Category: essay

my horse died today

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The bar was slammed, shouting into a dark agreement: “this is the atmosphere”.

The show: Vagina Monologues performed by Bangkok Rising, an up n growing volunteer organization aiming to raise awareness and promote advocacy to end violence against women and children across a myriad of cultures, values, beliefs, and experience.

Vagina Monologues is a play written by Eve Ensler. Eve Ensler created the play based off of real interviews with women and the relationships they have with their bodies. This global non-profit movement promotes the international stage of the play as it esteems the voracious, the shame, the aggression, the wisdom, the liberation, the tenderness, the laughter, the ugliness and beauty, of the encompass; a woman’s experience of her body.

The venue: Checkinn 99, is a cabaret club and nightclub located off of Sukhumvit in Bangkok, Thailand. Both parties donated all funds from the performances to In Search of Sanuk: a local non-profit organization that reinvigorates survivors of torture and trauma.

We retain meaning. We are not all survivors. Some of us are.

The play opens with a series of voices, most prominently rising towards justice, when “the story is told,” and the “law is a living and breathing thing”. I witnessed both performances and each was alternatively significant. The first show I could not stop my loud guttural laugh. As I ingested my second watch, I listened to the monologue “Water Village,” a story based off of female genital mutilation, and the internalization of emotional scars forced me to leave.

7-10 people in Thailand agree that abuse is a permissible action. 3-4 women in the United States are abused in some manner during their lifetime. I left the building. I came home. I drank. I left for morning to get breakfast with a friend. I left my purse with my friend. I blacked out and woke up in the lobby of a Thailand police station crying as I asked them to take me home.

“Are you sure this is who you are?” They kept asking me, laughing. The police chief drove me home on his new classy private white motorbike. I remember the folks giving me a tour of the station. I do not know if this was real.

I went to a punk show the next night. I spiked my friend’s hair for three hours. I jumped in the mosh pit. I fell down. I was picked up. Many times. I sat outside and someone kicked me in my back. I made out with a someone. I spent the night with a someone. I wondered what they hell was going on and where I was going to move.

I went to work, I did laundry, I thought about how reprogramming the after effects of trauma are instrumental connections to the movement of one’s own multiple characters.

Today my mother emailed me to let me know that my horse died. Her mother’s name was Saturday Sunday. She died on my Sunday and her Saturday. The best confluence of moments happened in forgiveness.

I am a survivor. It is the year of the lunar horse.

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my horse died today

no man should be that adorably ridiculous

I’ll do some grading

I’m fucking tired man and super super bored, wishing that guacamole was my universe right about now

 

just thinking about operating .

and bushy .

pheromones . and language .

and something to brush skin .

 

the best confluence of moments happen in forgiveness

my horse died today

 

operating the room of her light to preserve in us a gallon more than pores

a name is what you need to die

 

he needs someone to circle his circles

you are trying to remember the telephone in a sensible manner

a girl watching is mouth

 

the best confluence of moments happen in forgiveness

if feathers could spasm

 

the best confluence of moments happen in forgiveness

my horse died today

my horse

died today

an expat living in bangkok for the holidays

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Stories as containers

She lives with unusual stories. Eclectic fantastic interesting intelligent fucked up virulent sarcastic sweet loving thieving sexy ridiculous argumentative creative musical Chinese, Indian, Thai, Japanese, Irish, Polish, German, American, Iranian, Pilipino, Norwegian, Swedish, English, French, Scottish, straight, bisexual, Ladyboy … transience.

They live in a humid, tucked back narrow winding Bangkok Soi. The narrows hug a Buddhist temple, a Hindu temple, and a Mosque whose prayers echo in a weave through the cracked cement. Stray dogs and kittens play on the tin and tile rooftops. Some yell at the public prayers over the intercom, some giggle at the finale which undoubtedly says, white bum.  Let us not forget how they are cupped between their respective cemeteries.

This home is a serviced apartment. They get visitors, get yelled at, and smile at rumoring questions from the neighbors. They have dance parties with portable speakers and smart phones, and Miss Universe pageants in drag for Christmas. They achieve, joke, fail, fall in love, cry, and confide. They have concerts sitting on the burgundy front porch tiles and place fallen magnolia blossoms from the trees in their hair.

