#i’m only dominican by blood and nothing else

[michi-chelle]

the dominican-american experience of learning and reading and hearing about your family’s roots but still feeling out of place and disconnected in the DR and in dominican spaces

[prurientpuddlejumper]

Guerrerita, Part 2

K!nktober 2020 Kink Bingo!: Cunnilingus

<- Part 1 | Part 3 ->

Summary: Nevada is extremely turned on after you violently came to his rescue, and he’s going to have to reward you right there in the alley. 

Warnings: NSFW, semi-public sex, mild injuries sustained from brawling, and some rather filthy Dominican swears I googled

For @thatesqcrush​’s Kink Bingo challenge!

2,653 words

Nevada held onto you, still feeling the rage boiling inside and unsure if you’d take off after that man like a raging wolverine if he let you go. He turned you to face him, peppering kisses onto your hair and your forehead as you struggled to calm your breathing. Very gently, delicately, he kissed the inflamed skin on your bruise. Then, even more delicately, he brushed the skin he had kissed with his thumb, wiping red flecks of blood away, and wiped his own lip off on his sleeve.

“Oh, Vada...” your eyes grew large and soft. You lifted a careful hand to his cheek as you examined his bleeding lip and black and blue eye. A proud grin beamed back at you.

“Hey, we have matching shiners now?” he asked like it was the most hilarious thing ever.

The look of concern dropped off your face. “I can’t leave you alone for five minutes,” you scolded. His eyes were shining with such roguish delight, you gasped in realization, “Did you plan for all this to happen?”

He scoffed, finally letting go his hold on you to put up his hands. “De ninguna manera! Venga, how would I have planned this? I’m not psychic.” 

When you first finished your match, the punch you’d taken didn’t look like it was going to bruise up so badly, and going out to dinner genuinely seemed like a nice thing to do. You were something else—a sweet thing, but with this wild side you hid from the world. That side of you was all his, but he wanted to prove he could be part of your other life, too. The life he knew almost nothing about.

Had he, however, when the bruise started to darken, leaned into his suspicious behavior hoping to give off the wrong impression just so something like this might happen? Had he been surprised by how bothered he was seeing you uncomfortable in your own sexy skin, and intentionally tried to piss you off enough to bring out your fire? 

Maybe. 

It was certainly no accident that he left himself wide open to attack the moment you stepped out. He knew you’d come running in time. You were always a reliable bodyguard, and watching you work was better than porn.

That fire was in your eyes now, adrenaline pumping through you as you caught your breath.

“That was so fucking hot, mami,” he growled. “On your knees, now. Fuck.” He pointed to the concrete at his feet. You dropped to your knees and he quickly unbuckled his belt, and freed his cock, already red and throbbing from watching you fight. He smacked it against your lips. “I want you to suck me off, right here.”

You leaned forward, grabbing his sturdy thighs for support, and parted your lips around his warm, salty cockhead, his pulse strong under your tongue. Your cheeks burned from doing something so public—the alley was dark and abandoned, but anybody might come out of the restaurant door, or walk in from the street to investigate all the shouting from a moment ago. But you weren’t feeling particularly shy right now, and it was hard to tell if you were nervous, or just keyed-up from from adrenaline. 

Slowly sliding forward, you opened your throat and took his shaft as deep as you could until your nose was buried in his dark hairs and you had to fight not to gag, then pulled all the way back, teasing your tongue over the large vein running up the length of his cock. There was something strangely comforting about having his large cock in your mouth that helped you calm down. You bobbed on him rhythmically, imagining how degrading the scene would look to anyone who saw you—giving a blowjob to a seedy criminal in a filthy back alley next to a dumpster. It made your cunt twitch, dripping with arousal as you moaned around his cock. You were pretty sure your parents had specifically warned you that if you made the wrong life choices, you’d end up giving blowjobs to drug dealers. You wished they could see you now.

Nevada’s long fingers, capable of unspeakable violence, and even now glowing pink from landing several vicious punches on his attacker, caressed over your hair in an affectionate, possessive gesture. He gave a light tug to make you look up and meet his eyes. “Such a good girl, mi guerrerita. So loyal. You could snap me in half, but you’d do anything I ask, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, papi,” you released his erection to answer.

“I didn’t tell you stop, did I?” he snapped, his words clipped, but his eyes playful.

You cocked your head and raised your eyebrows at him defiantly, but he just mirrored your expression, impatiently waiting until you resumed servicing him. You closed your mouth around his cock, fluttering your tongue around the sensitive crown of his head. He chucked at your obedience, the noise only lasting a moment before breaking down into groans of pleasure. God, you were so good, he wanted to do something for you… but at this rate it wouldn’t take long for him to finish, not with his head still dizzy from the fight, the pain swelling in his cheek heightening the pleasure between his legs, and not with the way you were working that skilled mouth on his cock. 

He didn’t try to draw it out. Now that he decided what he was going to do, he raced toward his climax with selfless abandon, thrusting roughly into your mouth. He jerked his hips hard enough to make you gag, but you just hollowed your cheeks and sucked him harder the more he fucked your face, and he relished your determination as much as the sputtering noises he won. One powerful thrust hit the back of your throat, almost enough to make you tap out, but you held on to his thighs with an iron grip. One more, and he exhaled sharply and left himself buried in your mouth up to his balls, and you were rewarded with hot bitter liquid spilling down the back of your throat.

“Swallow all of that, princesa. We’re at a nice restaurant. You gotta clean up.”

You swallowed, milking every last drop of seed from his cock as you slowly drew back, giving the head an extra lick to make sure you cleaned up everything before he zipped himself back up and re-fastened his belt. You stood up and brushed off your dress. Your knees were obviously dirty and raw, but you were strangely turned on by the idea of everyone in the restaurant knowing you were out there sucking his cock. Though you’d have to hold yourself with a little more confidence so people didn’t really get the wrong idea about Nevada… but that didn’t feel like it would be a problem anymore. After everything tonight, you felt powerful, and didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought.

“Ah-ah-ah, where do you think you’re going?” he said as you began to walk toward the restaurant door.

“Our food? I don’t know if they’re going to let us back to our table after making a scene, but we have to pay the bill.”

“It can wait,” he took your hand and pulled you back, closing his arms around you. This close, his breath smelled of the cigarettes he was constantly trying, and failing, to quit, and his eyes had that dangerous brightness of a thunderstorm about to break. “That was very selfish of me ¿no te parece? You’re the one who deserves a reward, mi fuerte, dulce, cuero loco.” 

He slowly slid his hand over your ass, circling lower over the tight fabric that left little to the imagination. You squirmed in his arms, unconsciously trying to get him to touch more, directing his hand lower to where you still ached to be filled.

“Against the wall.” He shoved you toward the brick surface with a hungry growl.

You bent over, sticking your ass out for him, and he hummed in approval, and brought his palm down on it for a casual spank. Then he ran his hand down the curve of your bottom again, this time lifting the hem of your skirt as his hand came back up.

“Lucky you’re wearing such a slutty outfit. Makes this much easier,” he purred. “Barely anything there. I wonder what you got for panties.” He pulled the dress over your ass, and grinned at the tiny lacy thing you had on.

“Who’s this for?” he asked, cocking a brow as if he didn’t already know the answer.

“For you.”

“Really?” His smile was predatory now, slowly exposing the tips of his teeth.

You swallowed, your cunt beginning to throb at the dangerous promise in his voice. “Yes, Trujillo. I thought you’d like it. I wanted to… to excite you.”

He laughed at that, and your confidence faltered. It was a more vulnerable confession than he realized—that tomboyish you was trying to look sexy—and he laughed. The sharp pang in your chest soothed a moment later when you realized he wasn’t being cruel. 

“Princesa, what you just did was exciting. Nobody excites me more than you.” He leaned close into your ear and added in a thick whisper, “but I don’t mind you dressing like dirty slut for me, if you want.” 

You turned your head and kissed him, his lips too temptingly close to resist. He groaned with pleasure and melted into it, more affectionate than the teasing dominant part he was playing. There was his usual smoky flavor, the dark sweetness of wine from dinner, a coppery taste of blood. You gasped and pulled back, worried about hurting him, but his broken lips chased you to press another gentle kiss to your mouth. Turning you in his arms to face him and pinning your back against the wall, he dropped the performance and the dirty talk, and for a long while, just kissed you tenderly like there was nothing else in the world he wanted to do.

Then a finger pushed aside your flimsy panties and slipped into your pussy. He growled deep in his chest, his words barely hoarse breaths, possessive and cocky. “Who are you so wet for?”

“You, Trujillo,” you breathed, heart thudding.

“That’s my good girl,” he said, placing one more chaste kiss to your lips, before dropping to his knees between your feet. He met your eyes, sliding the finger deeper inside you as he leaned forward to taste you. “And a good girl like you deserves to come, doesn’t she?”

He bunched up your skirt just above your hips and told you to hold it for him, and you did, fingers gripping into the fabric as his tongue began working wet circles into your clit. There was none of his usual teasing kisses to your inner thighs or marking them with bites. Tonight you were already past foreplay. He was selfish enough taking his pleasure first; now he knelt at your feet, fully devoted to rewarding you. 

“Sucking my dick got you so hot,” he groaned into your cunt, making perverse slurping noises as he lapped up your arousal.

“I didn’t tell you stop,” you teased through hitched breaths. 

He groaned in response, strong hands gripping your thighs and pulling you down harder until you were practically sitting on his face as he ate you out. Without warning, he plunged a second finger into you, sending such a ripple of pleasure through your body you cried out, high and echoing through the narrow alley walls. You clamped a hand to your mouth just in time to smother another choked cry as he laughed, the sudden convulsive movement setting off another wave of heat in your lower body.

“Careful. We wouldn’t want anyone to hear you and get curious,” he smirked, risking your wrath to remove his mouth from you long enough to speak between flicks of his tongue. You growled as you realized now he was going to try his hardest to make you moan, but the noise dissolved into a strangled sob as he followed through with his plan, fucking you hard with his fingers as he engulfed your clit in his mouth and sucked it.

It became a battle of wills—you trying to stay quiet, and him lifting your thigh over his shoulder to spread you wider and attack your sensitive heat with more passion. The alley was an echo chamber of his hungry, lustful growls as he greedily consumed your cunt, your heavy breathing assailed at the edges by soft whimpers threatening to break into ear-splitting wails of ecstasy if you didn’t use all your will beating them back, and the wet smacking sounds of his fingers driving into your twitching, begging flesh. He only broke his mouth’s relentless assault in brief intervals to murmur words of praise that only served to drop your guard and allow fuller-voiced whimpers to slip out.

“You could crush me between these thighs, guerrerita, and I would die happy,” he said, running a hand up the soft underside of the muscular leg slung over his back, flattening his tongue for a broad, soft stroke. “Coño, you’re so beautiful. Come for papi,” he urged, sucking your clit harder, and your whimpering grew louder. Every muscle in your body was burning like a fire and you couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“Fuck!” you gasped, taking your hand from your mouth and snarling it through Nevada’s heavily-slicked hair. You arched your back, bucking your hips into his mouth as the burning in your muscles coalesced into one single, white-hot point between your legs, and then exploded outward through every extremity as a scream tore from your throat. You held onto his hair, keeping control of his head as you rode out the aftershocks of your climax on his face, chanting, “Vada… Vada…” while his tongue gently soothed your swollen clit, his fingers slowing their thrusts to savor the fluttering of your inner walls around them. You heaved out a shaking breath and sunk back against the wall. 

