qdwriting

[qdwriting]

Hail

You pelted me indiscriminately with Promises of waters cool embrace

I loved you despite the blows, the lies, the deceit

I loved you because I believed that with just a little warmth the stones would become precious precious water to nurture us both

I may have melted the stones but instead of nurturing I was drowned in the subsequent deluge

You played God and instead of labeling you the heretic everyone else thought you to be I became your Noah only looking to appease you

I submitted to your will, your wrath, your wonderful wit

Excusing your every slight with my love, a love I thought was ours

And you used me, ignored me, left me to drown

These days I curse your name

But what hurts most is I still love you.

[qdwriting]

You

I breathe you in and all of me melts

The white hot star I bless upon this world becomes an iridescent puddle

You make me...wilt

All my shiny baubles turn to matte marbles

You make me feel great being ordinary

And I'll always love you for that.

[qdwriting]

Saturday, May the 4th be with you 2024

I made it to May! Which means I'm back in New Hampshire and gainfully employed. I get my first check next week. I get by with a little help from my friends so $140 of that check will be going to the homies. I feel immense gratitude. Not only do I have people who will help me in a pinch, I've come to a place where I can ask for the help. There's no virtue in silent suffering; I'm learning to allow my friends to show up for me the way I show up for them. No friend ever wants to say "Why didn't you ask me?" I know from experience, it feels like a betrayal or lack of trust when someone you would happily help leaves you unaware of their struggle. Building community goes both ways. So I borrowed some money from a couple friends to make ends meet. Jesse, Daniel, and Justin will have their money back next week. This check is going to have less than 30 hours on it but but that's enough for me to stick and move. It's more money that I saw all of April. I should be in the black by the end of the month. Much better than where I was this time last year.

Tues, 27 Feb 2024

So, back in Dec, I went to Pittsburgh with barely enough money to get there and back because I'd purchased tickets to Mariah's Xmas concert when I had money. It just so happened that I'd wound up unemployed for over a month by the time I was to make the trip. Thankfully, I was frugal throughout my unemployment, I was determined to make that concert. Thanks to a brief gig I did in NYC, I showed up in Pittsburgh with a check for $200. As fate would have it, the local bank I used in New Hampshire had no branches I could make a deposit at. To add insult to injury, I'd lost my wallet on a trip to Boston, so I was resigned to using Google Pay and cash. Seeing as the check was issued through a Chase account, I trekked over to the nearest branch during my Pittsburgh trip, cashed the check, and opened an account with $100. I know my financial history, so when the banker asked me if I wanted to apply for a line of credit as well, I politely declined. "I have bad credit" is a phrase that I'm not proud of, but I'm also not ashamed of using honesty. To my surprise, I was told that my credit was actually on a positive trajectory. My steady efforts of the last 3 years of paying bills and keeping inquiries off my credit had paid off well enough to get me approved for a $500 line of credit. That $500 got me through my Pittsburgh trip.

I'm still unemployed. The occasional odd job is keeping me me afloat. I'm still living frugally, but every purchase I have to make goes on the credit card, and I only use my checking account to pay my credit card. That tactic has me racking up reward points. Eventually, I'd like to save those points for travel or gifts, but today, I was able to trade 20,000 points for $200 cash back. The points would have potentially gone further had I used them on a purchase, but that $200 will be a great help in getting me to my next cash source. It'll put me really close to caught up. The way I continue to make something out of nothing never ceases to amaze me.

[qdwriting]

Fighting (for what's right)

I'm writing this here because I know fewer people will see it and I don't want to give the impression that I'm boasting. The definition of martyr has been made abundantly clear in the last six months and I'm not that. I just need to document this thought. I'm relieved. The fight isn't over and I'm still participating however I can, but I am very much relieved that it wasn't in vain.

For weeks that turned into months I bore witness to the horrors of genocide. Things that I'd rather not write down in some selfish hope that a future me will be allowed to forget. I watched, I shared, I shouted, I cried, and it always felt like too few were listening. I had nightmares from the comfort of my warm bed. I'm under no delusion, the people I was watching were the ones really suffering, but I felt real pain.

As the catastrophe continued, the updates on the ground became fewer and further between. As more people died and fled, there were ever fewer left to share the story, live and unvarnished. I slowly watched my news feed return to programming as usual. I've no love for the macabre, I find it perverse, but it was scary seeing less death on my screen. It felt like it was too late, like the carnage was done and all of our efforts were for naught. The world kept spinning and no one noticed.

