Tide

The tides have ebbed and our drowning has passed for a time. Might it be easier to swim next time? I'm unsure.

I've been overwhelmed in the last two days. From a barren absence, from a quiet loneliness, from despair, fear and distance to a step into the light. Dry eyes, wide smile and a restful slumber. A gluttony of basking in the presence of each other. Of quiet time, of excited time. Of overwhelmed, over grateful. Peace. Its such a wild swing.

The far, far a head is always an uncertain creature and we can't know where her serpent tail twists and turns beyond the moment in our hands. Still we remain the hopeful. The grateful. The happy. The excited. Excited. If it's great now, imagine it later.

My desire to learn, to share and grow, to be there, passive or active in my actions. Is to be there. For you. To learn what its like to not fight, to not have to struggle for something, but to have and care for it.

At the same time you fill me with an amazing fire. An energy, a blazing eye that seeks no more but focuses. Fueled by this great joy, it surges towards some kind of greatness. My bones mend in the flames. My skin is knitted and I am reborn in the fire.

I am happy.

I

I poison and mend myself at the same time with my choice in music.

Remember?

Do we remember struggle as we once did? Do we recall that the world was never meant to be easy for us? Do we recall that those lucky enough in one aspect of life may not be in another?

We don't have dragons any more. We don't have Vikings. We don't have savages or cruel masters. Not those who read this. And if they do not in the way the books, and the movies show. Not the way the world wants to paint itself.

The monsters are the men and women in clean pressed suits and tall glass towers. The Vikings come as emails or neat paper notices in the mail.

Struggle comes different and this world was meant to show it struggle.

Remember fighting for something? I don't.

Remember feeling oppressed and subjected and fearing for your life? I don't.

Our struggles come different, glamorized, nevertheless we were meant to struggle for we are human and we err and we struggle in our errs.

The world is painted and yet I see through the paint. I see the canvas and board beneath.

What is more beautiful and right then something that is fought for?

We, humans who idolize love, expect it to come neatly, beautifully upon our laps. No shining knight. No fair maiden. The knights come with tarnished armour and worn horses, splintered shields and dulled blades. The maidens come with torn dresses, ragged hands and breath, with a wild look in their eyes, fearful or angry. Not the glimmering. Not the shining. The world, broken and beautiful as it is.

Why do you think we invented fiction? Because it doesn't shine and someone, some poor writer in a dimly lit road watched the world struggle and wished for once no one did so wrote about the happily ever after story in love that we all seek.

They wrote the gritty in-between. They wrote the struggle, the sadness and the tears. The pulled hair and hems, the fists clenched and beat against a wall, a door, a pillow before weak hands unfold in laps and the tears drip into them. They wrote of the fight with the great beast. Of the screaming horse, of the shattered shield and the horror of near death. They wrote of life. Of love. Of the human spirit, beautiful in its imperfection. Its the making of the greatest story. Because of the struggle in-between.

Immediate satisfaction. Immediate resolution. Resolve and you will be absolved. There was a time when these things would take time. When kings and queens would rise and fall for the sake of a lover. For the sake of the heart. To do what they believed was right because we are people and bound by what makes them who they are. They would wait in the world, with the dark around them.

So quick and perfect we expect the world to be in the modern age, that we forget that hearts are for ever the same. They do no evolve. They have always desired the same thing. Love and kindness. Love and kindness. Love and kindness.

We forget that it does not come in a neat package. We forget it does not arrive as a small green frog. It does not come as a easy ride through the woods to kiss the princess. We forget that it does not come as simple and easy. It comes as something to work with and work for.

It comes as a struggle.

Something worth a thousand fights when you know its right. It comes as something so much more special.

Isn't it the fairytale we read about? Isn't it the patience and the most beautiful struggle, of seeing two people who want to be together, come together? Two people defend and love one another is something in fiction made real. It is a struggle, but it will make what will be so much more beautiful.

Salt and Peper

I've been sexually assaulted three times in my life.

I use this term more broadly then most people would.

Each time I didn't think it was at the time, I just knew after the fact, that I didn't like it and felt ashamed of myself.

Most of the shame comes from me thinking myself a coward. My envisioning of myself is often as a strong woman. Most of my female characters are fiercely independent one way or another.

The first time it was something minor. Something sprung on me, and I didn't care for it, but it last only a second and after I said that I didn't like it and it was never done again.

The other two times time were related. I was heavily intoxicated on both occasions. What I was after was companion ship. After months and months of feeling rejected and abandoned, and largely isolated from men, I craved the attention, something to make me feel a little more human. But the person I sought comfort with wanted something else. Whether or not he was too drunk to realize it, putting his hand over my mouth as I drunkenly tried to protest was something I'm not comfortable with. Something that still lingers when I recall that instance.

It lingers when I saw him there after with other women.

There was an ignorance afterwards, and it was because of the shame brought about him. The shame of being a notch on the belt. The shame of having succumbed. The shame of being thought weak, when I was only reaching out in the wrong way.

I thought laying with him was taking the choices of my body into my own hands and in a way it was, for I chose to lie next to him and be associated with him.

No one should be shamed for their choices. What I didn't get to choose should not be my shame, but his.

Emotionally, I didn't know what was happening and afterwards, I really came to realize who I wanted to be as a person and how much making a stand for what I truly wanted, and hiding behind farces was not going to make me happy. It was going to make me quiet and ashamed of the person that I was, rather than proud. I am proud of what I did after, of how I it made me change my decisions afterwards what I wanted in life.

There is a sad a bitter silence I've noticed about this topic. Women unsure, startled by what has happened and feeling ashamed they let it happen to themselves when it shouldn't have happened. When we go into the arms of another human, we seek and desire comfort and trust. If its taken from us, then we should hold no shame for what someone else has done to us. We should be proud, always.

I've only ever spoken once to one other person about all this, properly and more than this piece lets on.