Caught Slippin

Lol bae caught me slippin. Love him. Goodnight from us <3

Sun Day

Today was an ordinary day at Mass. I was actually listening to the homily (Fr. Fong is a bit hard to understand, even for me). You know, kneel, sit, listen, pray...the usual.

And then I got cut deep. It came out of nowhere, and it came fast. This keen sense of loneliness.

You see, my family left for India two days ago, and I always feel lonely when they leave the country.

But it's the long weekend, and there are no turkey dinners or bbq meats waiting for me. There are no aunties or uncles or cousins to hang out with. There are no fights before church or maybe an evening stroll by the lake followed by Dairy Cream.

It's just me at church with a broken kneeler. Everyone's a stranger.

And it hurts. It hurts so bad. It'll pass, I know it will.

I don't know where I belong. That is my offering.

It's a terrible love and I'm walking with spiders.

Autobiographia Literaria

When I was a child
I played by myself in a
corner of the schoolyard
all alone.

I hated dolls and I
hated games, animals were
not friendly and birds
flew away.

If anyone was looking
for me I hid behind a
tree and cried out "I am
an orphan."

And here I am, the
center of all beauty!
writing these poems!
Imagine!

Frank O'Hara

Thin/Fat Privilege

Why is the internet mad at obesity being classified as a disease? The body has an optimal standard of health (hence healthy), and falling out of it is unhealthy. Wouldn't people be happier at obesity being classified as a disease? That way, there is none of this blindness toward obese being healthy.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not screaming skinny is healthy. But I'm saying usually. obesity means that you are unhealthy or are well on the way to unhealthiness, leading to problems such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and other things that no one wants.

Nobody is saying that the person who is obese is a disease. When you see a person with cancer, is that person cancer? Are we calling that person cancer? No, that person has cancer. Let's do what we can to fix it. Same thing with obesity; your metabolism and connection to food (physically and psychologically) has been screwed up somewhere, and we have to fix it. No, it's not fat shaming, and yes, health at any size (HAES) but there is a range for healthy sizes.

I'm not fat shaming. I've been shamed for my weight my entire life. Nobody believed me when I said that I actually wasn't eating all that much.

You see, I have PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) with associated insulin resistance. What that means is that for my body to process sugar, it takes more insulin as I am not sensitive to it anymore, and that extra insulin causes an increase in fat storage, a decrease in fat breakdown, and an increase in male hormones (among other things). That makes sense - insulin was a caveman hormone; we needed to store everything as fat when we weren't sure of our next meal. But now....now we don't. So now, people like me suffer consequences.

Classifying obesity as a disease is to help, not to hurt.

My friends, I try to be an easy breeze but sometimes I get down.

Do You Love Me?

She's twelve and she's asking the dog,
who does, but who speaks
in tongues, whose feints and gyrations
are themselves parts of speech.

They're on the back porch
and I don't really mean to be taking this in
but once I've heard I can't stop listening. Again
and again she asks, and the good dog

sits and wiggles, leaps and licks.
Imagine never asking. Imagine why:
so sure you wouldn't dare, or couldn't care
less. I wonder if the dog's guileless brown eyes

can lie, if the perfect canine lack of abstractions
might not be a bit like the picture books
she "read" as a child, before her parents' lips
shaped the daily miracle of speech

and kisses, and the words were not lead
and weighed only air, and did not mean
so meanly. "Do you love me?" she says
and says, until the dog, sensing perhaps

its own awful speechlessness, tries to bolt,
but she holds it by the collar and will not
let go, until, having come closer,
I hear the rest of it. I hear it all.

She's got the dog's furry jowls in her hands,
she's speaking precisely
into its laid-back, quivering ears:
"Say it," she hisses, "say it to me."

Robert Wrigley

Data Entry

There is no document of any four letter word,
or whether they were hurting,
or hunting,
or fighting.
And through it all, the mundane,
the steady type type type
of my fingers against electrified plastic,
I imagine them frolicking among grasses of green
or them feeling the whispers of snowflakes on their noses
as young boys held them in the middle of a winter storm.
That is what I imagine
as I do some data entry
for some extra cash on the side.

