Category Archives: Abuse

In Confetti Fields, Scattered

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Related imageOver these beauty-strewn flower fields
my heart overwhelmed at last, it yields
to the clamour and the clash of shields
and bombs bursting in air.

And I imagine how the ghouls
of war and battle grab handfuls
of humans gathered here, like fools
to fight for something there

in those fields,

their hearts snatched cruelly from their chest
thrown up, confetti, and the rest
a bloody mass, the reeling guest
of Death astride its Pale Horse…

But now, the field is strewn with flowers,
confetti fell and by Love’s powers
became Her blossoms and Her bowers
of healing evermore

and never again, please,
never again war
In Confetti Fields,
Scatteredtumblr_n9flnk9Gz31r1vfbso1_1280

This War On Us

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Sitting in the morning mist today
(it’s 2 AM.  The battle started
early in whistle-shrieks of
incoming artillery shot
from fear’s cannons
and terror’s trenches.
They tore me out of dreams
into this nightmare waking and real).o-ANXIETY-3-900It’s the day of memory, the day of the dead
(and the living who wish they were)
and the day of me, survivor 
of this war on us, 
waged from mile 
3001.

The sound of sad owls
(like haunts) and elderberry blossoms
(fragrant in the dark) and me inside
a Dresden of memory and fire and sound
and the machine gun prattle of stories
twisting back on themselves in your hands
like snakes striking those wrists
so clumsily tattooed in crude ink and fantasy.slide_426448_5503378_compressedI heard the house creak and groan
(maybe it was just my heart’s hurt moan)
and I swore for a moment I thought
you were there, laying in bed and peace
while your chest rose and fell faithfully
and your face, wreathed in blond curls
that smell like Heaven’s very bakeries
still in sacred rest and repose…

I fought my way back 
and across the years 
to where you lay, then, there
to have but one whiff yet again
of those locks of gold and God
to sustain me in the midst
of this uncanny clumsy conflict,
this war of atrocious inattentiontumblr_nn07a4gD911s0got1o1_1280but your room was empty
(my mailbox is empty)
and it turned out the house
was just grieving for its loss,
the house is empty
and my heart is lonely
and the spray of sorrow begins
to anoint the roof from the skies

and soothes the ache of loss,
the lovelorn lack of presence
and the absence of any laughter.

I never dreamed that you were
the kind of person who just sashays in
and then waltzes right out
of my life while I am
making music in 4/4 timetumblr_nott18g9941rr74i9o1_400but if I really think about it, 
I remember the time you were 
last here and as you left you 
flashed your eyes dark at me,
filled with orange fire that smelled 
like burnt chocolate and you spoke
silently with that glance

straight into my heart, a look that
was a blade slicing thru the music,
(that dissonant dance)
and you said in one glancetumblr_novh5kX5Zr1s5neh1o1_500that you wished my mother had 
had an abortion 
instead of me…

In that moment, the tide turned
in this war on us, and I had
a flash of insight that would 
make Lorenz so jealous:
I knew who the 
Unknown Soldier was
and always would be.304475_10151253739365067_139629285_n

“If That’s The Truth You Need To Live”

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This phrase drives me nuts!!  Because it is usually spoken by someone who thinks themself supportive, and they have no idea how it others me, demeans and diminishes me.

Can you imagine, as a cis-gender person if someone else came up to you and said “Hey, if the truth you need to live is that you are a (fill in the blank), then I am all for it!”

You would just laugh, and think “what an idiot”.  Right?

But with me, when they say this, it is as if they think that they have somehow conferred some legitimacy on me and then posed themself as the paragon of acceptance…

I think next time this happens, Ima just do this:

No Protest In Philly!!

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OMG Constance!!  Did you hear about the massive protests and riots going on in Philadelphia because of the death of a woman of color???

Yeah…neither did I.

After all…she was only a woman.

A woman of color.

Oh…and she was trans.

Just another piece of trash collected for the patriarchy.  http://www.buzzfeed.com/dominicholden/transgender-woman-stabbed-to-death-in-philadelphia?utm_term=.yfzwq8GpK#.pnOnBKk8L tumblr_no7mu5zPsO1rebxsto1_1280

But while I am on the topic of killing transwomen?  If you slur me with your words…if you other me with your actions…if you lie to yourself about who I am…if you call me “engenderer”, “mask”, “monster”, “other” (a literal “othering”)…

…you do not get to call yourself a trans-advocate.

Words hurt, wound irrevokably…but silence slays the heart.tumblr_mvieqh54sY1qj5oxwo1_1280

Only A Smidge Lower…

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Constance…I am here today to admit.  OMG there is sooo much I would change about my body if I could.  The more salient question is what would I not change?  So this really hit me…hit me hard.

What am I supposed to do, stuck in this skin of some biological male creature that so many seem to have attached to, and now hate me because that creature has been revealed as who it was all along…and that revelation happening to me at the same time?

Do you have any idea how it feels to be othered so hard that certain people now act like I am dead?  And when I am blessed enough to have communication it is of the harshest, cruelest and most dehumanizing form possible, stripping me of personhood, of being, and reducing me to a verb, or a mask, or a nothing?

I can never remember a time when I did not feel this way…never.  Reading about these children, wow.
So I post this…for your thought.  Likely there is not much we can do now about our own body image issues…but we darn sure can be kind to others now.  We darn sure can touch our children with gentle words…and no matter what we can speak to other human beings cognizent always that they are stamped with Mama’s image, they are riddled with God’s Image, and are thus just a smidge lower than God and are as gods themselves.

Video

In case you weren’t convinced that hating yourself is a learned behavior

Physical shame comes from parents, teachers, media, and peers. It’s not something you’re born with. You were born naked, wonderful, and gorgeous, and no one should make another being feel as if that wasn’t, and isn’t true.

