angel b

she/her | 27

[chasmhaze]

Soon after I arrive, I find a restroom to verify through mirrored image that I am, in fact, real and there. I never feel real these days and I’m told depersonalization is an after effect to the assaults I’ve had from him and the men before. It’s a practice to remember I do, in fact, exist and no one I’ve met has quite understood, or perhaps think I’m trying to sound strange. But I’m losing hope in what’s real. I can’t escape a fear I’ve arrived in a grotesque shape - that the image of myself has manifested in the train over, and not that those around me will be in disgust, but rather embarrassment, that I haven’t recognized my own shadowed self on display.

i think the party will get better once i leave

[wovi]

*

joy sullivan

[chasmhaze]

It’s been many moons since I wish I didn’t exist, but honey here we are again. There’s something in the water, everyone is dying these days but me. I’m drinking more, buckets of electrolytes and ph-balanced nonsense, but it won’t take.

i think the party will get better once i leave

[fadedlovemp3]

Jenny Holzer vs. Wallace Stegner

[chasmhaze]

She withheld, didn’t she. Weaponized the one thing he needed. Refused compromise. Overreacted. Did too much — telling us what happened, that the Emperor wears no clothes. The script self-prophecies. Liberal men recite it fluently when protecting their own brotherhood. Some of the men speak in private they wouldn’t want any girls they care about involved with him now that they know. This is said as a kindness but feels hollow to her frame. Future, unknown women will be told about this one and her reign of inconsolable, crazed terror. Yes, carefully, details will be obscured. But these women will learn. Had this been enough?

what remains - sydney hayes, 2026

[chasmhaze]

But why was her body afraid, why did the sacred begin to feel invasive? She would wake more tired than when she laid to rest. Is it a sign? You may wonder. A sign of her body conveying a sense of mistake — and if so, which one? Consequence or random, how was she to reconcile flare-ups with no pattern? Punishment or chance? Repentance or omen? All negative tests, handfuls of puzzled specialists, nothing declaring her pains legitimate. At what point does she concede nothing was wrong except her, at what point does she become unbelievable?

WHAT REMAINS - Sydney Hayes

[chasmhaze]

The woman stopped approaching the gardened skies with her own desire first; there was always a debt she was made to feel was owed. The firm yield for pleasure waned in her veins. She stopped wanting anything at all, not touch or salvation. She wondered what she becomes when she is a thing without want. 

WHAT REMAINS - Sydney Hayes

[chasmhaze]

WHAT REMAINS

Once upon a time, which is also Imminent Now, a woman wonders what it takes to be believed. What is the minimum line must the man cross for those around to ask questions, to prod him towards accountability? Is it if he claims he is not in control of his own body, a latent violence lurking? Is it when he wields that in action, if the line crossed is blurred? Is it if they like the woman, or does it take a few Good Women who ascribe to what a victim should be? Or is it when it’s exact, headline crisp, when it feels like a textbook affront and they can calmly say, “Person X is bad in this story, it’s clear — you can tell by the way they talk and how they look, see? That’s how a villain looks in a story.” But she knows, she knows, she knows — just how every woman knows.

WHAT REMAINS

I’ll tell you what I know happened. It’s mine: My body, my choices, my willingness, my openness, my pain, my doubt, my anguish, my fear…

[chasmhaze]

what remains

[chasmhaze]

what remains

[chasmhaze]

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[chasmhaze]

~what remains

[chasmhaze]

-*-

[chasmhaze]

-*-

[chasmhaze]

~what remains

[chasmhaze]

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[chasmhaze]

what remains