Nevada sprang up to catch you just in time as your trembling legs gave way, turning to jelly as all of the tension and adrenaline of the past hour left your body all at once. He gathered you up against him, and you felt safe in his arms.

How ridiculous, you thought—feeling so safe and protected as your breathing shook against his chest. Your eyes focused hazily on the gold crucifix resting there with you. It was ridiculous for many reasons. You were his bodyguard, charged with protecting him, not the other way around. He was a criminal with a brutal reputation; if you ever crossed him, or even if you didn’t, he was just as likely to stab you in the back, and not metaphorically. Right? He was trouble. Not the kind of man you should ever trust with your weaknesses. And yet, his steady arms had caught you, and his heartbeat sounded so so human pounding away behind his rib cage.

“Let’s get you home,” he murmured, stroking your hair. “You’re a mess.”

You glanced up and nearly laughed when you saw how much he’d destroyed his bruised lips by eating you out with such intensity, and that his eye was already swelling up worse than yours. But you figured when he said “you” he really meant “we, but my ego is huge.”

He started leading you back to where his driver was waiting with the Escalade, but you dragged your feet and glanced back at the alley door. “Wh-what about the bill?”

“I’m the fucking King of the Heights. You think I’m gonna clutch my pearls about dining and dashing?” He gave you a raised-eyebrow look. “Anyway, those uptight mamaguevos would rather pay us to not go back inside after everyone south of the George Washington heard you coming.”

• ● • ━━━━━─ ••●•• ─━━━━━ • ● •

Tags: @caked-crusader​ @beccabarba​ (Look at me, I’m tagging people! Want me to tag you? Say the word my friend)

[thedevilnamedlola]

"Usually, I lie. At a party, someone asks the question. It’s someone who hasn’t smelled the rancid decay of week-dead flesh or heard the rattle of fluid flooding lungs. I shake the ice in my glass, smile, and lie. When they say, “I bet you always get that question,” I roll my eyes and agree.

There are plenty of in-between stories to delve into; icky, miraculous ones and reams of the hilarious and stupid. I did, after all, become a paramedic knowing it would stack my inner shelves with a library of human tragicomedy. I am a writer, and we are nothing if not tourists gawking at our own and other people’s misery. No?

The dead don’t bother me. Even the near-dead, I’ve made my peace with. When we meet, there’s a very simple arrangement: Either they’re provably past their expiration date and I go about my business, RIP, or they’re not and I stay. A convenient set of criteria delineates the provable part: if they have begun to decay; if rigor mortis has set in; if the sedentary blood has begun to pool at their lowest point, discoloring the skin like a slowly gathering bruise. The vaguest criterion is called obvious death, and we use it in those bizarre special occasions that people are often sniffing for when they ask questions at parties: decapitations, dismemberments, incinera- tions, brains splattered across the sidewalk. Obvious death.

One of my first obvious deaths was a portly Mexican man who had been bicycling along the highway that links Brooklyn to Queens. He’d been hit by three cars and a dump truck, which was the only one that stopped. The man wasn’t torn apart or flattened, but his body had twisted into a pretzel; arms wrapped around legs. Somewhere in there was a shoulder. Obvious death. His bike lay a few feet away, gnarled like its owner. Packs and packs of Mexican cigarettes scattered across the highway. It was three a.m. and a light rain sprinkled the dead man, the bicycle, the cigarette packs, and me, made us all glow in the sparkle of police flares. I was brand new; cars kept rushing past, slowing down, rushing past.

Obvious death. Which means there’s nothing we can do, which means I keep moving with my day, with my life, with whatever I’ve been pondering until this once-alive-now-inanimate object fell into my path.If I can’t check off any of the boxes—if I can’t prove the person’s dead—I get to work and the resuscitation flowchart erupts into a tree of brand-new and complex options. Start CPR, intubate, find a vein, put an IV in it. If there’s no vein and you’ve tried twice, drill an even bigger needle into the flat part of the bone just below the knee. Twist till you feel a pop, attach the IV line. If the heart is jiggling, shock it; if it’s flatlined, fill it with drugs. If the family lingers, escort them out; if they look too hopeful, ease them toward despair. If time slips past and the dead stay dead, call it. Signs of life? Scoop ’em up and go.

You see? Simple.

Except then one day you find one that has a quiet smile on her face, her arms laying softly at her sides, her body relaxed. She is ancient, a crinkled flower, and was dying for weeks, years. The fam- ily cries foul: She had wanted to go in peace. A doctor, a social worker, a nurse—at some point all opted not to bother having that difficult conversation, perhaps because the family is Dominican and the Spanish translator wasn’t easily reachable and anyway, someone else would have it, surely, but no one did. And now she’s laid herself down, made all her quiet preparations and slipped gently away. Without that single piece of paper though, none of the lamentations matter, the peaceful smile doesn’t matter. You set to work, the tree of options fans out, your blade sweeps her tongue aside and you battle in an endotracheal tube; needles find their mark. Bumps emerge on the flat line, a slow march of tiny hills that resolve into tighter scribbles. Her pulse bounds against your fingers; she is alive.

But not awake, perhaps never to be again. You have brought not life but living death, and fuck what I’ve seen, because that, my friends at the party, my random interlocutor who doesn’t know the reek of decay, that is surely one of the craziest things I have ever done.

But that’s not what I say. I lie.

Which is odd because I did, after all, become a medic to fill the library stacks, yes? An endless collection of human frailty vignettes: disasters and the expanding ripple of trauma. No, that’s not quite true. There was something else, I’m sure of it.

And anyway, here at this party, surrounded by eager listeners with drinks in hand, mouths slightly open, ready to laugh or gasp, I, the storyteller, pause. In that pause, read my discomfort.

On the job, we literally laugh in the face of death. In our crass humor and easy flow between tragedy and lunch break, outsiders see callousness: We have built walls, ceased to feel. As one who laughs, I assure you that this is not the case. When you greet death on the daily, it shows you new sides of itself, it brings you into the fold. Gradually, or maybe quickly, depending on who you are, you make friends with it. It’s a wary kind of friendship at first, with the kind of stilted conversation you might have with a man who picked you up hitch- hiking and turns out to have a pet boa constrictor around his neck. Death smiles because death always wins, so you can relax. When you know you won’t win, it lets you focus on doing everything you can to try to win anyway, and really, that’s all there is: The Effort.

The Effort cleanses. It wards off the gathering demons of doubt. When people wonder how we go home and sleep easy after bearing witness to so much pain, so much death, the answer is that we’re not bearing witness. We’re working. Not in the paycheck sense, but in the sense of The Effort. When it’s real, not one of the endless parade of chronic runny noses and vague hip discomforts, but a true, soon- to-be-dead emergency? Everything falls away. There is the patient, the family, the door. Out the door is the ambulance and then farther down the road, the hospital. That’s it. That’s all there is.

Awkward text messages from exes, career uncertainties, generalized aches and pains: They all disintegrate beneath the hugeness that is someone else’s life in your hands. The guy’s heart is failing; fluid backs up in those feebly pumping chambers, erupts into his lungs, climbs higher and higher, and now all you hear is the raspy clatter every time he breathes. Is his blood pressure too high or too low? You wrap the cuff on him as your partner finds an IV. The monitor goes on. A thousand possibilities open up before you: He might start getting better, he might code right there, the ambulance might stall, the medicine might not work, the elevator could never come. You cast off the ones you can’t do anything about, see about another IV because the one your partner got already blew. You’re sweating when you step back and realize nothing you’ve done has helped, and then everything becomes even simpler, because all you can do is take him to the hospital as fast as you can move without totaling the rig.

He doesn’t make it. You sweated and struggled and calculated and he doesn’t make it, and dammit if that ain’t the way shit goes, but also, you’re hungry. And you’re alive, and you’ve wracked your body and mind for the past hour trying to make this guy live. Death won, but death always wins, the ultimate spoiler alert. You can only be that humbled so many times and then you know: Death always wins. It’s a warm Thursday evening and grayish orange streaks the horizon. There’s a pizza place around the corner; their slices are just the right amount of doughy. You check inside yourself to see if anything’s shattered and it’s not, it’s not. You are alive. You have not shattered.

You have not shattered because of The Effort. The Effort cleanses because you have become a part of the story, you are not passive, the very opposite of passive, in fact. Having been humbled, you feel amazing. Every moment is precise and the sky ripples with delight as you head off to the pizza place, having hurled headlong into the game and given every inch of yourself, if only for a moment, to a losing struggle.

It’s not adrenaline, although they’ll say that it is, again and again. It is the grim, heartbroken joy of having taken part. It is the difference between shaking your head at the nightly news and taking to the streets. It’s when you finally tell her how you really feel, the moment you craft all your useless repetitive thoughts into a prayer.

At the party, as they look on expectantly, I draft one of the lesser moments of horror as a stand-in. The evisceration, that will do. That single strand of intestine just sitting on the man’s belly like a lost worm. He was dying too, but he lived. It was a good story, a terrible night.

I was new and I didn’t know if I’d done anything right. He lived, but only by a hair. I magnified each tiny decision to see if I’d erred and came up empty. There was no way to know. Eventually I stopped taking jobs home with me. I released the ghosts of what I’d done or hadn’t done, let The Effort do what it does and cleanse me in the very moment of crisis. And then one night I met a tiny three-year old girl in overalls, all smiles and high-fives and curly hair. We were there because a neighbor had called it in as a burn, but the burns were old. Called out on his abuse, the father had fled the scene. The emergency, which had been going on for years, had ended and only just begun.

The story unraveled as we drove to the hospital; I heard it from the front seat. The mother knew all along, explained it in jittery, sobbing replies as the police filled out their forms. It wasn’t just the burns; the abuse was sexual too. There’d been other hospital visits, which means that people who should’ve seen it didn’t, or didn’t bother setting the gears in motion to stop it. I parked, gave the kid another high five, watched her walk into the ER holding a cop’s hand.

Then we had our own forms to fill out. Bureaucracy’s response to unspeakable tragedy is more paperwork. Squeeze the horror into easy-to-fathom boxes, cull the rising tide of rage inside and check and recheck the data, complete the forms, sign, date, stamp, insert into a metal box and then begin the difficult task of forgetting.

The job followed me down Gun Hill Road; it laughed when I pretended I was okay. I stopped on a corner and felt it rise in me like it was my own heart failing this time, backing fluids into my lungs, breaking my breath. I texted a friend, walked another block. A sob came out of somewhere, just one. It was summer. The breeze felt nice and nice felt shitty.

My phone buzzed. Do you want to talk about it?

I did. I wanted to talk about it and more than that I wanted to never have seen it and even more than that I wanted to have done something about it and most of all, I wanted it never to have hap- pened, never to happen again. The body remembers. We carry each trauma and ecstasy with us and they mark our stride and posture, contort our rhythm until we release them into the summer night over Gun Hill Road. I knew it wasn’t time to release just yet; you can’t force these things. I tapped the word no into my phone and got on the train.