Still Underneath

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I see you there, still
underneath your words
underneath your pain
underneath your masks
deep beneath the strain

of putting every thing that hurts
all that grew from choices made
all that sprung from things not done
all that you have fearful run
from and still found it there within

though the darkness haunt you long
I will hover in the song
that I have sung your whole life long
and love the you I see there, still
I see you still…underneath

Letters From Those Abused and Afraid | Disrupted Physician

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Letters From Those Abused and Afraid | Disrupted Physician.

Dear Constance…I am blessed with such a plethora of amazing, wonderful followers.

That would be you…Constant Reader…Constance.

One of them is at the link I just posted, and he is a truth teller, more rare than gold dust as an amazing person commented over there.

“But why, Charissa?  Why would you share such a topic as the one you chose?”

Because it is eerily reminiscent of the treatment of transgender people at the hands of…well…virtually everyone in our society.  The double binds that are illuminated, the abuse, the policing and othering, the way the system protects itself and eliminates any possible threats to itself…

Yeah…this is the life of a transgender human being every single livelong day.

The system is a giant virus, and it has gathered to itself other virulent viruses and they all are completely sold out and committed to the mandate of one thing and one thing alone:  survival and self-replication. And we, all of us, are in the belly of this beast.

Some of us are the pilot fish of privilege…circling the jaws, living off the shreds of flesh that trail off those teeth sharp and cruel.  Some of us are between those jaws, ever consumed for the survival of the virus, and some live in the bowels, in the rot and excrement of everything that must take place in order for the thing to keep alive.

How are we to live?

The monolithic nature of this thing prohibits mass action, but what about individual action?  Will you consider changing the way you interact with every single person you meet?  Just think…if we all did that, loved our neighbor as ourselves, loved God (or if you believe you do not believe then loved being kind, being forgiving, being truthful and merciful), and refused to participate in injustice…

…there might be cracks, and then rents, and then in a rush a breaking down of the walls and the death of the virus.

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa

 

Here’s To The Know-It-Alls

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…who tell me how they imagine dysphoria is when they are not dysphoric:

“Do not mock a pain that you haven’t endured.”tumblr_nnsi82SIkm1rmdrr8o3_1280

Bullied Girl Commits Suicide After School Officials Tell Her “Toughen Up”

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Bullied Girl Commits Suicide After School Officials Tell Her “Toughen Up”.

Here’s a thought:  how bout each one of you who reads this go to your school board and tell them that if  this sort of thing is tolerated in your school district, you will file civil suit against them as culpable for the death?

How bout you simply say to them you personally will not tolerate anything whatsoever except a no bullying stance?

Or is it to you as it is to so many:  the equivalent of the Aztec hearts held up to appease the angry god of the patriarchy and preserve your own privilege?

Me and My Cat-Hair

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Me and my Cat-Hair go where we want!
Well, my Cat-hair does, anyway.
I just trail frantically, pulled right along
as it wanders and pries and looks into burrows
and lays in the sun and just licks its soft paws
with no care in the world but those mice!

Sometimes it looks really cool, and just perfect!
Purring there, cooing and wanting the touch
of a hand that will smooth its sleek soft furry pelt
and some fingers so friendly with their gentle skritch
skritch skritch and then a flat palm to do obeisance.

But then there are times when my Cat-hair just hisses!
Its eyes glowing green and just brimming with daggers
and it jumps akimbo and arches its back
and it dares me, just dares me to try to address it
with anything less than a rake and a hoe
and better get ready to wrestle a she-devil
scratches for skritches and clawings for pettings!!
Image result for cat clawing arm
My Cat-hair and me are sometimes called names
and sometimes called other and sometimes called mask
and sometimes called liar and sometimes called nothing
and that’s when my Cat-hair sits silent, tail lashing
and eyes focused into the void that is lurking
inside the accusers who say they hate cats
when what they really mean is that they just hate me…
Image result for cat being petted
well, Cat-hair is there, and I cannot do anything
to make it dog-hair or human or cow-hair
or sheep-hair or anything else that would walk
off the Ark on that day when the floodwaters drained
and the animals rambled in freedom again.

so I guess I will just go with Cat-hair, just sitting there
being itself, just my Cat-hair and me.

tumblr_lxzcllqQyB1qcx6rmo1_1280

Transgender Today – Avery Jackson – NYTimes.com

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Over 50% of transgender children try to commit suicide by their mid to late teenage years. A large number of them succeed. And the main reason that these children state that they try to harm themselves is the lack of love and support of their family and friends. My wife and I decided that we would much rather have a happy, healthy daughter than a dead son.

via Transgender Today – Avery Jackson – NYTimes.com.

The Mean Streets of Baltimore Look Like Human Hearts

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I haven’t said much about Baltimore…others do it far better than I.

Clearly, something is very very wrong…and all the things I have been speaking about related to privilege and patriarchy pretty much determine whether you see this or not.

And let me (once again) be clear:  my own eye-opening is a matter of about the last 5 years, and it has been accompanied by plenty of mourning and sorrow for the many lost years…just had to say that since there are those who think I merely ape the views of others and have a free pass from consequences…consequences I have been paying longer than these accusers have lived on this planet…but I digress.

Baltimore:  what is there that the likes of I can say?  So instead, I will post pics of the thing that makes the most sense as a response to what is taking place…and vicariously post this as my own cleansing ritual over my own soul and heart in order to be divested of the pollution and defilement of the past month.

Here is a novel idea…it would actually resolve Baltimore…and other matters as well:

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly.
Love, Charissa

 

A woman burns sage on the streets of Baltimore – 

Shameeka Dream walks along a line of Maryland State Troopers stationed on North Avenue while burning sage in the wake of protests for the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland on April 28, 2015.19

Please: Try to Grasp This, And Change…

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Constance, this quote below…just this.

All you have is your experience in this world.  The good…the bad…the whole and broken…add to that the sorts of experiences that the quote speaks of.

I would add one thing:  dysphoria is a real condition that exists, of utter dislocation that transcends understanding, acceptance, and action.  It can be managed and worked around, even built into certain things?  But it can never be thought away, prayed away, or believed away.