Some arrive and cannot wait to leave. Some stay for the night, some for internships, some have lived there for years. Some sew and sell hot pants internationally. Some teach and some work in hair salons. Some are bank tellers, some students, some cook, some play music, some audit, some work with jewels, some write, and some design type. The rooms are as diverse as their verse. Some have posh decorations, some do not clean their apartments for weeks. Some have fish tanks, and some take care of flying monkeys secretly as their pets. The rumors are true. Some of the rooms do not have windows.

The kaleidoscopes of these stories confront and address the insecure nostalgia and hyper aware exquisiteness of experience. Their families are equally as diverse. Some have had incredibly nurturing pasts and others have dealt with abuse. They are over and under achievers. They work together, sleep together, move away, we move in. They laugh too much and little, drink too much and little, sing, smoke, and eat too much and too little. They have yoga and aerobics on the roof and guacamole potlucks. They scissor and gel and dye their hair. They fall into canals, ditches, and the front entrance steps. They Skype for hours, converse for hours; express and share themselves in all respects.

Their stories structuralize who they are in addition to what they define as home. Home is anywhere they have this feeling. Of acceptance, of community, of the strangeness that grows the perspective of what is considered to be both love and working together.  Their home could be considered as temporary, but what are homes, but ones that cultivate and then change as we grow. Home necessitates growth. This is a moment to build, to cultivate, to acknowledge in both the gorgeousness of its temporality and the strength and power in the honesty of the encounter; to come home either today or someday.

Time is limited and they are forced to face, encounter, express, and heal. They further home, and community, and acceptance, as they cultivate love and empathy. This expression reveals a spectrum of world community; in a bend of light honest in both its failure and accomplishment.

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do you believe this to be a coincidence?

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(merriam webster dictionary defines coincidence as:

the act or condition of coinciding : correspondence .
the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection; also : any of these occurrences

“do you believe this to be a coincidence?”

(its both. the court system asks for a truthful opinion. my truth. is it black or white. do i believe i live in danger. yes.)

“no,” ethical. I am an ethical person. people. still i have to pick.

(my body feels number one. but this is learned fear. learned objectification. learned pain. learned sacrifice. learned duty. learned guilt. these feelings are not mine. but I need to protect. there is so much learned pain and fear everywhere.)

I know these are learned. logically.

(is fear real. chemicals electricity, stimulate thought patterns of familiar pathways. fear is both. the act of coinciding. and an occurrence of accident that is supported by the ego.)

my mind agrees with my body today. number one.

(note: there is a possibility of two. false. it could be. I used to think that love fell false. saving false confused my truth. truth always there somewhere. but it was both. and life more. it was something beyond the mind and the body. it was something that I had no words for. ) (survivor. from a biological point of view yes. body remains living. brain handles efficiently. plugged air. lifted. lucky, behavior. number one or two. for breath. for life. I believe in more. bless the fucked up ritual. abuse. tucked me back into beds of red echoes. pillows. tissue. dumps my bag. phone under the couch. he normally would have broken it. did the week before. this ones expensive.)

I ask the law to define my ethics. he drowns in reasoning. logics lies into logics. hes excited. angry. he wants to beat. his body feels his mind. reasons support the neurological pathways in his brain. this gives him pleasure. its ugly. court room. healed. no coincidence. depends on how well you can manipulate language. the ethical system is based on how well we can surreptitiously spin truth.

to split the both.

“do you believe this to be a coincidence?”

(I think. It could or not. it could be truth. it could be false. what do I believe. he will only listen to the law.)

I didn’t think that he would show up. his reasoning. he doesn’t want it to stain his record. he pled guilty a year ago. his neuro circuitry would never let me. now. wants to hurt. cut emotionally. like he used to. I sit and relive the experience. is this me now or was it me then trauma seared brains are we able to hurdle the circuits that message fly or fight. I want to fly. I fight.

an intelligent manipulator. I watch him and the judge. law. perjury. they don’t ask him to prove anything. but how do I prove it. I prove dates of significance around my chance. it’s really a matter of chance I’m alive. I am not speaking to the metaphorical antiquity of the statement, but rather acceptance. a point in my life I will always nurture and at time same time will never leave me.