I don’t tell that one either. Stories with trigger warnings don’t go over well at parties. But when the question is asked, the little girl’s smile and her small, bruised arms appear in my mind.

The worst tragedies don’t usually get 911 calls, because they are patient, unravel over centuries. While we obsess over the hyperviolent mayhem, they seep into our subconscious, poison our sense of self, upend communities, and gnaw away at family trees with intergenerational trauma.I didn’t pick up my pen just to bear witness. None of us did. And I didn’t become a medic to get a front-row seat to other people’s tragedies. I did it because I knew the world was bleeding and so was I, and somewhere inside I knew the only way to stop my own bleeding was to learn how to stop someone else’s. Another call crackles over the radio, we pick up the mic and push the button and drive off. Death always wins, but there is power in our tiniest moments, humanity in shedding petty concerns to make room for compassion. We witness, take part, heal. The work of healing in turn heals us and we begin again, laughing mournfully, and put pen to paper.

Daniel José Older"

[brenduhjay]

I don’t post or share for likes or popularity. In fact, this is really HARD for me. For this allows people to get a peek into my life without even speaking to me, while others don’t even know me…it’s very invading and I often cringe about it, but obedience is better than sacrifice. These posts are for inspiration and inspiration only…in no way, shape or form do I think I’m better than anyone. And to heighten that, I want to talk about mercy and grace, specifically the mercy and grace that was placed on my life. Yes, God forgives us for our shortcomings, but He is also a God of vengeance and wrath. The word says, they that KNOW the way and DON’T do it will be BEAT with many stripes (Luke 12:47) so it’s almost better that you don’t know God and His will than to know it and continue to do your thang. Welp! I turned my back and did my thang anyways! And so the chastening begins…A few months after backsliding, I was in a car accident on 485, during my sophomore year in college. An 18-wheeler almost destroyed me but MERCY stepped in and instead he swerved and barely missed me. When he swerved, I was hit by a Honda instead. A few months later, I woke up with an oral infection and I couldn’t eat for days. I lost 10 pounds in 2 days. I was taking all kinds of medications and nothing could help. Here comes MERCY again. My pastor calls me and prays for me over the phone. He reminds me to get myself together and to come back to church because God still loved me and that He was going to heal me. By the time my pastor finished praying over the phone, I was HEALED completely. Mind you, I’m still doing my thang and didn’t even go to church to tell God “THANK YOU.” Throughout all of this, I’m still hearing the voice of God while I’m partying it up in Vegas, Puerto Rico, Cancun, Miami, wherever I can get to! Turning the music up louder to tune out that still, small voice I was hearing. I was literally RUNNING from Him. Couldn’t sit still for nothing. I felt like I had to get it all out. So a few months later, I wake up with another pain. This is now my junior year and my leg is swollen and I’m short of breath. I ignore it for a few days, and it’s getting bigger. Come to find out, I had a blood clot in my left leg. Because I waited so many days, it formed two more blood clots–one in each lung. It was final exams and I can remember walking across campus crying trying to make it to class to take my final exam. I had to take many stops. That walk across campus was the worst decision because it put more pressure on the blood clots. I barely made it to the hospital in time…MERCY again. They admitted me immediately and told me had I waited a few more hours, I would’ve died. God does it again and heals me. The blood clots dissolved and I was right back at it. A week after being out the hospital, I was back to turning up and living my life. That wasn’t enough for me. Now mind you, I KNOW why all this stuff was happening to me and I could hear God’s voice the entire time. My friends didn’t know, but I knew. I keep running, and here comes the relocation to Houston, trips to Dominican Republic, Cali, wherever I can go! This time God doesn’t touch my body, but he allows the enemy to hit my MIND. I no longer have peace and I can’t sleep. I would literally stay up for 24 hours and go into the next day with no sleep. He allowed the enemy to torment my mind for months. No one knows this, but that sent me into depression. I was prescribed anti-depressants and anxiety medication. I was literally LOSING MY MIND. Panic attacks and every thing. Let me tell you, peace of mind is everything! Can’t nobody give you that but GOD! So slowly I start back going to church (September 2016), but still haven’t dedicated my life back. I knew it was coming, but I had a last few events I had to get out my system. Lol smh. 🤦🏽‍♀️ One Sunday I went up for prayer, and God speaks through my pastor and tells me “I have patience, but I’m waiting for you” I knew exactly what He was talking about. 7 is God’s perfect number of completion. I turned my back on Him Fall 2009. I came back to God October 16, 2016. That’s 7 years exactly….I knew that it was complete for me. Anything else would’ve killed me. Listen, mercy and grace is there but remember you reap what you sow (Galatians 6:7) Yes, God is a God of love, BUT He’s also a JEALOUS GOD. He’s a God of wrath and vengeance as well (Exodus 34:14) (Hebrews 10:30) We don’t like to talk about that part. Don’t abuse His forgiveness like I did because we all will pay! I’d rather get it right now, than try to plead my case later when I stand before a HOLY & RIGHTEOUS God. Read this scripture and think about if you want this: “I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me” (Proverbs 1:26-28) Don’t let your time run out.

As always, let’s LOSE our lives so that we may be FOUND in Him and ready when He comes. God Bless ♥️

[snsmissionaries]

3/8/19 -- Sister Nicole Ritman, Spain, Madrid Mission

Creepy Clowns and a Change of Towns 🤡

Subject Line: H Mecca and I have found the clown from "IT" in Spain--we're convinced. I've attached a picture so you can all be freaked out too. The "change of Towns part" is that tomorrow I'm going to Collado Villalba! Probably none of you have heard of that town so to make it sound cooler, I'll just say I'm going to the famous town of Segovia, because my area is right underneath it. It's the furthest north Hermanas can get in misión Madrid (the northern coast is all misión Barcelona) so it'll be quite a change from Málaga! I will be greenie breaking again (first transfer out of training) but unlike H Orjuela they aren't a native Spanish speaker so for the first time my Spanish will be expected to be better. I'm a little concerned but mostly excited 😄

 ¡Hola a Todos! 

 So highlights from last week and this week:

 *Intercambios: Last week I spent the day with Hermana Willden! It was super fun because we taught an object lesson on faith together for their weekly ward activity. Somehow I've gone through half my mission and had never seen the lesson where you burn the tea bag but it's my new favorite thing now. We also went to a panederia, ate coconut rolls and dulce de leche croissants (I've realized I'm going to miss Spanish pastries a lot when I come back. Especially cabello de angel) set goals until the next intercambio. Normally goals just weigh me down but for some reason I love the ones we set intercambios. They literally changed my mission (dare I say my life) last time and I am also super excited for the ones I just set and they have been going pretty well so far! Goals that you actually like, I am learning are the key to live. There is only one thing more satisfying than improving yourself and that's helping someone else to. And that's why the mission is so awesome because you get to do both!

 *The Virginia Reel: I made the mistake of mentioning that I have danced swing dance and square dance and country line dance before because the Relief Society commissioned me to teach them American pioneer dances for their big anniversary of the Relief Society coming up. I won't be here for the big activity but they had me do two practices. They were literally so, so excited (I've never seem them so hype before, not even exaggerating) that I couldn't let them down. The first practice everyone was too busy sewing their pioneer bonnets so we didn't really do anything. The next one we spent almost half the time trying to get the video to work and it didn't. By that time it was the end of the stressful day and I was just feeling annoyed and the last thing I wanted to do was try to translate the dance moves into Spanish and try to direct a group of people, but once we started dancing, it actually was super fun! Not a lot of people were there because they had a temple trip and a youth campout but there was enough to help the people learn at the big activity now that I'm gone. At the end they asked us to give a spiritual thought right that second and I saw the slight panicky look on my comps face because she was trying to think of something that related to the activity. Well suddenly an idea came to my head and I whipped open Doctrina y Convenios and read the verse that mentions my direct ancestor Shadrach Roundy and talked about him and his pioneer spirit of sacrifice (he crossed the plains several times to help families come to the West) and then said that I have pioneer blood in me, but really everyone in the church has a claim to the pioneer legacy and heritage. It was kind of a nice moment for me personally to remember that even when things are going wrong, we can still find joy and fun. And that's exactly what the pioneers did except for on a scale 100000x bigger than just Hermana Ritman in her moment of stress. 

 *Mi amiga: Saying goodbye to my amiga who I got to teach and see baptized was definitely an emotional moment. She made sure to feed me more delicious Dominican food before I left! (a mash and mixutre of meat, bananas/plantains, onions and cheddar) I wrote in her note "I'm not sure what I did in my life to deserve the privilege of being able to be your missionary, but I will always be grateful for that." I'm going to miss her a lot. 

 *Bomb Lessons: Hermana Mecca and I had a specific focus this week on trying to bring a stronger Spirit into the lessons we teach and we were blown away with the blessings. The first memorable lesson was with one of our newer amigos (one of the very very few contacts I've initiated that actually agreed to meet with us jaja). We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ and by the end, we felt that he understood on a deeper level and that we learned even more about him. The second memorable lesson was right after church. We didn't have time to plan a single idea of what we were going to say (not recommendable--it's just that English class was canceled) so we 100% had to go off of nothing. We ended up teaching only prayer, but literally I have only seen a more significant change from the beginning to the end of a lesson once before. At the beginning he was filled with fear and worries and stress and was feeling down but by the end he was literally so happy and filled with hope. I know this wasn't me or H Mecca, but the kind of change that can only come from the Spririt. He prayed for the first time in his native langue of Quechua and it was just a  beautiful. In both of the lessons, we have never taught more unified, effectively or naturally. Literally it felt so good and satisfying I can't even explain. I'm determined to constantly try to keep it up especially with the change of companionships.

 Overall, I am sad to be leaving Málaga, but at the same time, not sad at all because I feel like I've done my part, have my fondest memories, have grown so much personally and have been able to see the change the gospel brings into others lives more than ever. I am excited for Part III of the adventure! 

 Os quiero, 

Hermana Ritman 

  Creepy Clown

Teaching the Virginia Reel to the women in Relief Society

[miyukistarseed]

Love is My Resistance

Reporting live from the school’s computer lab. I just came out of my Contemporary World Literature class and one particular theme seems to recycle in each class - the theme of being othered. In novels like The Yacoubian Building and The Funny Boy, we read about characters who feel like they do not belong, they feel like they are being othered. During discussion I was triggered and I realized that I’m othered, too. I’m Dominican, Cuban, and Ecuadorian. And now I’m sitting in front of this computer, dumbfounded, wondering how did this happen when my Ecuadorian and Cuban family is high-key racist? I always turned away when these issues were brought up in conversation at the dinner table because I always turn away and lose interest when people bring up fake issues. Yes, I always thought that hating someone for where they came from or for who they loved was a fake problem and a distraction from what honestly matters in life. And yet, the family holds on to these old ideas that black is unpure and dirty. My Ecuadorian father had the nerve to attack my sister for being into black men. Meanwhile, my Dominican and Cuban mother is puzzled, standing quietly beside him. When my father and mother began dating, his family hated my mother because she’s Dominican and Cuban. So why is he still racist even after marriage? My Cuban grandfather would constantly fight with my Dominican grandmother over who’s better, who’s more pure, and who is more white.

