#pastelthoughts

My husband sits on the floor and does their schoolwork- college English, and he grumps and huffs about terrible articles and authors that show too much of themselves with their words and subjects and badly decorated thesis statements and I wonder if he realizes he married an author like that.

I fill everything I write with things I’ve wanted since I first learned the word yearning- A father who saw me as his child and not a mistake of genetics or a hiccup of chromosomes that wasn’t in his ego’s favor. A mother who recognized me as her daughter and not just a resource, cleaning up and caring and laying out clothes and coffee with a vapid smile and eyes that haven’t sparkled since they first opened.

A gorgeous and scarred person; deserving of praise and worship and soft kisses and quiet sleep bundled in blankets they helped choose, colors they ascribe meaning to.

I spent so many years dreaming and dreaming of being Someone More, locked away in a cruel tower filled with warlocks and stepmothers and emaciated dragons siphoning away the little magic I was granted only to realize, painfully, viscerally...

I was always the girl in the cinders, I suppose.

I was so covered in ashes of the dreams I burned to warm the people around me that when He found me I was all but empty- my holy grail had broken and the wine stained the singed carpet I had become accustomed to.

He told me I was still worth royal titles. I didn’t believe him. I’d been told that before, you see- by prince charmings and white knights and sorcerers who craved my happiness or softness to bottle for their own and leave me cold and broken and bitter and scared.

I believe him now, I think.

He sits on the floor and does his schoolwork. He kisses me goodbye and hello with the lights on and when the sun is up and when people can see and he sends fire from his eyes when they seem confused at our mismatchery.

I am a girl from the cinders. I swept and kept up and wrote out the dreams I loved too dearly to burn. 

He knows, and he stays, and he loves me all the same; and he touches me gently and holds me close when the shadows on the wall remind me of the vermin that crawled in the corners of my old house and home and head.

He didn’t drag me out of the cinders, pushing me into light I wasn’t ready for.

He set down his weapons, and knelt next to me, and held my hands, and told me I didn’t have to do this all alone, now. He fixed the lock on the door, and helped me tear down the wild ivy and cobwebs.

We washed and hung the linens, we scrubbed and settled the kitchen. We threw open old windows and rehung the curtains and he never saw me as a dying pixie in an abandoned home.

He calls me princess. He rubs my hands after I cook. He kisses me hello and goodbye with the lights on and with the sun up.

When they hear I’m a writer, I hear the usual jokes- and then they find out that I’m passionate about my craft, that I’ve been using it in tandem with other above-the-table means to keep my mother and I safe and fed.

They love to notice my tongue piercing when I fidget with it, and make the usual assumptions- only to find out that I am recently married, that my life is fairly solidly planned by me, that the ring I wear as a placeholder is indeed a sign of my marital status.

The weather warms my tattoo is visible due to my shirts- again, more jokes until they find out that I’m a caretaker and a budgeter and a hard worker.

I’m not slim, far from it- and they find out I’m a softball player (now more a pop-up coach to the neighborhood girls due to past injuries), that I was a weightlifter, that I’m more active than they usually are. 

I am brash and vulgar and rude and lewd and I crack jokes with a mouthful of drink and watch the news too much; and then they learn that I have a massive capacity for love, and understanding, and empathy.

My life is a series of rather comedic (and occasionally rude) misunderstandings. And honestly, I feel like it suits me perfectly.

Today, I remembered my little sister. I’ll call her N in this, as I don’t feel comfortable using her full name.

N is my step-sister, the daughter of my stepmother who I do not like or get along with. She’s a sweet girl, who likes music and boy bands and the colors pink and purple because of Twilight Sparkle.

N was also the first in my Dad’s family to ask me what “gay” meant.

At the time, I was dating a friend from college. She had come to visit me for a week while she was on vacation from college and I had some time off work. We spent a lot of time together, and took N with us to the mall and the park because she wanted to spend time with me, away from our brothers.

N and my partner got along wonderfully; N asked a lot of questions, as kids do, and my partner answered them all. About her own siblings, about school, about what driving was like, and what her favorite food was.

When the week ended, and my partner had gone home, N came over to my apartment after school to spend the day with me and the eldest brother, T. She was confused, and very quiet, I noticed, so I asked her what was wrong. She sat down next to me, not near my cigarette as I was smoking on the porch, and held my pantleg.

“What does gay mean?”, she asked me.

“It means that I love S, my partner, like Dad loves Mom.”, is how I answered.

“Why does Dad not like gay?”

This was a hard question. My father and mother were both very close friends with my godfather Greg- a gay man who passed away the year I was born because he had contracted HIV during the AIDS crisis in the eighties. It was hard to match the man who had so many friends who were gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender with the man who now demonized those same people.

“Because he is scared, maybe.”, is what I told her, “Sometimes, people do bad things to people like me because I’m gay. He’s probably very worried that something might happen to me.”

She nodded before asking one final question about the subject, “Is something bad gonna happen to you sissy?”

She only called me that when she was scared. I told her no, that I was always gonna be around for her and nothing was gonna change that. Not even when I was married, maybe with kids of my own.

She seemed to brighten at the idea, and began asking me what kind of dress I would wear, what kind of cake I wanted, and if she could be the flower girl.

Later, after she went home significantly happier, my father called me in a rage. He demanded to know what I had told my little sister, why I had exposed her to something so “disgusting” and “inappropriate”.

I asked him what was inappropriate about my future wedding? Something she wanted to be a part of, as family.

He couldn’t answer me.

I asked him how Greg would feel, knowing what Dad was saying nowadays.

He hung up after a few choice names.

This, I think, is why I never believe people who try to say that their homophobia is for the children’s safety. Before my parent’s divorce, my mother and father were both very frank about things, like sex and violence and sexuality.

Auntie Dee is a trans woman. She is six feet tall, and she likes doing hair and fruity drinks.

Sex is natural, and nothing to be ashamed of. Virginity is something private, your business.

No means no.

And if you are gay, or straight, or you don’t know yet; that’s okay. You are a person, and a person can be whatever they want to be.

It hurt, for a very long time afterward, to know how my father felt about my identity. To see my younger brother talk about his crush at school, only for my father to threaten him upon finding out it was a crush on another boy.

Homophobia, transphobia, misandry and misogyny are far worse than an attack on adults- they are an attack on children, on teenagers and the youth. They are a means of the older generation trying to control people.

I have not been allowed to speak to my siblings ever since my father tried to commit fraud; switching names on the contract and forging my name and information in order to saddle me with his 600 dollar cell phone bill. Calling the cops on me and saying I was “psychotic” and “a danger” to my older brother as payback for not giving him access to my bank account.

I am not a violent person. I do not take any kind of pleasure from seeing people hurt.

But I do believe in defending myself and my right to exist. And I believe in defending those close to me, and their right to exist.

And to exist comfortably, without the threat of white supremacists.

Richard Spencer is a white supremacist. Richard Spencer is alt-right. Richard Spencer is a filthy little neonazi digging his nasty little claws into my country.

Richard Spencer is the kind of person my Oma fled Germany to escape in World War Two. Richard Spencer is the nasty kind of pseudopolitician my Great-Grandfather marched against when he landed on European soil and Richard Spencer is the reason I have skinheads bearing “1488″ applying at my job and why people wearing the Eagle and swastika’s watch me leave my shift.

I support Punching Nazis and people who Punch Nazis.

I support their destruction and I support them being publicly humiliated and defamed at every opportunity.

Because they would happily kill people like me. And I deserve the right to defend myself by any. Means. Necessary.