Unsuitable for humans

Lizzi has been thinking a lot, and well.

Considerings

Ignorance truly is bliss.

The thought came to me as I snuggled with Neff on the sofa, watching MasterChef (his choice) and pondering the manner in which educating myself had ruined my enjoyment of cookery shows. It wasn’t even that I particularly WANTED to be vegan (having had a long and delicious love-affair with cheese, and a HUGE penchant for (yes, stereotypically English) milky tea. BUT having turned veggie because I *knew* commercial farming and butchery practices were/are atrocious (even at their best), and having developed a dairy allergy followed by disquieting revelations about the way the milk, egg, and honey industries are all as bad (in their ways) as the meat industry…in good conscience, I bit the bullet and ootzed a whole bunch of yummy convenience from my life.

View original post 1,440 more words

Smooth ish

Reading this makes me happy.

Puppetmaster’s Burden – C. Streetlights

A freedom poem

Nicole Lyons

Puppetmaster’s Burden

They thought I’d be their puppet

by

pulling my strings

and

making me dance.

With each command

across the stage

(grotesquely shadowed by their hearts)

I lit a match for every hoop

and

watched it burn instead.

They tried with earnest

to set me right,

and force me into line.

Hung me next to other dolls,

with blank faces

and

no expression.

(their models)

Look!

they said.

But they spoke to nothing.

I cut my strings long ago

and left them all behind.

© C. Streetlights 2016

After writing and illustrating her first bestseller in second grade, “The Lovely Unicorn”, C. Streetlights took twenty years to decide if she wanted to continue writing. In the time known as growing up she became a teacher, a wife, and mother. Retired from teaching, C. Streetlights now lives with her family in the mountains along with their dog that eats Kleenex…

View original post 35 more words

In All That I Am – Nicole Lyons

Badass poem from Nicole

Nicole Lyons

In All That I Am

If I could draw a blade across my wrist

to show you that my veins clog

with the sludge of ugliness, you would

never again ask me,

“Why are you so tired?”

If I could crack open my skull

to free my mind, you would

see that it is not splintered

by madness but rather patched

together with clarity, you would

never again ask me

to swallow poison.

If I could rip this body open

to show you the raw red wounds

that have been lashed onto my soul

by every inhumane atrocity

this world has endured, you would

never again ask me,

“Why are you so sad?”

Instead, your accusing eyes demand

simple words to simpler questions that

the simplest minds can process.

And in all that I am,

simple I am not.

View original post

To Anyone Who’s Ever Shamed a Teenager For Being ‘Attention Seeking’

A Must Read

Let's Queer Things Up!

The scars I have from cutting myself as a teenager have faded. If you looked at my body today, you would never know the hell that I put it through all those years ago.

But the wounds from people labelling me “attention-seeking” or “emo” or “dramatic” are still wide open, ten years later.

You could say that I have a bone to pick. And you would be correct.

When I was a teenager, all I understood about what I was going through was that I was depressed and detached from myself. Set adrift in my pain, I fell apart. I didn’t know why, let alone what resources were available to me or how to ask for help.

In a society which does not openly discuss mental health, it should come as no surprise that a fourteen-year-old kid didn’t know what to do when he was suicidal.

A decade later…

View original post 696 more words

Summer Blues

Excellent writing on a neglected subject.

ORGANIC COFFEE, HAPHAZARDLY

by Sami-Jo Cairns

Are you a bear or a snail?

Odd question? Maybe. Though I’m among those considered “odd”. Why? Many reasons, but in this case, because while the first day of Spring heralds millions of people to take in a fresh breath of the new season with great hopes of longer days and warmer temperatures, I’m peeking out from behind heavy curtains and closing them tight with a grinchy “hrumph”.

View original post 766 more words

I Stopped and Picked up a Man and His pregnant Wife on a Rainy Night in Seattle in 1977

I hope these two people find each other.

Kindness Blog

I just figured out that I may be able to find out how this story ended after all these years.

I was southbound on I5 on a week night in the early autumn of 1977. Rain was pouring down and the interstate was awash. I was driving an orange, 1973 BMW tii when I saw a crazy man in the MIDDLE of I5 jumping up and down and waving his arms. I slowed down and stopped about 300 yards away from his stalled car.

He ran up to my window and shouted;

“my wife and I were going to the hospital, she is in labor and I ran out of gas can you take us the rest of the way!!!?”

He jumped in the back seat and I BACKED up along I5 in the DARK, in the RAIN about 300 yards. I got out and helped his wife into the…

View original post 199 more words

From Oppression Comes Light – Stephanie Ortéz

A freedom poem

Nicole Lyons

From Oppression Comes Light

Since I left you, I feel free. My soul is no longer trapped

to yours.

Like a bird learning to fly, I have regained the wings that

had been cut off from me.

Out of the ashes, I no longer surrender to carnal love. My

consuming desire gravitates towards the air, away from

my own prison.

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world was to feel

the joy of his hands, warm and protective.

But I wasn’t happy. Soon reality hit me like cold water in

the morning. I want to rejoice in my loneliness, stitching

my heart from old wounds. I’d rather feel the cold of my

bones at night than share my bed with a fool.

I let you go without crying. My tears evaporated a long

time ago like dust. Are those faces of love long gone?

I have room in…

View original post 115 more words

Accepting The Love I Never Got – Calla

Not an easy read, but a must read

Nicole Lyons

Accepting The Love I Never Got

I could never understand why my mother never loved me; I have never felt the warmth of her touch or the love in her ever departing gaze from my face.

I can tell you exactly what I looked like as a baby because there are only two pictures of me as a baby and I have studied them profusely to find the horror that I’ve seen in my mother’s eyes when she looked at me. Nine months of secretly expecting changed exponentially when I ripped myself from her body. The secret was out and a life of hiding and attempts to lose me ensued which took me most of my life to comprehend.

I can’t say that she emotionally abused me because there wasn’t much emotion involved when it came to me. It was the quiet of her distaste that very often cracked the…

View original post 1,608 more words

How to dine with your enemy

An excellent discussion

fuchsia blue

“How do we create a dialogue that invites the other to join – anyone we dislike…?
What a challenge in co-creating a future with those we disagree with on such a fundamental level.”
Sarah in the SeaSalt Learning WhatsApp “Pub” 23rd March 2016

Wowsers, this is a big question… asked in the wake of another Terrorist attack, this time in Belgium.. and I don’t have the answer, but somehow I want to answer. And I’m going to work a little in the abstract here, because tipping over into the current situation is likely to polarise or inflame… and I’m trying to work quietly and carefully to offer thoughts –possible ways to “invite the other”, without being “smart-arse-I-know”, without being sentimental, without knowing, really, if it is doable, but with a deep-held belief that it is.

There is no quick fix. Dialogue that invites us to dine with our enemy does…

View original post 1,225 more words