I Don't Want For Your Name To Bleed In My Mouth.

I don't want for your name to bleed in my mouth.

when naomi shihab nye wrote, “if you tuck the name of a loved one / under your tongue too long / without speaking it / it becomes blood,” v. when sylvia plath wrote, “in this light the blood is black. tell me my name.” 

I'll call this piece,

"I'm simping real hard for Aurora"

There is a singer from Norway by the name of Aurora. She is 25 years old and often forgets her shoes. She doesn't like to hug and she sometime likes to eat baby porridge - but only if it rains.

The moon, the stars, and mother earth are her muses, and she likes to call herself a mere vessel, through which the music flows.

She says that each time she writes a song, she loses a part of herself, and so it has to be worth it.

She likes being barefoot, and I'm starting to think she "forgets" her shoes by design.

I Would like to meet her someday, not on stage and certainly not in the streets.

Heaven knows how it will seem, two mad women on the middle of the road, and one of them barefoot.

One day should the stars allow, I would like to meet her in the woods.

And should the trees and the winds feel kind, they will sing for us as we dance.

Alone and barefoot, and unapologetically ourselves.

Okay. Now I will talk about what happens in my country.

Everyone remembers Californian and Australian fires?

Well, this is Donbass region in Ukraine now:

Only, it wasn't created by some unfortunately dry weather and people's stupidity and carelessness.

Two days ago, Russian Federation forces and their allies, who has been occupying parts of Ukrainian territory, fired tracer ammunition on regions under Ukrainian jurisdiction throughout all the front line. They waited for the right wind and set fire.

This is hundreds of kilometers.

Since then, Donbass is on fire.

Countless villages and small towns has been destroyed. 15 people are already dead. Many received severe burns. Hundreds lost their homes and their livelyhood to the fires.

That's not talking about animals.

Cows and goats has been left to burn alive on the farms. People would have tried to help them, but since the fires were created unnaturally and got VERY big VERY quick, thousands of people, hundreds of villages had to simply leave EVERYTHING and just RUN away. Can't get a cow on a bus🤷🏻

People said they were woken up in the middle of the night by police banging on their doors and telling them to abandon everything and get on the road. Many left simply in their pajamas leaving even their documents behind. One boy talked about how they rode on the road that was already surrounded by fire on the outskirts. He said he was glad the fire only touched the tires and didn't get to the windows.

Roads are litered with dead cats and dogs.

Foxes and hedgehogs, who have only lived in wilderness, are now coming into human houses to hide from fires. People try to save as many as they can, choking on smoke and risking their lives.

There's around 300 km between the fires and the next big cities - Kharkiv and Dnipro. Nevertheless, the fires in Lugansk region are so big, people in Kharkiv report huge smog all around the city and being unable to leave their homes because it's hard to breathe.

The situation is also dire because the region where fires are has a lot of pine forests and the summer was very dry. Also the wind is high now.

I don't know who to ask and for what help, since our 🤡 president refused to acknowledge the military nature of the fires and has kept silent since then, despite everyone - the army, political opposition, local administrations, OSCE, witnesses - saying tracer bombs are what caused the fires.

And even without this evidence, the are over a HUNDRED different origin places of the fires, all of them unconnected to each other, and spread throughout the whole front line of hundred km. This is just not possible when fires originate naturally.

So, please, just spread word to #helpLugansk #helpUkraine

Words, words, words 👑

One day I noticed

One day I noticed,

When he walked in, I did not hastily clear out the table and make for my room. I stayed sat on my chair, square, looked up at him, let my my gaze linger in his for a moment and went back to my scribbling. He went about his, mumbling a remark or two in passing.

One day I noticed,

When he asked me what I was doing, I did not stutter and I did not look up, lazily I answered, "Just reading". I felt him pause for a moment, and I heard him puff--was that disapproval I heard?

One day I noticed,

I was not running, I wasn't trying to analyze the sound of his footsteps climbing up to see if he was angry. I did not move out of the chair I was sitting in when he approached so he could sit. I did not close the book I was reading when he made remarks about not wanting his girls to get funny ideas.

"Don't do that." Why. "Don't wear that." Why. "You listen to what I say." Why. "I pay the bills." No you don't, since when. " Girls shouldn't like that." Why not.

I was taking up space? Outside of the safety of my locked room, I was taking up space!? In the house, in conversations?

One day I noticed,

When he dragged my mother into their room, locked the door behind them. I did not grab my sister and run for our room and I did not try to console her. I did not tell her "Ma's fine, she's fine. Shh it's okay they're just talking, like how we are? Shh, It's okay".

I found myself outside that room, fists balled, banging, screaming bloody murder, "OPEN THE DOOR!!!". Bang bang bang. "MA, ARE YOU OKAY!!!?", Bang bang bang. "I WILL BREAK IT DOWN, IF YOU DONT FUCKING OPEN RIGHT THIS SECOND". BANG. (Got myself thrown out of the house for that one x)

One day I noticed,

That I was no longer afraid of my father. I was no longer just sad over the life I was given. (maybe a little bit still, it comes and goes)

One day I noticed, that I was angry. A little of his wrath had snuck past him into my veins, and whoever could've seen that one coming.

One day he noticed, that I was no longer the love starved little girl he could kick to the corner and leave there, because he knew she would come to him if he called her name sweetly.

One day he stood there, a hand raised to hit, when he looked into my eyes, almost the same level as his, and he noticed.

I'm sick today, my body feels weak, and my fear, my insecurities, my tendency to fall back into despair, to give up on myself grows stronger.

When my body feels weak, the darkness in my mind grows stronger.

"Why hold on, when you could just let go"

I don't hear myself sing today.