This war is confusing to me because no one in my family was forced into marriage so why were there issues about who is better DURING marriage? No one forced my Ecuadorian father to marry my Dominican and Cuban mother. No one forced my Cuban grandfather to marry my Dominican grandmother. So why was there war? Why did the racism survive in my father long after he married my mother? Why did my family measure one another and hated one another? Why didn’t they teach me and my younger brother Spanish? Why did my father feel shame when his children were so beautiful and bright? Why were we othered when we went to family parties? Why did my uncles steal from us? Why did my aunt othered us? Why were we not invited to family events? Why did my father marry my mother when he knew how his family felt about her? Why did he marry her knowing how he feels about black people? How was I created from an angry and hateful relationship and come out so loving and compassionate? By what divine order was I able to survive in chaos and madness?

To be clear, I never experienced racism outside first hand - or at least I do not remember. For those who cannot see, my skin is fair and it’s difficult for other people to guess where I am from or to guess how to treat me because I do not look European, Asian, African, South American or like an Islander. I consider myself the Queen of no identity because I’m a mixture of all of the identities. It is my super power or my shield in the outside world. Humans will look at me and think, “how am I supposed to treat her?” It’s as if I do not exist in the program, so you will just have to deal with me manually - or honestly. I do not look rich or poor. I do not look gay or straight or bi. I am difficult to define and this is what I love. I love breaking the program that is already broken. I love being that spirit you come across that challenges the program we have been programmed into. My last name doesn’t even exist in history. And yet, here I am. It is definitely a blessing to not have experiences with racism outside. But inside, I just realized that is where my enemy resides. An internal war that has marred my family for generations.

I remember all too well how my parents treated my sister for having a black boyfriend at sixteen. Although they are my parents and I love them very much, I am a grateful daughter - I have to be honest and say that it was an evil way to treat someone who was simply in love. The only thing that was wrong about the situation was my father’s hateful and ignorant attitude about it, and how he expressed it. I suppress my sadness and rage when I think of how they treated her throughout our childhood and early adulthood. Sometimes I think they broke her.

Now as an English major, I’m programmed to jump to conclusions, to ask any possible question, to explore and to dive deep with no floor to limit me. I’m asking myself if there is any love in the house. I’m asking myself if there was any love to begin with. I’m asking myself if they attacked my sister more than me and my brother because she as the first born may represent their defiance - for not just marrying without the families’ consent, but to create a Dominican, Cuban and Ecuadorian family. It is by far the dumbest issue I have had to explore, and yet it’s the most violent and chaotic issue I have experienced. Really, Miss Moon? Being Cuban, Dominican, and Ecuadorian is a violent problem? Yes, Reader, but only when I am with the family. When I am outside, this issue does not exist. When I am outside, no one knows I’m Dominican, Cuban, and Ecuadorian. When I am outside, I lose memory of the fights. When I am outside or with my friends, I am completely blinded by love. When I am outside, no one has these family issues. When I’m outside, daughters adore their fathers. When I’m outside, everything makes sense. When I’m outside, there is math and everything adds up just as it is promised to. When I’m outside, problems are small and temporary. When I’m outside, stress does not frighten me. When I’m outside, I am brave and bubbly. But when I’m home, I’m frightened. When I’m home, my safety is in question. When I’m home, I have to call my sister when I’m being threatened. When I’m home, problems last decades. When I’m home, madness is in the air and in my ears. When I’m home, I’m confused. When I’m home, I’m lethargic and stagnant, locked in my room. When I’m home, I’m doomed.

I always thought it was cool that I am mixed, that it was a divine privilege to have access to a selection of ancient wisdom. It was the coolest collection I had as a child, not music, not rocks, or stamps - I had cultures and histories, I had blood and dna. With that comes the old and ugly ideas, the racial war. Though it makes me regret my existence to think it wouldn’t have been a war if it weren’t for me but then that would be me fucking up the timeline. There is no need for regret when I have not done anything wrong. There is something me and my siblings can be proud of - through us the racial war in our family and our blood will die. The issues our grandparents kept alive in their lifetime have died with them. The racism in my father will die with him, too. And although the war has harmed us in our childhood, we will not drag the war into our adulthood. We will not hate ourselves. We will not carry on these foolish beliefs of being impure and dirty and push it onto our children. As long as I exist and I am mixed, that madness and chaos is dead.

The war will end when I disappear and take my ethnicities away with me - through me the countries will exist safely, harmoniously and poetically, through me they will be passed on with love and light, through me the war will be healed or hopefully forgotten and buried.

Racism and hate is certainly taught but I think the students are responsible for what ideas and beliefs they adopt as their own. I guess I could have learned racism from my father but as a child who grew up in Hudson County, I always thought racism was a belief only for idiots and evil people. I’m embarrassed to admit how my Ecuadorian family treated my father and us. I’m also embarrassed to admit that my father stayed true to their beliefs so he can feel a part of them. He did not want my sister to date black men because he was terrified of what his family would think - completely forgetting that WE were his family, completely dismissing the fact that their opinion meant nothing because

1. They already didn’t like us. 2. This should not be an issue in this day and age - to care what the flying fuck the family thinks. 3. We were not reliant on them financially - which is a common reason as to why someone would care about another person’s opinion, if they were financially dependent. Well, we were never financially dependent on his side of them family or any side for that matter.

The problem with people having an opinion on interracial dating or marriage is that they make it a personal problem. The idea of my sister marrying a black man brought my father doom.- I’m sitting in this chair laughing, why would someone else’s marriage or dating life hurt you and your already broken relationship with your family? I call it fake-doom, fake-panic, fake-problem, fake-madness. Why? Think about it, if the problem is not harming you financially, physically, mentally, emotionally, then it is not a problem. What is happening is that you are experiencing a challenge against what you have learned and what you are learning now is that the system that was pressed onto all of our ancestors was a tool used to oppress us and keep us from happiness. Race is fake but it’s an old war and possibly the only thing you have in common with your siblings, now who will you choose? The siblings who have stolen from you and your children or your children’s happiness? This is the kind of math that I’m proficient in. But not everyone loves themselves and I honestly think that is what it comes down to in all situations between humans. I don’t think my parents know how to love themselves and ironically that has been my social media career - to love myself. By loving myself I hold no judgement of me above my own. Does this make sense, Reader? It’s difficult to measure yourself when your family is judging, isn’t it?

For a long time I shrunk myself into the mold they wanted me in because it kept them safe from embarrassment. Thankfully, the mold is temporary and literature is sacred - especially when it comes to journalism and history. It would be a pity if I swept the darkness under the rug and pretended it wasn’t there and never happened. It would also be a lie. Now, I’m not outting my family for entertainment value or to embarrass them. I’m not writing this out of hate and resentment. I’m writing in the name of love, I’m writing for my child self who has been keeping secrets she does not want to keep anymore. I think this is the perfect time to look inward and share with others what I mean when I say “the doom”. We all know “the doom”, our family teaches us “the doom”. It takes bravery to open this can of worms, Reader! But I think it is so important for you to know, to study closely what it means to be mixed, what it means to face your family and measure at what cost are you willing to break the norm, what it means to challenge your beloved parents what they know, what it means to love someone when the world tells them no WITH VIOLENCE, what it means to be the younger sibling and wanting to protect your older sibling from harm even if that harm is coming from your father and mother, what it means to face a violent web of conflicts when it is alive and well every waking moment. I’m writing so others can learn from this and never repeat it as parents. It isn’t to be romanticized just because Miss Moon here is writing about it, and she’s alive and happy. No one can repeat me. Remember that not everyone can come out strong and healthy from a broken home. You have my other two siblings as examples, not that they are better or worse but they are both different from me. I want to end the cycle by confessing it’s existence because silence has kept it living for too long.

Did you always hear “blood is thicker than water” growing up? I did. Read carefully - you can choose your family, yes, you can choose healthy relationships over toxic ones even if it is over blood. You can call it selfish or survival. I have had a taste of both and I have to be honest, I love the friends I have attracted into my life and I do believe that they are good for me and are in perfect alignment with my highest love frequency. As I got older I realized that it is better to accept everybody and everything as temporary. Before this idea would worry me and hurt me. But after 23 years of war, I’m longing to put this cycle to its’ end. And it’s not to say that I do not love my family, please don’t get it confused. I do love my family. I won’t lie and say they haven’t hurt me. I think they hurt me everyday, honestly. Maybe it’s me keeping our problems a secret that is keeping them from changing and evolving. Instead I try to inspire them with self love and harmony but I don’t think they want to learn from me. Perhaps they’re afraid that their 23 year old daughter unlocked the wisdom they were longing to find. When it ends there will be peace and all of the violence will be forgiven. And no one will feel othered because we know that we belong to ourselves and our existence is perfect and wonderful and we will exist whether someone likes it or not.

One day we will exist in peace, when we forgive ourselves for not loving ourselves for so long.Maybe that’s what it takes to end the war, to tell them I forgive them for the war that was pushed onto them. Truthfully, forgiveness is far from my heart when we do fight. But I want peace with my parents more than my pride. Anyone can declare war. But it takes forgiveness to end one. And I will end the war because love is my resistance.

(Disclaimer: Don’t want you to walk away thinking my father was evil and my mother was good. My issues with my mother are different than the issues with my father. I cannot consider my parents as evil or innocent. I do consider my relationship with my parents as toxic, confusing, and gray. Sometimes they are my sunshine, most times they are the storm. They are troubled and I hope with all of my heart that they somehow find their way. I want everyone to find their way. But these two are my creators so they are first on my wishlist. If you have a parent(s) like mine, I feel you. I think it is safe to say you can love them even though they hurt you because I know you love them for giving you the chance at life. Don’t feel bad about loving, just know the difference between loving and enabling toxic people. And be safe, my love. And welcome to the Resistance.)

[limejuicer1862]

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Charlie Brice

is a retired psychoanalyst and is the author of Flashcuts Out of Chaos (2016), Mnemosyne’s Hand (2018), and An Accident of Blood (forthcoming), all from WordTech Editions. His poetry has been nominated for the Best of Net anthology and twice for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Main Street Rag, Chiron Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, The Paterson Literary Review, and elsewhere.

The Interview

1. When and why did you start writing poetry?

I started out as a fiction writer. I wrote a couple novels but wasn’t happy with them. Tinkered with them endlessly. I wrote poems in high school and in college, then met my wife to be, the poet Judith Brice, read a couple of her poems, and stopped writing poetry for about 25 years! About 15 years ago, Judy and I attended a writers’ conference in Michigan: Judy as a poet and me as a fiction writer. I had some down time and Judy talked me into attending a workshop offered by Maria Mazziotti Gillan (the Editor of Paterson Literary Review). Maria gave us an assignment: write a poem that refers to a popular song. I wrote a poem called “The Game,” about going to a minor league baseball game with our son, Ariel. On a lark I sent it in to a magazine and it got published immediately. More and more of that happened with my poems and I discovered that I was a poet!