(apart of me that will never define me, or anyone else around me. but will be visible because it will be a part of my life whether I like it or not. mentor tells me I have an experience that is very much my own. I did not grow up in the library. I know the world. this. is a gift.

I have experienced evil, if that’s what you would like to call it. others may call it abuse, domestic, violence, assault and battery. others may also want to call me abused, a dv victim, chick, battered woman. I am not any of these labels.

I am many including many more. but more importantly while my experience is unique to me, it is not to the larger community. in western culture, invisibility of power enables us to ignore the simultaneous multiplicity of the real. kaleidoscopes of varying bodes minds and spirits. or not. beauty of opinion.

domestic violence happens to one and four women. we will be friends, family, lovers, colleagues, neighbors, strangers to both parties involved. we will interact on a human level. love laugh cry judge forgive. human. can we love someone and not their actions. yes. how is this possible. does behavior define us?

does my visibility dehumanize me? now as an “other,” do you feel pity. because you know, as I have been told, “its just so embarrassing”. says my colleague, that’s her projection. for her. it was her mother. it can happen to anyone, and depending on multiple factors, intelligence, esteem, upbringing, really too many to list depends on how long you will stay.

abusive cycles are addictive fairytales. there is honeymoon, there is a crisis. there is climax, there is a resolve, there is a desire to get back to the honeymoon; happily ever after. but I was. shameful. because my own self treatment was worse. I had to face my shadow. the pull is seductive. even more so if the upbringing you received facing the cycle leaves you little weapons. if we don’t educate, talk about it, the cycle. invisible. continues.

7 in 10 people in abusive relationships are unable to leave. the emotion cradled in our limbic systems during this state: fear. perpetrators gorge themselves on fear. but the “perpetrator” is still human correct? the details of the final incidence that gave me the courage to leave will have to wait for another day. the point of the essay is in response to an excerpt written by a friend.)

the story is heartfelt, honest, introspective and extremely well written. it is about his experience coming to court with me and furthermore looking at violence on its inane level. the process, also celebrates another woman’s survival story and deconstructs my ex in his asshole attempt to fight a restraining order for fear that it would blemish his currently saturated (domestic violence and assault and battery) record. he is able to see the lack of humanity that i still struggle to comprehend. I highly recommend his blog that includes essays and poetry at http://cowardlywombat.blogspot.com/. accepting my own visibility in his story made me realize my own need for visibility. this essay is most in part an attempt to intellectually wrap my head around something generically absurd.

I can see my ex’s pleasure rise as he chews gum with a hard jaw and crass charming comments. he is given the opportunity to cross-examine, challenge, cut down, I can see every one of his moves before he makes it, every lie he hand feeds the judge. I no longer give credence to his lies webbed extravagant. there is a desire to dehumanize those who act in accordance. it makes me question if there was ever humanity there to begin with. how could it have been okay to stay with him in the beginning. can someone’s humanity change?

I feel sorry for him that this is where he lives. I feel story that he will not face his humanity. I also want to kill him without becoming him. it’s not right, but he’s still human. how human though if he has lost love and magic and multiplicity. we are bodies and minds, but we also love that is some self, spirit, or magic in us all to varying degrees. is fear of living merely a fear of death?

(are we more human when we are children? are we more human when we are dying? everyone lives. everyone dies. are we more human when we are closer to our cycles of life and death? what does it mean to live; love. if we lose love are we still human? what if we meditate in moments of the between. in-visibility.)

“do you believe this to be a coincidence?”

it could have still all been a coincidence. then what is coincidence. we can believe that everything is a coincidence or that everything is connected. the flexibility is intricate to the process of change. “truth” is a social norm defined in language that perpetuates its own destruction. to disrupt the cycle.

