sullen girl

Riding a bike feels like flying. Pure awareness.

“you’re such a ray of sunshine!” thanks! one day i chose to act happy and then i kept choosing it over and over and over and over until the neurological pathways formed like desire paths in the thicket. i dug and clawed my nails into the grooves of my brain and carved out joy. i retouch it every day.

everyone is so focused on the misogyny of the romance genre meanwhile crime/thriller novels rely heavily on the brutalisation of women to the point where the rape/murder of women is an inevitable trope. i was listening to a radio interview of ivan jablonka who wrote a book called the culture of femicide and he was inspired by an anecdote from a screenwriter about a screenplay where a female jogger is found murdered in the woods with her dog, and the reaction of the producer was to say that killing the dog was unacceptable. like that’s the status quo in most mainstream fiction. not denying the misogyny of many popular romance tropes but i am personally more alarmed at the ease with which even the most ‘family friendly’ narrative will resort to violence against women like it’s nothing