You're enough.

There’s an understanding surrounding anger in many of the recovery spaces I inhabit: anger is bad, anger is not productive. Where is this rooted? 

I was assigned female at birth (AFAB). I have never been allowed to feel my anger. I have never been encouraged to be angry, to feel my rage. I have been taught to deny this emotion. 

In the healing process, I need to feel anger. I need to be full of rage and break shit, scream, and use a punching bag. I cannot hide my anger anymore. I yearn to take up space. I long for queer community. I long to be seen, to be heard, to be sensual and beautiful and glow brightly in the world. 

I replay memories;

in the shower, brushing my teeth, chopping vegetables;

to 15.

I met a man; bigger than me.

31-years-old, who I worshiped.

He’d write me recommendations to internships

and tell me I was pretty, smart, beautiful.

What more could I ask for?

If I could say anything to the child that I was

when he began to groom me;

to brush down my hard edges,

soften my intuition to a pulp;

I would tell them:

You are more than this.

You are more than smart, more than beautiful, more than pretty,

more than some 31-year old’s bitch.

You, my child, are fucking angry and queer

and full of complexities.

A work in progress, never to be fully finished.

Take every word that he told you,

and burn it to ash:

for every sideways flirt and professional favor that he offers,

read in between the lines.

Know you are worthy;

Goldenrod and honey moves through your blood

and no amount of inappropriate attention could give you the self-fulfillment you seek.

Run, Child, run 

as fast as you can.

You are more than this.

You are more than this.

God is God, ink on illustration board

Black and white, good and bad, salvation and sin. 

I was feeling like shit during the weekend, thinking about the future and feeling anxious in general. Then I realized I can change it all, I can choose to be happy. So I left the house, went to the park, and took pictures and movies of random shit in the woods. Probably the best way to spend a Sunday afternoon.