books, writings, shoes & nudes

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  • 2026 ted

    This movie changes every time you watch it by Gary Hustwit

  • more sports because joy is resistance

  • I’d smash every fucking clock on this earth to prove we are not bad timing. Yet, the dildo of consequences rarely arrives lubed. I’m on my knees before you and trust, it’s not to pray, but damned if I won’t worship you in an entirely different way.

  • because joy is resistance

  • you walk through my dreams as if they belong to you

    In the silence of the city at night, I lie awake cradling the weight of missing you. An ache that hums beneath my ribs. This weak soul of mine is caught in a loop—always choosing you, even when the world whispers there might be something better, something easier, something brighter, something softer. But better doesn’t feel like you. Easier doesn’t feel like the way my chest tightens when I think about you. The fear isn’t just losing you to the path you didn’t choose. It’s realizing that no matter what comes along, this daddy-issued tainted soul has already made its choice. And maybe, that’s both the most beautiful and the scariest thing of all.

  • hey there little lindsey

    I fought for this life for you. I made some mistakes along the way, but I fought every battle to make sure you wake up safely in this life tomorrow. I worked hard. I scooped you up, brushed off the trash covering you, wrapped you in a blanket of empowerment and left you on the footsteps of the safest family I could find. where you would grow and never wonder again if you are enough. I fought for you. I burned down buildings that didn’t deserve to stand tall for you. I spoke for you, I put you first and protected you. I fought for this life for you.

  • clarity in the show

    I feel balanced while walking on a tight rope over my beautiful city while wearing glossy red Jimmy Choo 7 inch pumps. At any moment I could fuck up permanently. Lean too much to the left and fall. Crashing down to my death. I would never lean too far to the right, so I’d auto-correct, miss a shot, and again, splat. I feel at peace while doing one of the scariest most acrobatic acts of my life. I am a professional on this rope. Teetering, wind in my hair, but never falling. So cultivated in my craft. Ivy League legend. But that’s just it, you only get one fall to stop being on top. One mistake and we go tumbling down with no Lauren shaped umbrella to save me. everything is in balance, everything in the power of the skill I studied. All on this thin rope across this city. walking across in the highest of high heels, one too long exhale one misplaced earring and it all ends. But at least I died in great shoes.

  • Sometimes in life we show up incorrectly. We say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing. You can try and try and try to live by your values and principles, but then your human bits come swinging in. Just incorrectly. Being human is hard, being a human with integrity while also having emotions that don’t want to be understood is harder. I didn’t choose correctly today. I didn’t grow 1%. I stepped backwards. The direction I don’t love going. The incorrect direction.

  • 🕊️

    we have our own language, you and me. one that doesn’t have a word for goodbye.

  • 26

    slip behind the noise,
    a shadow folding into walls,
    a whisper lost in the hum of daily life.

    no need for edges or light,
    just the soft fade of presence—
    becoming the quiet space where others stand.

    invisible, not by force,
    but by choice,
    a calm background in the storm of being.

  • shoes o’ the day

  • FriendsGiving

    Roasted Pumpkin Seeds, Roasted Sunflower Kernels, Cheddar Pretzel Crackers, Pecan Mini Tarts, Italian Dry Salami, Cranberry White Cheddar Cheese, Dark Chocolate Pomegranate, Black Olive, Basil & Cheese Tapenade, Fig & Olive Crackers, Prosciutto, 4 Fruits Preserves, Red Grapes, Pepperoni, Candied Pecans, Cinnamon Roll Almonds, Pumpkin Spice Mini Biscotti,

  • best yogurt of my life

  • blooms

    You were my most stable flower. Beauty in your own right. You weren’t my person, but you were such my person that I no longer know how to do this life without you. You were my base. Mine. My stability when Gwen visited, when ghosts from the basement of my brain would darken the hallways, when the color red blinded my eyes. You were the stable brick house with the smoke coming from the chimney I could run to when running in the forest from the big bad wolves of my past. You loved me, you never said it, but you cherished me. You heard me clearer than anyone. Even when I couldn’t pay you, You still had ears. Never was it you and I against the world, it was you, me, and Little Lindsey against all the voice boxes and swinging rage. I miss you swaying in my meadow. Whenever I looked, there you were standing tall. You’re not there any more, one too many rough seasons took you away from me. Nothing left, not even petals to collect. I miss you deeply, my beautiful flower. The growth in this field may never bloom the same.

  • et tu cleopatra

    A quiet moment alone,  

    where touch speaks louder than words,  

    a journey inward,  

    finding comfort in the skin you’re in,  

    a celebration of your own presence—  

    no need for permission,  

    just the gentle knowing of yourself.

  • hoes before bros

    Some people would say marriage is a trap. Me, I am some people. Marriage is highlighted as the goal or the way of life in our society and friendship comes as a sidekick. The “love interest” can be found in almost every movie, but we do not get to meet the best friend or the group of friends in those movies. Although marriages have been around since forever, studies have found that friendships are healthier and last longer. It can be argued that marriage provides deep intimacy, but so can deep friendships. 

    This topic is important because with the rapid mental health decline in America, marriage tends to support more of the negative side given the divorce rate peaked at 22.6 divorces per 1,000 married women. Making friendships be the center instead could positively help. Marriage affects everyone and has been around for centuries. It is a timeless institution. The wedding industry is a huge successful industry. While marriage is often celebrated as a cornerstone of adult life, friendship plays a more important and enduring role at the center of our lives by providing emotional support, personal growth, and a sense of belonging that transcends the formal commitments of marriage.

    People believe marriage provides deep intimacy. Marriage provides legal and financial security, and the excitement of weddings tends to make people want to dive headfirst in. Dating is exciting. That adrenaline surge as your heart races. Then dopamine giving you the feeling of pleasure and reward, mixing with oxytocin that deepens bonding and intimacy; all dances around when we fall in love. Having someone propose to you makes you feel like you are the only human in the world. You were chosen. Someone chose you. Plus that gorgeous ring you get to show off on your left hand. Then that big fancy beautiful wedding that you go into debt for. Double dose of serotonin to make us really happy. It is magical. Who would not want that? Connect with one person who loves you deeply and will be your person. Marriages also provide legal and financial security, two huge pros. Two incomes in this economy are always better than one. People married can benefit from each other’s inheritance when relatives die. The tax breaks are better when you are a couple. Health insurance is cheaper and has better coverage. So many people get married specifically for the health insurance. Increased borrowing power when you need a loan. Social security benefits is a fantastic benefit later in life. If you are not good with money, but you marry someone who is, it can be very balancing for people. One partner can do the laundry and the other the dishes. Having someone to be sexually adventurous any time they consent is a huge benefit of marriage. 

    When you get hitched, you not only add your partner to your family, but you also add their entire already existing family. Double holidays, double celebrations, double the gifts and love. You also have the option of creating a family of your own. Getting married also gives you the opportunity to change everything about yourself, including your name. 

    Friendship is statistically healthier explained by the American Psychological Association. Friendships can provide almost all the same benefits as marriage and are so much more flexible. When it comes to friends there is less pressure to spend all your time together. You can go do your own thing for a month and come back. The friendship is still there right where you left it. There are no long-term financial agreements made. If you have a disagreement or get in a fight, you can easily find solutions. You can take a break from each other or reevaluate the friendship without having to get the law involved. Friendships provide vital social support that can buffer against stress and protect against mental health issues like depression and anxiety. Studies have shown having strong friendships has been linked to lower rates of premature death.

    You can have multiple friends that bring you joy for different reasons. Friendships are built on a foundation of shared experiences, allowing for a deep understanding of each other. You can have work friends that you only interact with at your job. You can have hometown friends you see when you come back to visit. The hockey friends you get together with every Thursday from October to May. You can have friends you only see when you travel. Book club friends that only discuss the latest smut book you read. You can have internet friends all over the world that you have never met but still feel so close to. There is not a limit on the number of friends you can have. There is a legal limit on how many spouses you can have. You can be yourself with your friends. You do not have to look your best. You can snort when you laugh and there is not a fear of being abandoned. You do not have to hold in your farts until your stomach hurts for the first few months of friendship. It is a safe space, and if it is not, you can remove yourself from the friendship. Strong friendships can make you feel like you belong and are good enough. They can bring you laughter, love, and memories. When you marry someone, you are stuck in what you both agree your life is going to look like. For example, if you marry someone who is afraid of flying, you may never get to travel to Iceland with them. If you marry someone who gets a life changing condition, it is now both of your sickness. If you marry someone who develops an addiction, you now both have that addictions. Their bullshit is your bullshit. Friendship has so many backdoor escapes that marriage does not have.

    Given our cultural conditioning and religious beliefs on marriages, they will not be going away any time soon. A better plan is to normalize a new way of life, such as groups of friends living in a neighborhood together or coexisting. We live with our friends. We spend most of our time with our friends. Our spouses can be people we see on the weekends or occasionally go on vacations with. Highlighting the support of platonic relationships with multiple people for multiple reasons. Normalize long distance marriages. When it comes to the legal side, marriage licenses should have an expiration date, one that you must renew every four years or its void. Just like we do the president. We could even have a second term limit considering the dreaded 7-year itch. There are so many people in the world, we should not be tied to one person for the rest of our lives. Normalize bringing friends home for the holidays and celebrating friendship anniversaries. If we switched from marriages being the goal to focusing more on our friendship, we would see the rates of sexual assault and intimate violence decrease. If we were with our friends more and not isolated at home waiting for our husbands or wives to come home, we would live safer lives. Plus friends are just way more fun.