The brain and body of a person with gender dysphoria will never flow together
They are oil and vinegar.

As such, they can be a fabulous and tasty dressing…but they will not find the congruence that is present with a cis-gendered person.

So all the crap and stuff that all humans endure?  Differently abled people endure all that with additional conditions placed on their lives…dysphoria is one of them.

That doesn’t give me or any dysphoric person a pass…because each human has conditions on them that are invisible to everyone else.

So be tender hearted…understanding…full of forgiveness…and above all be kind.

Lives depend on it.

Of all the things I keep trying to tell cis people, “don’t presume your child’s gender” is the one that they consistently, deliberately refuse to understand and it is so deeply telling.

You cannot truly understand the transgender experience, and cannot count yourself an ally, until you accept that the trauma of being transgender is not inherent, it is a product of being coerced into thinking that you had absolutely no choice but to be the gender you were assigned.

Not “born with”, not “biologically”, the gender you were assigned.

The problem is assignment. The problem is doctors and parents believing it is their place to dictate their child’s gender, starting before they can even conceptualize what a gender is, let alone have the mental development necessary to object to what they’re given. This defines a child’s entire life, cuts short countless possibilities. It etches itself into the fabric of our developing minds and it is a ticking psychological time bomb for those children who are given a gender assignment that they cannot or do not wish to live with. This culture of dictated identity must end if transgender people are ever to be regarding as whole and equal members of society.tumblr_nlge4suDYH1rqi803o1_540

Blue Beneath My Feet

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this old stone house,
so grey and brown,
rough in texture,
tough in time,
shingled by
moments.

I finally got
the electricity on inside,
I finally see
from room to room
and everything
between,

and just when I found
the windows and
the verdant greens beyond and
the aqua blue beneath

it all went orange and then
began to change to red.
All red, all around
and blue beneath my feet.

The doors are locked (for now)
and windows blocked
and I am trapped inside

the stone and brown
beneath the shingles scratchy
and surrounded by the red
that fades to brown
and then to nothing

But it flows,
that blue stream
alive and cool and sweet
and whispers to me
of a place where all is true
a place where all is blue

blue beneath my feet

Anonymous: Her Blood is on your Keyboard

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Constance…I am sobbing deeply right now.  Another transgender person dead, dysphoria eats another one of us, and what’s worse but not at all unusual is the way that the cis-world egged her on.

I cannot imagine the cruel hearts of the people who said such horrible things to her.

But I will be blunt:  everyday, you need to remember that most transgender people are treated with staggering othering and policing.

I myself am shunned, and my history is distorted and fabricated.  My narrative is hijacked in service of a myth that allows people to feel good about the indifferent uncaring way they choose to live.

It weighs on a person, it does.

Constance, everywhere around you someone is suffering, someone is laboring.  How about just be kind?

Please?

Someday you will wish you had been, if you’re lucky.

Trans woman, 23, kills herself after being attacked online | Gay Star News.

Trans woman, 23, kills herself after being attacked online

#HerNameWasRachel
27 APRIL 2015 | BY JOE MORGAN
RIP Rachel Bryk.

A young trans woman has killed herself after being attacked online.

Rachel Bryk, 23, jumped off the George Washington Bridge, the bridge between New York and New Jersey, on Thursday night (23 April)

An eyewitness is believed to have seen the young woman leave her purse on the bridge and jump off into the Hudson River.

Bryk’s body has still not been recovered. A funeral will be planned when her body is found.

Her shocked mother Lisa Bryk, from New Jersey, found out on Friday morning.

‘She was super smart, really good with computers,’ she told Gay Star News. ‘We’ll miss her.’

Bryk was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at a young age and lived with chronic pain. This meant she was unable to get a job or keep to a regular schedule.

She found her life in anime, nerd culture and computing. She helped develop an emulator that allows you to play Gamecube and Wii games on your PC.

But because Bryk was talented, and hard-working, and open about being trans, it meant she left herself open to online attacks.

When she said on 4chan that she was considering killing herself, she did not receive support.

‘DO IT, if you’re such a weak willed thin skinned dipshit then fucking do it,’ one anonymous commenter told her.

Even in her death, some on 4chan have described it as a ‘victory’. On news of her death, some commented that she was the ‘whiniest fucking faggot’ and ‘any tranny death is good riddance’.

Such comments clearly left Bryk severely depressed, who would often call herself ‘worthless trash’ on her Ask.fm page. Her Twitter bio page read: ‘[Trigger Warning]: suicide on everything i say.’

At Friday midnight, this was posted on her Twitter.

Rachel Bryk Tweet

The people Bryk worked with mourned her.

‘She will be missed greatly by everyone. We are stronger, better people thanks to knowing her,’ one said.

And another: ‘Rachel was more than just a great programmer. She was a great programmer who always managed to put a smile on my face. I don’t think that there ever will be anyone else quite like her. Rest in peace.’

When we asked Bryk’s mom how the family dealt with her daughter’s transition, she said: ‘It caused a lot of worry, because the world is not a kind place for people who are different.’

If you are considering suicide, please call the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255. The LGBT National Helpline is on 888-843-4564, with the Youth line on 800-246-7743.

– See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/trans-woman-23-kills-herself-after-being-attacked-online270415#sthash.jcThC57T.kXWTRJ3X.dpuf

3 Lies We Need to Stop Telling About ‘Negative People’ — Everyday Feminism

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3 Lies We Need to Stop Telling About ‘Negative People’ — Everyday Feminism.

Very good article, and it addresses yet another binary prison.

Constance, your pursuit of happiness is not going to be actualised in the elimination of people you think of as negative…

…and this is largely because true happiness is something that has everything to do with who you are or are not, not others.  Haven’t you noticed yet that every single “rilly rilly kewl” person you meet eventually does something or says something or is something that is unpleasant or (gasp) *negative*?

