sacred wild exile 𓁿

storyteller • creatrix #soulbits

[soulbits]

fiction excerpt: untitled

I hadn’t wished for a son, but when he arrived anyway… I wished that my son would give me a reason to be around.

It’s nothing new to feel worthless. I don’t know when it hit me, but suddenly I felt that I had to offer everything I could to others to be worthy of anything. Which inevitably led to the end of my relationship with my sister. The only other person who understood me more deeply than possibly anyone else, although by the end that might’ve not been in either of our favors.

The worthlessness… it comes and it goes. Some days everything is intentional and on purpose. Other days I’m wandering my home, restless, and not knowing what to do with myself. Of course, those are always the moments when you’re meant to throw yourself purposefully into something… but sometimes I just let myself wallow. It doesn’t feel good. It never feels good. Sometimes the self-pity manifests into such deep self-loathing I think about not existing anymore. But those thoughts of wasting away out of this dimension often somehow manage to shake me back into presence. Shake me back into remembering that I am here for a reason… even if I’m not lucky enough to live it yet.

Sometimes I avoid talking to people just because I don’t feel like talking about myself. That sounds so stupid––as if I have to talk about myself. It’s not that I have to, it’s just inevitable. It’s what happens. Someone tells me something and I relate to it so I respond. No one ever taught me how to listen, so now I’m teaching myself. I was never great at learning by listening, which is why sometimes school was hard for me. I could read for days but to the sound of a teacher lecturing you’d find me daydreaming about god knows what. A romantic prospect, food, something embarrassing I did earlier… you name it.

When I left California, everyone on the east coast would scoff and ask me why. They thought I was crazy. But when you live in one place your whole life, it doesn’t matter how beautiful it is… it loses its luster. Not for everyone, of course. Some people are more than content to stay put their whole lives, only leaving to travel and never to live… nothing wrong with that either, but there was an itch I couldn’t scratch, a calling I couldn’t avoid, a longing I couldn’t escape. To break free. And I did.

And what did I find but chaos… more chaos, because no matter how far you run from your family, your self, their dysfunction and delusion… life will find a funny way to circle you back to everything you avoided before until you clear it from your system. They say we learn in spirals, and I am very deep in mine. 

I never wanted motherhood to be what provided me with purpose. I always knew there was more to being a woman than just being a mother. I guess it’s hard to respect motherhood as some holy thing when the women who were supposed to teach you everything it meant to be a woman and show you the right way, support you, love you the way you need to be loved just kind of drop the ball, you lose faith. You lack connection in one of the most primal experiences of life. You lose your connection to the feminine. And relying on the masculine to be it all because you just don’t know any better? Well, that can lead to some of the biggest disappointments of them all. Especially when you realize that all of these people simply didn’t know better themselves. Then you think… well, if they let me down so deeply, what do I know for mine when they arrive? Sometimes I think we’re all just here to learn from the children, not the other way around. 

No, I was searching for purpose in everything else… in being a devoted and sexy lover, in being the most successful person I knew… by living in a completely new space, by never making life plans based on a man. These were my womanly successes. My womanly fulfillments. Being masculine and shelled in a world that was out to get me. I’d fight it back and tell it to fuck off and learn how to say NO, even at my expense. 

I had yet to learn that there is strength in softness, a purpose in sensuality and tenderness, deeper meaning in vulnerability, and reclaiming my life as my own, not the extension of those who birthed me, raised me, didn’t raise me, and so on… more than anything.

[soulbits]

july 4 – brown skin

my friends and i growing up would’ve loved to have brown skin. we didn’t know that could be offensive. we laid out by the pool hoping to get a nice pretty white- girl-brown.

some white girls tanned nice. they looked golden, like Rosie. everyone assumed girls like Rosie weren’t just white because of that. and even if one of the girls like Rosie did have something else in them, like some kinda Spanish or something, they were still raised white by their German moms and Italian daddies who took pride in their tanning abilities but behind closed doors told racist jokes and would later suck up to fascist politicians with fake tans on Facebook. 

some white girls were so pasty you knew they had to be Irish, or something like that. they hated their freckles even though their freckles turned them a slight shade darker, even if it was scattered. but they weren’t taught to love themselves either, despite their social and systemic favoritism.

