Words

I'm Emery, of momqueer. This is my writing blog.

[writingtag]

4/1/19

the really fun thing about mental illness is that it becomes part of you in this insidious way. you forget that other people do not feel this. you forget that once, you did not feel this.

you begin to shape your identity around your illness, to count your icd-10 codes as tallies on a wall building your life within the confines of your pain.

you realize one day that you do not have a single friend who doesn’t have a diagnosis. supposedly 1 in 4 people meet criteria at one point in their lives what are the chances that your friend group was created by chance alone? the probability that you yourself did not shape your world, that the sick people who surround you have nothing to do with the sickness inside you?

you begin to get better. you begin to get help. you take meds, you go to therapy, you journal you meditate, you yoga, you breathe you mindfulness, you letter, you use your skills you learn to swim in a sea of drowning people

it is very hard to swim in a sea of drowning people.

you find yourself faced with choices you did not anticipate.

you are not a lifeguard. you can’t rescue your drowning friends. do you stay? do you help? do you thrash around alongside them, cheer them on in their swimming lessons? do you dive deep beneath the water and hold them up on your back? do you swim away, find open water, float on your back, close your eyes to the warmth of the sun

if you swim away, are you responsible when they drown?

a mentor once told me that you never jump in after a drowning person all you can do is give them a tool and hope that they use it. if your friends all have life vests, do you need to stay  and watch them float?

if you swim away, do they follow you? 

if you can swim... why don’t you?

[writingtag]

february in wisconsin, 7/10/2011

It is February in Wisconsin, and the last traces of snow still hug the bases of trees and grace the drain spouts of buildings and despite the chill in the air that snakes its way unnoticed into exposed ears and wraps its icy fingers around tongues who dare to speak yes, despite this, marching ahead of me in this crowd eight hundred strong, my brother wears no coat. Because the fire of protest that has been lit in our hearts is more than enough heat to sustain us through the remaining winter. And because despite what the newscasters say, we are change and I can feel a new regime in my blood it beats steadily to the rhythm of my heart warming me from the inside out.

It is February in Wisconsin, and no one will deny the taste in the air that means it will frost tonight but no one will deny, that frost or no, we will be back tomorrow

and I have no doubt that despite the frigid breathing down the back of my shirt tomorrow, my brother won't bring a coat.

And although our voices move in unison stretching skyward like the high jump at the Olympics and although the cold threatens to choke our song we will not be silenced

because Wisconsin has seen these issues before we have looked them in the eyes and said, "Come back tomorrow." We have looked at unity and pride and welcomed them into our hearts that will grow never cold regardless of the weather.

It is February in Wisconsin and my feet are snugged into winter boots but they retain the right to pound thunder into the Capitol floors to march miles uphill so that I may be heard to carry me to microphones and to the heart of the Rotunda so that I may join my union family as the blood that runs through the veins of this protest machine that will never grow tired because even as we wind our ways home not given up, but ready to rest thousands arrive by the busload because this agenda we've finally glimpsed is repulsive to more than me and my peers.

It is February in Wisconsin and I've never seen my city this full And I've never felt this incredible sense of belonging. And I've never sung our national anthem with as much pride as I do today because this giant flag and this sea of people make me forget the objectionable things about America leaving only the   liberty and justice for all to echo in my ears so desperate to see truth brought to those words.

It is February in Wisconsin and I am warmed by the atmosphere of joy that surrounds this painful movement because whether or not we succeed today, tomorrow we'll all be back sticking it out through the end one day longer one day stronger than the individual plans we are fighting against because we are one.

It is July in Wisconsin and I have exchanged my coat and boots for sandals and shorts but the fire still burns in my chest

and my feet are still ready to walk miles to stand with adults I never knew and never will but who for one moment are my parents

my arms are ready to hug nurses and teachers, to high-five firefighters and police officers to ring cowbells and wave flags to dance when no one feels like singing

my voice is ready to be scraped raw yet again with the protest chants I could recite in my sleep because I've been living with them for months.

It is July in Wisconsin, and although zero degrees has been replaced with eighty six and the snow has long since melted I do not hesitate to say It is February in Wisconsin.

