Dear Mr. President

Welcome Donald J. Trump as the next president of this god-forsaken country. 

I would not wish this job on anyone.

No, I'm sorry to say I did not vote for you in the primaries, nor did I vote for you in the election, but you are now the leader of this country so I will try my best to come to terms with that and show you respect.

But first, can you respect me?

Will you continue to let my best friends with different sexualities than me have their rights to marry?

Will you try to fix the broken communities of POC and help them find peace with their own kind being killed off by people meant to protect us?

Will you really build your wall, but also make citizenship much easier so that people may start over and have better lives for themselves and their families?

Will you make healthcare available for any citizen who is injured or needs care?

Will you help the unemployed find steady careers?

Will you accept immigrants who's lives have been taken from them with open arms?

These are all things that need to be answered but the question that's been burning on my brain this last portion of the election is what I really need to know.

What will you do to help end sexaul assault and rape culture?

You have a dog eat dog mentality. You have a "boys will be boys" way of life and you've made it very clear by talking so explicitly about taking what you want from women (specifically winning them over somehow by grabbing them by their genitals). You've said that your daughter was so beautiful, if she wasn't your daughter you would sleep with her. What kind of message to you think that sends to people? Their president normalizing that train of thought like it's okay. What about Brock Turner and his disturbingly short sentence for raping a girl? Will you look at it as the perpetrator doesn't deserve their life to end when they've basically taken the life from the victim? Do you condone slapping the victim in the face while their abuser gets a slap on the wrist? What can you do for a rape victim like me, that still wakes up in the middle of the night shaking and crying five years after it actually occurred? Will you send me to a psych? Or will you tell me I must be lying since I waited so long to say anything? Will you make me out as a person that wanted the abuse? Will you make excuses, talk about my clothing, suggest that I was a tease, that I was asking for it, that it was all brought on by my own actions? Will I even be considered a rape victim with your presidency, or just another little girl in the wrong place at the wrong time? Will I be considered a victim at all, or will I be the villain for accusing my abuser of something they did, something they stole from me, and will I be looked at as the one taking their life from them? Will I be validated as a survivor, or will I be punished for being brave and speaking up, even though many years later?

I can give you my respect if you can return the favor, and also return the favor of all fellow American citizens. 

I pray you choose your words wisely.

no rain, no flowers

I got my first tattoo yesterday. As something that was once a childhood dream, I never imagined actually mustering up the courage to do so. I lay still in the chair for nearly 4 hours as I was being injected with ink and at the same time was picking apart my brain. I thought of the look on my mother's face when she one day catches me wearing something a little too short and gets a glimpse of the scratchy letters on my mid thigh. As I felt my artist scratch through the large amounts of scar tissue, I remember the pain feeling differently as a teenager. I thought of my life changing trip to Atlanta where I realized I was made for more than who I believed myself to be. I recalled going to the location for that day (on set for a film) and exploring the abandoned prison farm. I remember how I climbed to the top of the building and found myself in the midst of a wide open, overgrown, disintegrating shower room. Riddled with graffiti and broken glass, I was careful. I knew people had died there so I was even more so. I remember scanning the room, examining the destructive creative art in front of me, and my eyes wandered to the very top of the wall I faced.


NO RAIN NO FLOWERS


It struck a nerve in me that I didn't comprehend at the time. But those words have since resonated with me. It dawned on me later when its meaning was more appropriate to me.

It's no secret I've struggled with depression my entire life, as many people do in my generation. It's no secret that anxiety is making its course through my veins daily and only needs the slightest of notions to act up. Its no secret that I've accepted self destruction and normalized it so that I could go about my day. And, to anyone who knows me, it's definitely no secret that I'm terrified of talking about it. Here's to this pride I have to stomach, it's a big pill to swallow.

No flowers can be brought about without the water to help them grow, and the storm provides that for them. It may be shaky and uncertain, but after its ugly, something truly remarkable comes from it. You cannot grow without the storm.

I was raped at 16 years old. It wasn't a stranger, it wasn't a close family member, it wasn't a torn shirt or blood in an alleyway. It was striped bedsheets. It was the door cracked with his mother in the next room. It was me lying there with my head turned so I didn't have to look at him. It was him kissing me after and looking me in the eye when he told me he loved me. It was me going home and crying and not even knowing why. It was me staying with him another 4 months. It was me being in denial, and not realizing what it actually was until after I left.

It was numb.

But only momentarily.

It was feeling inadequate for anyone I was around. It was me looking for happiness in other people, knowing well I'd never trust them. It was me convincing myself that it was all my fault because I should've seen the signs. It was me telling myself I was an idiot. It was me having anxiety spells for nights. It was me becoming an alcoholic by the age of 17. It was me giving up on the concept of a God. It was everything fading to one color. It was me not eating for days at a time. It was PTSD-like episodes. It was dreams of suicide.

My storm came in hard, and rained on my parade like a hurricane, and I sure felt it.

But the storm would subside, no matter how dark the clouds that looked overhead looked.

and there I was, finding myself in the middle of a storm, with moments of sunlight; and it was just enough to get me through the rest of the rain. When it finally ended, my eyes saw the sunlight so much brighter than before, this new found appreciation of what was in front of me really made me reprioritize and understand. I learned things about myself during my trials that I never would've known. I never would've imagined to find strength within my weakest moments. I never thought I would find the faith to carry on with life, let alone in an optimistic perspective.