socially, we’re all taught to hate ourselves for one reason or another, but not all with the same consequences. 

white girls fetishizing brown skin, longing for it because they know their pale skin isn’t ‘cool’ even though it comes with privilege. but for girls that age, privilege isn’t what they’re thinking about. they’re thinking about how to be as beautiful as possible. how to get the boys to pay attention. how to have the perfect shade of skin so their bathing suit colors pop. so you’re not washed out and blinding others because the sun bounces right off. the fear is what speaks the loudest.

little white girls who want brown skin aren’t thinking about what is deemed better in terms of the system that is telling them what to think. they don’t know where these notions in their mind came from. they aren’t thinking about the people who naturally have brown skin all the way to the darkest shade. no, i’d say those people are actually the furthest from their minds on a conscious level.

little white girls who wants brown skin desire the brown skin to be theirs, but they don’t know why, who told them to want it, or why it’s a problem... they don’t know yet that they’re learning to hate themselves, which is only going to make them hate others.

[soulbits]

fiction: my sister and me.

taking a break from july prompts.

--

my sister Kiley and me, we have the same anger. the same anger that bubbles calmly until we’re provoked. until we’re facing the decision of fight or flight once again. my deepest fear is that i passed it to her.

Kiley likes her anger. it makes her feel hard and masculine like she wants to be. i try to pacify my anger; release it in healthy ways. i long to feel soft and feminine like i want to be. i don’t like the way feeling angry makes me feel. it doesn’t provide the freedom i would hope for or think it might. anger pushes the people i love away and scares the rest who wouldn’t understand the depths of a righteous fury.

sometimes Kiley takes her anger out on me. i push too much. i provoke too much. i ask too many questions and i don’t leave her alone. but she likes to be alone. i want her to express herself, like i do, but it doesn’t seem to be working. i haven’t learned that pushing people doesn’t bring them closer to you. it does quite the opposite. so i’m learning to accept her and our differences.

we sit outside 7-11 and drink Slurpees. she’s mixed all the flavors together. i think that’s disgusting. i’m drinking cherry. the only good flavor, in my opinion. it’s a hot day as it tends to be in summer in Sacramento. sweat beads form on our upper lips as we form them around the straws, drinking as much as possible until we get brain freezes.

‘where does your brain freeze hit? mine goes to the bridge of my nose.’ they’ve always hit my nose and i’ve maybe met one other person who experiences that too.

‘hm.’ she’s indifferent. ‘mine goes right in the middle of my forehead.’

we shrug and keep slurping. i could talk her ear off, but i thought i’d offer some quiet instead. of course, since my mouth wasn’t speaking, my mind was running a marathon:

i thought about how hot it was. i wanted to go back to the house but i recalled that our AC didn’t work as well as it needed to. but then we could go swimming. mom’s probably in the pool already. Kiley wouldn’t wanna go swimming probably even though it’d be fun if we all hung out. sometimes she wasn’t social. i always took it personal even though it probably had nothing to do with me. we had different interests. sometimes mom pestered. then i pestered. but sometimes we’d all laugh together, and those were the sweetest moments. when we could push everything aside and just be. find our common ground and not fret over what collided between us.

‘you wanna grab mom a Slurpee before we head back?’

‘sure.’

mom likes blue raspberry and piña colada, so we mix the two, get back into the fiery hot red car of my sisters, roll the top back, and i endure her metal blaring all the way home. wind whipping our hair back. i think about how much she’s grown. to have her own music tastes, her own car, her own set of keys and a wallet... how it’s nice to see her independent and different. not living up to what our mom envisioned just because she had to live through us all to make up what she lacked. it was nice to see my sister break free.

