months. Sometimes she’s psychotic, and in inpatient, sometimes I’m too depressed to reach out. Sometimes she’s in rehab, and sometimes I haven’t showered in a week. However, when we reconnect, we land right where we left off. It just works like that.

Yesterday, she asked if I was free, so I called her.

For ten minutes straight, she spoke a shame-filled rant about her earlier meth use.

Before I was quick to respond, I remembered how pissed off I felt at my therapist that day. The only response he could give to my anger from a racially hostile work environment was, “That must be hard,” or “I’m sorry.” He couldn’t walk in my shoes, and instead of attempting to understand my experience further, he gave me empty, shallow sympathy.

Then it clicked. I paused for a bit…

“What headspace are you in before you use? Why do you use?”

”I feel alone. Because it makes me feel less alone.”

Stuttering, imperfectly, I said something along the lines of,

“I don’t know what it’s like to deal with that, but you know if you feel alone or need company you can always call me. If I’m at work or away from my phone, I can’t be there, but when I’m free, you can give me a call, and we can sit in silence, and I can give you company. I like your company. In fact, I don’t want you to feel like you have to be alone, or that you don’t deserve connection. When I say I like your company and being your friend, I’m okay being around that part of you, too. I want you to be safe.”

We spent 2 hours on call.

“Can I smoke the last of my meth?”
”…”
”I’ll be here.”, I said.

I scrolled through our texts for her address, just in case I needed it.

I recall this long story because I believe that lessons in harm reduction are stale if we’re missing the vital component: connection.
Imperfect, yet unconditional connection.

No doubt, it’s life-saving to have Narcan on deck or a Grey’s Anatomy’s worth of medical knowledge. Having an addict friend doesn’t mean that you have to stick around for boundary violations or enable their vices. No one is demanding that you drive down Skid Row, befriend someone with a crack pipe, and donate six month’s of your rent. Just understand that loving a person with a substance use disorder requires grace, curiosity, and compassion.

If we seek to “end” addiction altogether, we must first try to de-moralize it.

Not every addict sees themself as a victim of their disease; some are survivors. Some want sympathy. Some do not, but most (if not all) want to be understood, for their reality to be validated.

We can’t assume that every individual struggling with addiction is a monolith. Each individual has a backstory unique to them.

Sit with the discomfort without enabling. Don’t shame your friends if they partake in drugs, especially if they’d do the same in your absence. Make sure they have clean gear. Accept that, sometimes, they’ll choose the drugs over you. Know that an arm’s length is better than nothing. Wipe their tears. Hold them tight. Sometimes, harm reduction is two sunny-side-up eggs with a side of chamomile tea.

Raised to believe

That tough love is a necessary violence,

Will confuse fear for love,

Gut feelings for butterflies,

Abandonment for fate,

A punch for a kiss.

This past week, I’ve been buying a ton of books. Currently, I find myself immersed in Bell Hooks’ interpretation of what it means to love and its components (care, commitment, trust, responsibility, respect, and knowledge).

Hook’s commentary on some topics is both deeply controversial and a product of its time, while others feel like a breath of fresh air. I’m fond of her definition of what it means to love, and that it’s to be applied and not just felt. That it demands a spiritual metamorphosis in your approach to love.

It should be clarified that any independent thinker can find one stance from an intellectual deeply problematic, and another evocative. Thinking dialectically is important in any analysis of material you’re looking at…

​

Her passage on the relationship between greed and love was most poignant to me.

​

Hook posits that,

​

“Unlike love, desires for material objects can be satisfied instantly if we have the cash or the credit card handy…Concurrently, when it comes to matters of the heart, we are encouraged to treat partners as though they were objects we can pick up, use, and then discard of at will, with the one criteria being whether or not individual desires are satisfied.

​

Has Western culture confused gratification with love?

​

Here’s something I want to propose,

​

Compromise is an integral part of the practice of love, and can prevent the very thing Hook critiques.

​

A gratification-based approach to dating can prioritize upgrades over durability. Just as it is “easier” to throw a connection out instead of taking the time to repair it, it’s easier to buy flashy, cheap clothes from Shein that unravels at the seams, instead of learning sewing to repair ethically sourced clothing.

​

I see a phenomenon where people satiate temporary cravings for closeness through situationships, chasing NRE (new relationship energy), or hoarding a harem of incompatible suitors. ​And yes, I’ve been both a victim and a perpetrator of this. There is a lengthy list of relationships under my belt – some poly (failed), monogamous, transitional, hookups, you name it. I either ran from commitment and compromise, or was the one stood up. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.

​

We, or at least I think this generation, can treat compromise as some final boss to their personal autonomy. Decentering our desires in interpersonal relationships is a betrayal of our morals, values, and independence. However, there’s a distinction between compromise and sacrifice. While compromise happens when both parties decenter preferences for the goal of adjustment/stability, sacrifice is entirely different. Some things, like ethics, sexuality, and abuse, cannot be compromised. However, small-scale issues like conflicts of interest, differences in communication style, and even a potential crush outside the relationship don’t necessarily require a complete overhaul.

When we value our desires and feelings at the cost of another person’s, we feel powerful because, well, we win. Our ego is quenched. Yet underneath it all, there’s that bitter aftertaste that hits your tastebuds in the quiet of the night 3 months after. One that makes you wince, thinking that maybe it could’ve been handled with less selfishness. Whether that be within the relationship or at its conclusion, compromise could’ve been practiced, as all the other components of love.

​

3 years ago, I would’ve laughed at the idea of compromise. “How foolish”, I’d think. An excerpt from Eartha Kitt’s interview was my personal mantra whilst navigating the unsecured zoo that is the college dating scene.

​

It’s important to note that she was asked whether she would compromise if a man were brought into her life. Many women in straight relationships are expected to dim their light for the ego of a man, so I agreed with Kitt in response to that. However, on the wider philosophy of compromise, Kitt says,

​

“When you fall in love, what is there to compromise about?”, in between another drag of her cigarette.

​

I love Eartha Kitt. She was shrewd, vivacious, and burned bright up until she passed over. Her jadedness in love didn’t manifest as how I saw it from the older women that surrounded me —living in homes with men they feel contempt for, and children they regret birthing. Her jadedness was not forged by resignation, but self-respect, autonomy, and protection from immense hurt. My younger self internalized her words to mean that I never have to bend to another person’s will. But as I’ve grown into the early phases of adulthood and am approaching my mid-20’s, I’ve come to see another meaning in what it means to compromise in relationships.