    In conclusion, although marriages are an incredibly common practice with some positives, there are benefits to having marriages take a backseat to friendships. 

  • an unsent hoodie.

    a bittersweet reflection on something that didn’t quite work out—maybe the relationship or the favored chapter in life. acknowledgment that things don’t always fit perfectly, and that’s okay. feels like a metaphor for life’s unpredictability and imperfection.

    even if the experience was complicated or bittersweet, there’s something valuable in it, especially when you savor the last moments. hints at a sense of finality and moving on. leaving behind chaos or pain for peace and healing.

    a touch of warmth and gratitude, implying that despite everything, this experience has a place in the story of life, like a decorative piece at a family gathering—something to remember and appreciate.

    accepting imperfection, finding value in endings.

  • this is so not the right time

    a new feeling stirs, unexpected and loud,  

    like a sudden storm in the middle of a drought.  

    the timing is off, the world feels heavy,  

    and yet, there it is—bright, confusing, and unwelcome.  

    you catch yourself staring, heart skipping,  

    but the calendar reminds you—now is not the moment.  

    there’s a weight to this crush, a quiet tension,  

    because sometimes the heart wants what the mind knows it can’t have.  

    so you hold it close, a secret wrapped in hesitation,  

    waiting for the right time to let it breathe,  

    even if that time feels far away,  

    and the feeling lingers, restless and unresolved.

  • to you my ragey poo,

    You spent so much time afraid of me for literally no reason. I fucking adore you. You made me feel safe in silence, you’ll never know how much I needed that. Under that loud rough exterior, you are soft and compassionate. And under that you are strong and brave. I admire how deeply you care about your people. That is such a huge gift. Your parents sucked, I can only imagine you were a spectacular kid, because you turned into spectacular human. You show up for the people that matter.

    We whispered Thrive into the world, you overheard and immediately said “I want in.” I’m so incredibly proud to call you part of our baby. You belong in this family and you fought for this family. You’ve done well Rage.

    You’re a cool kid, and I love you.

    ps: NO MORE THRIVE TATTOOS! You cannot have more than me. Pulling the cancer card. It’s my last dying wish, it’s in stone, sorry.

    #cancerletters

  • to you my husband,

    We never got to see what our marriage should have been. The cruel epileptic mistress took that away from us. We deserved better. It wasn’t our ideal time, but I am grateful. Thank you for showing me what a relationship without fear and eggshell dancing is supposed to feel like.

    You not only taught me, you shaped who I became. When the memories weren’t there, kissing my head goodnight still was. Thank you for dancing in the kitchen with me even when you were frustrated. Thank you for loving me as best as you could. You were my husband, even when you weren’t.

    Thank you for choosing me to be your wife, I hope you believe I did it well.

    I love you, Stevie Andrew.

    #cancerletters

  • to you my emma,

    We met and we loved each other. It was wonderful and simple. I will never be able to express how grateful I am for every time I cried over a boy, and you didn’t tell me to shut the fuck up. You are so fucking smart and compassionate and you were made for this work. You are going to impact so many lives just like you did mine. Your hair is beautiful, but you have an unhealthy obsession with Aquaphor. Thank you for loving me through your words and your time. And thank you for loving Gwen with understanding and thank you for loving your most self-aware client. Please take my job at Thrive, Moosh will need you.

    You’re a cool kid, and I love you.

    #cancerletters

  • to you my nora,

    You are the example I use in life for always finding the bright side. My real life Pollyanna. You could take any situation and make it a fun memory. You are a good mom and you only care about the things that actually matter. I don’t remember a moment where you were silent, but I also don’t remember a moment where I didn’t feel heard by you. Please keep yelling at exes, doctors, and skool aid. You’re a fighter through and through and I am honored to have gotten to call you my friend. Thank you for being so fucking authentically Nora.

    You’re a cool kid, and I love you.

    PS: Please forever let me be remembered as Dance Battle Aunt Lindsey.

    #cancerletters

  • to you my judith,

    I have written about you so many times and you have no idea. My nerdy friend, I loved you more than most. I could only hear half of the things you ever said, but every time you opened your mouth, I liked you more. Please hear me: your brain is your abuser, and you don’t deserve the horrible things it says to you. I will never understand the battle you go through daily, but I am in awe of your strength. Please stay here for Moosh, she’ll need you. I know that’s super selfish to ask, but do what I say lady!

    Thank you for every joke I got to roll my eyes to. You bring so much joy to the people around you. And you made me care about environmental science. As much as you don’t believe it, you are a main character at Thrive, and you’re a leader. People look up to you. I look up to you.

    You’re a cool kid, and I love you.

    PS: If you’re smoking after sex, you’re doing it too fast.

    #cancerletters

  • to you my valkyrie,

    You have no idea how important you are to the Thrive community. You make people feel loved and important. When we dreamed up this place, you were exactly who we hoped would walk through the door. You are magic in blue & pink glasses. All the gifts, and ‘I have something for you’s, you are so much more than the glue. Your smelly food will forever stain the insides of my nose even when my smell goes away. I am grateful for so many things when it comes to you; your passion, your crafts, our long talks, (about so many things but my favorite was sex) your ideas, and most of all your mother’s shoes. You are never heavy, you are just pure joy, and you belong here. Thank you for loving my baby and being part of the cool kids table. Thank you for being my family Auntie Andra.

    I love you.

    PS: an orgasm lasting 20 minutes is a seizure. I died on this hill.

    #cancerletters

  • halloween

  • the loudest memory

    It still plays in my head. I hurt you.
    Not just skin, but something deeper cracked. A fracture in trust, in the quiet spaces between us. You said it’s forgiven. But forgiveness doesn’t erase the echo of that moment, the weight of my own hands, the coldness that followed the heat of the moment. A moment we never get to fix. I carry the regret like a shadow that won’t leave, a constant reminder that some things can’t be undone, even when you say it’s okay. The pain I caused lives inside me now, a wound I tend to silently, knowing that some scars don’t fade, they only change shape.

  • gothic bachelorette sexually speaking

    fig & olive crackers, raspberry jam, chili pineapple rings, blueberries, blackberries, dark chocolate pretzels, chocolate graham crackers, black olives, sun-dried bing cherries

  • I wish I could cradle my pain like a child, whisper lullabies to soothe its restless soul. I wish I could lift it gently from my body, calm its rhythm with a hand pressed to its chest. If only I could speak to my pain, reassure it that we’re safe, that we’re okay. Then maybe the emptiness wouldn’t feel so vast. I wish she could rest outside my body, nestled close against my heart, Where I could truly see her, understand her. She’d feel safe, loved, never ignored or forgotten. If I could just hold my pain like that, maybe this wouldn’t hurt so much.

  • My parents’ differing  actions, words, and behavior played a significant role in shaping my understanding of gender expectations for myself and the perception of gender in the rest of the world. My family of origin is the institution that has the most influence on my personal understanding of gender roles.. This matters because the lack of my dad’s presence majority of the time helped my mom combat a lot of the social conditioning, but then my father would randomly pop in and shove gender stereotypes down our throats causing us to have complexes. 

    My mother had a very equal mindset while my father did not. My mother was forced to be a single parent so she took on both roles of mother and father. I grew up not knowing where a “woman’s role” ended and a “man’s role” began because she did it all.  She taught me about feminist theory by questioning the status quo to promote equality for everyone, not just women.

    Growing up my mother did many things to challenge gender roles. One being through gifts she gave us. When I was eight I received a pet sea monkeys kit for my birthday. Stem is stereotypically not encouraged for girls. The box was blue and could be found in the boy’s toy section in the store.  When I was 10, for Christmas I received a sling shot (It was taken away four days later for shooting out my neighbor Edna’s window). I did not grow up with a pink bicycle, my brothers didn’t grow up with blue bikes. We had green or orange or red or black. Easter baskets were not color coated pink and blue. They also contained things like potato shooters, soda, cookies and nerf guns not the norm of barbies and race cars.

    When it came to choosing our extracurriculars, my mother challenged gender norms by encouraging us to learn, not focused on gender traits while never discouraging our curiosity or passion. She would not let me join Girl Scouts because  “There is more to life than learning how to care for babies and cook.” All my siblings and I were signed up for snowboarding and swim lessons. I was put in horseback riding lessons because “You’re not going to be afraid of animals.” No matter what our gender, all activities and sports were an option (with the exception of Girl Scouts). There were no gendered sports and if there was a gendered sport we wanted to play, my mom would fight for that spot. For instance, my freshman year of high school, I wanted to play football. I was told no by the coach. “We don’t have the kind of equipment to keep a girl safe.” I let my mom know, and I was on the team, along with three other girls the following week. My younger sisters played competitive coed hockey from age five to eighteen. My youngest brother was in showchoir. Singing is usually reserved for girls and women. I also never had gendered sport equipment such as pink cleats or pink gloves. My father would take my brothers hunting, I was never allowed. 

