This year I've sung each day and on stage in front of a few thousand people.

- That is a reality I had to type to understand fully.

My dream it is to sing, to write and to paint.  To be an artist alive in art each day.

- I painted more this year than any other prior and portraits of humans I get insecure of.  Due to the soul stealing nature of a great photo and my second rate depiction of that soul.

The last time I sang the microphone was my Grandfather's hand.

- And that could mean anything!

- But I sang clear with a speaking voice of a toad... so... there you go?

- I have expressed this dream very few times.  Because I live in a community where if your dream isn't to destroy yourself quietly... you have no dream.  You are part of some otherworldly nightmare that should not exist.

Last night I was called a baby.  It was for a moment but I did not wahhh.  I do not agree.  I was told to stop a bit with my vulnerability. 

- And I can and I would and I will, don't you see?  But first I have Broadway Musicals to write... about pain.  And that 13 part finished sci-fi chapbook series in need of illustration and money.

- And then those two web-series...?

I am not a baby, I am a woman who wasn't allowed to feel my own pain for 23 years and then I was trapped for the other seven.  I have just been freed and 92% of the time I write from a place of mostly complete partial creativity. 

- And I am not explaining this for you but me.

Why?

Blurred mono memory.

Because that is the element most harmful to me personally.  Strained heart or no.  Death awaiting. 

Wanting to know the me that is me.

Wondering what the agriculture and pesticides do to our community due to our perceived needs....  Choosing to grow organically.

Return upon falling.

Reading my journals from age 6 and reading that I just wanted to be an artist. 

Realizing I have been.

At age 30.

This is my truth, I am Danette.  That is all.

If you call me a baby flippantly I do not forget the invalidation of my emotions.  That is no threat, that is who I am.  And I can forgive you as soon as you said it but I now know invalidation is at your center and I do seek to change that or live to see it change.

When I am careless with my words I know, I clench my eyes and await the blow of words to come. 

If I have been careless with my words I am sorry.

I am sorry for everything today,

and vulnerable as a sponge

and tomorrow I won't apologize because today was the first day my art was me.  Today was the first day my red is all over. 

And even though my request to traditionally dance was seemingly ignored due to my phenotype.... someday I will dance!

And even though my friends can cause my person as much pain as I allow for... I am masochistic enough that I cannot hate.

So... Waaaaahhhh... Wahhhhh.   I hope each baby learns to wail like me.

I hope for care not cruelty.

And I have had more slip ups this year through: trusting.

Yet, I can assure you I will be strong.

Because my voice used to shake.

Now I care so deeply, my voice can only sing.

And mezzo piano to blasting and quaking... I will ring.

Only because I have heard and seen as I have.

Only because I am me... of me.

Only because I turned off the t.v. 8 years ago.

Only because I am capable of learning.

Only because the single feather is now mine. 

Beading.

No one can take me from me.

I will not let them.

I will write my truth until they want to pay because the free version is just too brief.

The unabridged me does exist and the more people invalidate me, the more lengthy it becomes.

And if my sickness takes me, my little sister is my archivist?

And as I sit my sickness shakes me, and I steady then.

I will be a face of success.

My pain is clearly not all that I am.

But my god is it real?  Is it there?

Am I a baby for not changing immediately?

Or do I know what sustainable change means?

I am not questioning me!

I am getting them to think!

I was never a baby... I was always me.

A five year old lamenting about a fallen bee that stung me.

So I can and will be that me.

Don't you dare call me a baby.

Why?

Because it made me cry.

So then, I guess I lied and I'm your baby now?  Yet, I will not cry again.

And my patience can be tested, I will not falter.

There is strength within my weakness as there is within me. 

Let me tell you what I believe of humans:

We are without our shells, that is me.

I do not seek to protect myself from negativity.

I seek to challenge it.

I seek to change the world. I seek to have no one bullied... No one name called.

I seek to have everyone as tolerant as me.

And then as intolerant as can be of invalidation such as "Baby" for not changing immediately.

I am changed.

Because 29 years ago and on... I never would have thought I could write anything other than a coded journal.  That is why I must write everything and feel.

Because my actions are loyal and all I have ever wanted was to be an artist.

I left a mate who threw his baby down then said she was the greatest artist ever.

No one puts baby in that corner?  I left to be free.

Or well, because I was free.  I just didn't see.

I lacked that perspective which writing has given to me.

For Four years Only Every Day.  I sang and wrote... That is me!

That vulnerability will fuel entirely who I am and have been and will be.

Again, there is strength in that.  Or there shall be.  Because?

I NOW BELIEVE.  I SHALL NOT FORGET.  I AM NOT KIDDING

NOR AM I YELLING.  THIS IS MERELY ALL CAPS.

AND I, I AM A RESERVATION BARD.

IF MY STORIES ARE EVER TOO DARK... OR MY SOUL

JUST KNOW... I PROMISE THIS: MY HEART IS ENTIRELY RED.

Also, my future standup comedy...

it is purely dark hilarity so...