And I will say this, but speak for myself alone:  I take a certain pride and joy in interacting with “Eeyore” people, and then bringing joy to them.

How in the world is anyone ever going to influence anyone anywhere for joy?

People who are toxic and will destroy you if you let them?  Okay, those people you would be wise to avoid if possible, or if not then be suited and booted around.

But people who are simply “negative” are likely reminding you of something about yourself that needs changing, and so Charissa says keep them around, and learn to grow!  Give them some grace.

Someday you’re gonna need some for yourself.

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly.
Charissa

“Who Are We To Judge…”

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Constance, I likely will not post an awful lot about the Jenner Transition Announcement until she gets further underway.

I totally, utterly get where she is at right now.  She is thinking things about how she is not that worried about pronouns, and how she is willing to overlook the othering and policing that is going on right now, yadda yadda yadda…she feels a responsibility to other transgender people to effect a graceful transition with dignity.

But deep down inside…all those things are hurting her, affecting her, wounding her.  She doesn’t need me adding to the cacophony of noise surrounding her (and all of that exacerbated because of the family dynamics she married into). Eventually, she will begin to find her bearings and her voice, or if she already has, she will begin to express it in her own unique ways.

But I will be commenting on things that orbit her transition, things that are revealed and illuminated as a result of her decision, and here is one of them:

On my Facebook page, a friend linked to an article about her transition.  That article is here:

Bruce Jenner’s declaration creates an opportunity

What was telling was in the comments on the Facebook post, all generally very supportive, but one stood out to me.  It simply said “Who are we to judge…”

“Who are we to judge…”

Constance, do you see why that comment jumped out at me?  Yes?  Jot down your thoughts about it…or No?  No you do not see anything odd about that comment in relation to gender identity?

Well, Cis-Constance, imagine yourself being introduced to someone, and them very kindly and sagely assessing you and then saying to you and everyone “Who are we to judge…” and then shrugging as if to say “to each their own”…

as if your gender identity is something that is up for judgement in the first place!

as if your gender identity is an article of clothing that you simply decided to wear that day.

as if your gender identity was a moral choice you made or make.

Gender orientation is put into the same classification as sexual orientation and then judged as a moral choice, and this is simply incorrect and unfair.

There is orientation that is a given…and then there are behaviors that descend from choices that we make as creatures who are moral creatures and subject to moral constraints as determined by God and current cultural climate (and those are rarely congruent, btw)…the behaviors themselves are what I choose to do…but the orientation is who I was born to be.

Orientation is not moral behavior.  It is simply the given baseline.

You as a cis-gender person are never subjected to the statement “Oh…you say you are a (fill in your biological chromosomal state).  I see.  Well, who am I to judge?”

And that, Constance, is the very epitome of cis-gender privilege!

Don’t get me wrong…I love the compassion that is at root behind the commenter’s post…but gender orientation is not a matter subject to judgement any more than race is, or that there is a brain in a skull, or that there are arms and legs on a human.

The deep underlying ignorance that is being exposed in the light of gender-education right now is the notion that gender-variance is a moral issue!  The deep presupposition fostered in our binary is that any person who is cross-gendered is by definition subject to moral assessment should they decide to authentically live out who they are in spite of the external casing they are housed in!!

Do you see this?

The commenter is correct:  we are not the judge of one another and should not judge one another.  But the issue that she applied this moral principle speaks volumes of how far we have to go yet as a culture, and why we transgender people are subject to such tremendous othering.

Even the way we are supported is often times OTHERING!

I have the same internal response when people say to me “Hey, whatever makes you happy makes me happy”…and they are sincerely “for” me in terms of their willingness to accept me.

But they have no idea just how deeply they sentenced me to more time in the gender penitentiary.

“Mr. & Mrs. Cis-Gender Constance:  Tear down this wall!!“2008-5-10 Auschwitz No 11 - Final 2-1-2009 750

My Stance Regarding The Past, and The Distortions That Are Clung To

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“Just because your pain is understandable, doesn’t mean your behavior is acceptable.”
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

Keep this one in your back pocket for the next time someone acts like an ass and then tells you they’ve been through a lot of stuff. Respectful and yet still firmly keeping respect for yourself.

Respect for myself…this is new to me, for I have not really ever been aware of a “self” to respect!  The self I knew was more a naught than a presence.  What I was not plus who I was not added up to me equalling naught, and thus I never respected myself.

I do now…and taking responsibility for shortcomings does not make me responsible for the distortions and poor choices of others in reaction to them.  I can joyfully embrace my opportunity to express my true remorse in not being the perfect person I desired to be and not being “the best (fill in the blank)” I could be…

…but then letting someone add cruelty to this?  Allowing them to dehumanize me, devalue me?  Diminish me?

Nah, I don’t think so…not going there anymore.  Respect for myself means that I own my behavior and let everything else go, and oddly, I think this sets other people free by placing them in accountability for their own choices in how to respond to my shortcomings and places a responsibility to respect themselves by acknowledging their own failures.

Hey, if Victor Frankl can overcome what he did, choose a proactive life in spite of those grave horrors?  So can I…and so can you.

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly.
Charissa Gracetumblr_nn05mm9MLU1slipiho1_500

A Thoughtful Implication In Favor of Relationship…

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Constance, this lil essay below illustrates a similar experience that I have virtually everyday, except from the other end of the spectrum and working back.

I liked it, for it did a great job of revealing the underlying obligations that the paradigm encumbers all of us with.