    The tasks around my home growing up were not separated by gender, but instead were set by skill set. My brother and  I are allergic to poison ivy so my younger sister mowed the grass because she had no allergies. Mowing grass is typically a male task. Christmas lights were hung not by the man of the house, but by me, the only one not afraid of heights. We all had to learn how to change the oil or a tire on the car before she would let us take our drivers test. I grew up watching and helping with the home maintenance my mother would do, from laying new flooring, painting, and installing doors. 

    I grew up in overalls, muddy, and barefooted. At my dad’s house, I would get disciplined for having dirt under my fingernails when my brothers did not. To my mother, marriage and babies were never the goal. Education was. Even my father’s family would reinforce gender roles by saying  “When are you going to give me grandbabies” as if that was my only job in life. My brother heard “Are you going to play for the NFL?”. Being a mother and being expected to be good at sports are not the same, but to my father’s family it was life. 

    Emotions were meant to be felt. If my brothers were hurt, they were given the opportunity to cry but not by my father. They were “given something to cry about”, or “suck it up, men don’t cry”. My mother did many things to challenge gender roles when it came to clothing, but my father saw life a different way. I was forced to wear dresses to holiday events. I went through a “tom boy” phase where I only wanted to wear ball caps and my dad would make negative comments “you look like a boy”. 

    This had such a big impact on who I am as a person now. I have a deep rooted belief that I am capable of anything. I work in a male dominated field. I am the owner of a business. I teach self- defense and coach Brazilian jiu jitsu. I also grapple for recreation. I challenge power, roles, and expectations that are shaped by gender and I often challenge traditional ideas that keep women in less powerful or unfair positions. Traditional ideas like marriage. I am attracted to female lead relationships. I am the head of my household. I make the decisions in my intimate relationships. I am very comfortable as the protector. I also respect women as leaders more than men. 

    Although I am very grateful how I was raised, I am aware being a white woman raised in a feminist, inclusive home equals privileges. I benefit from racial privilege, meaning society often treats me more fairly just because of the color of my skin. Growing up in a feminist environment, I had access to ideas about equality and self-confidence that helps me challenge unfair stuff. I had more support to pursue my goals without being boxed in by traditional gender roles. 

    My maternal side mostly spaced how I understand gender, with the occasional social conditioning from my father. Thus highlighting my mother’s way vs my fathers way which is a fantastic example for the broader stereotypical world.

  • elemental

    I crave the touch of water. I long to leap in and feel the cold shock to my eyelids. I want to linger beneath the surface, until my fingers prune and the bubbles dance like sugar plums around me. I’m convinced I was a storm-chaser in the last life. The fear of rain, wind, thunder or lightning has never darkened the doors of my brain, only decorated the walls. I find solace in the shower, eventually shivering when the chill seeps into my bones. I’d choose cascading waterfalls over the vast ocean, a chlorine filled pool over a serene lake. What’s the point of a boat if one does not dare to jump overboard? I have hoped drowning is the way I go. Almost embraced in the womb again. Fully touched but not harmed. I want to be aquatic life and stay in the safeness of humanities’ most unknown. Hide in the dark forgotten unfound caves where silence sings and the water whispers my name.

  • let’s do the time warp again—because life’s too short not to dance like a sweet transvestite

    movie night baybeeee

  • badass bibliophiles themed movie night

    dark chocolate pistachios, garlic & black pepper almonds, candied pecans, port wine cheese with almonds, green antipasti olives, oven roasted turkey breast, italian pineapple coconut jam, strained strawberry jam, cajun cheddar, red chili scalloped crackers, belgian chocolate pumpkins, milk chocolate coated butter cookies, italian dry-cured salami, prosciutto

  • Girlfriends in my corner, fierce and wild,

    Sharp like a blade, untamed and styled.

    Not just pretty faces, but warriors in the fight,  

    Lighting up the dark with their rebel might.  

    We laugh in chaos, break every rule,  

    Living loud and proud, no one’s fool.  

    Together unstoppable, a storm that won’t bend—  

    Yeah, having girlfriends like these? That’s the real badass blend.

  • hushabye mountain

    This is for the best. The writing can’t always go well together. It doesn’t always blend. Sometimes you capitalize letters sometimes you don’t. Consistency isn’t in the pen. It’s one of my favorite numbers, the number of my birth. I see it for what it is and what it was. A magic bottle of wine you eventually enjoy every drop, especially the last one. No promises were ever made. A fleeting memory of questionable reality. They’ll be gone soon. The village can’t wait for that. As the dust on the baseboards start to become forgotten back drops. Your circus will calm and the forest becomes the normal yet again. I’ll feel the breeze once more before I sail far away to lullaby bay. This was needed and fought for. It made a lovely table runner for Thanksgiving dinner.

  • This is my favorite book. This is my favorite story. When I was in seventh grade I found this book at Barnes & Noble. I was a kid with no money so the five finger discount was the only way I knew I could have it. I took the small paperback into the bathroom and ripped off the bar code, thinking that was how the alarm went off. I made it through the store and had successfully stolen the book. Thus began this great life warping love affair with the words in-between the pages.

    I read this book every time I needed to escape. Every time I felt like I had strolled too far away from who I was at my core. This book became a home for a girl who has always felt like an orphan. I read it probably every year, and for a kid with severe dyslexia, that was a lot.

    When I met my abuser, he destroyed so many things I loved in my life. Including my stolen copy of this book. He ripped the pages up in-front of my face like Matilda’s dad did.

    By the time I was able to replace the book a new edition/cover had replaced it. Devastation, but at least I had the book back. I felt like I had lost a piece of my history.

    Fast forward, this past Wednesday this was left on my desk. “You should have a copy of the book you truly love in its original form.” Tears, raw face leakage. She will never understand how much this meant to me.

    When I lost my original cover, I was in the loneliest time in my life. I have worked so extremely hard to have a family. Rage is my chosen family. She chose. She owes me nothing but she shows up and chooses me.

    Thank you for that.

  • something i never told you

    i wanted to be the one who bought you your first pair of heels

  • sex is medicine

    Sitting in this airport just in awe of this past week. A life altering experience. Thank you conference besties for sharing all that you shared with me. Every conversation, every session, every meal, every text and every moment challenged my perspectives and ignited a transformation within me. I walked in with one version of myself and walked out a completely changed human—wiser, more inspired, and ready to embrace new possibilities. I am so incredibly grateful for your experiences and insights. This week rewrote the script of who I thought I was, leaving me excited for the person I am becoming. Onward to Lindsey Falcon Ph.D. And making waves in this spectacular field we are in.

  • joy is resistance 

  • i was in the wrong.

    I am so deeply sorry for the choices I have made.

  • comfort food 

    jacob grace 🤎

  • i will wield this privilege

    They will not silence me. I will fight for you relentlessly. My voice will not be stifled, nor my fists be lowered. Their threats hold no power over me. I will stand on the front lines for you. I will absorb the blow for you. I will defend your humanity. I will fight for your body and mind. I do not fear their cages, I embrace the choice. Their weapons hold no terror. I will die on this hill; forever being worth the death. I will yell at the top of my lungs for a life where you are safe. I will not let them speak for me. I will use my privilege to fight the war you should have never been in. I will fight and never stop fighting.

  • i’ll leave your key to my heart under the mat incase you ever decide to come back

    -m.razon

  • he’s still in there, but i’m not.

    I saw his dark blue eyes, they were the same as they always were. They’re missing the passion and the spark, but they’re the same eyes I looked into when I said “I do”.

    It’s hard to find him, but he’s still in there. I married him because he was my definition of a “man”. No toxic masculinity or beta energy. Just simple good human energy. He cared about the people in his orbit. I loved that.

    He talked about all the things in his little world. Tame compared to mine. I listen,, searching for the glimpse of him lost in a sea of memories. I can find him. The him I needed then. I needed to walk down the aisle, I needed that to happen. I can find him in between words, but there is no trace of me.

    I no longer see who I am in the same eyes of who I was. The love for him so different now. Still there, but different.

  • booo porn

    In today’s society, sexual experiences or sexual expression, including but not limited to pornography use, are very nuanced and widely debated. On both sides of the aisle, there are arguments about how porn usage may or may not impact sexual behavior and neuroplasticity of brain development. This will discuss the arguments for each of these perspectives: arguing that porn enhances sexual experiences, versus arguing that porn inhibits sexual experiences.

    This topic is important because understanding the implications pornography has, both on sexual behavior and the neuroplasticity of brain development, can influence the treatment provided to patients seeking sex therapy for such issues. This is debatable because sex educators and sexual health therapists and practitioners take varying stances on whether or not the overuse of pornography either enhances or inhibits sexual wellness overall. In a society that is wrought with debate regarding sexuality, sexual expression, and access to sexual healthcare, debating these topics can be vital in informing policies and securing funding pathways–all of which can be utilized to advocate for further research that could bridge the gap towards services needed. 