[soulbits]

july 3 – me first

constantly feeling scrutinized... constantly feeling watched. judged. sized up. projected onto.

social media was always my escape. my safe space behind the screen. but then when family started to be on there too... it was like i couldn’t escape. i can’t even now.

my family life is complicated. and i’ve attempted to peel myself off in different ways. not liking my name, trying to create a different name to write under or use my mother’s maiden name because at least it was more ‘unique,’ moving across the country, barely talking to anyone from the feelings of my own rejection.

sure, i feel ‘different’ from everyone else, but i’m sure i’m not the only one in my family who feels that way. i’m sure some distant relatives do, it’s just that we don’t talk about it. because we don’t really talk. no one ever modeled for me the importance of that, and i guess not really for any of us... or maybe we’re just not meant to be in other’s lives like that. it’s something i’ve just learned to accept.

there are some people in my family i love so much and feel so close to in spirit, but i risk the alienation of those who could be hurt by my lack of attention to our bonds if i vocalize those too much. but those bonds have mostly been shaky or not very deep, and so my soul is not called to them. we just happen to share blood. and why should i hide my love for some as not to hurt the others? it’s absurd, the censorship i feel just to protect others. that’s not why i’m here. that’s not my purpose. and yet, i fear the consequences of all of this truth.

maybe this is all kind of cryptic. i’m not sure what to say anymore except that i’m 30 and i’m still thinking too much about what everyone thinks, what everyone’s reactions will be to my decisions, my choices, my behaviors, and worst of all... my self-expression and my creativity. i refuse to be a slave to their opinions and for the most part i haven’t but none of my attempts to break free ever feel good enough. nothing i do ever feels good enough. and so i could write a long list of all of the things i’ve never bothered trying, but then i fear i’d drown in regret and sorrow, and so i look forward to the other side and the healing instead... to the days where i will take action upon what i’ve already decided: that enough is enough.

i’m learning that my trauma is more linked to my family than it ever could be to any romantic relationship i’ve had. i’m learning more from my family than anyone that it’s me and my well-being first. this is why the phrase ‘sacred wild exile’ came to me. it’s what i’ve done to move forward.

there is a lot of guilt in this to work through. i feel guilty for not connecting to most of my family, in particular one side of it, i feel guilty for the way relationships have gone... or not. my therapist reminds me that the adults are the ones who are supposed to initiate certain healing... and i am reminded that i am here, trying to pick up the pieces for every adult in my life. trying to figure them out and piece it all together.

but i catch myself... because... more than ever before i realize now that i am also the adult. and i ask to be made aware of any ways that i am perpetuating the patterns that hurt me, harm me, and anger me. it’s a long road and i honor my own bravery for not turning off onto the easy route, because it’s clear i could any time. forget it all. but my mind doesn’t let me forget. my heart remains tied. and i’m here just trying to make sense of it all... forgetting that it’s me first. me first. my heart. my well-being. my health. me. me first.

[charli-xcx]

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) dir. Howard Hawks

[rainstormpics]

[soulbits]

yes please

[soulbits]

july 2 – there is thunder

in my heart, where you are... 

you live in multiple places–– wherever you want

one of the sexiest things about you is the way you respect yourself. you’re not afraid to let go, you’re not afraid to live on your own... and yet, even when we’re people who feel that way (because i find myself feeling and acting upon the same ideals), i know we find ourselves acting against those ideals anyway.

i know there have been times when we’ve questioned if we’re right for each other. if we should be together at all. but at the end of the day, it is always a kiss that seals the pact. that we’re making a choice and we’ve continued to make the intentional choice to share this bed.

even when my mind trails off into daydreams... i can’t imagine anyone else in my bed. but it was never your bed or my bed, was it? it’s always been our bed. as we rooted. started fresh. together. what joy.

so you live wherever you want,

but you also live in my heart. and i know you live in many other hearts as well, even hearts you’ve forgotten... but they don’t forget you, because how could they? 

you are the thunder in my heart sometimes, reminding me that it’s okay to be brave, take risks, love madly, fuck wildly... you remind me to forget fear and that is one of millions of reasons that i love you.

i long for you even when i’ve had enough of you. i could never be sick of you, even when i think i should be. even when i think i should be, there’s no chance in hell.

my honey, my bear... i will continue to create for you even beyond creating with you... til we’re gods in the skies placing thunder into human’s hearts long after us... just to give them a taste of what we felt as mortals.

to this life, to the lives of the past, to the lives of the future.