[momqueer]

there is a chain pooling in my stomach wrapping itself around the organ, squeezing until all the butterflies inside should be dead but they aren’t. every muscle inside of me rings, the harp string just plucked and still vibrating I can feel the tension all the way down to my toes. I try to comb my friend’s hair calmly, hoping they don’t notice the jerk of my fingers as I struggle to regain control of my own body. I hate that I do not have control of my own body. I’ve never driven a car, but I always want to be behind the steering wheel of my life. there is nothing poetic about the heaviness in my gut nor about the friend turned traitor who wrenches the wheel from my hands and yanks us down into the ditch at the side of the road. I know this path. I know how this story goes. I know what happens if I let go, take a breath, ignore the pounding of my heart like a cheerful child I have always been the anxious mother, so afraid my baby will fall and skin her knee that I am unable to see the joy in her skipping. there is nothing poetic about how easy it would be to flip over the guardrail and into the city of help me, where every other citizen is called to my aid, to hold me and gently spoon pudding into my protesting mouth it has been months since some of these thoughts have held me like this, and yet no time at all since my heart has skipped to school,  pink lunchbox in hand, coat zipped tightly to keep out the chill; the chill is somehow inside of me already the anchor weighs heavily in my abdomen. i try to breathe slowly - in, two, three, four out, two, three, four -  somehow, in all of this, there is healing.

panic attack, emery (via shabbosfemme)

[writingtag]

1/30

welcome home, my child welcome to our love, our safety our house full of laughter and light. come in. stay awhile. you belong here wanderer, welcome home

[momqueer]

when at last the woman’s chest falls for the final time when the body that was never hers goes limp and still when everyone around her slowly recoils, afraid of catching her disease, afraid of the contagion of self hatred, she arrives at the riverbank. at the riverbank, where Charon waits, where the boat floats in limbo, slowly filling with body after body. she needs help to climb in,  her weakened limbs being what they are even here a man must put her in her place. once in, she fits herself into the lineup, so used to making herself small. this is just another bus ride, she says to herself. this is just another chance to practice invisibility. she will practice forever. sitting legs crossed, arms folded, head down, thighs squeezed tightly together lest someone glimpse the reality of your human form, lest you take up space you do not think you deserve in a boat that never sets sail, in a vessel that all the people alive will never succeed in filling. she understands its eternal emptiness. she understands the breathless ache of too much and too little. she thinks she is used to this, to sitting and waiting for instruction, to letting someone else dictate. she wonders if it will be different on the other side.

crossing over, e.r.u.

[writingtag]

1. In the long run, there is everything to gain and very little to lose. 2. I am worth more than numbers worth more than translucent teeth and tearing up worth more than blurry eyes and stomach aches 3. I have felt what it’s like to be happy, to be fully present, to be at peace. I like it. 4. I am sick. 5. I was sick. But I do not need to be sick to be me. 6. I am more than that, more than anorexia or purging or fear or sick 7. I am the ruler of my universe. I am a partner, a child, a sister,  a student. I am more than sick. I am above sick. I will eradicate sick. I choose Warrior. 8. I choose Warrior. 9. I am more than Warrior, more than my ability to recover from sickness. I am things that have nothing to do with sickness. 10. I am alive. G-d dammit, I’m alive.

e.r.u., convince me

[momqueer]

People like to say that sexuality is fluid. They imagine it like a river delta, thousand of tributaries streaming along endless waters. I see it more like a waterfall, a crashing danger, breaking the person in a barrel who tries to ride it. I see her, breaking the person beneath her as she tried to ride me.

Thinking back on our relationship - flirtationship? friendship? -  is like watching a train wreck in reverse: everything comes together so beautifully. I remember kissing her, the way she tasted like validation, promising me that someone thought I was beautiful. I remember sneaking around corners and into bathrooms to avoid her boyfriend or my parents. I should have known there was something wrong from how desperately we wanted to hide. I remember playing tv shows and movies we had no intention of watching to drown out the sounds.

I remember her crying in my bed. I remember holding her, comforting her, piecing her back together for the thousandth time. I think about how even after all of that, she broke me like it was nothing.

I can still feel her hands on my ass pulling me closer. Sometimes I still feel her hands on my ass pulling me closer I can’t get away I wake up in a sweat, grateful to find open space at my back instead of a wall or a bed. When I lie belly up I can feel her on top of me, the weight stealing my breath before her lips have the chance. Who taught her to love like this? I remember giggling in my bedroom, fretting about how to hide our first hickeys, bruises she told me meant ownership which meant love. Who taught her to love like that?

Before you say that sexuality is fluid, think of the girl who tried to teach me to swim and wound up drowning me. I can still feel her body on top of me.

[momqueer]

sizes

I wrote this poem in ninth grade about my OCD and my eating disorder and it had this line, “my curvy shame ripping seams on size threes.” it was a big deal to me in high school that I didn’t fit into a size three. size threes were all I could find on the racks when I went prom dress shopping it made me feel disgusting to go up to a sales worker and ask if they maybe had this in a size five and it made me feel even worse to go to the same person and ask if I could try a seven.

I went shopping over break, and I wear a size three now. I’m no happier than I was twenty pounds ago, I just vomit up my food sometimes watch what I eat  write it down weigh myself every morning and every night weigh myself every day  weigh myself as many times as I can weigh myself whenever my roommate is out of the room weigh myself before a shower and after weigh myself after I pee weigh myself after a workout I never stop weighing myself

as if someday I will look down onto the scale and see a solution, a way to stop obsessing, a quick fix. as if someday all the answers will be underneath my feet instead of a slowly dropping number that makes me feel good and makes me want more and makes me hate myself and love myself all at once.