​

​

I never compromised in my late teens to early 20’s. Never negotiated. This lasted for a couple of years, until I ended my longest romantic relationship without compromise in mind. This would prove to be one of my biggest regrets. Not the breakup, but the way in which a unilateral decision void of communication burned a friendship that could’ve persisted despite my exploration of my sexuality –I had lost a platonic soulmate. Had I stepped down from my ego to be present for him, or he’d been safe enough to work through his feelings around me in respect of my boundaries, we could’ve fostered a friendship. Receiving this same treatment a year late (albeit more cruel and abusive), rubbed salt into my shame-filled wound, and I began to believe that it was my karma.

​

Sometimes you have to factor another person’s needs into your decisions. Sometimes those decisions are to be made in a way that’s less comfortable than you wished. Sometimes you have to be inconvenienced. Sometimes you do owe others something. This was a lesson I had to learn when deconstructing the Western individualist mode of thinking.

​

​

The western, post-industrial world devalues communal wellbeing to make way for individualism. This shift in values has created a paradox in which both entitlement and loneliness are felt more than ever, despite the former reinforcing the latter. We want the connection, but not the selfless work that comes with it. We weed out prospects if they don’t check all the boxes, but feel burned when they do the same. Obligation to loved ones is replaced by “protecting peace”; everyone is disposable if they piss you off enough; and mutual agreements to repair or mutually discover irreconcilable differences are replaced by a neglect of closure. Everything is a transaction; you are the product and consumer.

​

But here’s an uncomfortable opinion of mine that might confuse you…

​

Relationships are transactional, but the way we see them currently does more harm than good.

​Modern-day dating and friendships acknowledge this transactionality through a capitalist-consumer mindset.

We walk in expecting to feel something, right? To get our needs met (whether that be affection, care, or stability). When it gets boring, and conflict feels too intimidating, we drift elsewhere. ​

What can “I” get from this? What does this relationship signal to others about my status or desirability? Do I feel satisfied 100 percent of the time? How can I get my needs met elsewhere if my current partner isn’t meeting them? (a common mantra among those who misunderstand relationship anarchy).

What would happen if we acknowledged it was transactional, but through a different lens?

​

While our current economic system detaches you from what you’re producing, a bartering system can make you more connected to the product of your labor. You have something to bring, as do they. You create your weave basket while they solder their copper. You begin to find satisfaction in the tediousness of your work with the expectation of satisfying them as much as they do you. The focal point is not the consumption, but the exchange. Anyone is free to leave at any time when the other doesn’t meet their quota, but you’re more likely to inquire as to why a partnership built and marked by meeting each other’s needs suddenly feels imbalanced. You’re expected to be ethical in said transactional setups. When someone falls short, haggling becomes a more socially acceptable option than thievery. You may produce something of less value to create a fairer exchange, or openly pursue other vendors without the need for secrecy or lack of communication.

How can we apply bartering and compromise to common points of conflict in relationships in the Western, individualized world?

​

What does compromise look like in a situation that commonly leads to ruptures?

​

Take, for example, a common one I see. One person is private and doesn’t like to plaster their relationship on social media. The other sees this as a form of rejection. What can both do to compromise? Maybe they opt for “soft launches” (as you kids like to call them), occasional appearances in photo dumps, stories?

​Or, what if one person begins to have romantic feelings for another person whilst in a monogamous relationship? What does it look like for both to decenter their preferences to come to an understanding? Maybe it requires transparency, a hard discussion about relationship setups, and accountability on both sides to prevent emotions of limerence or jealousy from creating harm.

There are heaps of other examples, but I’m not a dating or self-help coach. I’m just proposing another way to express love in the material realm. I guess what I’m attempting to get at is: Love is ultimately a practice that extends beyond feelings. It’s something to tend to. It is important to understand that we are neither the consumer nor the product. Perceiving our relationships through this lens excuses us of responsibility and creates insecurity where none is needed. We are vendors (or if you hate the whole economic system spiel, vessels) of a conditional love that requires mutuality to feed long-lasting, healthy arrangements.

If you read all the way to the end, thank you!

There’s no vitriol for white therapists. Or male therapists. However, blending two identities that have held positions of illegitimate dominance over minority groups, giving them a DBT manual, and sending them on their way with a fortified certificate to mess with people’s brains — for good or for worse- can lead to some pretty adverse reactions.




We met in 2023 after I sent an inquiry on Psychology Today for EMDR practitioners. Disillusioned with CBT talk therapy, I was seeking the deep shit. So we chatted, mingled, and sooner or later, I did my intake session.

He was helpful at one point in time, guiding me through a breakup with a fiancé, general college stress, and an abusive household I’d eventually escape. However, something in me rejected the whole “let’s manipulate your memories to heal your trauma” part that I originally signed up for.

I saw him every Sunday, where he’d have his Diet Coke on deck, warm lighting, and a bunch of sensory toys for me to play with. In-person contact yielded the most growth from our sessions. There’s something about proximity and presence that demands an accountability you can’t evade over the internet.

My Bipolar diagnosis and the chaos that ensued after that is a blend of cognitive grey matter I’d rather not repeat. After that came a mood stabilizer, a move, and a fresh, warm load of trauma to unpack.

Shit got weird after that. He’d start forgetting things like my sexuality, family dynamics, or subject matter from the week before. I wasn’t fully there in my recovery, at least mentally, so he got the benefit of the doubt. I don’t like to shut doors. Especially with figures of authority I’m attached to.

First weird moment? When he endorsed the use of AI, and mentioned that he at times takes notes with it, or uses it for coping mechanisms/guided meditation stories.

Second weird moment?

We were nearing the end of our session, and I hadn’t fully unpacked the conflict with my toxic dad. So, he went:

”Why don’t you use ChatGPT and see how you can communicate that to your dad?”