Please chew on it awhile…and then think about how you can take people for who they are as the inside soul reveals, rather than how the outside accoutrements imply…one involves assumption, and one involves relationship…

“swanjolras:

okay, i have been trying to say this in a way that makes sense for ages, so here goes:

a lot of hatred of dresses, pink, stereotypically “feminine” stuff is based on internalized misogyny. and that’s definitely something we all need to look at within ourselves and address and work on.

but: a lot of hatred of dresses, pink, stereotypically “feminine” stuff is based on the fact that femininity is compulsory for people who are assigned female at birth.

like, this is a fact. this isn’t something i’m making up. femininity is compulsory. i have to wear dresses and makeup to be taken seriously when i go to job interviews, when i go to social occasions, when i present myself in any formal setting. when i don’t do that, people notice. they’re rude to me.

when i shop in the men’s section, store employees and customers glare at me! my relatives press feminine clothes on me during the holiday season because they think i should dress in a more feminine way! when i go to get my hair cut and ask for it to be cut in a certain style, the woman cutting my hair literally ignores that explicit instruction because it’s “too butch”. femininity is compulsory! i am not allowed to present my gender the way i would like to present my gender!

it’s not the fault of femininity that it’s being forced on me. and the patriarchy does devalue femininity. and the current rhetoric of “you can wear pink and skirts and still be a feminist and still be queer and it’s other people’s fault for not taking you seriously, not yours for dressing that way” is great.

but i’ve heard people say to me, “you can wear lipstick and dresses and still be a feminist” about a thousand times, and i have never, ever,ever heard someone say to me, “you can refuse to wear lipstick and dresses and you are no less of a woman than someone who does wear them.” i had to figure that out all on my own.

i’m allowed to be angry at the cis women who force me to present myself in a way that i don’t want to present myself. i am allowed to do that.

I will scream the bolded from the rooftops for you if you want. <3″

tumblr_n2nuaaMSAz1rsyaepo1_1280tumblr_nl29orRzyW1qc2tzno1_1280

Disconnected Fists

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they’re visible, don’t worry, it’s now clear.
you’ve made them known to us, you’ve brought them near.
you’ve parted the black night to show their flurry
you’ve pierced the darkness with them, they are here
in front of me, swinging in violent sphere
and they connected judgement with rank fear.

those hard bones writhe, they crawl beneath your skin,
those bones now brittle with the pain within
and become sharp-edged, cutting thru the din
with angles, planes, indictments of old sin
imagined, perceived lurking deep within
and cloaked beneath your tattooed skin so thin…

and seeing those determined self wounds glare,
those prison house tattoos inflicted…where?
haha!  where not is more the likely question!
those long years harboring the things you think
and living with that historical stink
to birth your athenaeum of hot ink.

I see them hanging, disconnected fists
I see the ritual mutilating notes
written on you, canvas once so soft
and now a record of your fists aloft
and shaking clenched, like Charon’s fated boats
attempting to defeat the smothering mists…

I beg you…let your hands let go of you
and let the ink run backwards up your arms
and let forgiveness work her healing charms
and let your face be wet with grace’s dew
whatever…regardless, I love you
Image 003

Patience is a virtue…and so is Grace

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“I don’t chase people anymore. I learned that I’m here, and I’m important. I’m not going to run after people to prove that I matter.”

That’s me…Grace.  Charissa Grace, and I did my best and better than most.  If you twist that, you would twist anything and thus I am free of your ravings.  I am sad that they are your crooning seducers.  I am sad they deny us the honor of growing thru difficulty because they distort normal brokenness and a lot of really great things into melodramatic horrors that never happened.

But I am not grovelling any more.  Slur me as you will.  I am still me, the same one who was faithful to the utmost to stay alive in the face of gut wrenching horror.

I matter.tumblr_n1l2fsmtwp1r28mvbo1_1280

Honesty, and the honest truth

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When someone says “I’m just being honest” what they almost always mean is “I am choosing to put myself before you, my feelings before you, my comfort over yours…and then make it all okay with the tattoo across your forehead of ‘honesty'”.

Honesty is the sincere grappling with what is right, cleanest, highest and best in any given situation, and honesty without tact is simple aggravated assault of the soul…

It is the overall good that is the most honest thing, orientation, goal.

And you darn well better make sure that you have standing with a person, deep deposits of presence and consistent serving before you make a raid on the account in the name of “just being…”a_broken_heart_by_SoViolentSomacabre

Yes…Men as a whole are privileged and need a reality check!

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Constance, I post about men, their sense of privilege and entitlement, the mutilation of their soul they are forced to ritually endure as payment for that privilege, and the twisted and scary ways that sense of entitlement and the actual rape of their souls replicates itself in their actions…

…and I often get messages back that are variations on the “not all men” theme…cus these individuals have not taken the actual physical actions that I post about…even though they disregard their own violent and presumptuous writing style that is arrogant, presumptive, and ultimately such a perfect manifestation of the very thing I write about…

Well I am posting this below as illustration of a general thing by virtue of highlighting a specific.

And remember, men:  I grew up in your midst!  I was there, me Charissa Grace…watching, listening, horrified and traumatized when I was naive and new…and then tired and tearful when I was older and on verse 3, 214 of the same tired-ass old song that you each and everyone think is one you wrote…YOU wrote, and thus your every word is so important, so heavy with weight…and if only people listened to YOUR way of explaining it they would finally understand…

um no.  What is listed below?  It is the unvarnished, unsophisticated version of what the vast vast VAST majority of you do over and over and over again…such  as the nice guy I read yesterday who was mansplaining all about how women would not be effective leaders when they were on their periods because their hormones would make them irrational, or less rational…

which omfg ignores sooo many things, assumes sooo many things…and one major thing is that rationality is any better compass for providing leadership than other things like say intuition, or heart, or feeling, or compassion, or…or…or…or…and then assumes that women ARE more irrational than men…what the actual F**K?

Rational?  Like the poor person below…

um, no.bird beek

 

PS:  all comments below are from the original post, not me

 

canfy:

onefitmodel:

fformlessness:

genuinely the scariest person i’ve ever come across!!!! the first message was one from where he messaged me yesterday
the last message exchange was from another girl who posted her interaction with him, and after her message back to him after he VIDEO CALLED HER MULTIPLE TIMES IN A ROW he proceeded to tell her to “shut the fuck up, whore” when she explained how weird it was

i’m now blocked from his fb and i’m just sharing this in case any girl ever gets a friend request from him!! i have no idea what state he’s from and i can’t access his page anymore so please be careful ily!!!