    Some sex therapists believe pornography enhances sex and will even prescribe it to their individual clients and couples. It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact number of people in sex therapy, although it’s estimated that around 43% of women and 31% of men are engaged with sex therapy services. Additionally, Affection Exchange Theory is a theory that argues that humans express affection to form and maintain close relationships, and that this expression of affection is linked to both physical and mental health benefits for both the giver and receiver. As such, some therapists argue that watching porn together, as a couple, creates this level of intimacy in meaningful relationships and thus enhances sexual experiences with couples.  

    The AACEPT American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, & Therapists states pornography is not addictive. “AASECT recognizes that people may experience significant physical, psychological, spiritual and sexual health consequences related to their sexual urges, thoughts or behaviors. AASECT recommends that its members utilize models that do not unduly pathologize consensual sexual behaviors. AASECT 1) does not find sufficient empirical evidence to support the classification of sex addiction or porn addiction as a mental health disorder, and 2) does not find the sexual addiction training and treatment methods and educational pedagogies to be adequately informed by accurate human sexuality knowledge. Therefore, it is the position of AASECT that linking problems related to sexual urges, thoughts or behaviors to a porn/sexual addiction process cannot be advanced by AASECT as a standard of practice for sexuality education delivery, counseling or therapy.” 

    Although I agree that pornography is not addictive, its frequent use causes the brain to become reliant upon the release of dopamine that causes dependency upon pornography to achieve sexual satisfaction. We now see that images of brains of pornography users are similar to that of brains of people battling drug addiction, attaching to the constant need for a dopamine hit. Approximately 11% of men and 3% of women consider themselves addicted to porn. 

    Arguing against Affection Exchange Theory, some practitioners would say that adding a third party, such as porn, doesn’t help the viewer connect deeper with their partner while viewing something entirely separate. You are connecting more with the performance than your partner. You don’t go to the movies to have deep conversations or get closer to someone. As a result, if people are watching unrealistic porn, and you attempt to mimic what you see on the screen that isn’t reality, it’s going to have a negative impact of guilt on your own sexual performance and desire. If you see men having intercourse for 20 minutes on the perfectly edited video, you are more likely to expect your partner to be able to last the same amount.  47% of U.S. families consider porn a major issue. Marriages suffer from porn use. 68% of divorce cases involve one partner’s online involvement with pornography. 

    The utilization of pornography fundamentally alters the elasticity of one’s brain, teaching the brain to deprive itself of sensory immersion one can only achieve from physical intimacy, and thus negatively influencing sexual behavior. Approximately 67% of American men and 41% of American women view online porn each year. Additionally, 28,258 people access porn every second, with 37 porn videos are created daily in the U.S. and an estimated $3,075.64 being spent on adult content every second. 

    The best analogy I can come up with is, sex is a road trip to Florida. Florida being the climax. Disclaimer, the climax isn’t always the goal of sex, but in this example it is. If the point of the road trip is the experience until we get to the destination, we can leave Cincinnati, stop and have a drink in Nashville. We can see the bamboo forest in Alabama, then see some shows in Atlanta. In this example, the road trip is sex, hitting all the 7 senses. OR we can go from point A to point B. Driving straight through from Cincinnati to Florida. Porn. We get to the same end destination (climax) but the experiences are two very different paths. One, hitting all the senses, the other hitting visuals and possibly audio.  

    Studies have proven pornography alters brain elasticity and development, including modifications in the prefrontal cortex which is the part of the brain responsible for higher-order cognitive functions such as decision-making, planning, and impulse control. This part of the brain typically reaches full maturity around the age of 25. However, the average age at which children are first exposed to pornography is around 11-12 years old. Even further, pornography exposure can occur as early as age 10 or even younger, with some studies indicating that 15% of teens reported first seeing pornography at age 10 or younger. Porn also has neurological implications on the striatum. Studies have shown a negative correlation between hours of pornography consumption and the volume of gray matter in the right caudate, part of the dorsal striatum. Which just means messages send slower between the parts of the brain. This reduction could reflect changes in neural plasticity resulting from the intense stimulation of the reward system.  

    Pornography causes the brain to attach to sexual completion instead of sexual experience, leading to desensitization and sensory deprivation caused by chronic pornography usage. This also has implications on mental health and self-esteem, with 60% of men watching porn daily reporting feeling lonelier and more isolated. Consequently, 78% of men who watch porn frequently are unhappy with their appearance. 

    Pornography disinhibits sexual experience because it causes the brain to develop new neuropathways, essentially “shortcuts” in the brain, leaving out vital sensory experiences that are vital for sexual satisfaction and intimacy. Sex is supposed to be a sensory engaging activity. Why would the brain do its full job when it has been trained that it doesn’t need to hit all the switches? 

    In conclusion, sexual experiences or sexual expression such as pornography use are widely debated in today’s society. Though some argue that pornography usage may or may not impact sexual behavior and neuroplasticity of brain development, this essay has provided information that both for and against the overutilization of pornography and its impact sexual experiences. Consequently, it remains important to understand the implications pornography has, both on sexual behavior and the neuroplasticity of brain development, as well as how this can influence the treatment provided to patients utilizing sex therapy services. The importance of debating these topics is that it can assist in driving policies and securing funding pathways that can be used to further sex research as well as brain development and sexual wellness overall. 

  • I don’t know how you feel. You’ve never actually told me. I’m not going to ask the hard questions, I’m too afraid of the answers.

  • i had a good run

    I’m not afraid of death; I’ve had a good run. It’s inevitable, regardless of my fear. Being scared won’t make it slow down. Won’t make it less real. Fear won’t make me die less. Fear doesn’t make people less sick. Within at least 2 years I’ll have done the things. The book will be publish. The building will be ready. I’ll have ran a marathon. I’ll have had a successful business for 7 years. 7 is my favorite number, so it seems fitting. I will have read 3000 books and taught so many people all the things I can. I think dying young feels ok if you’ve lived so many lives. I was told I was going to die 10 years ago, and here I am. Every day since then has been a bonus. I hope they forget me. I hope they don’t remember. I know I was joy, and bright days and boldness. I hope they find someone else to fill that void. I don’t want to be remembered. I want to go peacefully into the forgotten bliss in their minds. I don’t want them to grieve or reminisce on the things I did or say. I don’t want the sadness to be the lingering love they had for me. I want them to move on. Not hold on. I don’t want something named after me. I don’t want flowers on my grave. I don’t want my name to be remembered, I want the legacy to live on. I want the things I started, the choices I made, to just keep going without ever knowing the author. I want the stories to be retold for years to come, but I don’t want them to be signed by me. I want to silently disappear as I go. Because I’m not afraid of death. I had a good run.

  • You’re the only one who can do anything about it.

  • it’s a lot to ask.

    I know it’s your right, but please don’t leave me in this world alone.

    Please don’t leave me in this world without you.

    Please don’t leave me in a world where my abuser is still alive and you are not. Where Trump is golfing and you are gone.

    Don’t abandon me in a world where rapist walk around freely and you don’t.

    I know it’s selfish I ask, but please keep fighting your battle so that I can fight mine with you beside me.

    Please don’t leave me in a world where your smile is only a memory.

    Our last interaction wasn’t enough for me. I want more. I need more.

    Please don’t ask me to continue while waking up without you.

    I know I have no idea. I know I don’t understand. I know I can’t imagine. I know it’s not fair for me to ask this of you.

    But please. I’m asking for you to do this for me. Please don’t leave me behind in this world.

  • week 40

  • arthritis

    sharp pain shoots up my hand reaching my fingertips. it’s a particularly rough pain day. remember when you snapped my fingers like a carrot. they dangled there. you did it multiple times within 5 years. the knuckles don’t even exists anymore.

    i don’t take deep breaths without gasping. hiccups are a repetitive shock to my system. tears blur my eyes with every little blip. stops me in my tracks. remember when you gave me cpr when i didn’t need it.

    remember when you held me under the water until the bubbles stopped. my sternum still clicks in and out like your palms are still pressing. you never really let me go.

    collarbones pinned under your kneecaps as your open hands struck my kidlike face until they cracked unable to hold your weight. not stopping until I begged “like the annoying bitch you are”. and I begged. every single time. i begged my last with you.

    no one knows about the bald spot hidden in my perfect hair, your second favorite handle. i will forever have a side part.

    the body you had no right to wreck hurts more in the cold. little acts of rebellion like hating socks and not wearing gloves. spite warming the blood. i hate that our days together linger on my being most in the morning.

  • lindsey never chose lindsey

    (Trigger warning, this writing is about murder.)

    Lindsey never left him. He proposed. “Well, I guess we should do this.” She never said yes. She knew she needed to say no, but Lindsey never chose Lindsey. He didn’t notice she never said yes. Lindsey wouldn’t say no, Lindsey never chooses Lindsey.

    He comes home from work early the next day. She had just gotten out of the shower. She didn’t know he was home, she would have toweled up the water on the floor if she knew.

    She stared at the ugly gold ring on the scratched dresser. Lindsey didn’t put the ring on. She wasn’t ready.

    He startled her. “Hey Moo Moo,” while the sweet words came out of his mouth smoothly, she turned to him.

    He’s in a good mood. Today is a good day. She coached herself.

    He noticed the ring in the same spot it had been when he left 8 hours ago. 8 hours too long. “Something wrong with my ring?”

    “my ring..” It’s his ring Lindsey is supposed to have on her finger.