Keep in mind, our session before that discussed my relapse in my ChatGPT usage for the rumination about my abusive ex. With no community, comfort, or answers, I’d seek validation from my therapist about my pain, or ChatGPT. It was either that, or shuffling my tarot deck until I developed carpal tunnel in both thumbs…

My usage unnerved me, as I’m well aware of the pitfalls of AI and its impact on our world — the rich getting wealthier while poor cities are polluted and have no means to fight back. His response?

”That’s alright. What might work for some people might not work for others.”

We left it at that.




But I wanted redirection from my vices, a reprimanding, anything to get me out of whatever mental hamster wheel I was stuck on. That was strike one.

I was deeply saddened by the state of the world (as I usually am), our administration, and the frequent fear of a crackdown on our country’s most marginalized. This wasn’t reserved for nationwide despair; it was worldwide. My heart ached at content coming from Palestine and Lebanon.

Him? What came from him? Neutrality. Strike two.

A month ago, my white supervisor drew a (surprisingly well-drawn) depiction of a Kool-Aid man and half-eaten watermelon. Anyone over 16 with half a brain would know what that insinuates racially. Deeply disturbed, I tell him about it:

“That must be really distressing”, he says
”I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

Strike…three?




I couldn’t find words for what put me off so bad about his responses to any pain that required a perspective outside of what he could relate to. Those strikes from before were subconscious. Until I did a little experiment.

I’d weaned myself off of ChatGPT well before I conducted my research. How? A website blocker. It’s absurd that I had to kiddie-lock myself from the web, but people tend to downplay how powerful open source AI is for the mentally ill. I began to understand how one could develop AI-induced psychosis, and I was nearly there had I not had the moral beliefs I had and committed to a cold-turkey withdrawal.

Yet, I felt inclined to use that site for one and only reason. Comparison.

Late at night, after a weekly Sunday session that irked me for the reasons mentioned before, I felt impelled to vent about the same issues to my little robot friend.



Let’s do a little exercise…Guess which response came from my therapist, vs AI?

A. I’m so sorry to hear that. That must’ve been really unfair. It sucks when people who are supposed to protect us make us feel unsafe. What does your body need right now?

B. That sounds really upsetting. That must’ve felt really scary. What would you like to do now to help? Deep breathing? 3 things you can see?

Can you tell the difference? Me neither. That’s when I knew something was deeply wrong. Deeply missing. What was it? I don’t know…maybe the fact that I wanted to feel like I was being heard by a human — an imperfect yet empathetic human. Not a robot. At least the robot comes for free.

I began to look for therapists behind his back, eventually soft-launching our client-provider breakup.

I’ve been in therapy for 12 or so years, so my disillusionment was nothing new. If I don’t feel connected to a provider, I tend to have an easy time ending things; not so much if I’m attached. I did, however, feel curious about why exactly he became a therapist. What his origins were…

He wasn’t even a psychology major before earning his master’s degree! Motherfucker was a physics student! How interesting, I didn’t know that undergraduate psychology courses weren’t a prerequisite to becoming a therapist.

Even then, not all psychology majors are heavenly empathetic angels. If I had 50 cents for every psychology major that I met who was secretly batshit abusive with a boner for unequal power dynamics, I’d have a dollar.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the field of psychology! Who am I to shit on a few bad apples? Especially considering I’m a sociology major. We’re all likely ending up as Starbucks baristas in one way or another. Why not have some camaraderie?

I slowly started to figure out why he seemed so impatient with my standoffishness toward EMDR or anything that required deep cognitive work. I was a science experiment. Not only that, but a physics experiment conducted by an apolitical white man.

The most visible emotion he showed over the three years I’d seen him was when I told him I would no longer need his services. Once again, this is embarrassing to admit, but it is also a very important lesson on knowing who exactly you’re venting to.

I’m embarrassed that I sought out his services for so long, especially given so many red flags there were. However, I don’t think I’m the only minority who’s fallen into the trap of trusting someone because of their credentials or authority.

I’ve since reconnected with a therapist I had as an adolescent. By the end of one session, I felt heard in a way I’d never felt in the three years of filler words he told me. If I had stuck with my gut, maybe, just maybe, I would’ve found her sooner.

I’m not too versed in the field of psychology, and just not sure how much politics is discouraged. That’s not where I’m qualified. What I will say, though, is that things that dictate your life experiences, like your marginalization, can not be soothed by passivity. You have to take a stance, in one way or another.

Whether I’m out in the field doing qualitative research, or someone’s sitting down with a client…Empathy has to be at the forefront…Every. Single. Time. Not just that, but empathetic curiosity. It demands presence, non-neutrality, and a human response. And most definitely not a fucking chatbot.

anti-girl

A Haiku About REAL Pussy Eating

LOOK IT’S ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT PUSSY RIGHT RIGHT? 5-7-5 RIGHT? FIVE-SEVEN-FIVE. FUCK. NOT SIX-SEVEN. WE DO NOT DO THAT HERE. LOOK, LOOK…

Read more

4 months ago · 8 likes · 3 comments · girltard

What did I just read,
The algorithm sucks ass,
I wish you the best.





































































thank you x60.

Despite being informative, the event felt deeply impersonal. Something was missing.

I didn’t know why until I befriended a drug addict.

After breakup #1 (there were 2 more to go through), I manically word-vomited a vent on my close friend’s story when, all of a sudden, a concerned acquaintance from my sophomore year of high school called me to invite me to her home.

At her place, she held me while I cried, drafted breakup texts for me when my hands were far too jittery to type, and told me in the nicest way possible that my boyfriend was abusive. Despite her thankless efforts, I didn’t send that well-thought-out message or kick him to the curb. But she comforted me as if she already knew I wouldn’t.

“It’s like a drug. If you go back, I understand. I’m always here for you.”

After I stopped sobbing, she pulled out a dime bag and asked if I was okay with her snorting the last of her coke stash.

I dabbled with drugs once or twice back in my sophomore year of high school — mainly at rich-white-kid functions.

I’m aware of the tone-deafness in pairing “dabbled” with “hard drugs,” but that was my reality — albeit privileged.

There’s one trip I can recall in particular. Not because it was exciting, but the exact opposite.

Oxy time-traveled me to Sunday nights before my 2nd-grade classes, when Mommy would reprimand me for reading in the dark before draping a freshly dried comforter over me, kiss my forehead, and tell me she loved me. She felt warm, safe, yet deceptive.