[soulbits]

july 1 – old photos

there we were. standing outside of the train station you’d leave on to go back to your house before going back to the country you were visiting home from. we both weren’t living in Los Angeles but both had good reasons to be there. each other being one of those reasons, i thought. but in the photo it’s obvious. and quite sad. that the smile on my face was from false ideas and your face and body language tells anyone who sees the photo that you just can’t wait to leave. a harsh truth that i couldn’t accept at the time. pushing and pushing and pushing you to see me. because i thought that’s why we were there.

––

earlier this year i developed an old disposable camera from college and another from a few years later. an old ‘love,’ if you could even call it that (plot twist: you couldn’t), was in photos from both camera rolls. i couldn’t, for the life of me, tell you why this person was in my life for so long. i guess they offered some reprieve from an abusive ex before he was gone for good. but really, in the end, they unintentionally had a big hand in teaching me how to love myself.

and i mean really love myself. not that bullshit ‘inspirational’ shit that is rampant on the internet, coated in pretty floral baths and spiritual retreats and being brave enough to post a selfie you normally wouldn’t post... i mean the real gritty good stuff: set boundaries, learn to say no, stand up for yourself, make decisions and changes that scare you because your ego tells you that you could end up alone even though you both know that won’t actually happen. that kind of stuff.

so, i could’ve been angry when i saw the photos. i could’ve been hurt. maybe i shouldn’t have felt the disgust, but i did. when i see the way we held each other in that photo in L.A., right before you left on the train... it takes me back to a vacation that was meant to be a wonderful and sexy reunion... that just led to the deepest pain i had felt in a while that followed me all the way back to Boston to a roomie who’d been sleeping in my bed with her boyfriend while i was gone.

once upon a time, maybe i would’ve kept those photos... just as a reminder of my past, maybe to show my kids one day. but i’m doing my best to let go a lot better these days. even if you were my friend first... those photos are trashed.

[soulbits]

i’m gonna do this.

usually i post these on instagram... but considering my feels about that place right now, i’m going to put them here.

and i’m a bit behind, so... going to get started.

[soulbits]

social media and creative neurosis

i’ve been thinking about how social media isn’t good for writers, in my opinion...

and to generalize less: it’s really just not good for my creativity. especially right now.

i’ve been going through this cycle for ages. i’ve been observing how people have changed in terms of what and how they share. i’ve attempted them all...

newsletters, blogs, columns, instagram, tweets... it’s all so much. and in my efforts to ‘keep up’ i feel like my actual creativity has suffered greatly.

i even question the magazine i run... being an editor was my dream but being a writer was my dream first... and i know many people do both, and i do have that ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ within me where i do want to do what i’m doing there. i love publishing people. i love having a platform for marginalized and/or otherwise unwelcome voices. but i also wonder if in me doing that is just another reason to hold me back from the true creativity that beckons at me.

so, back to social media... yeah, it feels exhausting at times. trying to post consistently, ‘create content’, etc... i have this memory that won’t leave me of one time me telling a friend that i wanted a ton of instagram followers. she looked at me like i was so dumb, so shallow. 

she said, “THAT’S what you want?”

obviously (to me) it wasn’t just numbers i wanted... i wanted an audience. people to hear me, listen to me, read my words, understand me...

my therapist called out a behavior of mine that we both know stems from my own trauma: always feeling the need to defend myself and over explain my intentions, the meaning of what i’m saying, etc. i catch it in my writing too. i will feel compelled to say things in a few ways or more so that someone will understand. and if they didn’t understand it the one way, perhaps they’ll understand it the other way. honestly, sometimes it feels like a mental illness of sorts, but i think it’s just the result of trauma, gaslighting, projection, etc.

so anyway... in thinking about my creativity and the way it’s suffered for over a year... i reflect on what i’ve poured myself into. a partner, multiple jobs, putting the cart before the horse... that last one especially i’ve been doing for YEARS... and if i’m aware of that, i wonder why i continue to do that. if the first step is writing, why do i try to do everything but write? even coming here i had to ask myself, ‘am i just avoiding writing... again?’ that’s another thing i’ve talked about with my therapist: why i don’t let myself write. what am i so afraid of. i don’t even have an answer. i keep blaming the fear of repercussions from my family, but then i also think: why does that have to be what i write about? it just feels as though that’s the sludge clogging the faucet... that that has to come first before i can be creatively free. it’s quite frustrating.

