i am still that girl. you know, the one who would take off her beaded earrings to fight.
still the girl that would happily finish what someone else started.
the first time it happened was high school and a boy who had relentlessly bullied me, pushed me to the last straw and i laid him out on the floor of the gymnasium and i beat him senseless while screaming. it took three teachers to pry me off of him and i fought them too, like a wild animal roaring all the way to the school office.
i cracked that boy’s nose and loosened a tooth. he bled like crazy while crying like a little bitch about it. i never cried when he would bounce the basketball off my head or arrive early to school everyday to scrawl “slut” or “whore” on my locker.
the day i rearranged his face, he kept bouncing the ball off my chest laughing about my tits.
i wonder if his nose is still crooked.
i wonder if he still thinks about that day.
i was suspended for a day for fighting and when my mother picked me up from school she took me for mcdonalds after screeching about sexual assault and harassment to the school workers in ukrainian. they could see where i got it from.
they didn’t argue with her and we left, two crazy bitches on our way to eat mcchickens in silence.
they called me crazy, you know.
maybe i was, but maybe they should have been looking at what made me that way.
people can only handle so much cruelty.
i never did anything to that little fuck aside from exist in a form that triggered him enough for him to desire to make me feel as small as possible in return. i wonder if he felt small that day through his tears and bloody nose.
i found out i hurt someone recently and i don’t care. this feeling of not caring makes me uncomfortable because generally im not that way anymore. years of healing and personal work and i take no pride or joy in taking out my earrings and squaring up anymore, even when I should.
fuck me over now and you’re done. access cut off and boundaries way up. i might not take off my beaded earrings as much anymore, because i use boundaries and silence now instead of my fists or teeth or nails.
i disappear and pray for people from the sidelines and i wonder if the great coyote or Jesus and all the angels bother to listen.
somehow that’s worse, i think.
most people would probably rather have the completion of an ass kicking instead of the cold unanswered silence that makes you wonder and can keep you up at night if the mood is right or the wind blows in the right direction.
i am in a strange mood this week and im hungry and restless and craving red meat and sugar. i crave my young lover and his crooked eye. i crave violence, too but not sure against whom. life, maybe?
if i could get ahold of the great coyote would we square up and gnash our rabid mouths until only one of us was left standing? could i fist fight an angel in the liquor store parking lot? get into a shoving match with one of the maenads and rip out our hair extensions and fake eyelashes?
i may fight my battles with silence and boundaries now. i might smudge and pray and read the bible sometimes or look for truth in tarot cards and plot my escape from samsara, but the girl that takes off her beaded earrings to fight, still lives inside my chest.
i attend a counselling session over the phone and talk to this really nice guy on the phone. he’s got an australian accent and he asks me about my writing as he tries to get inside my mind.
i tell him that i write everyday and he’s surprised.
he asks what i write about and i say that i write about myself and my life, i take photographs and scan images, i talk about music. he’s surprised at this, my counsellor.
he asks me to describe a blog post and i tell him about this one. he thinks for a moment and asks me if i am the bridge or the river.
i am the river, always and i say this immediately.
he agrees. he asks who my bridge is and i tell him.
i tell him about my young lover with his crooked eye.
i hang up the phone from the session with healing homework, and more cognitive tricks like witchcraft to calm my restless mind that churns like the river’s inky black water.
sometimes, i churn, just like that water, too.
i go walking after the session, my blundstones taking me through the winding streets of the downtown, past shops and stylish women who are dressed alike, like visions in cream and tan.
they all want to be jillian harris.
there’s a guy on bicycle yelling. there’s a homeless girl shooting up.
the italian deli smells delicious and i think about food and fucking as i walk past.
i walk to my favourite thrift store downtown. i browse a while, taking a breather, thinking thinking.
always thinking.
i find this pamphlet at the thrift store in a pile of paper ephemera.
it tells the story of st. dymphna, which is interesting.
i guess it makes sense if one is afflicted with something, there’s always a saint or a voto or milagro or a herb or candle one can turn to for relief.
i guess next time i’m feeling anxious, i’ll have to think about this virgin martyr and see if it helps.
hospital vespers 