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Well…my first poetry teacher was a horrible woman named Sister Humbert, a Dominican nun who was a full fledged sadist. She made us sixth graders memorize a poem and I memorized Excelsior by Longfellow. I immortalized this experience in my first book, Flashcuts Out of Chaos, with my poem, “My First Poetry Teacher.” Actually, the nuns, for all their faults or because of them, have turned out to be terrific muses for me. The guy who really got me writing poetry was named Bernie Beaver, my freshman English teacher at the University of Wyoming. He really wasn’t a very good teacher, but one thing he drilled into our heads was that “anything can be a poem.” I will forever be thankful to him for that. Because of him I never run out of subjects to write about. Just recently I wrote a poem about what I don’t want to write about. See what I mean?

3. How aware are and were you of the dominating presence of older poets traditional and contemporary?

I never thought of these wonderful people as “dominating,” but as poets whom I loved to read and learn from. I suppose the first poet I loved was e.e. cummings. You’re not supposed to like cummings now. You’re supposed to think of his as a light weight. But lines like, “It may not always be so, and I say, that if your lips should touch another’s as mine in time not far away”…or “nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands” (this may not be perfect–just rattling off the top of my head), lines like those just send me someplace out of this world. Other American poets that I loved: Theodore Roethke, Thomas Lux, Jim Harrison, and the great European poets, especially Rilke, Dylan Thomas, Keats, Shelly, all those wonderful writers, they were all so inspiring to me. People I could not only learn from, but get comfort from. I used to had out poems to some of my patients. Hopkins’ poem, “Margarat are you grieving over golden groves unleaving” was especially helpful to people undergoing vast life changes.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I spend the morning reading. I love fiction, am rereading Jim Harrison’s, The English Major, and Dickins’ Bleak House right now. Just finished, today, The Galloping Hour, by Alejandra Pizarniek–a South American poet who wrote in French and who was clearly interested in the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, and I’m reading Lawrence Krauss’ book on astro physics, A Universe From Nothing. I find physics, especially quantum mechanics, to be an orchard of metaphor for poets. In the afternoon I go up to my study and write. If I don’t have a new poem, I edit and revise old poems, especially ones that have been rejected. I submit a group of poems every day. I see submission as part of my writing day. I love the entire process including editing my work and doing interviews like this one.

5. What motivates you to write?

I think my main motivation is interest in the world and in what we are all up to in our lives. When I was at the Universtiy of Wyoming I was lucky enough to run into a philosophy professor, Richard L. Howey. I took loads of courses from him. Richard taught us to be interested in everything and skeptical of everything and to think before we speak and anticipate the arguments of others before we venture into a debate or dialogue. I have dedicated my new poetry collection, An Accident of Blood, to Richard.

6. What is your work ethic?

My work ethic? I write every day, or submit, or revise. I really feel horrible if I don’t do one or all of those things every day. I can write in all conditions and almost anywhere. I usually start out in longhand in a notebook I carry with me everywhere, then type it up, get it on the computer and go from there. It’s unusual for me to send out a poem that hasn’t gone through at least 7 revisions. Some have been revised as many as 30 times. One poem, Soulium (in my second book, Mnemosyne’s Hand) was accepted 20 minutes after I wrote it! That’s a record for me.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

Cummings remains an influence. I want to write poems that provoke an emotional response in the reader. I don’t care for the more academic writers, the Ashbury’s of this world. If I can’t feel something or if my world isn’t improved by reading a poem, then I’m not interested. Tom Lux and Jim Harrison always produced strong feeling in me and that’s what I want to do in my own work.

8. Whom of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

I admire so many writers. I love Facebook because I’ve “met” some great writers like Ace Boggess and Gary Glauber there. I admire their work immensely. I think the poetry of my teachers is wonderful: Jack Ridl, Michael Dickman, Robert Fanning, Richard Tillinghast, Maria Gillan, and Maria Howe are terrific teachers and wonderful poets. The poetry community here in Pittsburgh is incredible. Every day of the year, all year long, there is at least one poetry reading in our city. It’s incredible! My favorite poets here are, Judy Brice (my wife), Jason Irwin, Jen Ashburn, Angele Ellis, Janette Schafer, Joan E. Bauer, Michael Wurster and a slew of others too numerous too mention. I feel very lucky to live in this city.

9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

I don’t really know why I write. I just write. I can’t imagine not writing. I’m retired now. I was a psychoanalyst for 35 years and I’m much happier as a poet. I miss my patients, but my analytic colleagues were, mostly, much more troubled than my patients. I haven’t met any writers that are as troubled as my former colleagues. Anyway, I just love writing and I’m not sure why I do. I just do.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

As for advice on how to become a writer–read, read everything. Do what Howey taught us to do: be interested in everything. My mother always said that if you’re bored, it’s your own fault. You’re not looking far enough or deep enough into your world. She was right. In terms of the writing itself, the most important thing to overcome is the inner critic, what we called in my former profession, the super ego. There will always be a “voice” in your head that will tell you not to write somethin or that no one will be interested in what you say or that you are immature… . Fuck all that. Get rid of the critic. Often, the very stuff you’re critic is telling you not to write is what readers will be most interested in. Also, allow the music you love to influence you. I always write with a soundtrack (usually classical music, but that’s just me).

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

My new book, An Accident of Blood, should be out in just a couple weeks. I’ve got almost enough poems in the hopper for a third book. Aside from that, I’m busy arranging readings and promoting my latest book, Mnemosyne’s Hand, in any way that I can. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to do this interview. Thanks so much.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Charles Brice Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

[lim-lifeinmotion]

The Silence: The Legacy of Childhood Trauma

By Junot Díaz  I found a story amidst my delving into the depth of childhood trauma, I suppose I just wanted to know what someone else had been through and if they managed to somehow over come it. It’s unusually comforting to read the feelings he had, the same “cut-off” of disassociated presence he felt with not only himself but with everyone else around him. To shed light on the sexual trauma he experienced and how it mirrored my own sexual intimacy blocks. Among all the amazing things he created from this experience it was really hard to hear the profound affect it was still having on him decades on. Perhaps this is just me now, forever? I suppose it was all well and easy to say I wouldn’t change it for the world because it has made me who I am today, beautiful, kind, gentle, and above all, a dedicated and passionate lover, but to think I will live with this for the rest of my life, that Perhaps i may never be able to break down these barriers even with professional help, thats not something I would want of anyone, not of myself. Perhaps if i could rewind it all I would change everything, I may not be who I am today but perhaps I’d be able to give and receive love openly from others and to myself, even if I was a complete asshole, a close minded, non-empathic person, to be happy and free from all of this pain i carry, is all I ask from the world. I wan’t to be able to love myself so damn badly, but I can only keep on trying until one day I do finally make it because I will, it’s not living otherwise.

Last week I returned to Amherst. It’s been years since I was there, the time we met. I was hoping that you’d show up again; I even looked for you, but you didn’t appear. I remember you proudly repped N.Y.C. during the few minutes we spoke, so I suspect you’d moved back or maybe you were busy or you didn’t know I was in town. I have a distinct memory of you in the signing line, saying nothing to anyone, intense. I assumed you were going to ask me to read a manuscript or help you find an agent, but instead you asked me about the sexual abuse alluded to in my books. You asked, quietly, if it had happened to me.

You caught me completely by surprise.

I wish I had told you the truth then, but I was too scared in those days to say anything. Too scared, too committed to my mask. I responded with some evasive bullshit. And that was it. I signed your books. You thought I was going to say something, and when I didn’t you looked disappointed. But more than that you looked abandoned. I could have said anything but instead I turned to the next person in line and smiled. Out of the corner of my eye I watched you pick up your backpack, slowly put away your books, and leave. When the signing was over I couldn’t get the fuck away from Amherst, from you and your question, fast enough. I ran the way I’ve always run. Like death itself was chasing me. For a couple of days afterward I fretted; I worried that I’d given myself away. But then the old oblivion reflex took over. I pushed it all down. Buried it all. Like always.

But I never really did forget. Not our exchange or your disappointment. How you walked out of the auditorium with your shoulders hunched.

I know this is years too late, but I’m sorry I didn’t answer you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I’m sorry for you, and I’m sorry for me. We both could have used that truth, I’m thinking. It could have saved me (and maybe you) from so much. But I was afraid. I’m still afraid—my fear like continents and the ocean between—but I’m going to speak anyway, because, as Audre Lorde has taught us, my silence will not protect me.

X⁠—

Yes, it happened to me.

I was raped when I was eight years old. By a grownup that I truly trusted.

After he raped me, he told me I had to return the next day or I would be “in trouble.”

And because I was terrified, and confused, I went back the next day and was raped again.

I never told anyone what happened, but today I’m telling you.

And anyone else who cares to listen.

That violación. Not enough pages in the world to describe what it did to me. The whole planet could be my inkstand and it still wouldn’t be enough. That shit cracked the planet of me in half, threw me completely out of orbit, into the lightless regions of space where life is not possible. I can say, truly, que casi me destruyó. Not only the rapes but all the sequelae: the agony, the bitterness, the self-recrimination, the asco, the desperate need to keep it hidden and silent. It fucked up my childhood. It fucked up my adolescence. It fucked up my whole life. More than being Dominican, more than being an immigrant, more, even, than being of African descent, my rape defined me. I spent more energy running from it than I did living. I was confused about why I didn’t fight, why I had an erection while I was being raped, what I did to deserve it. And always I was afraid—afraid that the rape had “ruined” me; afraid that I would be “found out”; afraid afraid afraid. “Real” Dominican men, after all, aren’t raped. And if I wasn’t a “real” Dominican man I wasn’t anything. The rape excluded me from manhood, from love, from everything.

The kid before—hard to remember. Trauma is a time traveller, an ouroboros that reaches back and devours everything that came before. Only fragments remain. I remember loving codes and Encyclopedia Brown and pastelones and walking long distances in an effort to learn what lay beyond my N.J. neighborhood. At night I had the most vivid dreams, often about “Star Wars” and about my life back in the Dominican Republic, in Azua, my very own Tatooine. Was just getting to know this new English-speaking me, was just becoming his friend—and then he was gone.

No more spaceship dreams, no more Azua, no more me. Only an abiding sense of wrongness and the unbearable recollection of being violently penetrated.

By the time I was eleven, I was suffering from both depression and uncontrollable rage. By thirteen, I stopped being able to look at myself in the mirror—and the few times I accidentally glimpsed my reflection I’d recoil like I’d got hit in the face by a jellyfish stinger. (What did I see? I saw the crime, my grisly debasement, and if anyone looked at me too long I would run or I would fight.)

By fourteen, I was holding one of my father’s pistols to my head. (He’d been gone a few years, but he’d generously left some of his firearms behind.) I had trouble at home. I had trouble at school. I had mood swings like you wouldn’t believe. Since I’d never told anyone what had happened my family assumed that was just who I was—un maldito loco. And while other kids were exploring crushes and first love I was dealing with intrusive memories of my rape that were so excruciating I had to slam my head against a wall.

Of course, I never got any kind of help, any kind of therapy. Like I said, I never told anyone. In a family as big as mine—five kids—it was easy to get lost, even when you were going under. I remember my mother telling me, after one of my depressions, that I should pray. I didn’t even bother to laugh.