OH MY GOD

Okay somebody please report that shit to the police he genuinely sounds like the kind of guy whod shoot women in a university. Like srsly people living in the us do something about it

EVERYONE, CONTACT HIS PARENTS, CONTACT THE POLICE, CONTACT FACEBOOK SUPPORT!!! Don’t let this asshole get away with it!!!

Unmoored In Deeps

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Here…these waters.
How did I end up here?
Off-shore, un-moored
and docks all far away
behind me in the mists
above me in the air
above the waters
I traverse?

And guppies become barracudas
goldfish become sharks,
how did that happen?
Something in the water?
Something that doesn’t belong?
I guess that would be me,
heavy metals and radioactives
tainting all I touch.

I was always chained to edges,
I was always tossed by tides,
back and forth
up the beach
and down to seas relentless,
in the running of the tides of time,
in the running from the tides of time.

But now I swim unmoored
in unfamiliar deeps
surrounded by voracious
cruel cold creatures sleek
and fit for fit survival
by merciless sharp teeth
and furious assaults
of shredding ruthless words

and I’ve no idea whatsoever
how leaving the docks
marooned me here unmoored in deeps
surrounded by cold sharks

**yes, I am cognizant of the litanies writ, spoke, imagined, nursed and harbored…I know the recitations red and rough, I have my own remembrance, written in blood and sweat and tears, and silent visits in the night to sweetly sleeping angels soft, and exhalations beautiful and smelling so of life…and hair, scented like bread fresh from some heavenly oven and broken for me and put in hair…pulling me thru the valley of death…

…and discovering that my grateful declarations were in fact resented and received as guilt trips laid, it crushes me to my core…and something is defeated there, something there has died, in my core…

this is the unmooring of which I speak, the unknowing in which I am marooned…

and worst of all is the finding of complete strangers in places I knew every inch and wrinkle, and it is this that unnerves the deepest, for now every word spoken, every question asked, every thing created, I have no idea if what I think about it is real, is actually real…my truth meter pegs and then it seems all others call that up “down”, that north “south”…

…and I send up SOS flares, ask trusted hearts to read and to consider offerings of soul and heart, attempts to understand…and silence towers, and life looms and busy threatens…

that is what this poem is about.  Swimming in strange waters in a strange land with strange sights and fearful creatures so hungry for my blood and so uncaring of the carcass left behind and so disinterested in the living heart that fiercely cries out “we are here we are here”, hoping Horton is out there, somewhere, a faithful elephant who never forgets…

Long ago the Psalmist asked “Whom have I but You?  Though the mountains fall into the sea, though the colored dawns turn to shades of grey, I am learning to see the beauty of the greys and the glories of the canyons whose majesty is manifested in the things that were removed…

I do have Father, and I do have my Good Shepherd and Great High Priest who passed thru the heavens themselves and not a veil of cloth and skins…and I do have Great Holy Spirit, whom my heart cries to again and again “Mama”, She of wisdom and tender mercy, She who was there at the Lord’s beginnings, She by whom all was made that the Lord made…

…I have Them, and being unmoored with Them is like taking my homeland with me regardless of where I roam**

“This Has To Stop”: Okay, whatchya gonna do about it?

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Her Name Was Taylor, by Lori Duron

Constance, I often run across the statement “This has to stop” in connection with accounts of the bullying and suicide epidemics that transgender people face.  And that is good, that people are beginning to get it, the monstrous othering and policing that we face every single G Dam day of our lives simply because we were “guilty” of being born into this life with the knowledge that our gender orientation and our assigned birth biology are at odds.

But I am restive with the ease with which in this internet age we can flourish our fingers over a keyboard and then move on from post with the feeling that we have actually “done something”, when all we have actually done is in effect restate the problem without attempting resolution.  It is sorta like having a math test and re-writing the problem
6 + 11 = x      as   
x = 11 + 6  (and we be sure to draw attention to our use of different colored font and italics).

Compassion is a bicameral quality.  It has two lobes.  It has the feeling, heart lobe…that throbbing, dripping, bleeding tender outpouring of sympathetic alignment if we have not experienced something for ourselves (and just so you know:  if you are not transgender, it is impossible for you to empathize with a dysphoric person, just as if you are white you cannot empathize with a person of color…you can sympathize, but don’t deceive yourself into thinking you empathize)…

…but for it to be true compassion, it must have the action side as well.  What will you do with your sympathy?

Lori Duron has again posted a truly moving recounting of a tragic tale of bullying and othering and policing that ended in another transgender life lost…and I will recite yet again the litany of 2015:  a lost transgender life approximately every 30 hours since 2015 began!

As if it is not enough of a burden to face:  the nearly overwhelming unendurable constant achy angst of dysphoria.  Oh no…to that is added the onslaught of ignorance, fear, and hatred as expressed in the evil of bullying which drives so many to self-destructive action in addition to having to bear gender dysphoria!

But Lori goes one better:  She posts people you can email, places you can step up and actually take action that extends beyond the hypothetical feel good phrase “This has to stop” and manifests in real, measurable action…and takes baby steps as a compassionate act.

And then I myself will go you one better:  there are marches coming up in major cities…in June.  They have various names, monikers…but at heart they are the same, in that they are opportunities for you to express–directly–your support with your body side by side with other bodies, facing gawkers and haters, the curious and disinterested, and others who have walked in solitary confinement in their skins…

Transgender Pride Marches.

Yes, there will be people there who look different than you…who walk or talk different than you…and who want/feel/think/need/deserve exactly the same things you do as human beings!  Your presence there as an ally will mean more to them than any of them can say…in addition to the emails you write or the lawmakers you contact, or the PTA meetings you attend to make your cis-gender privileged voice heard that it is not going to be tolerated, this epidemic of transgender suicide and murder…and your other actions that you are thinking of and planning to take.

