“I was watching a TV show the other day about hauntings, okay?”

“Yeah,” I said.

She continued earnestly. “People were talking about how they would wake up only to find handshaped bruises on their bodies, or various scratches and cuts and no clue how they got there,” she said. “So they believed ghosts had attacked them in their sleep.”

“Okay…”

“And I think they’re right to some extent. But for me, it’s not that the ghosts are some outside force. For me, I’m haunted from the inside out and the bruises and cuts that seemingly appear from nowhere…? Well, I think it’s the pain within finding its way out.”

—

This post is part of an original collection of story-like blurbs with poemish tendencies referred to as “Stories of She”.

Where do I fit? Certainly not in this body, which is too soft and too easily injured. And this body certainly not in these clothes—they’re too tight. Once maybe and maybe once again in the future. Maybe… Maybe? I’d like once to transition into something more. I’d like it to turn into a vow never to be broken. Until death do us part, my body and me. And does this borrowed familiarly unfamiliar body that clumsily cradles my being fit into your hands? Does it tuck under your arms and form to your body like we once were one continent that pulled apart in previous lives and were separated by oceans? I dove off the cliffs of me and have been swimming back to you for ages, my dear, wherever you are. But I’ve never been a particularly skilled swimmer. It’s looked like drowning at times, but I’ve been fighting to stay afloat. I’ve been plunging my hands into the salty water and kick, kick, kicking through it. Half thrashing, half propelling onward and blindly feeling for your shoreline while holding my breath. (I haven’t breathed in eras.) And when I find you again, after first sucking in fresh air and next kissing you, let’s then use our mouths to vow to each other eternity. No more oceans between us. No death to divide us. Just breathing and kissing and speaking honest words.

If I carve this body and if I curl into you, will I fit in some place? Will I fit in labels and preconceived notions of where and how and who I’m supposed to be? Will I fit and will it matter and will vows be kept? Or will they be broken? Will I be broken all over again?

“Some women melt in the mouths of men like chocolate,” she said. “Me? I disintegrate like a saltine cracker after their teeth have broken me up.”

—

This post is part of an original collection of story-like blurbs with poemish tendencies referred to as “Stories of She”.

“You look like you’re searching for something,” I said.

She spun around in circles, took two steps one direction, three steps in another, and her eyes darted here, there, and everywhere. “I am,” she replied, sounding exasperated, “but I don’t know what I’m searching for. I just have this feeling in my gut that I should be looking and so I am.” 

“Well, how about we add some music to your steps and turn this search party into a dance party?” I suggested. “It’s a lot less exhausting.”

—

This post is part of an original collection of story-like blurbs with poemish tendencies referred to as “Stories of She”.

“He called me beautiful,” she said, “but as soon as he said that I felt the exact opposite. Which is funny because before he opened his mouth I felt neither beautiful or ugly. And then he just kept saying it and the more he said it, the more I faded from place and time. And then he took my hand, my hand, and he held onto it like it belonged to him. I looked at it resting in his hands and it seemed like it was just some object… I couldn’t feel it anymore after awhile.” She scowled at her hand as if it had betrayed her. “You’re sooo beautiful,” she said with squinted eyes and furrowed brow as she mimicked him. “Sooooo beautiful.” Then she dropped her imitation and rolled her eyes and when they fell back into place, they dragged a sadness with them that looked like a lifeless body being pulled out of water. “I just wanted him to stop saying it before I disappeared, but all I said was ‘thank you’.” She covered her mouth as if her voice, too, had betrayed her. 

“What would you have liked for him to say?”

“That’s just it…” She shrugged. “I don’t know…”

—

This post is part of an original collection of story-like blurbs with poemish tendencies referred to as “Stories of She”.

“We fall like rain. So many of us pouring from the heavens. And the ground just absorbs us as if we were nothing. As if why we fell to the earth in the first place didn’t matter,” she said. ”Oh, but we do. Just you wait. You’ll see the flowers we made grow. You’ll see them bloom and then you’ll know.”

—

This post is part of an original collection of story-like blurbs with poemish tendencies referred to as “Stories of She”.