Thankfully, someone did notice. The shouting we did wasn't into the void. Now I'm seeing protests pop up across the country on college campuses and in town halls. I'm watching people fight for this cause in the streets. I'm ashamed that the work I've done has left me so exhausted before the fight is won, but I'm thrilled and immeasurably grateful that others have picked up the mantle. I'm not done fighting, I promise.

[qdwriting]

Tues, 27 Feb 2024

So, back in Dec, I went to Pittsburgh with barely enough money to get there and back because I'd purchased tickets to Mariah's Xmas concert when I had money. It just so happened that I'd wound up unemployed for over a month by the time I was to make the trip. Thankfully, I was frugal throughout my unemployment, I was determined to make that concert. Thanks to a brief gig I did in NYC, I showed up in Pittsburgh with a check for $200. As fate would have it, the local bank I used in New Hampshire had no branches I could make a deposit at. To add insult to injury, I'd lost my wallet on a trip to Boston, so I was resigned to using Google Pay and cash. Seeing as the check was issued through a Chase account, I trekked over to the nearest branch during my Pittsburgh trip, cashed the check, and opened an account with $100. I know my financial history, so when the banker asked me if I wanted to apply for a line of credit as well, I politely declined. "I have bad credit" is a phrase that I'm not proud of, but I'm also not ashamed of using honesty. To my surprise, I was told that my credit was actually on a positive trajectory. My steady efforts of the last 3 years of paying bills and keeping inquiries off my credit had paid off well enough to get me approved for a $500 line of credit. That $500 got me through my Pittsburgh trip.

I'm still unemployed. The occasional odd job is keeping me me afloat. I'm still living frugally, but every purchase I have to make goes on the credit card, and I only use my checking account to pay my credit card. That tactic has me racking up reward points. Eventually, I'd like to save those points for travel or gifts, but today, I was able to trade 20,000 points for $200 cash back. The points would have potentially gone further had I used them on a purchase, but that $200 will be a great help in getting me to my next cash source. It'll put me really close to caught up. The way I continue to make something out of nothing never ceases to amaze me.

[qdwriting]

It's my 11 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

11 years ago feels like The Great Before. So much had already happened; that's what inspired me to start this blog, but the gravitas of what has happened since, nothing could have prepared me. Love, loss, distance. I've experienced the gamut of human emotions three times over. Things I thought were forever gone. Mistakes made in a moment, now permanent. Perhaps what's most surprising are the things that were truly beyond my control. I'm not a shell of my former self; thankfully, I'm a husk hollowed out and filled anew. Worn for wear but still eager to share whenever I can muster abundance. An abundance of energy has been replaced with an abundance of wisdom. The compassion, the empathy, it's changed shape but remained constant. I don't know who or what I am if not a giver, a lover, an enthusiast. I still love life, even when I don't want it for myself. I'm grateful for so many things and bitter about a few others. I do my best to breathe through the things I can't yet let go. Am I the best of what I could have been? No, I don't think so, and I mourn that missed/failed opportunity. But, all considered, am I the best I can be right now? Yes. I'm still aiming for better. I still want more, but where I am and who I've decided to be is no small victory. I have to learn to celebrate myself the same way I've learned to forgive myself.

[qdwriting]

A convenient thing about taking lots of pictures is I can see evidence of a time when I was in love with my body and had fewer criticisms of it and notice that not much has changed physically. It's just this brain that needs help.

[qdwriting]

Alex & I were a Bad Match (Nov 16, 2020)

We had great chemistry and I like to think that we both got something positive from knowing one another but each time I reflect on it it becomes more abundantly clear. Alex was a lesson, a crash course, if you will. I went into our relationship assuming I was the same person I was when I arrived in Ohio. He made it painfully evident that I was not. Four years is a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things, but from up close it can feel like an eternity. That midwestern eternity didn't quake and rapidly cleft me in twain; it eroded me and reshaped me like a river. I emerged both polished and worn. I don't love the way I did before, the intensity is the same but a forest fire and a hurricane just operate differently. My flames are gone but there is still so much passion in my wind even though it lacks that familiar heat. My patience is thinner. My indignation at perceived injustice greater. My tongue less venomous. My heart more forgiving. He said I misrepresented myself. I didn't lie to him; I told him who I thought I was. I'm a more timid lover than I was before. My time with Alex taught me the difference between love and compatibility.

[qdwriting]

Memory (&) Loss

The number and variety of dead people you know only grows. Lovers, friends, family, acquaintances, familiar strangers, enemies. One day, your shared moments are only yours.