Mommy and I.

Hours later, I woke to clammy skin and metallic saliva. I had bitten my tongue until it bled. This time, Mommy wasn’t there to comfort me.

My parents lost their fathers to addiction —one to alcohol, another to heroin. Both were found aspirating on their vomit.

Despite having a book’s worth of stories to soothe the posthumous curiosity I have of my paternal grandfather, one morbid question remains: What did he feel before he died?

Was he aware, terrified of his fate? That my nine-year-old father would discover his cold and lifeless body with a needle still attached? Could he feel his organs shutting down one-by-one? Or was he too lost in the feeling of his mother’s kiss?

After my newfound friend finished her lines, we watched S1 of Euphoria and platonically spooned. The next morning, she cooked me fried eggs and brewed chamomile tea with clover honey.

Later that week, she invited me to a party with the knowledge that I’d be utterly alone the day of Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, she clung to a bottle of cheap red wine. She looked empty, as if her soul were tucked deep within herself. Anyone with a pulse could conclude that she wasn’t okay. So, I made an effort to sit beside her at all times and keep her away from the creepy “male friends” who surrounded us that night. I was sober enough to withstand all the feels they copped if it meant stopping them from doing what I think they would’ve had I not been there. It was the first time in a while that I felt a duty to protect another person. I’m not a hero; I just cared.

When they wanted us to sleep over, I refused on her behalf, insisting they drive us home.

I didn’t care enough about the drugs to stop her from using them.

Does that make me awful? Maybe. Truth of the matter is, my care for her superseded my personal morals.

When she snorted that coke, I wasn’t angry at her. She wasn’t seducing me to try it. I didn’t feel like dropping to my knees and giving her an ultimatum to stop. I had the choice to leave, and yet, I didn’t. I sat with the discomfort and uneventfulness of it all.

Society has a weird way of looking at addiction. I remember being a pre-teen and seeing all those “truth orange” commercials that warned you about the “evilness” of peer pressure, or the anti-smoking PSA’s that would show old, wrinkly cancer patients on the precipice of death. All these PSA’s came with the message of,

“Don’t end up NEAR addicts, don’t end up LIKE addicts.”

The only piece of media that made me develop an aversion to hard substances was from the perspective of an addict. More specifically, Trainspotting. It’s dually horrifying and beautiful. In one scene, a“Perfect Day” by Lou Reed is playing while the main character has a heroin overdose. You can feel the euphoria in his tango with the grim reaper, juxtaposed with the world surrounding him —one with scorn, concern, judgment, and impersonality.

Yes, my friend is an addict. She is also deeply intelligent, creative, and beautiful. She writes the most fascinating of poems and short stories, has an affinity for theatre, and speaks with the wisdom of a 90-year-old woman. She also has bipolar disorder, like me, and we get each other in a way that others do not.

Our friendship is marked by unconditional care and the deep understanding that being Black, intelligent, and mad lands you in a reality foreign to those outside of you.

When she’s back in NA, and there’s a meeting in my city, I offer lunch and a walk. We don’t text daily, and we don’t get mad when the other person doesn’t respond for days, weeks, or even months. Sometimes she’s psychotic, and in inpatient, sometimes I’m too depressed to reach out. Sometimes she’s in rehab, and sometimes I haven’t showered in a week. However, when we reconnect, we land right where we left off. It just works like that.

Yesterday, she asked if I was free, so I called her.

For ten minutes straight, she spoke a shame-filled rant about her earlier meth use.

Before I was quick to respond, I remembered how pissed off I felt at my therapist that day. The only response he could give to my anger from a racially hostile work environment was, “That must be hard,” or “I’m sorry.” He couldn’t walk in my shoes, and instead of attempting to understand my experience further, he gave me empty, shallow sympathy.

Then it clicked. I paused for a bit…

“What headspace are you in before you use? Why do you use?”

“Because I feel alone and have no one around me, so it soothes that. It makes me feel less lonely.”

Stuttering, imperfectly, I said something along the lines of,

“I don’t know what it’s like to deal with that, but you know if you feel alone or need company you can always call me. If I’m at work or away from my phone, I can’t be there, but when I’m free, you can give me a call, and we can sit in silence, and I can give you company. I like your company. In fact, I don’t want you to feel like you have to be alone, or that you don’t deserve connection. When I say I like your company and being your friend, I’m okay being around that part of you, too. I want you to be safe.”

We spent 2 hours on call.

“Can I smoke the last of my meth?”
”…”
”I’ll be here.”, I said.

I scrolled through our texts for her address, just in case I needed it.

I recall this long story because I believe that lessons in harm reduction are stale if we’re missing the vital component: connection.
Imperfect, yet unconditional connection.

No doubt, it’s life-saving to have Narcan on deck or a Grey’s Anatomy’s worth of medical knowledge. Having an addict friend doesn’t mean that you have to stick around for boundary violations or enable their vices. No one is demanding that you drive down Skid Row, befriend someone with a crack pipe, and donate six month’s of your rent. Just understand that loving a person with a substance use disorder requires grace, curiosity, and compassion.

If we seek to “end” addiction altogether, we must first try to de-moralize it.

Not every addict sees themself as a victim of their disease; some are survivors. Some want sympathy. Some do not, but most (if not all) want to be understood, for their reality to be validated.

We can’t assume that every individual struggling with addiction is a monolith. Each individual has a backstory unique to them.

Sit with the discomfort without enabling. Don’t shame your friends if they partake in drugs, especially if they’d do the same in your absence. Make sure they have clean gear. Accept that, sometimes, they’ll choose the drugs over you. Know that an arm’s length is better than nothing. Wipe their tears. Hold them tight. Sometimes, harm reduction is two sunny-side-up eggs with a side of chamomile tea.

Harm reduction is care.

i’m femme.

my hands are soft and delicate. my fingernails are pink, pretty, and manicured. with the exception of two.

i’m femme.

ritualistic sunday morning chai with oat milk runs. when i'm feeling consumeristic i get a crookie. they’re visual abominations, albeit tasty.

i exit the store. the crookie’s stuffed in the bottom of my purse. a noir film era undercover dyke detective on the prowl. i strut the street in my frilly pink dress, on flats are too soft for my liking…

i’m femme.

later that day, my straight girlfriend invited me to a wine night. cabernet sauvignon in cracked mugs, indian takeout, and season two of sex and the city. we lust over the latest “white boy of the month”.

jacob elordi? ross lynch?

whatever’s in rotation.

to maintain the fantasy,

i superimpose butches over their faces.