Remember yesterday? Remember it was NO MORE Day? A day to say NO MORE to domestic violence and sexual assault. Remember that? Well, here’s the thing… Today is NO MORE Day and tomorrow is NO MORE Day. Every day we must, in a variety of ways, say NO MORE to domestic violence and sexual assault. Why? Because every minute 24 people are physically abused, raped, or stalked by their partners. If my math is correct, that’s what? 34,560 people directly affected by this kind of violence in a single day? In a single day! This doesn’t account for those who are victimized by people unknown to them. Also, note that I said “directly affected” because this doesn’t account for the fact these acts of violence affect more than just the victims. This affects their friends and family and their communities. This affects us all. Every day, whether we realize it or not, domestic violence and sexual assault affects us all. It’s time we realize it and it’s time we say NO MORE.

www.nomore.org

“You can’t walk a mile in my shoes,” she said, “because I’m barefoot. But I’d love it if you would walk alongside of me.”

Psalm 91:11-12

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This post is part of an original collection of story-like blurbs with poemish tendencies referred to as “Stories of She”.

My story is mine. I’ll share it with you, but I need to give it to you too. I need give it to you because it’s bigger than me. So much bigger than me. I need you to help me hold it. There’s no way my hands can hold it on their own because there’s no way it would ever fit neatly in something they can grip. Not even a book. No, my story can’t be confined between the covers of any book, printed neatly on the pages in size ten Times New Romans font. It’s so much messier than that. There’s no way my hands can grasp it because my head can’t even do that.

I need you to help me hold it. I need your help because it’s my story, but it’s yours too. You are in this unfolding story. You always have been. And I always have been. I was in this story before I was even born. We all were.

We all are. This is our story. Let’s cradle it together.

The dialogue has been spoken one word at a time by people of all ages and labels and from every nook and cranny of the world since the day naked became known. “I,” she said. “feel,” he said. “alone,” they said. Do you hear them? There are billions of voices attached to people who feel voiceless. Attached to human beings stripped of their God given clothing and then some who have said and say those very words. Do you hear them? Do you hear me? “I feel alone,” I said.

And I’m pretty sure I heard your voice in the mix of that severed choir.

But what would it look like if instead of that… If instead of wounded voices crouched in solitary confinement bleeding words of ache and doubt and shame from their bare skin we stood tall and we all said in unison, “We are one”?

We are one.

What if we pieced our stories together to see where they overlapped, sewed them up in this utterly flawed, but truly lovely quilt and draped it around all of our shoulders? Do you think in so doing we could sew up our wounds too and clothe ourselves in dignity and strength?

Oh, I think we could. I think together we could mend what others ripped apart. So you share— You give— You tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine. Because, after all, the stories are all of ours and they’re waiting to be told.

For a long time—a long, long time—there was an omission of all sound,
but I wouldn’t call it silence. It was quieter than that. Quieter because there was so much to be said, but not a single word found its wings. (I call that a side effect of violence.) Eventually a brave whisper couldn’t take the hurt and so it began to chirp and flap its fluffy little feathered flanks knowing it had to leave this nest of angst. It had to. The leap to speak this lone whisper took into the air was awkward and terrifying and just when it thought it might have the hang of this flying thing, the whisper was caught and held captive in a cage. Again fearful to talk. Fearful to spread its wings. But the will to fight and the yearning for flight could not be muffled for long. The whisper kept chirping and soon others chimed in. And the whispers kept building, spreading their wings again and again and again until they outgrew those bars enclosed around them. So the whispers turned to murmurs that were released into picturesque open land. Oh, but all they received was a false sense of freedom for their wingspan. Sure the cages were unlocked, but their wings had been cropped. They tried and they tried to fly, to fly, but all they could do was flutter. Flutter and murmur. Murmur and flutter. It was exhausting and it was frustrating, but they kept up with those efforts. It was all they could do, someone would pay attention. Someone had to. And just when they thought they couldn’t flutter and murmur anymore… Just when they were ready to give in to the noiseless void and fold up their wings voices circled high overhead. We hear you, they said. In excitement they stretched out their wings and at that very moment their clipped feathers were shed. So in excitement they started to sing! A beautiful song of joy rumbled in their chests and flew from their mouths, hope clinging to each breath. The power of choice and the strength of voice rooted in words. And their hearts soared like a flock of birds. Because finally, finally they were heard.