    Lindsey blinked those rebellious threatening thoughts away.

    The silent-treatment-torture-timer had begun. That all too familiar dark cloud covering the hell that resembled a one bedroom apartment. He left the room. She tried to save herself, but the air cleared ever so slightly as he left. She stole a tiny exhale; knowing it would be the last ounce of peace she would be getting tonight.

    Suddenly interrupted by the sharp cut of words.Words grabbing ahold of her throat.

    “What the fuck is this?”

    Lindsey never chose Lindsey.

    She met her fate in that tiny one bedroom apartment on the third floor.

    The water she never toweled up. She immediately got on her knees. Lindsey never chose Lindsey. He grabbed her by the hair to get a better angle for her to see him, then to see the floor. Lindsey, his hand tight in her hair, saw him, heard him.

    Lindsey saw the floor, then the side of the tub, then the blood. Lindsey saw the blood, the side of the tub, then him. Lindsey saw him, the blood, the side of the tub, the floor until Lindsey saw no more.

    Lindsey never chose Lindsey.

    Lindsey. Never. Chose. Lindsey.

    12.2.21

  • If your words could paint the walls, what would the room look like?

  • god, the scapegoat

    I want there to be a god. I want to believe I will see my people again. The gates can be whatever shade of white, as long as they get to walk through them. I’m ok with the threat of hell as long as they’re in some kind of heaven. Eternal punishment sounds fine for me, as long as they get the peace they deserve. Peace in their world and peace in their minds. Angels or fluffy clouds, I don’t care.

    I just want it to be real. I want to believe there’s a purpose. Something better than us. I want to believe there’s a net to catch us all as we fall. I don’t believe. It won’t change my behavior, I will still choose to be a better human every day. I miss it. I miss talking to someone more powerful than me. The hope it brings. When it gets so very bad down here, we can just pray and that’s our I-did-something-to-help box to check. Without the box, we have to actually attempt to make things better. Everyone has imposter syndrome, so no one will. Without a god guiding us, who’s going to make a move?

    I want to believe there’s justice or rewards in some kind of afterlife. Some magical equalizer. I want to believe when we die, you sit in a room and watch in 3D all the moments you hurt someone else. You have to feel all the feels your victims had to endure. I want to be in that chair. I want to know what I’ve done, how it felt and the impact I made. I deserve that. I want the people that hurt me to have to sit in that chair and feel how I felt. They deserve that.

    I want the foster mom with all the love to give finally gets her reward. Her throne. All the medals to make it all worth it. To remind her that her life’s choices weren’t for nothing. I need a god to tell her she did well.

    I want to believe I was created for a reason. My meaning bigger than I can imagine. I want to believe someone loves me so unconditionally they know every hair on my head. Almost desperate to believe I was known before I was in the womb. I want to believe I belong to something only made for good. How comforting that must be.

    And so, the echos of faith and justice linger. Yearning for a world where shadows yield to understanding.

  • I don’t believe I’m a good person. I do good things. I don’t think I’m a bad person. But I deeply believe I’m not good. I’m selfish, and self absorbed. The apple didn’t fall too far. I speak before I think and have perpetually been the main character. My life is and always has been way better than I deserve. I have always had the acceptance that eventually everything will catch up with me and I’ll end up justifiably murdered or in jail. I’ve always connected more with the villains, and just accepted the accountability of being the antagonist in someone else’s story. Karma will get me eventually, I’m not running too fast.

  • 🎯🎯

    step sibling smut

  • walls

    The walls have known us all along.

    Seen the fights, sang along with the song.

    They seen us ugly, they’ve seen us proud.

    If the walls could talk, what would they say?

    Would they tell us we were in the wrong? Would they validate or comfort?

    Would they be traumatized by the secondary trauma?

    I stutter over my words but would they know what I mean? Because they’ve heard it all.

    Seen the tears, echoed the laughter. They held the art and steadied the furniture.

    They’ve been steadfast through the move ins, and the move outs.

    Housed the moments. All the moments.

    New paint colors hiding the memories we never want to remember.

    Holding in the secrets, only the walls truly know.

    Held our bodies as we were pressed against for that storybook kiss.

    Kissed our foreheads and palms, took our abuse when we lost it all.

  • In their second special session this summer, the Texas legislature went after abortion providers. On Wednesday—the final day of the special session—lawmakers approved a bill that lets private citizens sue abortion pill manufacturers, doctors, or anyone who mails or assists in securing the medication. In a state that already bans most abortions, the law poses a threat to one of the last viable ways to obtain an abortion without leaving the state. (Ever the ones to have their priorities straight, the lawmakers also passed a bill that prevents trans people from using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity in public buildings.)

    Laws like this one spell out a simple truth at the core of the current Republican agenda, and our current moment: it is unsafe to be a woman in today’s America. And that situation is by design—whether through abortion restrictions, questioning the safety of the most effective forms of contraception, or RFK Jr.’s targeting of safe and effective vaccines, and other proven public health interventions that save lives. We will all suffer the consequences—regardless of our politics. 

    As red states continue their antiabortion crusades, lawmakers and public officials in blue states are doubling down on expanding access to abortion care. Late last month, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed a law that requires public colleges and universities to ensure that students have access to medication abortion and contraception, as contributing editor Carrie Baker reports for Ms. this week. The state joins California, Massachusetts and New York in requiring student health centers to offer abortion pills. “As Donald Trump and his administration continue to pull every lever they can to rip rights away from women, Illinois is making sure every woman, at every stage of life, can get the legal care they need from providers they trust,” Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton said in a press release.

  • Eating ass is parsley. -Moosh

  • it got better baby

    Friday. Fell asleep in your cozy safe bed, living between the books and the thunderstorm sounds being the only violence we see these days.

    Saturday. Blueberry muffins and bitchin coffee in a small quiet town. Adding books to the collection. Spaced themed movie night. Outfits, break dances, galaxy cookies, & shooting star charcuterie. Inside jokes and OoTD in the lobby. I know it warmed his heart. Cool kids at the cool kids table.

    Sunday. Coffee. Moosh. Tasha. Book club, let me nerd about this book. Tabs on tabs. Stitch & bitch. Tell me about your trauma and your deviant behavior. Democracy is dying, but hey cool fireworks; dressed to the 9. 8 adults, one kid. Our people. Our asses slid closing the space between. Glowing glasses, headbands, bracelets and floggers. We sang our hearts out and laughed even harder. This little world where everyone belongs. The most sober people drunk on community.

    Monday. Holiday 5ks & pumpkin spiced lattes. Fambams and birthday trips with the gal I love the most. Hotel beds with tall ceilings and shoe shopping.

    It gets better baby. Just hold out a little longer.

  • week 35

  • dear paternal issues,

    I don’t write about you too often because you’re so 1900’s trauma, but today I am feeling particularly gynarchal. I don’t even know you, but I still have a lot of recordings of the speeches you gave me on repeat in my brain. Even now. 34 years and the daddy issues are still there. 

    I am reclaiming those. You were never an actual dad (insert Mim’s dad joke here) so I can’t REclaim being my own dad, so I will just have to claim. 

    I am now my own Daddy. Back up bastard mentality I gots some shit to say.

    I was a 4.0 student, Dean’s list, merits out the ass. I am a successful business owner. A business that was built on brutalization that I survived by myself. I am the strongest of all the sons. I went ahead and got all the therapy so I could stop that generational trauma. I’m not a cheater, so that’s a huge win from the blood line. I crawled through glass of my own guilt and loneliness to get to be overwhelmed with the amount of people who love me. I get to be authentically me and people still adore me. I have a hot bod, great feet and I am really fucking good at educating myself. I’m financially independent and own 2 cars, including my dream car. I have no children, so no child support court cases in my routine. I speak up for myself and others. I am an undefeated state champion in Brazilian jui jitsu. My skeleton is broken, like super broke, but I am still joy, I still coach, I still run and I’m still great in bed. I fucking taught myself how to read and read more books than Valkyrie’s professor does in a year while my brain is actively trying to make up letters and sounds. I will be Dr Lindsey fucking Falcon and I’m really fucking proud of me for that. I sometimes still have dirt under my fingernails and my hair is always a mess. But I’m fucking funny. And quite frankly I’m the best damn father I’ve ever had.

    So you sit in your unfaithful 18th marriage, and I’ll be sippin’ cold brew out of my #1 Best Dad mug.

    Sincerely,

    The spite-filled oldest daughter.

  • i will let the past have it

    I loved you deeply, as deeply as I think I could love a sister, but I had to love me more. I miss your curly hair and the tone-deaf duets of Christmas music we would sing in the car.  I think about you often. How I could change your entire existence with the magic of Thrive. But I must let you be lost in the tight grip of the past. 

    I wanted so much more for you. I wanted you to be great. I wanted you to be traveling some far off place and not have to keep you at least 500 feet away from me at all times. You chose the end for both of us. I will eventually paint over the blown kisses and butterflies. 

    I chose you repeatedly. I dropped everything and ran when you called. All I needed was for you to love me. I wiped your ass, canceled your cable, spent money I didn’t have, and you still chose to save your poison over me. 