”isn’t he cute?”, she says.

“yeah…”, i say.

“soooooo cute.”

and last,
an offering of what’s left,
(or not),
then a bow from me,


to silence,
a tough audience,
stiffed on a tip,
or a compliment to spare,


for my service.

in my most raw i am wholly understood,

and truly admired.

i’m in awe of how,

your moans can cover the sound,

of my nervousness.

So, once my own parents heard me say, “I don’t think I wanna have kids,” at the precocious age of 14, they were in for quite the surprise.

It became clear to me in the latter years of middle school that my circle of fellow girlfriends doted on dreams of domesticity—a husband, a McMansion in an HOA neighborhood, at least 2-3 kids. Something inside of me protested this life path, not just from suppressed lesbianism, but my deep, deep, almost primal fear of motherhood. I felt like an anomaly.

The sooner the duties of womanhood loomed over me, the more I found myself occupied with endless questions:

”Does life really ‘begin’ at motherhood?”
”Why do I have to have kids?”
”Why do women do everything and men don’t?
”What if I wanna live alone? Have an apartment?”

and more importantly,

”What does this say about myself?”

Expressing this, especially as an adolescent, to my loved ones manifested in instant pushback and disapproval. A lot of women contemplating a child-free life can probably give you one or two instances in which they were told that they’d change their mind, that motherhood is a blessing they’re missing out on, and even that they’re selfish for straying from cultural norms.

And in a world where your valid desires are met more often than not with blatant sexism and misogyny, it could only make sense that you’d find support and comfort in nonconventional spaces…

Cue, r/Childfree.

I browsed this subreddit in the “It’s my life, and no one can say shit about it” stage of early adulthood. There were many like-minded women frustrated by the feeling that they’re constantly having to defend their beliefs. A lot of posts were in a vent format, unpolished, and mainly a way for people to let off some steam in a fortified no-judgment zone.

However,

I also noticed a deeply problematic pattern. One where users would express vitriolic attitudes toward children, and others would then join in on that hate train. Often going as far as saying that children are brats that need to be beaten into docility. I’ve seen a significant number of people who, upon realizing that the hatred of children is problematic, channel it toward the parents. And more often than not, specifically the mothers. Not every user is a monolith; that said, though, it was enough of a problem for users to create a splinter called r/truechildfree. This newer, healthier offshoot of r/childfree is a place to discuss the childfree life, but explicitly bans terminology meant to hate on parents and children (and there is a long list of such).

Here are examples from r/childfree for reference. The user is purposefully anonymized:

I want to give you more examples, but it’s so oversaturated with hatred that you can click away from this article, look up r/Childfree, and search for posts with the words “crotch-goblins” and read to your heart’s discontent.

But this rhetoric isn’t concentrated in the online world of Reddit. I have heard from countless acquaintances their hatred of children, belief that they should be hidden from others, and that they need harsh discipline. When I worked at a daycare part-time, I would hear staff members bond over the shit-talking of blatantly autistic children, mocking their meltdowns, and saying that the parents are too lenient and should just spank them.

The most concerning of examples is when a 50-year-old family friend of mine, a teacher, complained about her “problem students,” calling one of them a “bitch.”

And sure, okay, children can be hard to deal with, but where do we draw the line between annoyance and marginalization/stratification?

What started with “children can be annoying” turned into “I don’t want to be around children”, to “I shouldn’t have to be around children, to “children need to be kept away from our spaces." (those spaces being buses, planes, parks, graduation parties, and so on. And as a Black woman in America, ripe with experiences of stratification, this disturbs me.

Now, if we replaced the word children with the words of other marginalized groups like women, the disabled, Black, or trans people, how does that sound?

So, if it sounds bad…why is it so controversial to say children can be marginalized? Albeit temporarily.

I have a family history extensive enough to score me a 40+ on my PCL-5, and an ACE score of 7. Needless to say, a lot of my deepest traumas stem from my childhood attachment wounds, and a heap of adverse experiences fucked me up.

Most of this childhood trauma was compounded by failures from figures of authority. When confronted with the option to either condemn the abuse or turn the other cheek out of a rhetoric of “whatever a parent decides to do with their child is not my responsibility”, most chose the latter. Despite the powerlessness of my upbringing, I didn’t have the toolset to articulate it. And once I did, usually through moments of sudden clarity, authority figures refused to listen to me. Now, as an adult, I can see the manifestation of that neglect. What hurt the most, though, was knowing that challenging abuse in families requires less effort than denying it.

Those who are marginalized (even if they don’t have the word “marginalized” to describe their experiences) know what it feels like to be dominated and met with violence when daring to acknowledge their oppression. They have to be controlled.

Now, to play devil’s advocate, let’s say that “control” is necessary for raising a child. You have to reprimand them to prevent deviance, encourage adherence to societal norms, and develop a moral conscience. But in that case, wouldn’t guidance be a better word? Let’s also say that dependency on authority figures doesn’t equate to the oppression that other marginalized folks face, and that to be a child is a temporary state of being, not a lifelong identity. However, if we live in a system that allows families to commit injustices toward children, where services aimed to give children a voice often harm them more often than not, and where challenges to authority are seen as an invitation for physical retaliation…it shows a microcosm of the abuse we see other marginalized demographics face daily.

Not only that, but living in a world where people believe that children’s fees should exist in leases, parents are hated for (often unplanned) emotional outbursts from their children, and too much rhetoric exists advocating for the alienation of children/parents from the general public…it also shows a microcosm of the othering and neglect that other marginalized demographics face daily.

Being granted power after years of subordination, after “aging out,” can lead to internalization of that abuse. I can count on my fingers the number of times I’ve seen my own people take pride in replicating the use of corporal punishment that our ancestors repeatedly faced from the white man, verbal abuse, and public humiliation for discipline’s sake. All of which, when questioned on why they beat the butts of their children until welts form for simple mistakes, say, “It happened to me as a kid, and I’m fine now”. I can also count on my fingers the number of times CSA is brushed under the rug in families, schools, and other institutions because a child/teen’s limited vocabulary becomes a perfect excuse for deeming it a lie and failing to intervene.

