Red

“It all begins and ends in your mind. What you give power to has power over you.”

“Pretty and poised is what they want to see. Big eyes and tiny mouths are what they paint they’re pictures of. Rosy cheeks and a twinkling smile is what they’ve pounded into us. But maybe I don’t want to be demure or small or meek or harmless. Maybe I want to be ferocious. Maybe I want to walk down the street in a tight red dress and know that I’m not being stared at for the way my body curves but for the fire in my eyes. Maybe I want clever to be the first word someone uses to describe me instead of pretty. And if I’m ever striving for beauty at all it will be my own, not frilly and light, it will be cunning and powerful. Maybe I want to be expected to carry my own weight gladly instead of waiting for a someone else to do it for me. I will not cry for a prince like a sinking ship calls in distress. I am not a leaky boat. I am not a china doll. I am not a cotton candy cloud.”

“Pretty and poised is what they want to see. Big eyes and tiny mouths are what they paint they’re pictures of. Rosy cheeks and a twinkling smile is what they’ve pounded into us. But maybe I don’t want to be demure or small or meek or harmless. Maybe I want to be ferocious. Maybe I want to walk down the street in a tight red dress and know that I’m not being stared at for the way my body curves but for the fire in my eyes. Maybe I want clever to be the first word someone uses to describe me instead of pretty. And if I’m ever striving for beauty at all it will be my own, not frilly and light, it will be cunning and powerful. Maybe I want to be expected to carry my own weight gladly instead of waiting for a someone else to do it for me. I will not cry for a prince like a sinking ship calls in distress. I am not a leaky boat. I am not a china doll. I am not a cotton candy cloud.”

my mother says:   when they hurt you, and they will, eventually, hurt you - take it back.     when he calls you words that make your skin crawl, stand taller, my love, lying down in a hole is how you become a gravesite, and he deserves no honor like writing your epithet   when they don’t see you as a leader, find how to guide from inside the operation, my love, a mouse can level a house if it learns which beam to gnaw    when you try to speak and are silenced; remember this: most language is through our bodies and like language, our rage has a way of coming out even when our tongues are stilled - no witchfires stopped us, no rocks drowned us: you cannot kill what is endless.   when they hurt you, and they will hurt you, remember to be the trees of your grandmothers; we are sap sisters and it is so easy to forget that amber’s embrace is forever; no woman on this planet is entirely broken - you cannot break lightning, from stone comes more stone, from the edge of the ocean we at once rose    when they hit you, turn no cheek when they hate you, live a revengefully happy life when they send you to hell, learn to love heat   when they send you to the kitchen, pick up a knife.

Find someone who pays attention. Who runs their fingers over your every scar; and asks where each one came from. Find someone who knows how you like your coffee; what song makes you want to roll the windows down and slam on the gas pedal. Find someone who takes in your smallest details; who notices the things you thought no one ever would. And then…when you find them… Be their someone, too.

the instant we make eye contact I’m relieved, even though life throws so much at us we still have each other, I still have your eyes locked on mine like a shipwrecked sailor finding the lighthouse like a lost voyager searching the for the north star like an ancient warrior finding their partner in the middle of battle and this like an oncoming car crash but the minute your hand brushes mine I can righten us and set us back on the path to thrive