When I wasn’t completely out of it I read everything I could lay my hands on, played Dungeons & Dragons for days on end. I tried to forget, but you never forget. Night was the worst—that’s when the dreams would come. Nightmares where I got raped by my siblings, by my father, by my teachers, by strangers, by kids who I wanted to be friends with. Often the dreams were so upsetting that I would bite my tongue, and the next morning I’d spit out blood into the bathroom sink.

And in no time at all I was failing everything. Quizzes, quarters, and then entire classes. First I got booted out of my high school’s gifted-and-talented program, then out of the honors track. I sat in class and either dozed or read Stephen King books. Eventually I stopped showing up altogether. School friends drifted away; home friends couldn’t wrap their heads around it.

Senior year, while everyone was getting their college acceptances, I went another way: I tried to kill myself. What happened was that in the middle of a deep depression I suddenly became infatuated with this cute-ass girl I knew at school. For a few weeks my gloom lifted, and I became utterly convinced that if this girl went out with me, if she fucked me, I’d be cured of all that ailed me. No more bad memories. I’d been watching “Excalibur” on heavy rotation, so I was all about miraculous regeneration. When I finally got up the nerve to ask her out and she said nope, it felt as though the world had finally closed the door on me.

The next day I swallowed all these leftover drugs from my brother’s cancer treatment, three bottles’ worth.

Didn’t work.

You know why I didn’t try again the next day?

Because my one and only college acceptance arrived in the mail. I had assumed I wasn’t going anywhere, had completely forgotten that I had any schools left to hear from. But as I read that letter it felt as if the door of the world had cracked open again, ever so slightly.

I didn’t tell anyone I tried to kill myself. Something else I buried deep.

I often tell people that college saved me. Which in part is true. Rutgers, only an hour from my home by bus, was so far from my old life and so alive with possibility that for the first time in the longest I felt something approaching safety, something approximating hope. And, whether it was that distance or my bottomless self-loathing or some desperate post-suicide urge to live, that first year I remade myself completely. By junior year, I doubt anyone from my high school would have recognized me. I became a runner, a weight lifter, an activist, had girlfriends, was “popular.” At Rutgers I buried not only the rape but the boy who had been raped—and threw into the pit my family, my suffering, my depression, my suicide attempt for good measure. Everything I’d been before Rutgers I locked behind an adamantine mask of normalcy.

And, let me tell you, once that mask was on no power on earth could have torn it off me.

The mask was strong.

But as any Freudian will tell you trauma is stronger than any mask; it can’t be buried and it can’t be killed. It’s the revenant that won’t stop, the ghost that’s always coming for you. The nightmares, the intrusions, the hiding, the doubts, the confusion, the self-blame, the suicidal ideation—they didn’t go away just because I buried my neighborhood, my family, my face. The nightmares, the intrusions, the hiding, the doubts, the confusion, the self-blame, the suicidal ideation—they followed. All through college. All through graduate school. All through my professional life. All through my intimate life. (Leaked into my writing, too, but you’d be amazed how easy it is to rewrite the truth away.)

Didn’t matter how far I ran or what I achieved or who I was with—they followed.

Do you remember how during our chat at Amherst I talked about intimacy? I think I said that intimacy is our only home. Super ironic that I write and talk about intimacy all day long; it’s something I’ve always dreamed of and never had much luck achieving. After all, it’s hard to have love when you absolutely refuse to show yourself, when you’re locked behind a mask.

I remember when I got my first girlfriend, in college. I thought that was it—I was saved. Everything I’d been would officially be erased, all my awful dreams would disappear. But that’s not the way the world works. Me and this girl were into each other something serious, were in our narrow college beds all the time—but you know what? We never had sex. Not once. I couldn’t. Every time we would get close to fucking the intrusions would cut right through me, stomach-turning memories of my violation. Of course, I didn’t tell her. I just said that I wanted to wait. She didn’t believe my excuses, asked me what was wrong, but I never said anything. I kept the Silence. After a year, we broke up.

I thought maybe with another girl it would be easier, but it wasn’t. I tried and I tried and I tried. Took me until I was a junior before I finally lost my virginity. I saw her first in a creative-writing class. She was an ex-hippie ex-hardcore sweetie who wrote beautifully and had a tattoo on her head and the first time we got in bed she didn’t even ask if I was a virgin; she just pulled off her dress and it happened. I almost threw a party.

But I should have known it wasn’t going to be that easy. Me and J⁠— dated for two years, but I was always acting, always hiding. The mask was strong.

I’m sure she sensed I was all sorts of messed up, but I’m guessing she chalked it up to typical ghetto craziness. She loved the shit out of me. Brought me home to her family, and they loved me, too. It was the first truly healthy family I’d been exposed to. Which you would think would have been a good thing.

Wrong. The longer we were together, the more her family loved me, the more unbearable it all got. There was only so much closeness a person like me could endure before I needed to fly the fuck away. I had long bouts of depression, drank more than I’d ever drunk, especially during the holidays, when they were all at their happiest. One day, for no reason at all, I found myself saying, We have to break up. There was absolutely no precipitating anything. I had just reached my limit. I remember crying my eyes out the night before (in those days I never cried). I didn’t want to break up with her. I didn’t want to. But I couldn’t stand to be loved. To be seen.

Why? she asked. Why?

And I really had no answer.

After that it was C⁠—, who did a ton of community work in the D.R. And then B⁠—, the Seventh-Day Adventist from St. Thomas. Neither relationship worked. But I kept going.

And that’s how it went for a while, from college to grad school to Brooklyn. I would meet intimidatingly smart sisters, would date them in the hope that they could heal me, and then the fear would start to climb in me, the fear of discovery, and the mask would feel as if it were cracking and the impulse to escape, to hide, would grow until finally I’d hit a Rubicon—I’d either drive the novia away or I would run. I started sleeping around, too. The regular relationship drug wasn’t enough. I needed stronger hits to keep the wound inside from rising up and devouring me. The Negro who couldn’t sleep with anyone became the Negro who would sleep with everyone.

I was hiding, I was drinking, I was at the gym; I was running around with other women. I was creating model homes, and then, just as soon as they were up, abandoning them. Classic trauma psychology: approach and retreat, approach and retreat. And hurting other people in the process. My depressions would settle over me for months, and in that darkness the suicidal impulse would sprout pale and deadly. I had friends with guns; I asked them never to bring them over for any reason. Sometimes they listened, sometimes they didn’t.

Somehow I was still writing—about a young Dominican man who, unlike me, had been only a little molested. Someone who couldn’t stay in any relationship because he was too much of a player. Crafting my perfect cover story, in effect. And since us Afro-Latinx brothers are viewed by society as always already sexual perils, very few people ever noticed what was written between the lines in my fiction—that Afro-Latinx brothers are often sexually imperilled.

Right before I left graduate school and moved to Brooklyn I published my first story, about a Dominican boy who goes to see another boy, whose face has been eaten off, and on the way he gets sexually assaulted. (Seriously.) And then in one of those insane twists of fortune I hit the literary lottery. From that one story I got an agent, I got a book deal, I appeared in The New Yorker, I published my first book, “Drown,” which sold nothing but got me more press than any young writer should ever have. Anyone else would have ridden that good-luck wave straight into the sunset, but that wasn’t how it played out. I clearly wanted to be known, on some level, had been dying for a chance at a real face, but when that moment finally arrived I couldn’t do it; I clamped the mask down hard. After “Drown,” I could have stayed in N.Y.C., but I fled to Syracuse instead, where the snow never stops and the isolation was a maw. I stopped writing altogether.

Entire literary careers could have fit into the years I didn’t write. In the meantime I met S⁠—. If Black Is Beautiful had a spokesperson it would have been her; S⁠—, who would have thrown away a thousand years of family to make it work. Didn’t matter; we never were able to have sex. The intrusions always hit where it would hurt the worst. Never knew who I could have sex with and who I couldn’t until I tried. S⁠— found someone else, ended up marrying him. I moved on to other women. The years passed. I never took off the mask; I never got help.

And for a while the center held. For a while.

No one can hide forever. Eventually what used to hold back the truth doesn’t work anymore. You run out of escapes, you run out of exits, you run out of gambits, you run out of luck. Eventually the past finds you.

What happened was that I met someone: Y⁠—. In the novel I published eleven years after “Drown,” I gave my narrator, Yunior, a love supreme named Lola, because in real life I had a love supreme named Y⁠—. She was the femme-matador of my dreams. A state-school girl raised in Washington Heights who worked her ass off, who never ran from a fight, and who could have danced Ochún out the fucking room.

We clicked like crazy. Like our ancestors were rooting for us. I was the Dominican nerdo she’d always dreamed about. She actually said this. She didn’t have a clue. I fell into her family, and she fell into mine. And her mother—Dios mío, how the señora loved me. I was the son she never had. And before you could say “Run” I had created another one of my romance stories, but this one was more elaborate and more insane than any I’d ever spun. We bought an apartment together in Harlem. We got engaged in Tokyo. We talked about having children together. Even the writing started coming again. Negroes I’d never met before were proud of our relationship and told us so. Two “successful” Dominicans from the hood who loved each other? As rare and as precious as ciguapas.

Of course, there were signs of trouble. I spent at least six months out of the year depressed and/or high or drunk. We could have sex but not often—the intrusions often jumped in, a hellish cock-blocking ménage à trois.

Sex or no sex, I “loved” her more than I had ever loved anyone. I even told her, in an unguarded moment, that something had happened in my past.

Something bad.

And because I “loved” her more than I had ever loved anyone, and because I had revealed to her what I revealed about my past, I cheated on her more than I had ever cheated on anyone.

I cheated on her como un maldito perro.

I knew plenty of men who lived double lives. Shit, my father had lived one, to my family’s everlasting regret. And here I was playing out the patrimonial destiny. I had a double life like I was in a comic book.

Y⁠— got as much of the real me as I was capable of showing. She lived with my depression and my no-writing fury and with the rare moments of levity, of clarity. The other women saw primarily my mask, right before I ghosted them.

The mask was strong.

But no mask is that strong. No one’s G that perfect. No one’s love that dumb. One day Y⁠— didn’t like an answer I’d given her about where I’d been. I’m sure she’d been having doubts for a while—especially after one woman showed up at a reading of mine and burst into tears when I said hi. Y⁠— decided to go snooping through my e-mails, and since I wasn’t big on passwords or putting old e-mails in the trash it took her less than five minutes to find what she was looking for.

A heartbreak can take out a world. I know hers did. Took out her world and mine.

Another woman might have shot me dead on principle, but Y⁠— simply printed out all the e-mails between me and all my other girls, all my bullshit seduction attempts, all the photos, had the evidence of my betrayals bound, and when I came home from one of my trips handed them to me.

When I realized what she’d given me I blacked out.

Which is what tends to happen when the world ends.

A few months later, I won the Pulitzer Prize for a novel narrated by a Dominican brother who loses the Dominican woman of his dreams because he can’t stop cheating on her. When I found out I’d won the prize my first thought wasn’t “I’m made” but “Maybe now she’ll stay with me.”