What other marginalized demographics have that children do not is the ability to fight against their oppression/abuse. While it’s hard, they joined forces and mobilized to secure equal treatment and conditions in their best interests. Abused children, however, are in spaces so authoritarian that the mere thought of acknowledging their mistreatment is an impossible feat. Abusive households also produce children that are unaware that abuse within families is systemic, and that many children like them exist out there. Why? because they are, at best, seen as dependents and, at worst, as the property of their parents.

I want to tie this together with a passage from bell hooks’ All About Love:

”Every day thousands of children in our culture are verbally and physically abused, starved, tortured, and murdered. They are the true victims of intimate terrorism in that they have no collective voice and no rights. They remain the property of parenting adults to do with as they will. There can be no love without justice. Until we live in a culture that not only respects but also upholds basic civil rights for children, most children will not know love. In our culture the private family dwelling is the one institutionalized sphere of power that can easily be autocratic and fascistic. As absolute rulers, parents can usually decide without any intervention what is best for their children. If children’s rights are taken away in any domestic household, they have no legal recourse. Unlike women who can organize to protest sexist domination, demanding both equal rights and justice, children can only rely on well-meaning adults to assist them if they are being exploited and oppressed in the home.”

When I look at spaces like r/childfree or hear the ways some of my peers speak about children, I can’t help but feel like it’s a reflection of the systems of abuse we protest so much. In what world would we be okay with spanking the private parts of our friends/partners without consent because they did something we didn’t like, or public humiliation (like shaving hair) for the masses to ridicule them virtually? In what world would we be so comfortable calling a random woman off the street, who was having a mental breakdown too large for her emotional threshold, a “stupid bitch”? Or think that an adult who has an annoying habit is undeserving of existence?... We wouldn’t, but many do for children. And that’s where my issue with them lies. It’s not just a few bad apples or assholes, but an entire subculture maintained on the belief that children are subhuman and undeserving of humanity.

Children are vulnerable in a very unique and specific way. This compounds with neglect and other marginalized identities they may have, such as racial, gender, or disability (for example, when my coworkers were hostile toward autistic children but were able to because of power structures). We live in a society that grants people the protection, privilege, and privacy to enact violence they wouldn’t do with other demographics. I can only hope that we can differentiate our annoyance and burnout with kids from belief systems that allow marginalization and oppression to persist, and treat them with the empathy they deserve.

I wonder,
if you took on Daddy’s timidness,
nerdiness,
empathy,

I wonder,
If you have his light complexion,
or escaped the (in)visibility,
of a world vitriolic for my black skin

I wonder,
if he spoiled you as he did me,
or Teta taught you to cook,
with Fairuz in the background,

I wonder,
if you loved Nana’s vinyl records of soul music or,
China cabinet with antiques,
and her heart of gold.

I wonder if Daddy and you bond by,
Laughing at my fear of huntsman spiders,
Inclination to hop into the left seat of the car,

I wonder,
How would you feel hearing,
Mommy’s poetry,
As a way of saying,
I will always love you.

In 2024, I had to stop dancing due to a calf strain. In 2025, I had to halt dancing because of bipolar disorder. In 2026, I had to halt dancing because of long COVID.

I am just now reaching the end of my serious bout with bout of long covid. Back in 2022, it persisted for 6 months. From 2025-26, it persisted for nearly a year. Emotional trauma didn’t do me any justice either, as both carefully crafted a cocktail that led to brain fog, heart arrhythmia, and the loss of 70 percent of my hair. I can’t describe how humiliating it was to be discarded by my community after COVID, and spend 2 weeks with a bpm of over 120, and almost pass out from standing up. I could only slow my heart down by lying down and lifting my legs up so the blood could pool toward it.

I knew not to push myself. That I had to take baby steps. This was perfect, something I didn’t have to do consciously because my agoraphobia did that for me. With every step down the stairs, out onto my porch, and eventually through the park, it was a milestone, mentally and physically.


I am not at 100, but I’m in a place to train seriously again, in tandem with physical and emotional therapy. I no longer fear the thought of running into my biggest source of emotional trauma in the studio, well, I do, but I’d be damned if I let a singular person end my connection to my passion before I have the chance to do it myself.

I have experienced long hiatuses in dance due to extenuating circumstances. Every time I ended up coming back, I got even fucking better. The more gradual, the less I throw myself into the firepit, the better it is for me in the long run. Whether I dance, choreograph, incorporate dance therapy, or do all three, I plan to use my passion for sociology, hard-won through my most traumatic experiences.


The studio served as a reminder of my trauma; now it’s a reminder of my growth.

This series of setbacks felt like a cosmic reminder never, ever to betray my health in the name of exceptionalism.

When I started dance classes at age three, I didn’t think to myself, “I want to be the best! I’ll do anything it takes.”

I thought, “This is fun”.

This is fun.

I feel that a significant part of my identity revolves around being a dancer. It consumed so much of my sense of purpose that injuries and interruptions to my ability to dance felt soul-crushing. There is an emotional violence in being forced to step back from an emotional crutch—one I love dearly and have developed a symbiotic bond with. Temporarily ending that connection was a severance of my identity, purpose, and self.

Dance has benefited me more often than not, but times like that remind me of my emotional dependency on this art form. My relationship to dance feels both parasitic and life-saving. A harsh reality I am currently confronting is that I am simply a creative person who chose dance as my vessel of expression.


Another harsh reality is the fragility of the human body.

We are not immune to waking up in a body that feels foreign to the able-bodied one we are used to, in a world that is no longer tailored for us. Perhaps even hostile. That is the nature of living in an ableist world. I can only hope that things will change on a wider scale, but that requires an entire overthrow of our capitalist system and the ways in which it has penetrated our psyche.

In hardship, detachment was my saving grace. Releasing hope was what I needed. Detachment isn’t always reserved for places or people that actively harm you, but also for mindsets that limit your potential to grow and adapt to adversity. Perhaps I need to detach from the notion that my worth is determined by the state of my able-bodiedness — allowing room for the idea that I am enough, no matter my physical or emotional state. Maybe, in holding onto the belief that I was indebted to a life as a dancer, I neglected the relationships I could create with all the other versions of myself.