    I broke myself for you. I lost sleep, I lost days, I lost time. You got drunk. I cleaned up your blood, your drool, your piss and your vomit. You got high. I looked high and low and every fucking nook and cranny in-between to fix it. You looked for an escape. I stressed over your daily being; you gave no fucks. You were perfectly ok with making a mess and having me safely clean it up.

    You made a mess of things. I trusted you without ever trusting you. I believed your buckets of trauma and sob stories just to kick those buckets over when I had enough. You were 6 feet 7 inches of territorial diaper wearing mommy issues. 

    I trusted you with my NDA.You weaponized my secrets. You went against the one thing you can not do. The one thing. “I know you.” You’re so careful to never say it. But you said it in the worst way you could have spoke it. I’d rather be strangled, because this was so constricting. Although I won’t be letting the past have you, I will be letting the past have the version of me that allowed you access. And you’ll never even know it. 

    I will let the past have it all.

  • the end

    This is it. The whole story. The last chapter. The last page. We had a good run. Went on some crazy adventures. I think we made an impact. Made a big enough stain on the world.

    This is it. My whole story. My last chapter. My last page.

  • week 34

  • “If this is madness.” she whispered almost against his lips, “drown me in it.”

  • I think I change all the time. Not all at once, not cold turkey, but ever so slightly. I don’t even notice a lot of the time. One of the carved into my skull quotes was from my high school boyfriend. “Lindsey, you are ever changing.” Under that is a quote from my mother’s speech at my wedding. “Lindsey is an ever changing person, if you don’t ride the ride with her, it will be the thing that destroys your marriage.”  I am an ever changing person, but it has been how I survive through the uncontrollable life I was force to exist in. I run full steam ahead changing the directions as I go so I never get trapped in a box or hit a dead-end. I equally need change and fear change. Change is the control I have and the master I am a slave to. Change is the calm and the storm I am creating by changing. 

  • tell me

    Tell me something I don’t know. Tell me something that will change how I feel. Tell me I am making the correct decision. Tell me there is a bigger meaning. Tell me there is a god and my small human brain just doesn’t see or understand the bigger picture. Because I feel like I’ve figured it all out. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me there is more than this. Tell me I don’t have to gaslight myself for the rest of this existence. Call me, text me, DM me. Do something so I can have even the slightest glimpse of faith. Tell me this is the fire and we will regrow through the ashes. Tell me this is as worst as it gets. Please tell me something. I’m losing the spark. I’m telling you I can’t hold it much longer. Please tell me something. Please.

  • I’m not that girl. I won’t be that girl. I have worked too hard to become a good human. I worked too hard to like myself. To be someone to be proud of. I won’t become someone little Lindsey wouldn’t be proud of. Nothing is worth that little girl’s opinion.

    I will stay determined. I will stay focused. I will not break. I will not be weak. I do hard things. I will be the most regulated adult in the room. This will not be my story.

  • more sports because joy is resistance

    Cincinnati Reds

  • She is loud. She is powerful. Mountains question how far when she tells them to move. She never shakes or quivers. She is bold and sharp.

    She is the best friend standing up to her narcissistic father. She is the only one calling out her little brother’s coach for bad behavior. She is the soft soothing I-love-yous and you’re-so-goods spoken to so many broken children.

    She is the fake apologies that comes with being the bigger person.

    She is the yes’s that has made life an adventure. She is the voice of reason. She is the important information the doctors needed.

    She is the advocate for the little one.

    She is the “no” that needed to be said long ago. She is the grounding needed to make it through. She is the voice of the voiceless. She is the cheerleader to remind you you’re made for this. She is the mistaken outbursts. She is the heart on your sleeve.

    She is the healer and the fighter. She is the passion. She is so loved when she came from so much hate.

  • 💋💋

    After Hours, Adults Only, Cincinnati Children’s Museum.

  • too small isn’t the problem

    I’m not a size 4.

    I don’t use my blinker while I drive.

    18 unpaid parking tickets live in my visor.

    I’m the loud one that tends to interrupt.

    Too small isn’t the problem.

    I eat dessert with every meal.

    I will talk about sex & my life all day long.

    Cracking jokes, there’s a time & a place for that, but I haven’t learned when or where yet.

    I toot in my sleep.

    I wake up early and expect everyone else to be awake as well.

    I try new things and quit often.

    Too small isn’t the problem.

    I share opinions without being asked and rant for days.

    I’m a complainer and I can’t keep a secret.

    I’m a hypocrite.

    I will forever choose to dance in the rain.

    Awkward silences feel like it’s my duty to kill.

    Too small isn’t the problem.

    11.9.23

  • week 33

  • at your core

    It’s the thing I feel most passionate about. It’s the only time I feel fully in my body. I can recognize the feeling of my toes clenched. The hair tie in my hair. I can feel my eyelashes on my skin. I feel most in control.

    I like the pain in the corners of my mouth. The taste of latex. I feel all of me. Existing in this intimate moment. Bodies on bodies. Sweating, breathing heavy. Nails scratching. Exploring different and new positions. Sore for weeks after.

    Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is the wildest side of me.

  • more sports because joy is resistance

    Cincinnati Open

  • women please keep taking over this world

  • shoes o’ the day

  • slave to the guilt

    You’ll never know.

    How guilty I feel.

    All the time.

    I hurt you.

    I broke that safe container I worked so hard to create.

    You’ll never know.

    The punishments I give myself.

    For what I have done.

    Gut wrenching. Sick to my stomach.

    I can’t imagine the sickness for you that I have caused.

    I did it wrong. I did it so wrong.

    I can’t apologize. The wound is too deep.

    I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.

    I’m sorry I failed you. I made a mistake and it cost you.

    There was no repair. Just rupture.

    You’ll never know how sorry.

    The flogging should be mine.

    I’ll take it with understanding.

    You’ll never know.

    I deserve what ever comes.

    I will accept the consequences of my actions.

  • 💠💠

  • Women want equality, yet stil refuse to commit 93% of violent crimes, 95% of murders, 97% of sexual assaults, 90% of armed robberies, and 98% of mass shootings.

  • more sports because joy is resistance

    Y’alls.

  • I hope I still live there.

    The house I methodically built.

    Filled with different voices, moments, and energy.

    I hope the smell of wild flowers and honeysuckle still clutter the front lawn.

    I hope vacations and trips make you home sick.

    I hope I still live there.

  • garbage

  • more sports because joy is resistance

    Reds

  • Pleasure is good, shame is bad, and knowledge is power.

  • thinking about someone all the time

    is not enough to make them

    deserving of your thoughts

    sometimes it’s not a sign

    it’s just something you do

    until you don’t

    r.h. Sin

  • No longer am I going to apologize for behavior that isn’t mine.

    I won’t shield you from the consequences of your own choices.

    I won’t apologize for who I had to become to be able to survive.

    No longer apologizing for the versions of me I had to kill to become so hard to kill.

    I won’t lower my voice or apologize for the brutality of the words I speak.

    I fought for my place and I am no longer apologizing for not making myself small.

    I won’t express counterfeit regret any more.

    I will no longer apologize for the failed attempts at loan sharking.

    I’m not going to beg someone’s pardon for not following social norms.

    I’m not conforming into any box that handmaids fit into.

    I won’t eat my own words or take a bite out of the humble pie.

    This life isn’t real, everything’s fucked, I am human and this is fucking hard.

    I’m no longer asking for forgiveness for the boundaries I set to make this fake life less hard.

  • sex fact of the day:

    Female fish can fake an orgasm to trick the male into thinking they’ve successfully mated and swim off to find a better partner.

  • I deserved a better goodbye.

  • some notes.

    However, it is important to note that the concept of matriarchy does not imply the total exclusion of men from positions of power or decision-making. Rather, it recognizes and prioritizes women’s leadership and authority in areas such as economics, politics, and social issues.

    In Mosuo culture, women hold the primary authority, and property is passed down through the female line. Marriage as we know it doesn’t exist in their culture, instead, women engage in “walking marriages” with men they choose for short or long-term relationships.

    Another significant difference between matriarchy and patriarchy is the way power is distributed within society. In matriarchal societies, power tends to be more evenly distributed among individuals. Decision-making processes involve consultation with various members of society before arriving at a final decision.

  • When I die, I want Stephan Jenkins to sing at my funeral. He has the voice of my soul.

  • “Lust is the artist for a canvas full of emptiness” -Kaleigh Gold

  • iyaenmcbtm please

  • You were Logos. You said I was Ethos but I was Pathos.

  • the social norm

    I don’t shy away from talking about sex openly in public. The social norm is to whisper,
    use euphemisms, or shy away from the topic of sex/sexual wellness altogether. I don’t whisper. I use the correct biological terminology. I ask acquaintances, friends, family,

    “How’s your sexual wellness journey?”

    The truth is, there is a heavy cloud of shame when our sexual wellness is discussed, arguably far more shame than when we discuss our mental health or physical wellness. People freely discuss their depression, or what they did at CrossFit that morning. However, when it comes to sexual health, it’s a shameful topic often avoided or skirted around to conform to a perceived societal normality. It’s striking to me, considering until 20 years ago, intercourse was the only way humans could come to exist.