I do not know what it is like to be anorexic but I know what it’s like to weigh less than I have since before puberty, and to be overjoyed at the possibility of continuing to drop until I shrivel away into myself into nothingness.

and I know that I will never be skinny. I am trapped in this busty Jewish woman body, these wide childbearing hips and sturdy thighs. my body is not designed for a thigh gap. my body is not designed to look thin. despite my weight loss you cannot see my ribs I have flab on my arms and my thighs and my stomach. despite my weight loss and my fat-positive feminism, I want to carve the word ‘fat’ into every single cell of my skin, and I want it to be an insult.

there are days when I eat four desserts and there are other days when I eat nothing at all and there are days when everything that goes down comes right back up and there are days when it doesn’t and the problem with living in such an in-between space

is that no one will notice you are hurting. no one will notice you are healthy and you will not know whether you are hurting or healthy. you will lose the ability to tell what sick looks like. you will not notice that you are sick even when you black out in the shower even when you are bent over the toilet feeling your heart race even when you clean up splashes of vomit from the bathroom floor even when you ache with a kind of emptiness that nothing can fill.

you will only realize how sick you are when you realize how much time you spend wondering if you are sick enough; there is nothing sicker than wanting to be sick.

this story does not have a happy ending. it does not have a nice bow to top off a neatly wrapped package there’s no magical and inspirational recovery. I am still sick. I am still not sure if I want to get better. but this I know: my ‘curvy shame’ did not disappear at size three.

[momqueer]

1/30

recovery is realizing you are sick enough recovery is finally being underweight and realizing it’s not an accomplishment you can brag about parties recovery is hands curled to fists recovery is enjoying the shit out of your chametz the week before Pesach recovery is knowing you could be sicker and not wanting to be recovery is hating yourself and eating anyway recovery is not blacking out on bike rides recovery is going home to eat lunch because you’re worth it recovery is bad poetry written out loud is brushing your teeth and moving on recovery is chipped nail polish and whispy hairs gritting your teeth and listening to yourself recovery is other symptoms fading away because you’re finally taking care of yourself recovery is trust trust in your body trust in your instincts trust in those who love you recovery is hard but recovery is worth it or so they say

[momqueer]

Allies, by Emery

A justifiably angry poem from a queer and trans young person about self-proclaimed “allies” to the queer and trans communities

[momqueer]

happy and healthy // sick and sad

the idea of being perfectly happy and healthy used to scare me so much because i had NO idea who or what i was if i wasn’t sick and sad

but i covered that up by saying that i would ALWAYS be sick and sad, that i couldn’t change that, that i had to learn to live with it

and now i’m not so scared anymore i’ve been happy and healthy. it was awesome. and i can do it again

right now, i am adrift in sickness and sadness, neither happy nor healthy but i do not have to stay here

[theypreferthetermpeople]

Off The Road

Guess who actually finally wrote more fanfiction? It’s me! This is a continuation of the scene in 1x8, Clean, where Brandon confesses to having known about Mike’s alcoholism when he was a young child, including a flashback of the incident, and Stef and Lena talking about their newfound knowledge. The idea just stuck in my head while re-watching the episode and wouldn’t get out, so here we are.

Can be read here or under the cut.

Read More

[momqueer]

Rape Poem 

[theypreferthetermpeople]

Can you do a one where Lena is home with the kids (it's while Brandon and the twins are younger) but it's chaos like they are yelling and running trying to play tag or whatever and not listening to Lena and she's about the rip her out but then Stef comes home and gets everyone settled down and Lena is so happy it's finally quiet that she rewards Stef with sex :)) (the sex could be optional)

A/N: I have a real problem with the concept of sex as a reward, because I think it encourages the idea that sex is earned or deserved, which leads often to nonconsensual sex. Also, I’m not super comfortable writing sex, as an asexual person. So I appreciate your “optional” clause, and I tried to give you at least something a bit steamy in here (but realistic, too). Also, I’m apparently terrible at writing Lena (or either mum) as a bad parent, but everyone gets frustrated so I hope this is good enough! Sorry it took so very ridiculously long, I’m an inconsistent writer and I’m terrible at endings :)

Read here or below the cut! Reviews, reblogs, etc. always appreciated!

Read More

[momqueer]

if you think my poetry is about you, you’re probably right. or self-centered. or both.

[writingtag]

2/30

It is killing me to watch you disintegrate, falling like sand between my fingers, splayed like restless children. the fruit torments you, Eve. eat the pomegranate. surprisingly, I'm not the snake I'm your Mother.

[writingtag]

1/30

I will kiss your sacred knuckles your scraped elbows your worn lips caught in someone else's teeth.