so even though i’ve questioned my motives for being here: hiding in somewhat anonymity, avoiding writing... i think it’s actually good for me. first of all, i can be more long form than instagram, i don’t get that instant gratification of people liking PHOTOS and not reading words (let’s face it...), i can just kind of come here and thought dump. and i want to put creative writing here too, although i’ve tried to be more disciplined with that and save it for an agent, for a full project, for submitting... for the big leagues. because that’s always where i’ve intended to go. it won’t be the only aspect of my career, but i finally am able to acknowledge that writing is my purpose. of course, we all kind of have multiple purposes, right? humans are not that simple. but it’s the middle of the venn diagram, or something.

and sure, i could’ve probably just journaled all of this... but there’s something different about journaling right now. i can’t write as fast as my brain goes, sometimes... and some things just feel necessary to get out publicly, in a sense. i’m always keen on building community, and so i question putting any of this here where ‘no one will see’ because no one’s really on tumblr anymore... maybe i’m being stubborn in my methods, because i ‘should be’ creating videos on tik tok to get noticed, or some stupid shit like that. blogs have BEEN over, right? maybe that’s why this is perfect, lol. maybe i need to just stop playing mental jumping jacks right now. maybe all of this creative energy was just wasted on this blog post. i’ve been driving myself in circles for so long that i just don’t know what to do with myself anymore. hopefully by the time i come back here i can say i’ve written something creative longer than 3 pages.

[soulbits]

i haven’t been writing any poetry.

i haven’t! it’s sad! it’s strange! it’s weird! 

but i’ve wanted to challenge myself to do more in terms of writing. more fiction or creative non-fiction... but it’s also nice writing poetry. i used to come to tumblr and post one every night... it sounds nice but i just don’t know if that’s in the cards right now for me.

[femalepopculture]

SPICE GIRLS “Say You’ll Be There” // 1996 directed by Vaughan Arnell

[soulbits]

i really loved them so much.

[politijohn]

[glazedeye-s]

Temple of Asclepius (Aesculapius): Villa Borghese Gardens, Rome.

[soulbits]

i miss the city when it rains.

shit, i just miss the city. LA doesn’t feel like the city... even though it’s technically a city. and when i left NYC, i wanted out of the city... i really did. i was feeling trapped in a lot of things that felt out of my control. 

and maybe i’m not meant to be in the city. maybe it’s some romantic notion i clung to. but when i think about wandering the streets of Manhattan, i loved it so much. it was a spontaneous and free time for me and i should have appreciated it more. i was so focused on other people... it’s a shame what gets wasted on our 20s.

but i had some amazing and lonesome times in the cities i lived. lonesome and insecure times that led me to scrolling on tinder while i lay in Central Park, meeting a stranger to go to the barcade, dance on top of bars... i guess some of us were doing our best to fill a void.

i’m sure i’ll be writing love letters to NYC and Brooklyn for the rest of my life... i was there for such a brief time. i expected to be there so much longer. i long for that freedom again, although i felt so trapped at the time. thinking i had no money but really i was just reckless with it, feeling like i had no one caring for me... well, i didn’t have many, but i had the opportunity to find them... and didn’t. 

don’t get me wrong... New York is exhausting. the trains, the people, the compounding exhaustion of everyone around you, the massively condensed energy... but it’s so beautiful at the same time. buzzing and full of life. a lot of bad shit happened to me there, but so did a lot of good shit too... it really was a place where i began to find myself. where i began to embody myself and find a freedom i’d never felt... a fountain of youth and endless possibility. if only i’d found the strength to stay. 