    To combat this, my plan is to discuss sex and sexual wellness more deliberately and with refined intention. Obviously, I’m aware of the appropriateness in time and place. Having such discussions around children, being crude or inappropriate, or encroaching upon anyone’s consent should be, and is, a boundary not to be provoked or disregarded. I believe there’s a difference between science and being obscene. I plan on discussing biology over sexual acts. I plan to ask more people about their sexual wellness journey. In fact, most of my friends are used to it by now. I think it’s reasonable to expect some people to be taken aback at first, with eventual curiosity. That answers my inquiries while also stimulating intellectual conversation about important aspects of one’s wellness journey. As they speak, and as I listen, I believe people will ease into the conversation with greater comfort and far less shame.

  • here is what i need..

    I need more laughter.

    More spontaneous outings.

    I need more of women’s sports and less of violence against my humans.

    I need more days when the coffee hits than days that it doesn’t.

    I need more people in our classes.

    I need more Outfits Of The Days and the tightness of this community.

    I need books, and great sex.

    I need fewer hot days I’m spending outside of a kayak.

    I need snacks, and Izzes.

    I need more good news than bad, and I need straight A’s.

    I need to nap.

    I need holiday walks, and my people to feel loved, important, and safe.

    I need more El Captain coffee, Judith’s jokes, Beastmode’s stories, Mim’s goofiness.

    I need Princess Annarky’s sexcapades, and Valkyrie’s crafts.

    I need more bows by Mazor’s Edge and car rides with Moosh.

    I need more Rage’s rage.

    I need Dilly Bar’s girl drama and facts I don’t care about.

    I need more of this community we built.

    And if it’s not too much to ask, feminist gods, I could really go for some less deaths.

  • i knew my place

    I knew it would happen.

    I knew it would hurt.

    I didn’t realize the sharpness of the pain, but I wasn’t naïve.

    I wasn’t blind. I walked in with my eyes wide open.

    I knew how hot the fire would be when it chard my skin.

    I did it regardless.

    I knew my place.

    I knew it would happen.

    I knew it would hurt.

    I knew it would end.

    Knowledge doesn’t alleviate the reality. The empty.

    Even though.

    I knew my place.

  • i am human and this is hard.

  • i wonder if you had a good day.

    I wonder if you had a good day.

    I wonder what you did well today.

    I can’t ask you. I can never ask you again. You just have to be gone.

    Your existence erased off mistakenly by the shoulder of a gray sweatshirt.

    Still here, still in my mind. Wondering.

    Did you have a good day? Did you think about me? Before you lay your beautiful head on your pillow, do you think about telling me what you did well today?

  • more sports because joy is resistance

    Reds

  • I accept that I am meant to live in a body full of pain.

  • My life has more colors in it since you walked in.

  • he didn’t deserve it.

    He was a garbage human and in hindsight, he didn’t deserve it.

    But in that moment. He got to experience it. I’m not sure if he even knew it was the rawest moment for me.

    It was a random afternoon. I went around the corner too fast, slipped on a rug and came crashing down. My rib got stuck on another one and I couldn’t move. I knew I needed to stand up quickly to pop it back out, but I knew the pain would be too much and I would collapse again.

    I needed him. The garbage human who didn’t deserve the moment.

    I called to the Alexa to call him. He answered. He was supposed to be at work, I’m sure he wasn’t. But he came running to help me.

    I laid on the floor, helpless and dependent on a man. Because of the hands of another man. Neither one deserved me helpless.

    He got there and I told him what was about to happen. He didn’t deserve it. I need you to catch me, I said. I’m going to stand up, but I will collapse from the sudden pain and I need you to catch me. He didn’t deserve my need. He braced himself and got ready.

    I stood, the pain so bad, I collapsed immediately. He caught me, he didn’t deserve to catch me. His arms wrapped around me, holding me. I got so dizzy. Violently vomitted from the pain all over myself and his arms. I was mortified, helpless, vulnerable, raw. Sobbing and curled into a ball. I was a shell of a human in the most composing position in my life. Completely Broken by a man being held and comforted by another broken man. Covered in my own filth. He didn’t deserve it. We laid on the ground still, raw, in the bottom of this relationship. Completely exposed…he didn’t deserve to be part of that moment but he did experience it.

  • I know from firsthand experience why they fight: because the stakes are so very high.

    -Kristen Luker

  • if found please return to

    The broken girl

    With the great hair

    Who is either

    Crying or laughing

  • smile file

    Those moments when she reaches over and grabs my hand. Car rides, planes, plays.

    She shared her pain with me. The broken heart, old & heavy, and so familiar.

    They tell me their secrets and feel no shame. He wears diapers, she fantasizes about her husband becoming a woman.

    The oil stain on the floor board of the trunk, my fingers trace for hours.

    He sucked his thumb with sleepy eyes, nuzzled into my neck and fell asleep. Holding this moment tighter.

    The x-rays that shouldn’t exist. The memories we shared that you invited yourself into. The things I could never tell.

    The look of disappointment and devastation. And the promise I’d fix it all, for him.

    The lifeless body in my arms who never had a chance. I wish life got to begin at conception.

    The soothing feeling of your breathing on my ear lobes.

    The things we do with the tools we use that I never charge.

    The pages of notes, diaries, and journals.

    Ecstasy of the moments I pretend to forget.

    The reality of the past no one needs images of.

    The ribs scrapbooking the trips taken without a plan.

    Stories I will continue to rewrite without the original illustrator.

  • lessons

    No more lessons.

    Please, no more.

    No more she, he, they are not the ones.

    No more shouldn’t have said, done, or asked that.

    I think I’ve hit my lesson quota for the year.

    Being brutalized for years by the cute chubby guy at McyD’s was a lesson I am still dosing myself with daily.

    Then the fever dream that some would call a marriage, and every single little paper cut lessons along the way.

    I can’t handle the universe’s full-time mandatory educational system much longer.

    This global training could have been a life saving email.

    I think I’ve learned enough.

    So please no more lessons.

  • I’m not a writer. I want to pour out beautiful words on paper. Lines filled with deep painful tears. Have this tree corpse soak up all the emotional shit I’m unfortunately feeling. That’s how it works right? Poets crack open their souls onto the little brown journals and all the pain stays safely in the binding? I want that. I want to write it all out and no longer feel it. Every spoiled privileged gut ache and chest crushing pressure leaving my body, out through fingertips becoming the ink in the pen. I want that. I want to feel empty as the words create beautiful stories for no one to read. But I am no writer. I am no emptied cup. The words don’t come, and the hurt still stays.

  • i didn’t order ravioli.

    I’m mad at you. I’m mad at you for ever walking into my life. I didn’t order ravioli. I didn’t ask for this. I’m mad at you for ruining every other option for me. I’m mad at you for making me choose me over you. I didn’t want this hurt. I didn’t deserve it. I’ve hurt enough. I’m mad at you that I can’t talk to you. I’m mad at you for becoming someone worth missing. I’m mad at you for not ever promising to stay. I’m mad at you for being honest, and trusting, and transparent. For being beautiful and kind, and raw. I’m mad at you for becoming my favorite person. I was okay without knowing. I never wanted to know. What’s the point of knowing? If it’s always a no.

  • fact of the day…

    Before modern English existed, an early version of the word “BITCH” was actually just another word for genitalia-anyone’s genitalia.

  • I choose to forgive every sleepy eyed, painful morning. After a night of nightmared-filled rollercoaster-like tosses and turns. I choose to forgive every time I make the decision to empower women and not hunt down the abuser. I choose to forgive you when I leave my rage hanging on the wall instead of wearing it out. I choose to forgive when I hear heinous stories and I don’t get sick to my stomach. I choose to forgive when I compare what you did to what happened to them. I choose to forgive, every day him and I exist on the same Earth. I choose to forgive when I put my skeleton back together. I choose to forgive you every time I almost choose to forgive him.

  • i chose.

    I chose this life. I made easy choices and hard. I chose to not settle. To run full speed up the stair case, letting go of hands not strong enough to withstand the winds. I chose solitude in my bed at night. Freezing temperatures seem so much warmer than temporary heat. I’m not scared. Only mourning what my childhood promised. It doesn’t exist whatever it is. I don’t believe there’s plenty of time. I believe it doesn’t exist.

  • iwfbyaywfbm

    tell me there’s a universe where this works.

    tell me there are versions of ourselves existing that are pressed heart to heart, with nothing standing in their way.

    tell me there’s a me and a you out there somewhere that have places to put all this fucking want.

  • The new federal administration has taken down the reproductiverights.gov website that explained how to access sexual and reproductive healthcare. But knowing your rights is an important part of sex education in a country that treats sexual health differently than other health issues. Here’s where you can find information on rights:

    • The Skimm posted the content from reproductiverights.gov (current as of January 15, before the page disappeared) in this Instagram post and here on the web. 
    • I love this new video by AMAZE that helps young people navigate how to get care. It’d be a great one to share with students or add to existing curriculum.

  • Where Violets Bloom by Daisy Jane

    My rating: 3 of 5 stars


    It’s a stalker romance where you end up falling in love with the stalker. Let’s keep in mind ladies, this is fiction, just because he’s hott doesn’t mean kidnapping is forgivable!