She didn’t. A few months later Y⁠— got her head together and kicked me out of her life completely. She kept the apartment, the ring, her family, our friends. I got Boston. We never saw each other again.

When I was a kid, I heard that dinosaurs were so big that even if they received a killing blow it would take a while for their nervous systems to figure it out. That was me. After I lost Y⁠— I moved to Cambridge full time, and for the next year or so I tried to “walk it off.” For a little while I seriously thought I was going to be fine. The mask had exploded into fragments, but I kept trying to wear the pieces as if nothing had happened. It would have been comedic if it hadn’t been so tragic. I tried to use sex to fill the hole I’d just blown through my heart, but it didn’t work. Didn’t stop me from trying.

I lost weeks, I lost months, I lost years (two). And then one day I woke up and literally couldn’t move from bed. An archipelago of grief was on me, a wine-dark sea of pain. In a drunken fit I tried to jump from my friend’s rooftop apartment in the D.R. He grabbed me before I could get my foot on a nearby stool and didn’t let go until I stopped shaking.

In the treatment world, they say that often you have to hit rock bottom before you finally seek help. It doesn’t always work that way, but that sure is how it was for me. I had to lose almost everything and then some. And then some. Before I finally put out my hand.

I was fortunate. I had friends around me ready to step in. I had good university insurance. I stumbled upon a great therapist. She had dealt with people like me before, and she dedicated herself to my healing. It took years—hard, backbreaking years—but she picked up what there was of me. I don’t think she’d ever met anyone more disinclined to therapy. I fought it every step of the way. But I kept coming, and she never gave up. After long struggle and many setbacks, my therapist slowly got me to put aside my mask. Not forever, but long enough for me to breathe, to live. And when I was finally ready to return to that place where I was unmade she stood by my side, she held my hand, and never let go.

I’d always assumed that if I ever returned to that place, that island where I’d been shipwrecked, I would never escape; I’d be dragged down and destroyed. And yet, irony of ironies, what awaited me on that island was not my destruction but nearly the opposite: my salvation.

During that time I wrote very little. Mostly I underlined passages in my favorite books. This line in particular I circled at least a dozen times: “Then darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell.”

And then there was this section from my own novel:

Before all hope died I used to have this stupid dream that shit could be saved, that we would be in bed together like the old times, with the fan on, the smoke from our weed drifting above us, and I’d finally try to say words that could have saved us.

But before I can shape the vowels I wake up. My face is wet, and that’s how you know it’s never going to come true.

Never, ever.

It’s been almost a decade since the Fall. I am not who I once was. I’m neither the brother who can’t touch a girl nor the asshole who sleeps around. I’m in therapy twice a week. I don’t drink (except in Japan, where I let myself have a beer). I don’t hurt people with my lies or my choices, and wherever I can I make amends; I take responsibility. I’ve come to learn that repair is never-ceasing.

I’m even in a relationship, and she knows everything about my past. I told her about what happened to me.

I’ve told her, and I’ve told my friends. Even the toughest of my boys. I told them all, fuck the consequences.

Something I never thought possible.

So much has changed. But some things haven’t. There are still times when the depression hammers down and months vanish out from under me, when the suicidal ideation returns. The writing hasn’t come back, not really. But there are good stretches, and they are starting to outnumber the bad. Every year, I feel less like the dead, more a part of the living. The intrusions are fewer now, and when they come they don’t throw me completely. I still have those horrible dreams every now and then, and they are still foul as fuck, but at least I have resources to deal with them.

And yet—

And yet despite all my healing I still feel that something important, something vital, has eluded me. The impulse to hide, to hold myself apart from my colleagues, from my fellow-writers, from my students, from the circle of life has remained uncannily strong. During the public talks I’ve given at universities and conferences, I’ve sometimes commented on the intergenerational harm that systemic sexual violence has inflicted on African diasporic communities, on my community. But have I ever actually come out and said that I was the victim of sexual violence? I’ve said elusive things here and there but nothing actionable, no definitive statements.

Over the last weeks, that gnawing sense of something undone has only grown, along with the old fear—the fear that someone might find out I’d been raped as a child. It’s no coincidence that I recently began a tour for a children’s book I’ve published and suddenly I’m surrounded by kids all the time and I’ve had to discuss my childhood more than I ever have in my life. I’ve found myself telling lies, talking about a kid that never was. He never checks the locks on the bedroom doors four times a night, doesn’t bite clean through his tongue. The cover stories are returning. There are even mornings when my face feels stiff.

And then at one of my events, another signing line—this one at the Brattle Theatre, in Cambridge—a young woman walked up and started to thank me for my novel, for one of its protagonists, Beli. Beli, the tough-love Dominican mother who suffered catastrophic sexual abuse throughout her life.

I had a life a lot like Beli’s, the young woman said, and then, without warning, she choked into tears. She wanted to say more to me, but before she could she was overwhelmed and fled. I could have tried to stop her. I could have called after her me too me too. I could have said the words: I was also raped.

But I didn’t have the courage. I turned to the next person in line and smiled.

And you know what? It felt good to be behind the mask. It felt like home.

I think about you, X⁠—. I think about that woman from the Brattle. I think about silence; I think about shame, I think about loneliness. I think about the hurt I caused. I think of all the years and all the life I lost to the hiding and to the fear and to the pain. The mask got more of me than I ever did. But mostly I think about what it felt like to say the words—to my therapist, all those years ago; to tell my partner, my friends, that I’d been raped. And what it feels like to say the words here, where the whole world—and maybe you—might hear.

Toni Morrison wrote, “Anything dead coming back to life hurts.” In Spanish we say that when a child is born it is given the light. And that’s what it feels like to say the words, X⁠—. Like I’m being given a second chance at the light.

Last night I had another dream. It wasn’t a bad one. I was young. Just a boy. No one had hurt me yet. A plane was dropping flyers announcing an upcoming Jack Veneno match, and all of us kids in Villa Juana were racing about in great excitement, gathering the flyers in our arms.

I barely remember that boy anymore, but for a brief moment I am him again, and he is me. ♦

[mycasandstarrs]

SPN 4x10: “Heaven and Hell”

Eugh, Uriel.

“You’re some heartless sons of bitches, you know that?”

“As a matter of fact we are. And?”

OOOOHHHH FUCK YES. S4!CAS WAS SO GREAT.

Hmm, Cas has a rather interesting reaction to Uriel saying “She’s worse than this abomination you’ve been screwing.”

Cas kinda looking like he doesn’t want to be there.

Uriel goes after Ruby, Dean goes after Uriel, and Cas calmly approaches Sam.

Sam’s first time calling him Cas!

lmao, Cas just put him to sleep. He thought “You really thought you could call me Cas? Sorry, our friendship has to be at a Level 10 to unlock that upgrade.”

Our first angel banishment.

Dean helps Ruby up, in one of 5 moments of solidarity between them.

This is the first time Dean sees the angel banishment sigil...but he goes on to credit Cas for it.

To Bobby’s!

Hmmm, Dean thanked Ruby a lot quicker there for the hex bags.

And Ruby looks...happy about that. B u t knowing her, she might be happy that she can further infiltrate and manipulate them more now.

Oh Dean, don’t lie. Even if it’s just to keep her happy.

Lmao, Dean asked about the car first. Sam reassures him she’s fine.

Bobby’s in the Dominican! Unlike Sam and Dean, I hope he’s on vacation because he most certainly deserves one.

Huh, so at 2 years old Anna sensed her dad wasn’t her real dad and that her real father was “wanted to kill her mad.” Yikes.

“You’re confusing porn with reality again.” ...what were the other times?

lmao Ruby.

Pamela!

“Any chance I can dick over an angel, I’m taking it.” hoo boy, who’s gonna tell her?

I loved Pamela’s sense of humor.

Sam hangs out by the door, close to Ruby. Dean is closer to Anna.

Oh boy, this ain’t going well.

Wow, Dean.

The change in demeanor from Anna Milton to Anna the angel is incredible.

Anna was the boss of them.

“I disobeyed...which, for us, is about the worst thing you can do. I fell.”

The first mention of an angel’s grace.

Ruby silently freaking out, lol.

“You’re pretty buff for a nerd.” She ain’t wrong.

Ruby’s tapping out. Well, she’s suggesting it.

Alastair AKA “Picasso with a razor.”

Oohh crap, the demon blood mention.

Conversations between Sam and Ruby always tend to go downhill somehow.

And now the other side of the coin: Dean and Anna.

Dean wants to know why he was saved. Hoo goodness.

“Why would you fall?”

“There’s loyalty...forgiveness...love.”

(I could have sworn there was a gifset of Cas displaying those traits.)

Anna doesn’t want to be an angel.

“Feeling are overrated.” lowkey same, lol

“Beats being an angel.”

I just keep thinking about S9, human Cas, and the conversation he and Dean have after Cas takes another angel’s grace as his own. I keep thinking about Dean asking Cas if he’s sure that he wants to be an angel again; did Dean remember this conversation with Anna? 

Dean’s idea of angels: “You guys are powerful and perfect. You don’t doubt yourselves or God or anything.” This could only come from what he’s seen from Cas...and Uriel.

At this point, only 4 angels have seen God.

Anna is practically complaining about her people watching job vs Cas who tells Sam in S8 “it never gets old”. AKA Cas always seemed to enjoy it.

Sam the interrupter.

An interesting take on Team Free Will.

He’s actually got a point. “It’s just an angel and a demon riding in the backseat. It’s like the setup to a bad joke...or a Penthouse Forum letter.”

Again with the porn.

The grace is gone. Everyone collectively has a “well, shit” moment.

“Dean Winchester gives us Anna by midnight or we hurl him back to damnation.” Damn, ok.

Dean wanted to get Bobby back, hahaha. 

Oh lord, it’s about to happen.

“Maybe I don’t deserve to be saved.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“We’ve all done things we gotta pay for.”

Something inside of me cried out in pain when Dean looked so surprised that someone went to caress his face gently. Oh, honey.

Yeah yeah yeah, kiss him and get on with the sex.

“Ready for Love” by Bad Company. You know what, I still can’t listen to this song without getting hot and bothered. This show ruined me.

Oh my god, the back muscles. i need all the holy water and the forgiveness of our lord and savior.

Oh look CAS’ HANDPRINT In fine print you can see: “Don’t touch. Property of Castiel.”

And the Titanic thing, ha ha.

Ruby sneaking out...

Alastair.

“We must revoke your membership.”

Ruby tried to bargain for her and the Winchester’s safety.

But it was a trap, of course it was.

Uriel...you’re a pain in my ass.

Oh, it’s a dream.

“See he has this weakness. He likes you.”

oooohhhhhh!!!!!! Dean’s facceee!!!!!!

(x)

Dean tries to lie about Anna having her grace and it backfires spectacularly. 

Oohhh, the taunting about having sex with Anna...which gives us the”Ken doll” taunt, which we’ll be hearing again.

“This is a whole lot bigger than the plans we got for you, Dean.You can be replaced.” 

Being Michael’s vessel would definitely qualify as “bigger plans”.

Adam is currently around soo....

(And hell, in Apocalypse AU, John died before he could father Sam, Dean OR Adam. When the time came for the Apocalypse to start, they *did* get someone else, a non Winchester...Uriel wasn’t kidding or bluffing.)