I bid adieu to perfectionism. I bid adieu to fear. I bid adieu to the “tortured artist archetype”. I bid adieu to the belief that masking up takes away from my artistry. I welcome a new, healthier relationship with my longtime passion. It’s good to see you again. Welcome back.

“i’m just a nigga on the surface, for real…” -Tyler, The Creator-

…

you were a casual fling.

such a misleading term, isn’t it?

”casual” resulted in long-term homoerotic friendships, manic car sex, and my personal favorite, an abortion appointment during my freshman year of university.

i don’t do serious dates anymore, or relationships. that was something we’d mutually agreed upon.

yet,

you went out of your way to open the passenger door for me. the trail of perfume you left in your wake had hints of bergamot. your red, compact, mini cooper was surprisingly comfortable en route to the theaters. i can’t remember what we talked about or the movie we watched, just your quirks; the pilsbury pumpkin sugar cookies you baked for me to enjoy, your clipped nails, and how you rushed to hold my hand the moment i thought my window of opportunity ended.



i knew you had some sort of baggage, but did you know mine? your loyalties lied elsewhere when your guilty desires lied with me. when i revealed my hand, if i revealed my hand…i gave you enough content to make you curious, not enough to see the deep, ugly wound from my relationship trauma.




when the day comes to a close with casual hangouts, i usually text my flings thanking them for the night, wishing them a safe ride home, yadda-yadda whatever… but you texted me that you’d wished you kissed me. so i boldly said,

”come back.”

…and what would you have it? 10 minutes later, that red mini cooper pulled up. you stepped out to meet me in below 32-degree weather, and our lips connected for 10 minutes straight.

i’ve never received so many random nude pictures in the span of a week. it got to a point where i anticipated one during my work shifts. i never saved them, but when i asked you if i could savor them in a way that’s too rated-r to write here, you permitted it. i returned the favor by using the camera i once filmed sex tapes of a past romantic partner and i on…for your sexual enjoyment. i would fall asleep on calls where we talked about nothing in particular, and i found myself wondering if you tasted as saccharine as your lips did that day. so, was this leading to where i thought it would?


one too many texts late, you told me your desire for ethical non-monogamy became a point of conflict with your ex, enough to warrant a breakup. yet, once i was introduced as a new character, you two magically decided to reconcile. i was braced for this information as if i hadn’t been semi-experienced in solo-poly over the past couple of months. so, while your message wasn’t the issue, your timing was.

you started to use the word “open relationship”. but by then, i knew what discussions and compromises were likely to be had in late-night emotional calls i was (thankfully) absent from, and more importantly, the barrier of our fling on your ex’s satisfaction.

if one relationship has to be neutralized to keep another alive, is it ethical nonmonogamy in the first place? nevertheless…it wasn’t my place to answer your internal battle for you.

you took me to a cat cafe and the art museum for our second date. it was unspectacular, with the exception of getting a new, furry friended arrival out of his shell for the first time. you looked genuinely happy petting him next to me. i knew then, that whatever girl you were in romantic limbo with deeply missed the warmth you exhibited in that cafe. and not just that, but likely felt like i was “borrowing” time from her.

the second kiss felt hungrier and more hurried than ever before. you limited yourself, but consumed me once i gave you permission to. you reached over the center console to grip my thigh, traced your fingers a bit too far up at the button of my jeans, then the hem of my frilly panties i put on for you, and finally rested them in place that others had no business catching you touching. my hips buckled, we breathed into each other’s mouths, you shuddered when i whimpered in your ear, and i was convinced i’d end up in the backseat of your tiny ass car. then, something switched. you pulled the emergency break before a car crash could happen…

then, my desire for you degraded.




the third and last hangout was initiated by you.

my homoerotic friend (who i almost slept with…we’ll get back to that later), asked about you. when i explained the whole ex dilemma, they told me to steer clear of you.


but, who could pass up on a hotel, chinese takeout, and heated rivalry? you offered me red wine and promised to fuck me senseless ‘til i cried. what a deal.


we undressed, placed a towel to chow down on, and watched way too many gay sex scenes for my lesbian liking.

you brushed my shoulder, fixed a gap between my breast and lace bralette, and just lingered in my boob space the entire night.

how could we both be naked, in a fucking hotel room we split on with the pretense of fucking, and nothing happen? by that point i’m convinced you’re seeing apparitions of her when your skin touches mine. absurd.

i placed a pillow between us to make room for her so she could be niceeeee and cozy.

sure, i was sexually frustrated. but, i wasn’t going to act like my high school ex boyfriend who cried when i refused to give head to soothe the unbearable pain of his “blue balls” diagnosis.

you didn’t make a move, and neither did I. it was soooo obvious that if anything occurred that night, we would be crossing some sort of boundary unbeknownst to me.


so i asked for the rest of your wine bottle, swigged it, took my mood-stabilizers, munch and crunched on the last of my tofu, and faced away from you to finish level 100 of tetris while butt-ass naked.

and if i’m being honest, i genuinely enjoyed myself that night.

but that’s the thing about casual flings, right? when you follow the blueprint, it loses the allure.

“keeping it casual”, at least for me, is the battle between your subconscious desire for depth or safety. there is no blueprint. that’s the point. the minute you start labeling it and placing parameters at the request of others and anything but yourself, it gets really fucking weird, really fast.

