pacifist

I am not a pacifist.

I didn't want someone else to tell me who my enemy was or who my friends were.

So I said the fighting was wrong.

Sometimes, I was tired. I was too tired from surviving, from getting along in this cage of a society.

And, other times, many other times I was afraid.

They did not tell us so many stories of rebels. We were not to understand that others had fought back.

And I thought I was alone. And that made me afraid.

But although I had reasons and I had excuses, I was never a pacifist.

My heart burned at injustice. My eyes flashed at betrayal.  My voice shook and I wept and my true nature could be seen down there in that place we have not given over.

I am not a pacifist.

My sword may not cleanly remove a head, but that doesn't mean I'm not taking it out.

My hammer may miss the mark when I throw, but that doesn't mean I showed mercy.

My whip may not crack the right skin, and maybe it flies back in my face, but I won't be keeping her silent out of that caution.

Durga burned those fuckers alive and sent them to the hell they created out of her fury.

And she lives in me too.

I am not a pacifist.

3

He began to say things about the people in my life. He remarked how so many of the women I was around or knew, were angry women. And how that was a reflection of something wrong inside of me.
It was never said quite that bluntly.
    But he made it clear.
    The remarks went on about their little flaws, flaws he understood, how he deeply understood them, so clear as he was on the human condition.
  He first brought up the Jewish conspiracy during the Key West trip. At dinner. I told him I already knew what he was going to say and that I didn't want to talk about it because we would disagree and I wasn't going to be swayed to the belief that a small group of Jews were maliciously controlling the entire world and had been for centuries.
  He also talked about homosexuality as an aberrant kind of mental or emotional illness that he could cure.
  He also talked about child marriage and also about the destruction of white culture.
   Sometimes I would disagree adamantly (like every time he spoke of child marriage) and sometimes I would ask more questions as a way of giving him a chance to not sound crazy. English, after all was his 3rd language and he didn't really grow up in a developed Western nation, so maybe he hadn't been able to properly sort through...I don't know how I was trying to make it excusable.
   It's amazing how much bullshit people will give ear to and accept if it comes from the right mouth.

There was no silencing him about his conspiracy theories, and there was no arguing. He is a freight train.

     When he decided he loved audio equipment, my days were spent driving him around to buy it, and figuring out how to store it for him in my little rented room.

 When he decided he loved scuba diving, my days were spent driving to diving stores and waiting for hours while he shopped and figuring out how to store it in my little rented room.

When he decided he loved archery, my days were spent driving him to archery shops and spending hours waiting while he shopped and figuring out how to store it in my...

     
 

 

blond jokes

As I open a blond joke email from a friend who is casually misogynist, complete with a photo of a young blond woman flashing a camera, I try to think of a clever man hating joke to send back.
   There just isn't enough fire to fight back with. There aren't enough pink pussy hats in the world, or enough white scarves and wristbands, or enough protesters or laws.
   
      It's better in the US than Russia. It's better in Australia than in Iran. It's better everywhere than in Saudi Arabia or Latin America where ugly brown men terrorize openly.
   But it's bad everywhere to be a woman. It has been, apparently, in every story i've read from any place in any history.
It's been bad for every living woman who represents a generation. It's been bad in mine, it's bad for the ones being born.

       Anger has been my fuel, but has held me. Inner work has made me more palatable, as long as I do not demand too much respect. Alliances with women who are awake to our collective suffering has ultimately been betrayal if there is true male superiority at stake.

     All that is left for me, or for anyone, is to quietly give in and suffer along to trade for the privilege of participation. Or to rage separately and be ostracized.
   
         It doesn't matter if we are stronger, or better or smarter. If we are more observant, more empathic, if we carry responsibility for the next generations.
   The blond jokes won't end. The misogyny won't end. Mansplaining, disrespect, abuse, betrayal, slavery....
I once dreamed that in some past, somewhere, there were women who held control of themselves and their own destinies. I dreamed that somewhere, once women were respected and free.
    It must be fantasy.
   
    All the wounds go on unhealed and festering. We medicate, we retreat, we fantasize.

  I dream of one day, having made my way long enough through this wretched culture, to be able to find myself in the woods, or near the sea, or near a hilltop where I myself can shut the door on all of it, to coddle no-one but perhaps an animal with no gender preferences and sink into the void.

  Fuck this horrible ugly culture.