thegloomregency

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I’m worthy of love whether you are healed or not.

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I rely too heavily on the idea of fate.

Nothing is fated, we just make up stories to keep the stories we rely on to keep us from giving up on everything alive.

I’m not sure if I can do it anymore.

Stupid tricky brain with all your nuance.

This moment right now might be the lowest of my life.

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Circa 2003 age 22

At this point I drank, I smoked, I stayed out late, ate at greasy spoons every night, and had no idea how to cope with life

2025 age 44 - at this point I have had four brain surgeries (hence the caved in forehead), 28 rounds of radiation, unexplained cirrhosis of the liver which has since turned into Hepatopulmonary Syndrome. I’ve quit smoking, drinking, eating junk food and now I am waiting for a new liver.

Youth is wasted on the young

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Joy Sullivan, “My Mother Says Kissing a Man Without a Mustache Is Like Eating Eggs Without Salt”, Instructions for Traveling West

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My favourite band, right now, and after my liver transplant and recovery I very much plan to B.Q.A.D. (Far away)

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Stories from hell (a woman’s perspective)

My colleague shared some images of chunky platforms today that she thought I would like. Think Hot Topic, 2001. While we all wish to be Betsey Johnson forever, I’m sure Betsey has her moments where she needs comfortable shoes, slacks (I said SLACKS), and a soft t-shirt. Point being, I’m not cut out for the high intensity Lolita goth shoes of my 20s anymore.

However, as she messaged me I remembered an instance I had hoped to forget forever. I often have these fevered flashes in gory detail of moments in my life. I would be so much better off if I could forget half of what I remember, but I wouldn’t risk losing my favourite memories.

So, I remembered when I was 19 turning 20 I was hired as a server to open a new restaurant in my BFE (bum fucking Egypt, for the uninitiated) hometown. We were called in the week before opening to clean up, learn the menu, open/close procedures, and whatnot.

I was in the back going over the cold food stations. I went to do a temperature sign off in the walk in freezer when a sous chef walked up to me and put himself between me and my exit route from the freezer.

He asked my name and I pinched my badge up and said, “it’s on my name tag.” He laughed and followed with, “what kind of music are you into?” I started naming off obscure math rock , emo, and noise bands that I knew he never head of. Then, sarcastically, I said “what type of music are YOU into?” Very boastfully he named off an abundance of rap rocking clown groups and some very lame local nu metal bands.

I snarked, “good for you.” He asked if I shopped for clothes at Hot Topic. Tired of this interaction with this man at least 10 years my senior, I asked why he wanted to know.

Like a lion licking his chops he responded, “because I think you’d be fucking hot in thigh high creepers. I’ll buy you a pair and you can come over and show me what they look like.”

Now see, when you’re a young pup in the world and your parents, teachers, or literally any other adult doesn’t talk to you about fucking perverts, you’re caught on the back foot in these interactions (at least the first couple of times.)

I knew he was lathering me with attention I did not want or seek, but I didn’t expect him to say that, and frankly it takes awhile to build your abject hatred for men hyper-sexualizing you when you’re under the age of 25. At first, it seems like a one, two, three, four or five off. You assume it is you and try to adjust accordingly despite nothing ever changing.

Anyway, the freezer started to feel like the trash compactor walls in Star Wars and I just stared at him. Eventually I mustered a “no thanks,” and quickly breezed past him out of the freezer.

Sometimes I think of the places where I or my friends received unwanted male attention. Whether it was the guy jerking off behind a telephone pole because my best friend and I were running, trying to get out of the rain, or the man who put his hand down my shirt in a restaurant because he tried to hit on me and I told him I was engaged, or the people who crushed on you in high school still acting like you owe them something. I think of all the little pieces of innocence lost to those streets, restaurant tables, online conversations and I can’t help but be reminded of the the Unicorn Tapestries.

Men in their throngs, with their dogs, descending on something pure hearted, rarefied, free-spirited, and childlike with spears and chains. Hoping to destroy it for their gain.

I am never happier remembering I am 44 years old than when some stuffed down memory of some mongrel tried to take something that wasn’t his to take. The peace that comes from being too old to be objectified is our reward and I wish someone would have told me that when I was young.

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Eyes like the edges of a lazy, warm ocean lapping over me threatening to take me out to rougher waters.

We met in a land locked place but I knew so many years ago the temptation of drowning. Reckless, lost, but vibrant. I was something to behold. To lose.

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“Finding someone you can really connect with is like winning the lottery — It happens basically never, but if it does, you really shouldn’t blow it.”

— Jessica Verdi, What You Left Behind

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xx

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My dad was filled with anger when I was a child. A vessel teeming with black sludge that had the hearing of a fennec fox. A floor board creaks under foot and his hands curled, his eyes narrow, his teeth gritted would snap his head in the direction of the noise like a velociraptor.

It was best to stick to the shadows. It was best to sit quietly in wait for your presence to be required should something spill or break or fall off a table. It didn’t matter if you were in the room, the house, the neighbourhood. YOU WERE RESPONSIBLE.

When you entered the room you were meant to lower your head, no eye contact. Do you stare a lion in the face before he picks your head from your shoulders?

There was no time for a broom PICK IT UP WITH YOUR HANDS, you stupid, useless IDIOT. His fist would slam down on the countertop reminding you how lucky you are this time.

As you tried to dispose of the evidence of your supposed crime you would slalom through a course of humiliation. At every turn, reminded of how ungainly you are. How you are too fat to pick up your feet. Words stuck like Velcro. LARD ASS. FAT ASS. PIG. If only you weren’t such a hog faced pig things would not fall from tables in rooms you are not in. Everything would be fine if you would just completely disappear.

Watching my sister crumble from the weight of his words awoke something in me that has not left me to this day.

Rage. Unfiltered, Marlboro Menthol Light 100s RAGE. Four roses and Jameson neat RAGE.

The first time I sniped back “who you calling a lard ass, fat boy?” I swear I was smiling at every lick of the belt. I earned those beats and there is something to be said for a beating you earn versus a beating you take.

I became hingeless. A door swinging free through the universe ready to slam against anything in my party. My grandmother thought I was “getting into the vanilla.”

Every smack, slap, punch, whip, slash, and shove was proof that I was gloriously alive. I was an inescapable mirror. I was Lyssa, the rabid goddess of madness and insanity. I felt all the threads holding me together inside snap like piano strings.

I did this dance for over a decade. Fire-eyed and never breaking eye contact anytime I was swatted like a fly. I would build it up, make it a game show. Once I taunted him, standing behind my mom and sister beckoning him to hit them, “Who is Daddy dear gonna hit today!? Will it be the sad sister who cuts herself? No, too easy! What about mummy dearest??? You never betray an accomplice! What about the devil daughter? The one with horns growing from her head?! DING DING DING DING!”

He hit me so hard after that I thought he was gonna have a heart attack.

I didn’t break. I didn’t cry. I stopped crying altogether. I felt nothing for anyone.

I’m better now. Trauma therapy sucks but it’s worth it, but what has never left me is my will to destroy anyone that tries to hurt me.

If you put a blade to my neck, I assure you, I will show you my throat.

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