You are thinking of them?  Actions to take?  Plans to do something?  Someone you can maybe even smile at?  Befriend?

In the Portland Area, I believe Transgender Pride March Day is June 13th.  I hope to be there and intend to be, God willing.  I intend to walk, with a sense of presence and dignity (a word I use very reluctantly right now as it has been wielded against me like a sharp phallic sword to rape my heart and spirit, but I use it none the less to mean a sense of presence that contains worth and significance simply because I am a human being)…I intend to hold my head high and not angled down, and my eyes moving from face to face and eye to eye rather than always staring at the space in between…

I hope to see you there, beside me…cis, trans.  But if I don’t?  It would mean the world to see you standing at the curb, a smile on your face and a nod in your eyes.

This has to stop…this expression of emotion that lacks the manifestation of action.

If you don’t support in word and deed, then you don’t support.tumblr_mv4lfyu1MH1szrg39o1_r1_500

Please Stop Saying That Trans Women Were “Born Boys” | Autostraddle

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Please Stop Saying That Trans Women Were “Born Boys” | Autostraddle.

Says it all.tumblr_nkdwbvzX1U1r0pqcro1_1280

Who Speaks For You?

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…in baseball bat threats,
and shifting blame bloviations?

there is a narrative constructed
and characters are run thru the mill

Procrustean beds wait, rimmed in razor words
and made up in straight jacket axioms

of hero killing Zeus, Medusa slain
but ‘ware the mirrors lest the true face be glimpsed…

…and you, you both have hitched to this?
your bones know, don’t they?

Or do they?  Crawl inside your skin
when you feel the truth dissolve

and lies (half and whole cloth)
kick like something wicked waiting

to slouch towards Bethlehem
in the kingdom of Ozymandias?

Your silent disengagement lets our history
be Big-Brothered in Orwellian style scripts

and becomes tacit agreement with things
that go against your grain like sand paper.

Oh may your grain glow gold and run deep
for ruin holds this day and devours the moon.tumblr_njkyxgsohE1txde3xo1_1280

Marooned Midst Bones

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that wave, it was a sneaker-wave for sure!
standing by the ocean, rhythms, pulses
aligning and consonant.

I thought I could turn my back.
I thought space meant the same thing
to me as it did to you.

I didn’t know it was a place-holder word
for displacement, for excoriation
for vituperation and vitriol.

I looked at cliffs high, formidable,
but scaleable, niches in sandstone
hidden but implied in long familiar places.

But that wave, it came outta nowhere
and it was slick and befouled in the dark
by the contents of leaky toxic ships foreign and domestic.

It nearly killed me, but even more startling
was how it devastated those sandy heights (bluffs)
and obliterated every way up, no matter how faint

and took all that sand in its oily slick greedy grip
and washed it into my sanctuaries, tender and sacred,
as I foundered on bones where the beach once lay soft.

Imagine my shock and horror when I  dragged myself
back home only to find the Sahara had invaded
on cirocco blasts of hatred wearing masks of honesty.

These 10 ‘Acceptable’ Trans Narratives Are Actually Holding Us Back — Everyday Feminism

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These 10 ‘Acceptable’ Trans Narratives Are Actually Holding Us Back — Everyday Feminism.

Constance, I am pressing this, not because I am augering for any one of these things, but because it is helpful to cultivate an overall sense of not being compelled to police other people!!

The Impossible Demands of Dating Under the Pressures of Rape Culture

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Constance, I found this article over here:  http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/04/rape-culture-dating/ 

I am posting it because I have to make the same calculations as a transwoman that a cis-gender woman makes, and then make them again because trans, which shrinks down the safe zone even further.  Fortunately for me, I am not dealing with dating, but there is still such risk.

Please read and consider the implications.

April 6, 2015 by

Originally published on Robot Hugs 

(Trigger Warning: Sexual assault and rape culture)

When you’re dating, you may get lots of advice on keeping yourself safe. At the same time, you can get pressure to be carefree. And if something bad happens, you’re blamed for not properly calculating the risks! So what gives?

You shouldn’t have to carry the demand to be both available and super capable of preventing your own assault. This comic says it all.

With Love,
The Editors at Everyday Feminism

part 1

2014-12-04-Risky Date

 

Why Indeed?

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Similarities between Blake Brockington and Leelah Alcorn

1. They wore both Transgender.

2, They were both rejected by their families (Blake was in fostercare because his family kicked him out).

3.  Their ages. (Blake had just turned 18, and Leelah was 17 turning 18)

4. They both commited suicide.

So explain to me why this well known Transgender activist, Blake Brockington, who raised thousands for charity and became the first black transgender homecoming king is getting almost no media attention. Leelah Alcorn trended across Twitter and Tumblr—even got her own Wikipedia page and article in People magazine. 

This is by no means a comparison or a contest for opression. But Blake Brockington deserves the same memorial Leelah Alcorn was given— if not more.  Three thousand to three hundred and sixty four (and that is including articles about him winning @ HOCO) .

The only clear difference between them is his race. Preserve this young man’s life.

REST IN POWER KING, BLAKE BROCKINGTON.

Constance, the above is a quoted passage that I found today…I think it is worth noting the first four points as the only important thing…and then it is worth noting that race was a huge significant factor in this disparaging difference as the only factor!  Both and.  Not either or!

Fight off issue fatigue, and keep passionate about freedom and life.
Charissa

1 in 2,000

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One of the most compelling arguments that gender orientation resides somewhere other than genitalia is in intersexed people.  Because with both sets of genitalia present, there is still a gender orientation self-perceived!  Which proves that gender orientation resides somewhere other than that genitalia.

Just like it does for transgender people…

…just like it does for cis-gender people.

There is no reason to hate, no reason to reject…except for one’s own predilection for fear and ignorance.

micdotcom:

Watch: One video explains what it’s really like to be intersex

Going Nova On Palm Sunday

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In light of this nova-burst
I want to thank you for silver
I want to thank you for gold
I want to thank you for stardust
I am truly grateful that you would
check on me, earthbound here
and shackled by this self-gravity.tumblr_nkrjw15GwY1s4uwt4o1_500I really feel so awkward all the time
Cus I look for freedom as a voracious reader
of pages, of faces, of hearts
and suns gone nova.

Going Nova…

that explains perfectly how disconnected I feel
in my heart from all that while grasping
in my mind exactly what they are saying
and why they are saying it!

And feeling so goddamned guilty for even being…
always, feeling so goddamned guilty for even being.
Never ever had a choice in that, and untold time and tears
toiling in trying to be other…
tumblr_ndrjw4lnQd1s4e9y0o1_500Going Nova…

I guess that’s a choice I make inside my heart
as I float between me and those shimmery stars
that woo me so…

anyway I am trying to say sorry to you for something
but I don’t even know what it is or how to say it…
sorry…nova…for what I am, who I am?
Charissa, trying to survive this human experience
in a body and brain at constant odds…is that me and what I am?tumblr_nlaqwvGLkO1qllucco1_1280I am a girl and have always been and have no need to prove that I am 
(and couldn’t anyway, even if I did)      God knows
patriarchal fists slam into me trying to beat the woman outta me, 
feminist talons slash my skin trying to tear the woman offa me…
while my own nails I keep razor sharp and always ready to rip that male biology 
right outta such dumb DNA that’s so much less than me.tumblr_nlj2o1V0qC1qllucco1_1280Anything I say can be construed as lack of humility because
I never had a chance at solidarity in biological sisterhood with you
and remaining silent can be the height of arrogance because
it reeks of presumption and I am neither or both or all
(silent, arrogant, presumptuous)

I am Going Nova.

I try my best to be a tender soul, to be a gentle soul and do good
and bring honor to woman and women by how I live, how I draw close
to my God Who has been, is and always will be Mama…
the Wise, the Comforter, My Helper in this time of death
hiding behind Hosannas and Hail Caesars.

Please hear my heart, but if you don’t the fault is mine
in all my dark and clumsy lack, so let your eyes
do all the happy work of ears and see me in these words…

Going Nova on Palm Sundaytumblr_nkhwgweeQs1qesboko1_1280

 

Why We Must Honor the Trans Lives We’ve Lost Without Telling the Living They’re Doomed — Everyday Feminism

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Why We Must Honor the Trans Lives We’ve Lost Without Telling the Living They’re Doomed — Everyday Feminism.

I am begging you all to read this.

It’s hard to describe what it feels like inside when I, who have never felt more present, more alive, more legitimate, hear that other people say that I have died, or that they consider me dead.

It’s a worse feeling than despair.  It’s repudiation mixed with invalidation and poured over indifference and then shoved into my throat.

It’s at that point that the thoughts of making that statement true begin to assail and assault…like there is this feeling of well okay if that’s what they think then let’s just finally let it happen and in that congruence let them have a real comparison.

People say that suicide is the ultimate selfish act…maybe.  Certainly this is something I have thought about a lot.  But is it the ultimate selfish act?

What about the act of policing someone with the withdrawal of relationship and then acting like they are dead and they “betrayed”?  Is that act selfish?  Ultimate?

It sure feels like it is at least petulant and petty.

But hey, those are the feelings of a dead girl…and since I am considered dead what do they matter…and since I am considered dead why would anyone even notice when I am gone…right?

Yes…I am using absurdity to illustrate the absurd.  But please:  don’t tell me I should stick around and then punch me in the face of my tender hurting heart.

I am pretty sure I have pressed other things similar to this article…in my opinion it should be pressed by every wordpress blogger until it stops.tumblr_ndg1500IZT1qb4hiyo1_1280

Chas | I lost a friend today and I don’t even remember…

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Chas | I lost a friend today and I don’t even remember….

No words…

Constance, how is it that others cannot see that these things can be avoided with accessible health care, physical and mental, and the cessation of being called things like demonized and freak, pervert and monster, and then the slurs…

It made me cry so hard, because I often feel like I don’t want to continue beneath the crushing weight of dysphoria and then the added weight of every ignorant creep who thinks they are playing “pile on the transgender person”…and then the thought that I would cause such pain to others when all I want to do is have my own be over and the guilt is huge, for even wanting to, for even thinking about it.

Sometimes I talk about my feelings, and it’s not okay that I feel them about myself, they get corrected or rejected as not true and thus not legitimate that I carry them.

But calling them “not true” doesn’t make them any less real, and it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

I can tell you this:  the more I am received as just a regular person the better I feel…and the more I am rejected, the worse I feel, especially when that rejection has the Name of God attached to it.  I am fortunate that I know that God loves me and that I am Acceptable in the Beloved…but many people don’t know this and that extra little oomph just might grease the skids and push them over the edge.

Depression in Transgender Youth Eases with Recognition, Treatment | Psych Central News

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Depression in Transgender Youth Eases with Recognition, Treatment | Psych Central News.

“But Charissa…isn’t this all in your mind???  Cus demons and stuff??”

A young man has recently befriended me.  He accompanied me out one day, all day…he later reported that he had never been so uncomfortable as he was when he was watching the way that other people stared at me, looked at me…the reactions of disgust, fear, slack-jawed amazement, or derision.  He was flabbergasted that they would be that way…because he knows me.  We have spent hours talking, and he has had the “benefit” of my counsel regarding his relationships with women.  So he knows me to be an astute observer of human nature, a tender hearted intuitive listener, a gentle teller of truth that is at times somewhat hard to swallow, and above all a valuer of his life which is of priceless significance.

So when he saw them looking at me…like that…he knew for real that it was not “all in your mind, Charissa”.

The link is a good read.  Please head over and acquaint yourself with the dynamics of how (surprise!) getting help to someone helps them.

Do Justice.  Love Mercy.  Walk Humbly.
Charissa Grace