You have to have the rain to grow. You have to have your lows before you can understand the highs. You have to have the storm for your flowers to bloom. And in this time, I realized that I was thankful. I was glad I had been depressed. I was glad that I had been blessed with crippling anxiety. Most importantly, I was accepting the fact that the rape changed my life, and if anyone was going to make good of it, I was going to make sure it was me. I was going to do my part and go out of my way to become the person I'm meant to be and fulfill whatever purpose I have on this earth. I think the most beautiful thing is to experience such a tragedy and still find the beauty in it.

Through this I've found the strength the forgive my abuser. Ive found my voice and my calling. Ive worked endlessly and strived to be nothing less than loving and compassionate to everyone I meet. I found all these thoughts and ideas and perspectives that have shaped and are shaping me into the person that I am destined to be. I will never be given more than I can handle, and there's more than enough room for me to continue growing.

So as I sit in the chair and marvel at the size of this piece and the artistry of my tattoo guy, I remember that this is something that will be forever ingrained in me, and I'm more than comfortable with that. The meaning finally dawned on me, and for once everything felt right. Though I got the tattoo on a completely impulse streak I had, for an idea that was an idea I came up with on the spot, I was and am content. And I'm even more so convinced that everything happens for a reason.

I have a bodily reminder now to hold on when things get less than optimistic. I have something to show for the storms I've endured. My mother will probably hate it. My thigh is going to probably be on fire for the next 4 days. But it was well worth it.

And swallowing my pride has never been so sweet.

LOST

Who am I?
Where can I even begin?
You lost your mind again
You sink into my skin
and coiled yourself around my spine
You stole the remaining parts of my pride
But I didn't even try to fight
It wasn't a light I saw in your eyes,
Just reflections of mine

Where do you think you're going?
I can't do this on my own

Who are you?
Who is this monster I see
Sleeping, lying next to me,
You always promised me that you would keep your composure
He spoke through his teeth
I shook at his touch
He'll keep me second guessing until he's done

I need to get away from here
My life is not my own

Tear me up, lay me down
With no direction, I'm running wild
Can you save me?
Because lately this dark has made its home in me.
I'm just in love with my denial
I'm lost and wandering like a child.

letters. (revised 2016)

to the first lover,
I never quite understood how quickly you could steal the oxygen from my lungs by merely closing your bedroom door or dragging your fingertips along the back of your worn down couch as you sauntered by. Or how your eyes made me feel the equivalent of 120 proof whiskey, scolding and racing through my cool toned veins. How your laugh, talk, smile, walk taught my fingers to scribble down nonsense in my prepubescent years, that I would learn to hide in my pillowcase and sleep on all of my problems, a habit that would develop and continue well into my twenties. Overall, I'm still dumbfounded how you had the ability to vomit sentences of radiation to sink into my skin and infect my whole body with a livid rage that would consume me, almost completely. I went without antidote for five years.


to the dark one,
You were the first thing that made me feel something after going numb. I'm told something is better than nothing. You spoke to me in ways I couldn't comprehend, but I thought I could interpret it by your intentions. I thought you were the light in my life, but after spending a day with you between the red and blue striped bedsheets, the candle's flames had been blown out by my gasps for help. You'd touch my face, tell me three words with lust entangled through your rotten teeth. Your hands began to wander from my neck to chest. Stop, STOP, stopped as I told you so, and you did. Relieved, I went to catch my breath, but your hand plunged through my ribs on the inhale, exhaled on the sight of a beating red mass of mess being torn from my supporting organs. When I screamed at you for the pain inflicted, all that escaped your scabbed lips was "quit bleeding on my bedsheets".


to the intoxicated one,
You were faithful and you held me up when I was weak. You made sure to creep into every part of my body that I utterly despised and take over. You made me feel accepted when society screamed insecurities in my ear. You made me feel untouchable. But coming down from the high, I realize how frail you made me, how I became so addicted and conflicted, led me to wander aimlessly through a vermin infested catacomb of problems. No amount of bittersweet manipulations will ever encourage me to pick up your poison again. I'm hungover you.


to the sociopath,
you have and never will own my mind, body, or soul.


and to myself
congratulations, you're alive.

bedroom talk

Sleeper, look at what you've done.
You may not know me, really, or acknowledge me as you should, but I know you.
All sides of you.
Let me remind you, who was there when you needed comfort when you had a thorn in your side?
Who supported you when you spent countless nights where you smothered me in all your cries?
Were those lovers that you laid on me nearly as concerned as I am when you toss and turn in your sleep in the midst of a nightmare?
Do I try to pull you closer or push you away after your so called intimacy?
Do I up and leave you with a cigarette in my teeth after only touching you?
No.
I just am.
Whatever you need, I'll always be.
I'm there to hold on to, I'm there to cover you, I'm everything that you wish every former goodbye kiss would've been instead of the departure they became.
Cynical, but can you not see that in a man you cannot simply turn them over every six months to soften them up?
But you can me.
Whatever you need, I'll always be.