Growing up around so much death gave me a false sense of familiarity with it. I quickly came to understand the pain. That hollowness that comes with missing a person made sense at an early age.

What I didn't get, what I'm still wrapping my head around are the memories that are just mine. The ones people sympathize with but don't really know. We can be independently close to the same person and know two wildly different versions of them.

A different, but equally significant, sorrow is knowing very little of a person you enjoy and learning of their passing, like the lady you only ever saw at the grocery store but the polite small talk you always exchanged gave you a sense of community. The guy you always flirted with in passing but never made time to see. The girl you only saw on Wednesdays at that one bar, but yall were besties once a week.

It hurts when these people go because the people close to them don't even know to tell you they're gone; its unreasonable to expect them to. One day the last time you saw them becomes the last time you ever would.

On days like this, I find my mind wandering and a thought or a smell or some trivial trigger of the senses will compell my heart to reach out to a person that is gone. The middle of our journey much more easily called to memory than the abrupt, unexpected end.

A dear ones death may have been more memorable as a child because it was more novel, more traumatic. A sick comfort in life is that we grow accustomed to loss. Indeed, I'm grateful that my contemporary losses don't have the same sting and permanence as those of my formative years. Every time I remember, I lose them again, but in those precious moments when I think of them only briefly, they live on if only for me. When I'm too caught up in the middle to recall the end, for a brief moment, I have them back. The mind is funny like that.

[qdwriting]

I May Glow in the Dark

Specifically in the darkness of others' lives. I have a habit of collecting wayward souls. I don't go looking for them; they gravitate toward me. Warmth attracts the cold and weary. Andrew, Lavender, Eli, Parker, they're just the recent comfort seekers. The list gets long. I'll go looking for some carnal satisfaction and all too often wind up mamma bear. I'm not bothered by it; the people who see this in me need it and I don't know where else they would get it if not from me. Nurturing.

We've all heard the cliche of people using sex in an attempt to fill a missing piece of themselves. I have a way of pouring into that void for people. I don't think I'm fixing them or their issues but I'm certain I'm making life easier for a little while. Andrew sent me a wall of text today thanking me "for being genuine" and "proving there are some good dudes out there." Statements like that used to confuse me because I don't do anything of note in my book. I create the type of atmosphere and encounters that bring me comfort and joy.

I'm learning that the sacred space I create isn't common. It's selfcare as far as I'm concerned; the benefit to these people is a happy accident. I think I would drive myself crazy if I went looking for people to fix or console; it just sort of happens. Forging relationships has always been my strong suit. Relationships developing in directions other than those I originally intended is also a common theme. I think I'm making the world a little brighter.

[qdwriting]

Austin E

I loved you

Ok, maybe not "loved", but only because I wasn't allowed

You made sure of that

I longed for you in the way that only a feckless 20-year-old could

I see your face now and I'm that ingenue all over again

To speak your name takes my breath away

I miss you

I miss what could have been

I hope you are well.

[qdwriting]

Dear Lumiere,

I don't call you by your name very often. We've been at this for almost half a life now. I spent a significant amount of adolescence fretting over your size. I remember in my JP days carry my books in front of you to hide the frequent boners.

You know, in hindsight, we've had quite a run. We started at 17 but before graduating high school we'd gone all the way with 2 boys and fooled around with at least 2 more. My brain is fried, I don't remember every encounter but we had a time. Remember sitting doing makeup with our theatre crush with our legs intertwined. We know he felt the erection on his thigh. Even with all those teenage hormones and lusty thoughts we maintained a certain bashful innocence.

College was exciting for me but largely uneventful for you. Lots of unrequited lust. There were a number of times I had beat you sore and yet you always came back for another round. I would be tired, you would be tender to touch but you would lay down. Come to think of it that may have qualified as priapism. It was around this time that I noticed a bulge on your right side and started masturbating left handed in hopes of remedying the imbalance. The bulge never really went away but I like to think I prevented it from getting any worse.

I don't remember when I first measured you or when I first started to worry about your size but I've learned over the years that I've got nothing to worry about. We started watching porn at 11 so our idea of normal was skewed and adolescent boys may not know much about sex but somehow our entire peer group knew we should brag/lie about having a big one.