From a Friend, to Me

You are dazzlingly special and I wouldn't change a thing about who you are.




There is a little bit of love in the world :)

He Smelled like Summer

He smelled like sweat,
the way that boys smell
after long bike rides through unmowed lawns
with pollen and dirt and muddy shoes
tracking steps along my wooden floor.

I liked the way he smelled,
my nose pressed up behind his ear,
as my body fit the familiar grooves
and his strong heartbeat pumped up against my wrist.
I laid my fingers on his stomach,
and felt the muscles tense.
Oh, did I like the way he felt.

He smelled like summer.
His body radiating heat,
the back of his neck black,
his forearm dark against the softness of my thighs.

In my little room, in the middle of nowhere,
he left his summer scent on my pillow
and I await his return again.

Swearing, and Other Such Mouth Actions

I've been thinking about swearing a lot lately. Swearing, cursing, cussing, words words words.

You all know I like words.

My friend Tom and I decided we both wanted to swear less. More than that, we both realised that we weren't fully aware anymore of what words escaped us anymore. That was a conclusion I was coming to as everything that bothered me ended in little four letter words, followed by a quick look see to watch for any children.

Why did I care if children were there?

The Avett brothers, in their song "Tear Down the House" said.

"Ever since I learned how to curse,
I've been using those sorry old words.
But I'm talking to these children
and I'm keeping it clean,
I don't need those words to say what I mean.
No, I don't need those words to say what I mean."

There are other ways of expressing oneself. I'm not against cursing, everyone does what they want to do, just like I'm not against sex or eating junk food. But in moderation, at the right time and place. Or else it becomes a natural part of your interaction with the world, and is that what you want to be putting out into the universe? Expressions of anger and hate?

My mom used to tell me this story that she had heard as a kid, that the gods were always saying, "Let it be done." So if you said good things, good things happened, and if you said bad things, bad things happened. I don't believe in karma, but I do believe there is a balance. The measure you give will be the measure you get back. I guess that's why I try to see things in a positive light.

I just came across this story of Blessed John Paul II, when having his fingers slammed by the car door, the first thing out of his mouth was, "Thank you, Lord, for loving me this way."

You know, I started to wonder when f words started replacing the "I offer this to the souls in purgatory," or "Thank you Jesus", especially when things would happen, like toes stubbed or drinks spilled.

Maybe it's time to head on back to that. A little more humility in my day would help more than hurt.

Sonnet

Alas, that June should come when thou didst go;
I think you passed each other on the way;
And seeing thee, the Summer loved thee so
That all her loveliness she gave away;

Willa Cather

Crying, at Mass

I cry/want to cry/have a hard time not crying most times I go to Mass. And I have no idea why.

It's not guilt. It's not a sad cry, but it is at the same time. More sorrowful than sad. Sorrow also contains joy you see.

I go there, and all of a sudden, something touches my soul/heart/mind. Everything that's been worrying me, everything I hide from, all my anxieties, iniquities, worries come to the surface. Truth will out. And I feel it go out to the outer reaches of my skin, and I feel God's hand come and rest around my heart, letting me know...I don't even know. I don't speak God.

But it's emotional. I have such a hard time not making a scene. But I feel it, the beauty, the splendour, the humility, the sacrifice.

Today, in front of me, the baby was blessed before entering the church. The priest said, "You belong to Christ now."

Fr. Eugene probably said that to me when I was baptized. I belong....I belong with Jesus. Forever and always. There is nothing that I will go through that He won't go through with me.

There is nothing more lonelier than going to Mass by yourself. But it is in the loneliness, on the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, the same Christ that is so close yet so far, that I find myself weeping in the Palm of God.

Gift of tears, and I have no idea what it means.

God is a mysterious thing I will never understand. Yet I know.