My dad wants to go to Hawaii next year because he's never been, but it's still very much his cultural/ancestral home. My heart is pounding actually. I don't want to be a tourist but holy hell it's a dream.
My identity has always been important to me. It has always had to be.
I have to be honest, I never super fit in with white kids when I was, well, a kid.
I was just a little too different. I got bullied for it. My nose, my lips, my hair- all just off by enough so white kids would ask where I was from and call me ugly.
and the fucking microaggressions. Even by people who think they're being nice.
Even by my white family members.
So, yes. Since my identity was a big deal to all of these fuckin people, it should be a big deal to me, too. It's important, it's GOOD, and I'm here for it. To support it, to argue FOR it.
1997 is Zidon, which apparently means "fisherman."
There's only one Zidon in Scripture and he's only mentioned once, in 1 Chronicles 1:13. He's the oldest grandson of Ham, and thus a great-grandson of Noah.
before you know about women, you hear that you do not need to love the man, just that you need to love him through his manhood. which is to say you have seen the future painted in lamb's blood over your eyes - how your mother shoots you a look about your father's inability to cook right. how your aunt holds her wineglass and says i'm gonna kill em. men, right! how your best friend bickers with her boyfriend, how she says i can't help it. i come back to him.
you learn: men are gonna cheat. men aren't going to listen when you're talking, because you're nagging. men think emotions are stupid. they think your life is vapid and your hobbies are embarrassing. men will slam things, but that's because men are allowed to be angry. if you get loud, you're hysterical. if a man gets loud - well, men are animals, men are dogs, men can't control their hands or their eyes or their bodies. they're going to make a snide comment about you in the locker room, about your body, about how you're so fucking annoying. you're going to give him kids, and he will give you the money for the kids, and you're going to be running the house 24/7 - but he gets to relax after a long day, because his job is stressful. the man is on stage, and is a comedian, and says "women!"
and you are supposed to love that. you are supposed to love men through how horrible they are to you - because that's what women do. that's what good women do. wife material. your father even told you once - it'll make sense when you're older. it was like staring down a very lonely tunnel.
it feels like something's caught in your throat, but it's all you know, so. it's okay that you see sex as a necessary tool, a sort of okay-enough ritual to keep him happy, even though he doesn't seem to care about happiness as-applied-to you. it is relationship upkeep. it is kissing him and smiling even though he didn't brush his teeth. it is getting on your knees and looking up and holding back a sigh because he barely holds you as you panic through the night. it's not like the sex is bad and you do like feeling wanted. and besides! he's a man! like... they're another species. you'll never be able to actually communicate, right. he isn't listening.
you just don't get it. you don't feel that sense of i'm gonna climb him like a tree. mostly it just feels fucking exhausting. you play the part perfectly. you smile and nod and are "effortlessly" charming. and it's fine! it's alright! you even love him, if you're looking. you could have good life, and a good family, and perfectly happy.
in the late night you google: am i broken. you google i'm not attracted to my husband. you google i get turned on by books but not by him. you google how to get better in bed.
the first time he yells at you, it almost feels like blankness. like - of course this is happening. this is always how it was going to end up. men get angry, and they yell, and you sit there in silence.
you mention it to your friend - just the once - while you're drunk. she shrugs and says it's like that with me too, i just try to forget and move on. men are always gonna hear what they want to. pick your battles and say sorry even though he's in the wrong. you play solitaire online for a month. you go to your therapist appointment and preach about how you're both so in love.
after all, you have a future to want. nobody lied about it - how many instagram posts say marriage is hard. say real love takes work. say we fight like cats and dogs but the best part is that we always make up. how many of your friends say happy anniversary to the best and worst thing to ever happen to me. if you really loved him - loved yourself too - you'd accept that men are just different from you.
the first time she kisses you, it's on a dare at a party. something large and terrifying whips through your body. you wake up sweating from dreams where her mouth is encrusted with pearls and you pick them off one by one with your teeth. fuck. you sit at the computer and your almost-finished game of sim city. you think about your potential perfect life and your potential future family. you google am i gay quiz with your little hands shaking.
you delete each letter slowly. you don't need to love him. you just need to keep going.
As much as I love feral Satan, who lets his instincts run wild and growls, bites and everything else… his soft side is so fuckin’ cute.
The Satan that stares at you in confusion as you tend to a small cut on his hand he’d received on one of his rampages, unbothered by the mess around the two of you and concerned solely with him. How he doesn’t quite know why his chest feels so warm and tight as he looks at your gentle, concerned expression.
Satan, who doesn’t understand why he feels so weightless with you, why his heart flutters and why he wants to hold you so gently, as if cradling something precious.
Satan, whose anger fades just from your presence alone, overtaken with feelings he’s never experienced, that baffle him entirely but he can’t get enough.
Satan, who desperately throws himself into research just to understand you a little more, to put a name on how he feels about you— who’s just as afraid of his own feelings as he is elated by them.
Satan, who worries you’ll be frightened of him if his temper rises, but you never are, even when he tells you that you should be.
Satan, who lays beside you, watching your sleeping face and utterly baffled that you trust him so completely to allow him to see you in such a vulnerable state… who knows deep down he’ll protect you forever.
Satan, who fumbles each time he tries to explain any of this to you, whose face becomes adorably reddened with each failed attempt.
Satan, who realizes that you’ve accepted him entirely, his every fault, his everything, before he had even come close to accepting himself. Who loves you more than he could ever put to words, or that he could ever really comprehend.
Just him. You know? Ahh, just helping him come to terms with everything he doesn’t know, to grow and understand. Helping him, in the end, to love.