College may have been uneventful sexually but the summers weren't. I used to be able to say exactly how many people I'd had sex with but I racked up so many encounters in the summer of 2007 that it no longer made sense to keep count. We had sex with a lot of men and thusly saw a lot of penises. That summer taught us what an average penis looked like. It also taught us just how much folks can deviate from average. I lost all anxiety about how big you were after that summer. Turns out you're an average girth but an above average length. I like to compare you to High Bridge in Farmville "There are higher bridges not so long and longer bridges not so high, but the combined length and height of this bridge are what make it a marvel" I can honestly say you've never failed to impress.

My insecurity in recent years has been stamina. I know the stats, 3-5 minutes is average, I'm average, but I want to be a marathoner. I have to thank you again however, because, while you may not have very long rounds I can usually coax you into having multiple. The more I stress about the lack of an erection the less likely I am to achieve one and I'm still learning to work around that. I find it's more often an issue when we're with cis-women. Sexuality is a spectrum and I'm growing more comfortable with fluctuations. I remember the early years when we almost exclusively consumed straight porn. The fact that we spent the first almost 4 years of our sexual history sleeping with cis-men exclusively may have also influenced our propensity for arousal. #NeuralPathways

Men have always been easy. There has always been men who want to sleep with us. Some see you and become obsessed. Women on the other hand, women usually aren't interested or they assume we aren't. Come to think of it, the plurality of women we've been with have been lesbians. I'm sure we can say majority of we expand to all queer identities. Most women are cis-het and most of the women who are into us aren't so that keeps our number low on that front.

You know despite a number of scares we've only had a confirmed STI a handful of times. We don't have a perfect track record with condom use but I'm quite proud of our risk management and how responsible we are with our sexual health. It could have been much worse considering the number of people we've been with.

I appreciate you. I know I get weird gender feels sometimes but part of why I've settled on my current gender identity and expression is because I like you. I don't want to get rid of you and I don't want estrogen to effect your functionality. We're in a good place and hope to keep you in decent shape for a good long while. Thanks for everything. I'm sure we'll party together real soon.

Love always,

-ShaV

[qdwriting]

A Reflection on Consumption

You can drink every day and if you show up to work on time no one will say you have a problem. You can black out and have little memory of your shenanigans, but if you're a nice drunk and you don't cause a scene people don't question your gaps in memory. I don't drink when I'm upset because I don't want booze to become my crutch, but I don't know if that alone means I don't have a problem. I like drinking. I've heard it said that alcohol is the only substance-use our society allows to exist in a spectrum. A few drinks a day doesn't earn you the title of addict the way any other drug would at the same frequency. That's what gives me pause. If I chose tobacco or cannabis or cocaine at the same frequency as I choose alcohol, would I be considered an addict. Assuming I maintained the same level of functioning, would it be considered a problem? If so, then why is my alcohol use ok? If not, then I guess my point is moot. Is the fact that I consider this more or less alarming? I drink because it's fun. I tell myself, "When it stops being fun, I'll stop." I hope that's true.

[qdwriting]

You Didn’t

You didn’t love me enough It feels so strange to say it out loud but You didn’t love me enough You loved me enough to want me around But not enough to make me stay Enough to tell me its not my fault But not enough to take your part of the blame

You didn’t  My heart believes you wanted to but You didn’t I told you how to treat me but You didn’t I made all these concessions and You didn’t

Time has passed and my heart’s moved on but healed? No, not yet Maybe never

[qdwriting]

It meant I gave of myself More than I could ever hope to receive It meant I cherished like forever What was only meant to be a moment It meant I trusted And it hurt to feel that trust broken But to never trust again would be a pain a thousand times worse.

“I thought that pain meant I was not loved. It meant I loved.”

Poems 1962-2012: Ararat, ‘First Memory’ by Louise Glück

[qdwriting]

I’m in pain

I want to drink I want to run I want to ruin myself Drown myself in a pain more immediate than heartache

[qdwriting]

Penpal Diary 23 Feb 2020

Dear Julia,     The last five months have been absurd. As of 2 weeks ago, I'm no longer at UPS. That job was taxing on my mind, body, and spirit. I had a mental break and just stopped showing up. Thankfully, the universe provides and I stumbled into a new job before I completely ran out of money (though I came really close).  Tomorrow I start a new position as the HIV Services Coordinator for a queer youth organization. It'll be my first salary position.     I'm seeing a boy, he's nice enough. We do fun things together. Depression was kicking my ass for a bit, that really catalyzed the UPS departure, but I'm in decent spirits as of late.     How are you? Now that I'm making real money I should be able to travel. Perhaps I'll see you this summer. Miss you terribly. Hope to hear from you soon. <3 ShaVaughn