Poor choice of words, Dean. 

I hate Ruby...but I can’t stand to see her being tortured like this.

And I have to admire her smarts here.

Dean’s drinking.

Dean brought the angels...

The most subtle indication that Dean is the reason the angels are here: Cas’ gaze.

Dean and Anna kiss...AND IF YOU TRY TO TELL ME THAT THE LOOK IN CAS’ FACE ISN’T JEALOUSY, I WILL CLOG MY EARS SO I CAN’T HEAR YOU.

Ruby brings the demons.

“You sanctimonious, fanatical prick.”

Hot damn, I love me some S4 commanding Cas. “Leave now...or we lay you to waste.”

Cas went straight for Alastair!

And nearly died for it too!

RIP random demon.

Dean saves Cas! (Probably because of the whole “he likes you” thing. Besides Anna, Cas is the only other “good angel” Dean can have on their side, the only angel they can possibly get through to. But still, as a Destiel shipper, I’m overjoyed that Dean chose to save him.)

(x)

RIP random demon #2.

Anna takes her grace.

Good lord, Cas is beautiful.

Anna and Alastair are gone.

Awww, I half expected Cas to join the brothers.

Oh, it was Sam’s plan! I somehow never noticed this before???

Shit, he’s quoting Ruby.

It’s kinda neat how both Dean and Ruby know Anna’s truly miserable about being an angel again.

OH NOOOO NOT THIS SCENE.

I want to hug Dean so badly.

The fact that Dean even tried to keep count of how many souls he tortured and then he just lost count...

“for 30 years” is the single worst line of the monologue. It’s at least top 3 for me, because as soon as he says it, complete dread takes over. When you thought it couldn’t get worse, you’re neck deep in it.

Sam offers a feeble assurance with “At least you held out 30 years”. That’s the best thing can Sam could say, and I’m not saying there’s something better...except for maybe nothing at all.

With what Dean has gone through, now wonder he shuts out the pain and squashes down feelings. Confronting them hurts too damn much. i get it.

Jensen’s acting is absolutely phenomenal, he deserves every acting award for this.

No wonder I avoid this episode like the plague.

And finally, I want to hug Dean so very badly.

[jaymelsorenson]

Dreaming with God

(Sermon Notes from a message I spoke a few weeks ago)

Did you have a dream or big plans when you were young/little?

What were some of them?

Are you doing that thing you dreamt of?

What are some things that have held you back?

Jeremiah 29:11 NIV – For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

This morning we are going to dig into some of the hopes and dreams God has for you! What are they? And maybe what has held us back in the past

We’re going to take some time to make a list and commit them to Him                             

PRAY (Opening)

When I was young – I had big dreams – I knew I had GREATNESS inside me

- Designer, a model, a singer, teacher, bus driver

((We’ve all got to grow up sometime))

Grew up and OUT of that ‘PHASE’ – sort of FORGOT about those passions & dreams in my life

Fear said - No one thinks I’m ‘good enough’ so I might as well do something else

I’ll probably end up an accountant or secretary (MOM’S job)

Became OK with MEDIOCRE, AVERAGE

I GAVE UP

I got into DRUGS pretty young, and some unhealthy RELATIONSHIPS

NO satisfaction in LIFE

All of it left me feeling ALONE, and like there was nothing I could do about being AVERAGE

I CAME TO KNOW the Lord (or rededicated my life) when I was 16 and began to look at my life through RELIGION

Religion also said AVERAGE is BEST, average is safe

Being HUMBLE looks like being average. Not standing out, not taking credit for what you’ve done, not doing anything to be noticed

Religion was NOT OK with DOING WHAT I WANTED to do, because that was ‘what I wanted’ and NOT WHAT GOD WANTED

So, I pressed on and tried to BLEND IN and remain UNDER THE RADAR, what I thought HUMILITY LOOKED LIKE

I still did some really COOL STUFF, but it was more out of a heart of thinking this is what GOOD CHRISTIANS DO

I got MARRIED, had KIDS, thought I knew what God had for me or for my family

Then a few years ago, I was given a ‘GIVING KEY’ that said ‘DREAM’ on it.

The more I PRAYED into that word and started to try and EMBRACE it, the more

I realized I had LET GO of any DREAMS or visions FOR ME, my dreams had become about my family, my kids, but I had NONE that were ONLY FOR ME

God began SPEAKING to me about MY DREAMS for MY LIFE

•••• GOD WANTS TO DREAM WITH YOU ••••

Once I had this revelation, Holy Spirit kept talking to me about dreams everywhere I looked.

SERMONS, PODCASTS, BOOKS, ONLINE, the BIBLE, FRIENDS, the RADIO

IT WAS CRAZY

I began to ASK GOD what HE had for ME

What does that look like?

1.    Who Did God Create You To Be, Do, & Reach?

He began to reveal to me who HE CREATED me to BE, what He created me to DO, and who He created me to REACH

-       Confident, assertive, creative, gentle, loving, in the details, prophetic, leader, mother to more than just my blood, wife, encourager, effective communicator, etc.

But he was also speaking to me a lot about my PASSIONS too

-       Worship, art, writing music, creating anything, young people, people as a whole, relationships (friends), missions, Latin America, languages, piano, guitar, singing, leading, helping, & more

And that HE PUT those PASSIONS & DREAMS there for me to PURSUE

NOT to TEASE me, BUT to FUEL me

FUEL for me to WANT to do what HE is DREAMING FOR ME to do

Once I came to a working revelation of that, I began to look at what God put in my heart to do

2.    Make A List WITH Him

* Habakkuk 2:2 ESV – “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.”

When you make a list ask things like:

-       God, what did you create me to do?

-       What are your dreams for me?

-       What am I just naturally drawn to?

-       What am I naturally good at?

-       What do I look at and think, ‘If only that were me doing that thing’?

-       God, who did You create me to reach?

-       What did You have in mind when You created me?

Once you’ve sought the Lord about His dreams and plans for you, WRITE out a LIST

Check your heart motives – not for the money or fame or recognition, but FOR God and WITH God

We talked a little about my understanding of humility earlier but really

-       Humility in the Bible does not mean having no power – it means understanding where that power you carry comes from.

In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight.

Honor God as you grow and dream, giving Him due credit, but also understanding God has placed greatness in you

Then COMMIT your plans to Him, partner with what He wants for you

*Proverbs 16:3 ESV - Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.

SET GOALS

He is so GOOD guys!

He really just wants the best for us! 

*Ephesians 3:20 AMP – Now to Him who is able to (carry out His purpose and) do superabundantly more than all that we dare ask or think (infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes, or dreams), according to His power that is at work within us

MORE THAN WE DARE ASK, THINK, OR IMAGINE!

He CAN DO IT! And wants to partner with you to get it done!

My MOM used to make (still makes) GOAL POSTERS, long term and short term goals are great

Something visual to remind you of all that He’s called you to do.

Little steps that can be measured and accounted for

Mini goals for me look like - Learning to play a new chord on guitar, or know all the lyrics and chords to a song without sheet music

Big goals for me look like – Full time ministry, worship pastor, missions, learn a new language, record an album

And then 

3.    Share

As I began to MAKE LISTS and set GOALS, I began sharing my heart and telling people about what God wanted for me – MIXED REVIEWS

A few were excited to hear and offered support

But there were more people that were not excited or supportive at all

Dominican trip - only a few weeks to raise like $2000

Not a good idea to go that route, don’t try that, don’t do things that way, that’ll never happen, that’s too much money, that’ll take too long, you’re too old, you’re too young

 I got discouraged about sharing my dreams and I remembered Joseph

*Genesis 37:5 ESV – Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more.

We need a safe place to share our dreams, there are wrong people and right people.

Had Joseph gone to the right people (maybe his father even), the support may have looked different

Around this time in my life, I had the opportunity to share a dream of mine (to have a voice to lead worship and to lead consistently) with the School of Supernatural Ministry I was attending.

So, a safe place – for you it may be this refresh, good friends, spouse, a parent, maybe a mentor

One who will champion you, who gets you, people who see your heart, who support you, who uplift you, people who share their dreams with you.

They encouraged me, asked me about my goals as the months went on, and cheered me on and championed me as they saw fruit from that!

It was a safe place to share and from there I got to see that dream take off!

Since then I have been leading worship at Eastpointe (main service and a number of other ministries there), youth ministries, ladies Bible studies, Worship Pastor substitute, and I even started playing piano and eventually guitar while leading (which i could do a little before, but not singing and playing)!

Side note – I only started playing guitar when I was 25 and I didn’t even really get serious about it until I was 30! And I am still learning at 33! (never too late for you)

 Now God is expanding my dreams and vision for my life.

Lately it has been a lot about leading, pastoring, reaching people, writing, speaking, writing songs, leading my songs, recording my songs

About painting, designing and creating things, decorating, event planning, I love ‘the details’ so really anything that takes a lot of attention to detail.

God and I will forever be revising that list.

 MUSIC ON (Closing)

 He always dreams bigger than me. So how could I not keep adjusting it?

Think for a minute, dig deep

What is something you dreamt about when you were a child that you have given up on? Maybe because of lack of money, or fear, or because someone else told you that you couldn’t do it?

Then think about God. And all that He is. All that He can do.

Now how could God make that dream bigger or better?

  That’s what He wants for you

He has infinite power and wisdom and creative thinking abilities and problem solving skills and a thousand cattle on a hill

Like, do we think we are better than the one who gave us our talents/passions/skills?

He is the creator of creativity, the creator of dreams

The MOST CREATIVE BEING actually.

And WE were created in HIS image!

Which means we are inherently creative

We were never called to be average, designed for greatness

We are a chosen people, set apart

God has more for us than we could ever ask, think, or imagine. Remember that verse?

 Let that marinate

 We are going to transition into a kind of activation time, maybe 10 minutes or so? now that we’ve got the meat – let’s eat

Get you some paper and pen or pencil

The Lord reminded me of my dreams and visions and purpose in my life that were long forgotten or discarded

And I believe Holy Spirit is going to do that for us again this morning.

-       Position yourself open to receive what God wants/dreams for you

As I ask these questions, just write whatever comes to your mind first. Don’t question it too much. If it’s good, write it down

God will always speak highly of you, so if it’s not good it’s not God.

Let’s just see what Holy Spirit says this morning

 PRAY

  1.   God, who do You say I am?

2.   What did You have in mind when You created me?

3.   What did You create me to do?

4.   Who did You create me to be?

5.   Who did You create me to reach?

6.   What are Your dreams for me?

 Now look at that list, isn’t He good guys?

I love how He created each of us so different and yet each so powerful

Is there an overall theme looking at your list?

For me, my lists usually stem in a vein of creativity

Try and find an underlying theme – justice, peace, love, creativity, outreach, serving

Is there a dream in there that needs to be chased?

I dare you to chase those dreams.

Bear down, set goals, get it gurl.

 I challenge you to share during free time, or over lunch maybe even

Grab 2 or 3 ladies and share some of what God revealed to you.

And don’t forget to be the ‘right person’ supportive, loving, and encouraging – Be their champion