#because nothing changes

[sastielsfandom]

I haven't been this depressed in so long, to the point where I've stopped writing, drawing, and the idea of dropping out of three classes doesn't even phase me. When normally, I fight tooth and nail to ensure I can get classes done. I just don't care. The only thing I have cared about recently is my family. Especially the ones I don't get to see. I thought I'd finally snap out of it especially after what happened with my sister but if anything that spiraled me more because nothing has changed from that situation. No one cares about their safety. No one wants what's best for them. And I'm just so tired of not getting anywhere no matter what I do. It's maddening.

[sevynchaos]

hearing how the commentators pronounce al-qubaisi hurt my ears and soul

[allnightsong2]

Too worn down to entertain outrage. I walk out with no umbrella into the shitstorm that never ceases. Fundamentalists, extremists, fascists, nationalists, racist supremacists. Been here before. Been here forever. Israel, and by extension the Zionists, are protected from censure or punitive actions because the U.S. holds a permanent seat on the Security Council at the U.N. and has veto power over any resolution. Note: The U.S will never send a U.S citizen to the International Criminal Court in the Hague because the U.S claims it will punish its own. In other words the ICC has no authority over U.S citizens. Hatred festers boils over into violence. Genocides are perpetrated. Outrage changes nothing. Innocents die. Corrupt and criminal politicians run for office. Lies are enshrined and sanctified. Hatreds fester. Division is promoted; those divisions are amplified and exacerbated. Humanity is not a sound investment. The price of a life is negotiable depending on race, gender, religion, social and economic standing. Hatreds fester. A child is starving right now. An orphan screams for parents it will never see again. A father is burying his wife and children. Someone is choosing who will die tonight and feels no remorse at all. Food rots in a warehouse. Homes stand vacant and abandoned. Banks decide how much life you'll be allowed to have. Hope is fading in ten million eyes at this very moment. Humanity holds monsters who wear the face over empty souls. Children suffer and die and don't know why. Hatreds fester. The wheel turns round. It all begins again.

Emotionally and spiritually exhausted. I do not like this world they've built and there's nowhere else to go.

[winstondukeslips]

From “summer somewhere”  - Danez Smith

somewhere, a sun. below, boys brown as rye play the dozens & ball, jump in the air & stay there. boys become new moons, gum-dark on all sides, beg bruise -blue water to fly, at least tide, at least spit back a father or two. I won’t get started. history is what it is. it knows what it did. bad dog. bad blood. bad day to be a boy color of a July well spent. but here, not earth not heaven, boys can’t recall their white shirt turned a ruby gown. here, there is no language for officer or law, no color to call white. if snow fell, it’d fall black. please, don’t call us dead, call us alive someplace better. we say our own names when we pray. we go out for sweets & come back.

• this is how we are born: come morning after we cypher/feast/hoop, we dig a new boy from the ground, take him out his treebox, shake worms from his braids. sometimes they’ll sing a trapgod hymn (what a first breath!) sometimes it’s they eyes who lead scanning for bonefleshed men in blue. we say congrats, you’re a boy again! we give him a durag, a bowl, a second chance. we send him off to wander for a day or ever, let him pick his new name. that boy was Trayvon, now called RainKing. that man Sean named himself I do, I do. O, the imagination of a new reborn boy but most of us settle on alive. • sometimes a boy is born right out the sky, dropped from a bridge between starshine & clay. one boy showed up pulled behind a truck, a parade for himself & his wet red gown. years ago we plucked brothers from branches unpeeled their naps from bark. sometimes a boy walks into his room then walks out into his new world still clutching wicked metals. some boys waded here through their own blood. does it matter how he got here if we’re all here to dance? grab a boy, spin him around. if he asks for a kiss, kiss him. if he asks where he is, say gone. • no need for geography now that we’re safe everywhere. point to whatever you please & call it church, home, or sweet love. paradise is a world where everything is a sanctuary & nothing is a gun. here, if it grows it knows its place in history. yesterday, a poplar told me of old forest heavy with fruits I’d call uncle bursting red pulp & set afire, harvest of dark wind chimes. after I fell from its limb it kissed sap into my wound. do you know what it’s like to live someplace that loves you back? • here, everybody wanna be black & is. look — the forest is a flock of boys who never got to grow up, blooming into forever, afros like maple crowns reaching sap-slow toward sky. watch Forest run in the rain, branches melting into paper-soft curls, duck under the mountain for shelter. watch the mountain reveal itself a boy. watch Mountain & Forest playing in the rain, watch the rain melt everything into a boy with brown eyes & wet naps —  the lake turns into a boy in the rain the swamp — a boy in the rain the fields of lavender — brothers dancing between the storm. • if you press your ear to the dirt you can hear it hum, not like it’s filled with beetles & other low gods but like a mouth rot with gospel & other glories. listen to the dirt crescendo a boy back. come. celebrate. this is everyday. every day holy. everyday high holiday. everyday new year. every year, days get longer. time clogged with boys. the boys O the boys. they still come in droves. the old world keeps choking them. our new one can’t stop spitting them out. • ask the mountain-boy to put you on his shoulders if you want to see the old world, ask him for some lean -in & you’ll be home. step off him & walk around your block. grow wings & fly above your city. all the guns fire toward heaven. warning shots mince your feathers. fall back to the metal-less side of the mountain, cry if you need to. that world of laws rendered us into dark matter. we asked for nothing but our names in a mouth we’ve known for decades. some were blessed to know the mouth. our decades betrayed us. • there, I drowned, back before, once. there, I knew how to swim but couldn’t. there, men stood by shore & watched me blue. there, I was a dead fish, the river’s prince. there, I had a face & then I didn’t. there, my mother cried over me but I wasn’t there. I was here, by my own water, singing a song I learned somewhere south of somewhere worse. that was when direction mattered. now, everywhere I am is the center of everything. I must be the lord of something. what was I before? a boy? a son? a warning? a myth? I whistled now I’m the God of whistling. I built my Olympia downstream. • you are not welcome here. trust the trip will kill you. go home. we earned this paradise by a death we didn’t deserve. I am sure there are other heres. a somewhere for every kind of somebody, a heaven of brown girls braiding on golden stoops but here —                               how could I ever explain to you —                    someone prayed we’d rest in peace                                                                        & here we are

