As it turns out, I can. As it turns out, your being turned on is not an excuse to turn off your brain. This honestly sounds like a personal problem. This is something I don’t have to don’t want to and am not going to help you with ‘cause this is what I damn wellContinue reading ““You know you can’t be walking around looking all cute like that, getting me all worked up like this.””
Author Archives: ampersandthenwhat
Perhaps you fell in love with the idea of me.
It was my hair, wasn’t it? it accented your t-shirt at the time or your eye color, or your endless insecurities. you forgot entirely that i am a person entirely- not just a big smile, an aesthetic, some kind of misplaced manic pixie dream girl let loose in the wild for you to discover andContinue reading “Perhaps you fell in love with the idea of me.”
They start you off early
7th grade they say, ‘No shorts above your fingertips’ they say, ‘Tank tops: 2 finger width.’ They teach you that your thighs and your shoulders are provocative spaces. They teach you it is your job to make sure others are not intrigued by them. the mentality carries. You overhear conversations about assault beginning with, “Well,Continue reading “They start you off early”
Asked about the greatest fear they have with online dating,
cis-men most often answer that their partner might be fat. Asked about the greatest fear we have with online dating, trans people, non-binary folk, and cis-women most often answer that we might be murdered. It appears that a cis-mans’ greatest fear is someone not living up to their expectations while our greatest fear is notContinue reading “Asked about the greatest fear they have with online dating,”
When I raise a son, his first language will be no
his second will be I don’t know, and his third will be silence, I will do so just to teach him how they are all synonyms, how they might as well mean the same thing because none of them mean consent. I will teach him yes is the only word that ever means yes, andContinue reading “When I raise a son, his first language will be no”
To the voice in my brain that tells me no one will give a shit about my poetry:
I am writing anyways. This poem is yelling a relentless echo around me for a reason. It knows hide and seek isn’t always a game, sometimes it’s a lifestyle. It knows I might as well have been wearing camouflage for my formative years but I am trying to live a different life these days, oneContinue reading “To the voice in my brain that tells me no one will give a shit about my poetry: “
Mental illness is like your shitty college roommate.
It kind of does whatever the fuck it wants whenever the fuck it wants. It speaks as loudly as it wishes, whenever it wishes. It keeps going on and on well after your bed time & after you asked it politely to stop. It ate your cereal again. (Oops.) When was the last time itContinue reading “Mental illness is like your shitty college roommate.”
At gas pumps
I always think I’m going to start a fire with static electricity which is about as unlikely as me relaxing at the gas station. When I’m there, I think about everything I have to lose. Sometimes, I do this in other spaces too. I think so much about what might s l i pContinue reading “At gas pumps”
Today
I walk this world with flagrant fragility with grit, grace, & goodness. Today I sit on the floor and pretend it is comfortable to be sitting on the floor when really it’s just grounding, I mean really it feels like safety. Today I stop trying to collide the word comfort into the same spaces IContinue reading “Today”
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