(he cannot manipulate the pictures. he won’t look at them. he says he already lived it once. I live it every day.)

when we apply this philosophy to language, we are able to manifest the playful dissemination of an aggressive form of control

a cycle of violence is inherent in western social structure. in order to disrupt this sacrificial component of language, contemporary feminism crumples definition and establishes coherence through difference. kristeva argues “anthropology has shown that the social order is sacrificial, but sacrifice orders violence, binds it, tames it. refusal of the social order exposes one to the risk that the so-called good substance, once it is unchained, will explode, without curbs, without law or right, to become an absolute arbitrariness.” (kristeva, 204)

yes a coincidence. both.

notley: “people kill each other/not because they’re animals/but because they’re demons./ this is obvious…keep/talking, anyway/ talking to You. is language demonic/obviously does/lead You astray.” (notley, 185) poetry, a form that encourages individuals to challenge the social notion of the “real,” language is redistributed in a personal/universal manner that addresses violence and denies sacrifice.

if violence occurs, the writer spins, shits, manipulates, dances, and celebrates the diverse possibility of human experience within non linear moments. kristeva: “mak[e] a game, a space of fantasy and pleasure, out of the abstract and frustrating order of social signs, the words of everyday communication.” (kristeva, 207)

hope. courage. love. multiplicity. will always encourage visibility and the question: what is it she will say next?

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language violence and visibility

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i have felt lately of writing my right and left wrists. the computer screen my journal behind: skipping stones skirting potholes. i have been told by a writer of pros. many believe it is easier to write poetry. i always want to ask. why don’t you. find breaks in histories of human music meaning and illustration a language unique. that is voice. that is yours different and yet intimately connected to many at the same time. a space of refrain. a need to say that which cannot be spoken. a spoken spoken that will address many perspectives. and realities. those of mine and yours and dreams and time in non linear limber accusations. those of culture, learned, forgotten, translated. there is a play in the language of poetry, of dipping into violence and beauty and spinning it into a twist of red and grey. there is love and death, a light personal, a dark universal. there is work to be done.

we listen, we speak, we communicate, we educate, we run circles. we run cycles. we follow. we lead. i see patriarchy caught in its own cycle of abuse. a cycle of reprimand. punishment. a need for sacrifice to uphold. rules. a fantastic construction by the founding philosophers. in language, rule is turned into fact. fact is turned into truth. language is used to describe in a linear manner that which is truth. few people are given access to this language. education. truth becomes a tool used to control. fact. sacrifice utilized to uphold truth. law depends on how well one persuades. story. your version of the truth. hopefully it bends the fact to your desired evocation. in the patriarchal world, boundaries are defined through negative reinforcement. negative reinforcement is only tangible if it is faithfully reinforced. behavior yearns to act. without getting caught. behavior continues, abuse continues. this is cyclical.

western culture’s philosophical and linguistic structure is a petri dish for cycles of violence and abuse. a tool employed to demonstrate power and control. war. a control of the other. domestic violence. happens. in all cultures. people of any and every race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion and class. the centers for disease control (CDC), reports domestic violence as a “serious public health problem” that affects more than 32 million americans yearly. that is of the cases reported. its estimated in the u.s. 1/3 of the cases remain. unreported. most women. physical violence; sexual abuse, emotional abuse, intimidation economic deprivation, threats of violence, harm to pets, unwanted physical contact, rape, murder. psychological; mental abuse, isolation, fear. manipulation. guilt, humiliation, denial. the cycle: fantasy. set up. abuse. guilt. excuse. honeymoon. it happens to anyone everywhere.

its uncomfortable. this topic of violence. its invisible. its easier. when it remains invisible.

every 9 seconds in the u.s. a woman is assaulted or beaten. domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined. everyday in the u.s., more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends. based on reports from 10 countries, between 55 percent and 95 percent of women who had been physically abused by their partners had never contacted non-governmental organizations, shelters, or the police for help.

we cannot change anything unless we accept it. condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. – carl jung

when things become visible. they lose power. there are veins in this cracked cored cement. there is possibility outside of the foundation. because we dream and we love and we realize that this is one lens. it will not stop or change however. unless we look at the uncomfortable and make it visible.

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