in peace             whole                all summer

[daisies-in-thedark]

Difficult discussions

I’ve been doing quite a bit of self reflection about owning my needs. Validating myself, taking responsibility for my own pleasure. Why I struggle so much with feeling guilty asking for what I want or need. Some of it is because I’m not sure he is capable of understanding my needs, but not trying isn’t an answer either.

A situation happened a few months or so ago that left me feeling frustrated and even though we have tackled these discussions many times before, I felt perhaps it was time to try again from a different angle to see if he could actually hear me.

What we discussed wasn’t new. It’s part of the frustration-speaking and knowing you aren’t truly heard, but I believe most relationships end because people stop trying, and so it is important to me that I strive to keep trying to connect.

We discussed his tendency to apologize after sex for not making me orgasm. His apology frustrates me, but in his own way it is an effort to connect, which is why I decided to have the conversation. It’s weird, because it was a good one, but it also made me realize there is a lot of disconnect that may never be reconciled. I am proud of myself though, because I said things that were rather blunt and unapologetic. This is important - because I struggle to say things I know will hurt or upset someone, even if it’s the truth. Even if I suffer for not saying it. I wasn’t purposely hurtful, that isn’t what I mean, but I stood up for myself and my needs in a way that is difficult for me, and that’s a big deal. It felt right to say the things I did because it was my truth. What follows summarizes the discussion.

I was rather blunt that his apology frustrates me for several reasons. I love our intimacy and sex isn’t only about orgasm for me. I want him to understand and believe that I enjoy and get pleasure and gratification by bringing him to orgasm. I don’t want him to feel pressured to make me cum. I crave the intimacy and connection.

That said; another discussion we have had many times, is that just because he achieves climax doesn’t mean we need to be done, he has fingers, a mouth, a voice, I have a dresser full of sex toys. Him stopping after his orgasm is a choice! As is not engaging in foreplay.

He often leaves me wanting. I have a choice at that point: do I let it fade or pursue my own pleasure? There are several things that go through my head, one of which is previous times I’ve expressed my need and he has exhaustedly said he will need medication if I need more and has implied that my needs are excessive and abnormal. Result - guilt and shame.

I am also mindful at those times of his ego and I don’t want to hurt him by reaching for a toy when he is done and I am not. Result - I choose him over me.

There have been other times I’ve felt brave and have asked him to help me continue, but I can see his heart isn’t in it, you know? I don’t want to have an unhealthy need for external validation but can admit that I crave it. Mutuality, you know? I want to see hunger in his eyes; for my need to feed him. When he sighs and asks me what I need him to do, it kind of ruins the mood. Result - I’m not going to cum at this point anyway, so I choose to be unsatisfied but not cause further discomfort.

Yes, I could lead him, and tell him what to do, but the reality is that I can’t make him want to play with me and learn what makes me climax! And that is where a real issue lay.

I told him that his apology feels manipulative because what am I supposed to say to that? Oh that’s okay honey I didn’t want to cum tonight anyway?! I said, It’s your decision to stop after your orgasm, but by looking all sad and apologizing, what I hear is - Not only do I not want to make an effort to learn how to help you orgasm, but I also want you to comfort me and say it’s okay. And that isn’t right.”

Now is a difficult time for him because his masculinity is diminished in his mind because of a recent surgery. This is another apology he has made often over the last couple years or so as he has been struggling and not feeling up to sexual activity. But he is completely missing an important point. I am capable of cumming from grinding in a chair while reading erotica. From barely touching myself. From my imagination. None of which involves his physical efforts!! I get frustrated because he doesn’t seem to understand my orgasm truly has nothing to do with his penis or physical prowess. I understand that it is difficult for a man to hear that because masculinity is tied pretty tight to what is between their legs and how they use it. But the truth is, very few women climax from vaginal penetration. Our orgasms start in the mind, at least mine do. And again, it comes back to it being his choice not to engage in other sexual activities besides intercourse.

Something I read on blog one time fits perfectly with my point “reframe your sex life as not so penetration/ejaculation centric. Focus more on the journey, not the destination.”

I accept and love him and don’t expect him to change. However I also want him to respect who I am, what I need, and not expect me to change either. ~dd

[cute-chamomile]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO