Lex malla, lex nulla

art by the.gauntlets

My family is still staying in half of the church that wasn’t affected by the bombing because there is nowhere else to stay other than tents. They are limited to one small meal a day and one shower a week. They are sleeping on the floors, but no one can sleep since there is bombing everywhere around them. Even when there is no bombing, they can still hear the loud buzzing sound of the military planes above them, which would keep anyone who hears it awake. Along with everything, My grandma has diabetes and osteoporosis, so she can’t walk. She has to take her insulin medication along with many others; however, she has run out of many of her medications.” Am on my knees requesting for donation. Target $950

Click this link to make donations👇

the donations would assist healthcare workers across Gaza's hospitals, including the northern region, as they endure the challenges posed by the complete collapse of the healthcare system and the disruption of their salaries

I ask her about him and she says his name is the white noise of an absent parent.

She says his voice sounded like gurgled glass and the hoarseness of screaming.

She says he smelled like cigars and smiled whenever he annoyed her mother into grinding her teeth and slamming cupboards.

I ask her what it's like to grow up without a father and she says a week after he died she smoked an entire box of cigarettes and then never touched them again. She wanted to know what was so special about them,why he chose to die for them rather than live for his children. She says she can still taste them every time she kisses a man.

My father: 

She says meeting him was the tinkling of ice,a warning bell they both ignored.

She tells me their first kiss felt like two trains colliding, says it was something out of the movies, the way they bickered,two kids on a playground or two adults in a bar. Credits rolling on their kiss. 

I ask her why she’d want to get hit by a train and she answers ”to feel 

the 

impact”

“To feel something other than the emptiness in my chest,Ty."

My father opened spaces for me and filled in the cold spots left by my mother.

My mother who when she thawed out let a man with rotten hands and a gold tipped tongue move inside of her.

Me:

I lean into kisses like I'll never be touched again,disregarding the ways that it could be so holy,if I let it. 

He said the first time he saw me,he wanted to kiss me.That he wanted to tuck a curl behind my ear and touch my cheek. 

I didn't know how to tell him that I have never received gentle things well. That I was not made for the way that lovers touch each other. 

How to explain that someone wrote "fuck toy" on my body when I was a child,and that I haven't been able to scrub it off? The ink left behind staining everything that finds its way in front of me,stumbling around hoping someday I'll run out. 

I don't watch the last episode of shows because I'm terrified of things ending. 

I make people pinky promise when they offer me things and I don't tell men my real name. Don't want to hear the way they say it,as if it'll cement us to this moment. 

Sometimes I think of the person I could have been. A boy who didn't have his guts scribbled across his bedroom ceiling. A boy who could hold someone's hand and not feel the urge to squeeze until we became one.  

A man worthy of the way that his mouth curls when he says "get home safe." As if he really means it,as if I am worth 

seeing 

which is nothing new. even when I was twenty-three hundred miles closer. even in the same bed.

& what I would not give to be a different woman. either one he could love fiercely, or a person he walked past on a train once. & not this messy, in-between girl.

let me tell you something about the St. John’s Bridge. the way I bicycled across at nineteen and fell right into traffic. how every car stopped. never even got close, but I haven’t been on a bicycle since.

I think the bend is worse than the break

the way it makes us these new people with the same names,

the way I siphon my own breath out, offer it to the empty side of the bed then grieve the ways he cannot hold it,

ask any Michigander where they come from, they’ll hold their hand up. eight months ago, I would have held up his.

they’ll point to the fleshy part of their palm, or the spot right below their pinky. here. this is where my home is.

Don't put space heaters around clutter either and don't run them when you're asleep or out of the room. Make sure all your smoke detectors are working.

In honor of International Friendship Day!

James thwacked Matthew gently on the back of the head. “I believe what he means to say is that it cannot be the responsibility of one’s friends to prevent one from doing something one believes is right,” he said. “It is, however, the job of one’s friends to rescue one from the consequences of one’s actions when it all goes skew-whiff.”

Natasha: They have a bet going about what Tony’s like in bed. Barnes thinks he’s secretly really kinky but Steve thinks he’s too romantic.

Sam: Yeah, he’s actually both.

Natasha: [narrows her eyes]

[Sam pauses]

“Yeah but it’s a trend now, lots of them are just saying it for their 15 minutes of fame.” He then continued to say that he didn’t know anyone who had been harassed or any man who had done it.

I asked him if he had a daughter. He did. I asked him how old she was. She was was 17. I told him I’d bet my rent money that his daughter had experienced sexual harassment. 

“That’s impossible.” 

“Did you ask her?” 

“No.” 

“Well then, do it.”

The next day, he came in the office with five bouquets of flowers for all the women in our department, including me. He publicly apologized for making fun of sexual harassment and for making our lives harder by doing so. He said that he simply hadn’t known how widespread it was. Apparently, his daughter deals with it very regularly. She hadn’t told him because of the way he spoke about assault cases that were on the news. She thought he’d think less of her if she’d mention it. It was her idea that he should make a public announcement. He said he felt like a bad father. 

I said: “You were. Same goes for everyone who laughed with you. Be better, now you know better. And educate other men that still think the same way you did yesterday. And next time someone tells you about an experience they have, don’t automatically assume that because you haven’t seen it, it’s not true. That kind of willful ignorance is why we still deal with this shit.”

"Keep your head up, underoos."

or

"You're doing great, kid."