”casual” is that paradoxical, sweet spot where attempts to upgrade it render the term useless, but so do rigid rules.

i love a good ol’ “will we? won’t we?” trope. sex is an afterthought.


i don’t “keep it casual” because i don’t desire deep relationships, i do. it’s just a hell of a lot better to discover your chemistry with someone without any end goals, strict expectations, and ‘what are we’s before you have the chance to feel love. true, honest, casual dating is organic. if nothing comes from it, that’s okay. if serious foundations are laid down, then hey, what a pleasant surprise!

you showed me that casual flings can be, truly, liberating when you’re free to explore attraction and curiosity for each other without the “how, what, when, where, why” of it all. you also showed me how interference and structure kill potential.

it got too real, too messy, and too complicated. so i, regretfully, dipped out before shit got heavy. I deleted you off my socials, but i appreciate the fact that you thought of me enough to text me a happy birthday.


so, if you’re reading this,

i’m sorry i ghosted you, but i didn’t sign up for all that. best of luck on your journey. just tag me out of it.

when i regularly used tiktok, i saw a “hot take” implying that men get aroused when coercing women to engage in (non-consensual) debates and intellectual challenges.

a couple of weeks back, i had a discussion assignment for my sociology of sports course. the prompt was pretty simple: “what theoretical paradigm do you find the easiest to apply to the world of sports?” so, i responded with the feminist and conflict paradigm and proposed that sports institutions allocate more resources to male-dominant sports than to female-dominant sports (and that this, in turn, perpetuates gender inequalities in the sports world). simple as that.

well, some fucking idiot decided to center his reply on a public debate about transgender athletes and claimed that there are “overt” biological differences that make men better athletes than women, which makes it hard for sports institutions.

do men’s boxers become a soaked, twisted mess? do their eyes bulge out of their skulls the minute they hear the word “feminist”?

i refused to take his bait, but i was feeling extra snarky that day, and so i wanted to dissect it.
i was required to write one post and comment on a classmate’s. it didn’t demand my response, nor did it demand his. but this online assignment gave me a controlled environment to snuff out whatever hard-on he wanted to jack off by getting a “black angry feminist” triggered. it was calm, measured, and an intellectual autopsy of his response:

”I agree. When it comes to feminist paradigms in sociology of sports, or better yet sociology, it can be quite controversial. The way you pivoted the discourse toward the biological reasons behind gender inequality in sports (perceived or not perceived) was unexpected. However, your response encourages me to research how social institutions, or more importantly, sports, interact with gender non-conforming athletes as opposed to athletes that identify as the gender they were assigned at birth. I also want to widen the scope beyond analyzing sports with biological women and see how I can apply the functionalist and feminist lens to sports with biological men.

Considering the structural functionalist lens was developed around the 1930's (feel free to correct me if i'm wrong), I question if the early foundations of sports as a social institution are well equipped for the intersections of queerness and sports. I also question what the polarization regarding this topic indicates about our current society, social institutions, and the relevance of the functionalist lens as a whole.”

i got no reply. he opted out of the debate he dragged me into.

after that, men in the class (excluding one) made a habit of ignoring my other discussion posts for a week and a half, responding only when another male classmate posted. it’s not like i was writing slop or anything lacking substance; i ended up passing with a 98% and was the top scorer on all my exams. so, it really had me wondering why that was?

men are horny at the thought of conquering women. historically, they always have been. hell, conquering land was a pastime to this.

they take it upon themselves to conquer our bodies.

they attempt to conquer our anatomy.

but when that is revoked from them, the only thing they have left to assert dominance over is our minds.



to be brutally honest (and yes, i’m mad), i hate engaging in ego stroking under the guise of “playful banter”, getting dragged into non-consensual debates, and wasting my time getting passionate about a subject they don’t give a singular fuck about to fuel their dominance fetish. it’s quite disgusting.

to me, this feels like psychosexual violation via coercion. i refuse to use the word psychological “dominance” because it implies that their leverage has any merit or hard-won authority.

it should be noted that sexual violation was never about sexual gratification. this assumes that men are helpless creatures just acting on impulse. it’s about power, leverage, and control.

before you pull the “this is insensitive to rape victims” card… i know what it’s like to be physically assaulted by brute force. at the very least, when that occurred, i had the privilege of knowing, “hey, i’m being assaulted right now.” let me have this term for once.

with the mind, it’s more insidious.

one second, you’re telling him a fun fact about something you’re well-versed in, and the next, he asks for a “statistic”, pulls a “what about this”, and attempts to discredit you.

by then, their hands are (mentally) in their trousers. and when you start getting (rightfully) agitated at the entitlement, they’re almost finished, reeling in their pleasure at your expense with a shit-eating grin. it’s different than an invitation to debate, you’ll feel it by their tone. you know it when you experience it.

a debate is controlled, often focused on a particular subject, and you’re advised to refrain from ad hominem. it’s an arena where knowledge is a must to mutually undress each other’s minds and beliefs in the hope of finding common ground, intellectual validation, or resolution.

psychosexual violation is the “debate” of your intelligence, credibility, and thought processes. merit is a facade, emotions are sin, and your knowledge has no place in the “conversation”. it’s an attempt to penetrate what wasn’t allowed to be touched in the first place. a way to prove to themselves that your retaliation is proof that you wanted a position of subservience all along. it’s why they get so pissed when you opt-out in the first place.

male podcasters make a living off this. early internet culture created memes of this very phenomenon.

words can’t describe the level of revulsion i felt when my father tried to pull this trick on me, too. why? because this wasn’t happening when i was a prepubescent little girl, but as a woman. it felt incestuous in a sense. although this could be because there are multiple examples of emotional incest in his actions toward me (in example, saying i looked “grown and sexy” when i came back from my bday party).

when you’re the daughter of a misogynistic man, as a child, he’s your dad.
As a woman, he’s just another pathetic nigga.


i shit you not, when i was accepted into college after having to leave for mental health reasons, his first response was to grab laptop out and go,

“oh, I’m gonna apply too.”

when he asks me about sociology and feminist concepts he has the nerve to try and counteract them despite having no knowledge of them. one semester later while i’m at a 4.0 working full time at the same workplace, i inquired about his educational journey.

”did you apply yet?”
”no, they asked me to come in.”
”well, why didn’t you go in? it’s literally down the street. it’s a one minute drive.”, i asked.
”i don’t know.”, he replied.
”…”

to men like this, your knowledge and achievements aren’t to be rewarded; they’re to be compared and one-upped. i’d argue that they’re white-knuckling a system they’ve fooled themselves into believing; one that equates emotions as feminine and intellect as masculine.

to see an educated, powerful woman is to feel both psychosexually dominated and emasculated in a system where undermining women makes them feel better for their inadequacies and shortcomings.

so I feast,

and feast,

and feast

(and feast),

in dreams,

a goliath of gluttony

and gladiatorial nemeses

defeated valiantly.

awake

applause to air

cold sweat from the A.C

my sweet tooth

for slumber

Will remain

indefinitely.

i see my smile returning

sun pecking my scalp.