[soulbits]

feeling misunderstood is triggering... part II

i guess in my tangent, i forgot to share about why feeling misunderstood is triggering.

because it sounds sort of dramatic, but truly... some of us came from homes where we felt intentionally misunderstood, gaslighted in various forms, and like we couldn’t safely express ourselves without being projected on, assumed about, etc.

so, one reason i left twitter is because of an incident that, after describing to my therapist, she said, ‘it sounds like you were really misunderstood.’

y’all, this is why therapy is a lifesaver. they can put things into words that even though you know it already somewhere in your being/subconscious/etc., you didn’t have the words for or an omniscient context to apply it to. when she said it that was it was like a little light bulb went on. because ultimately, i was misunderstood... and in the middle of the misunderstanding, i was the ‘victim’ of a projection that made me feel so gross! i had had it! because i knew my intentions were only to resolve this shit that is so insidious in the literary community (exposing abusers... don’t get me started), not to mention other communities... so yeah.

i really dislike the odd condescension of twitter. people really love to portray themselves as these virtuous people and as a result, treat other people as less than... in ways that just feel so icky? that i couldn’t take it anymore. i’m a grown woman and if you as a grown woman can’t talk to me like a... GROWN WOMAN, then we don’t need to associate.

i’ve gone too long in my life being bullied and walked on to be treated that way over someone simply misreading my words. i felt like true shit for an evening and i just decided i wanted no part of that. it doesn’t resonate with my mission in life. and if you know literary twitter, you know that everyone is obsessed with being victims. and i’m not talking about the true victims of horrific and inappropriate behavior, i’m talking about the people who love that shit and love the drama and love being the virtuous people who are tweeting under every single victim’s twitter threads with ‘i believe you. i support you. i am here for you.’ like, i hope they’re being honest... but at a certain point you can tell when people are just fapping themselves over their own self-righteousness. not a world i want to be in.

[soulbits]

feeling misunderstood is triggering...

it’s always been triggering, but i’ve learned this about me in a new perspective this year.

i’ve deleted all of my tweets many times, gotten new twitter accounts i think about 4... but maybe a month ago i took more drastic steps. i blocked a lot of people or removed them from following me... i took my name/photo off of my account, deleted my tweets... and decided to take a break. at first, i deactivated, but i went back because i had a list of magazine accounts saved that i didn’t want to lose. it took a lot of work to build it. i know there are many places to find magazines to sub to... but i had other lists (film related) that i didn’t want to lose either.

i’ve been reflecting on why i felt called back to tumblr... desire of anonymity? my therapist warned me against that... to challenge myself to be vulnerable. i see that instagram is a place where i’ve consistently felt vulnerable in my self-expression and rarely let it stop me. i don’t think i came to tumblr for anonymity per se... it can be attractive, but wanting that vs. ‘fame’ is something i’ve grappled with over the years. because on the surface it sometimes feels that what i’m aspiring for is fame... but it’s not exactly ‘fame’ i’m after. i’m never going to be a pop star or any shit like that.

i want to have a positive impact on people’s lives. of course, all humans have had both, right? negative and positive impacts on others. but i want my work to matter. i need my life to matter and to have purpose. i think many of us do but i do know that for some people, merely existing is enough. it’s never been this way for me. i need my life to have meaning and purpose, i need my work to do the same... and i’ve gotten caught up in calling writing my career... but another thing my therapist has called me out on (with love) is to not think of writing as my career right now, but as something i enjoy. she asked me why writing? and i explained to her... and the good news was, that everything genuine about my love for writing is THERE. i’m not doing this FOR FAME! that’s a potential happy outcome... of course, i want it to be for the right reasons. not just because. not because of selfies, not because of being able to put some cutesy sentence together that sounds like esoteric wisdom... i want it to have a deeper meaning.

and instead of sitting here sharing these thoughts, i feel like i should be writing a story instead... but i think getting these thoughts out is helpful to some degree. of course, i also feel like i’ve had these thoughts a million times... and what am i waiting for, already? but... we’ll see what comes. i’ve been on the brink for quite some time... the pot is about to boil over... i’m coming into a new brave authenticity. a new love of self where i’m owning myself. i’m less afraid of the darkess. less afraid of being dislike. less seeking out the validation and approval. maybe i shouldn’t be sharing all of this, but part of me just doesn’t care... part of me knows that this raw authenticity is part of my work. and so be it. there are internet accounts who create graphics warning people to keep their shit to themselves. sure... on one level, that’s really important. but do writers have that luxury? perhaps some... and i keep a lot more to myself than i used to... but there are levels to this, certainly.

but i forgot to talk about feeling misunderstood! i’ll do it in another post...