  • Those eyes of yours

    Could swallow stars,

    Galaxies and universes.

    What hope did I

    Ever have?

  • Satan has nothing on me.

    Take me to church
    We can play with creation
    Make me your god with the right reservations
    His trim and beautiful body laid out on the floor,
    Chest rising and falling, impressively still alive.

    I watch silently from the door,
    The voices are calling.
    Whispers in these ears,
    Eyes glazed in a trance,
    He couldn’t find my fears,
    With a mastochistic dance.

    I was never a soldier but the art of war so familiar to my fingertips.

    I have flirted with fear, made it my collared bitch.

    The heart beat pulsing through my eyes. I enjoyed it all too well.

    He looks at the world through ragged eyes,
    He gazes lovingly up at me,
    His daily façade a disguise,

    His obedience runs deep,
    Moments of agony are memories to keep

    I became the god of his hell.

    And satan has nothing on me.

  • we just have to hurt

    I don’t have it yet, but I will. You said this to me when we ended the most beautiful chapter of my life. When you said it, you had no idea how impactful it would be to me. I’ll get it tatted right under my black belt tattoo.

    Life is life. Who knows if there’s karma or a god, or justice. I don’t know where I stand when it comes to theories of science. I logically know love is just chemicals released in your brain but so are orgasms and those feel pretty real to me. I think we are spiritual beings, but there’s a “how” behind every “what”. I don’t think there’s more good than bad in the world, but I have seen the good on a daily. I don’t understand luck. I spend a lot of mental power convincing myself everything happens for a reason. But I don’t think it does or I don’t want to.

    Life isn’t fair. Life is hard for some and easy for others. People that don’t deserve it, get gut punched. Life is deep and intense and ironic. You have something perfect, just to have it taken away. You fight for freedom just to have Trump become president for a second time. You find your dream house for it to burn up in a dumpster fire. Some people just don’t get the story they want. And in life sometimes, without a why or a reason,

    We just have to hurt.

  • fact of the day…

    Most of our scientific understanding of this realm (female bodies) is built off the study of male bodies. It was only in 1993, following the women’s health movement, that a federal mandate required researchers to include women and minorities in clinical research.

    -Vagina Obscura An Anatomical Voyage by Rachel E. Gross

  • fact of the day…

    In New York, if you are arrested for prostitution, and you have condoms in your possession…that’s an automatically guilty sentence in a court of law.🤨

  • Some people are held captive by their own minds.

    Some people are ripped apart and tortured by the person they see in the mirror.

    I can’t do that.

    I can’t look at you, knowing what we know and hate you.

    I see the x-rays, and I feel the shifting bones.

    I know the damage and the stories carved into this body.

    If I let you be my enemy, then I will be truly alone.

    You, my mighty protector.

    My house still standing after the big bad wolf came to blow you down.

    You still stand after the fire, the hurricane, the earthquake and everything else he threw at you.

    How can I hate these feet that keep me moving?

    These legs that spent years being cradled and sobbed on?

    I feel the divots and sharp edges of what’s left of your rib cage.

    You were crushed over and over but these organs still working.

    I’ll take the occasional pain as reminders.

    How can I hate Cleopatra when she still gives such pleasure, beauty and power after being brutally invaded and violated. Saving me from much worst warfare. Being the sacrifice.

    How can I hate these arms that protected my face from becoming a billboard of my past.

    The dark memories are vandalized on the wall of my skull.

    This mind of mine was once my safest, happiest place to live, how can I hate it?

    It’s where I hide the treasures.

    The things just out of everyone’s reach.

    The only place he had no key to.

  • I didn’t want a bjj program.

    I didn’t want to be a bjj coach.

    I didn’t want to be an affiliate or a focus fight team.

    I didn’t want to care what He had to say and I especially didn’t want to ever hear myself say “that’s good advice.”

    I am grateful.

    I am grateful for the storm.

    I am grateful for a reason for the women to come in the door.

    I am grateful for the team and the title coach.

    I am grateful that a community has been created under our roof.

    I am grateful the mat has become a sanctuary.

    I am grateful for bracelets women are proud to wear.

    I am grateful for the joy I see on Her face when someone else does something cool.

    I am grateful I get to see her proud of what she fought for.

    I am grateful for the gift of coaching in a way that is good.

    I am grateful for the strength we get to witness.

    I am grateful for the responses.

    I am grateful for the new path I get to claim as my own.

    I am grateful for R.

    I am grateful for S.

    I am grateful for Savage Sunshine.

    I am grateful for Rage.

    I am grateful for K.

    I am grateful for Artemis.

    I am grateful for W.I.T.C.H.

    I am grateful for Blue Lotus.

    I am grateful for Scorpion.

    I am grateful for BeastMode.

    I am grateful for the Storms to come.

  • i’m not ready for onlyfans.

  • 2025

    I am the priority. My health, mental, emotional, and physical. Stay tuned on this journey of dating myself. Treating myself better than any man ever has. 🙂

  • fishbowls

  • something old

    I want to run and jump like I always have.

    Gone Girl is me.

    “Lindsey you are EVER-CHANGING.”

    I am.

    I own it.

    I could touch the ground, dig these fingers deep into this soil.

    Roots penetrating the ground for miles and I could rip them out on a whim.

    The freedom calls me.

    I’m not in love with Jacob Grace. I am Jacob Grace.

    It’s always been there.

    I am my father’s daughter through and through.

    The fear of commitment of any kind runs deep and dirty in these orphaned veins.

    I am Her biggest fear.

    I am a runner. And the shoes are on.

    It’s an itching. No, burning behind my eyes.

    I want to go. I want to jump.

    But I won’t.

    I won’t because of her.

    I decided the day she pulled the car over and yelled at me.

    “God dammit Linds, when will you get it through your brain. My love for you isn’t conditional.”

    I will let that burn up my eyeballs before I ever rip up this root.

    For her, I will stay.

    And that will be the most daring thing I ever do.

  • good bye to you with the loose lips

    I want to grab a fist full of your hair. Run my nails down your back and then claw the fuck out of you. I want to rip your beating heart out of your chest. Hold it in front of you and watch the fear build up in her eyes.

  • Movies 2025

    Gorge

  • Books 2025

    Mr Bossy by Danika Dare

    The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta

    The Revolution of Birdie Randolph by Brandy Colbert

    Praise (Salacious Players Club, #1) by Sara Cate

    The Shadows Between Us (The Shadows Between Us, #1) by Tricia Levenseller

    If He Had Been With Me (If He Had Been with Me, #1) by Laura Nowlin

    Something Borrowed by Eve Dangerfield

    Where Violets Bloom (Men of Paradise, #1) by Daisy Jane

    Stray (Men of Paradise, #2) by Daisy Jane

    With Force (Men of Paradise, #3) by Daisy Jane

    The Siren (The Original Sinners, #1) by Tiffany Reisz

    Love Her Wild by Atticus Poetry

    Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows, #1) by Kim Harrison

    The Johnson Obsession by Lyla Sinclair

    Wicked Ties (Wicked Lovers, # 1) by Shayla Black

    Unbound by Cara McKenna

    Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson

    This Is Me Letting You Go by Heidi Priebe

    Finding Zachery (The Mommies of Maple Street, #1) by Amy Cummings

    Life With Mommy (The Mommies of Maple Street, #2) by Amy Cummings

    Mommy and Me (The Mommies of Maple Street, #3) by Amy Cummings

  • coffee dates with ted 2025

    The laws that sex workers really want by Juno Mac.

    The danger of a single story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    The clues to a great story by Andrew Stanton

    The way we think about sex is wrong by Emily Quinn

    When ideas have sex, by Matt Ridley

    Sex needs a new metaphor. Here’s one… by Al Vernacchio

    Sex, drugs and HIV – let’s get rational by Elizabeth Pisani

    Surviving purity culture: How I healed a lifetime of sexual shame by Linda Kay Klein

    To love is to be brave by Kelly Corrigan

    A beat boxing lesson, from a father – daughter duo by Nicole laris and Ed Cage.

    The sexual deception of orchids by Anne Gaskett

    Violence against women-it’s a men’s issue by Jackson Katz

  • sex education in the deaf community

    Sex education, in general, is so limited in today’s schools. In fact, 28 states don’t even require it to be taught and only 13 states require that sex ed instruction be medically accurate. Which is to blame for teen pregnancy and Sexually Transmitted Infection rates in the US being substantially higher than in other developed countries. Teen pregnancy in America is 26.5 births to every 1,000 teen girls. And STI’s are 1 in 4 teen girls. Not to mention the statistics on sexual violence, but we will get into that later.

    First a little history of generalized Sex Education in the US. The first sex ed curriculum called “Sex Hygiene Classes” was introduced in 1913 in Chicago by a woman named Ella Flag Young. (Go Ella!) She was also the first female superintendent of schools in the city. Unfortunately for Ella and her students, the Catholic Church didn’t like this very much and put an end to her program after only one year.

    It wasn’t until the US entered World War I that the government realized it had a major problem. The Army lost a total of 7 million working days from soldiers suffering from STI’s. A total of 10,000 soldiers were discharged for having them. The White House concluded that so many American soldiers wouldn’t have contracted STI had they been better educated about sex.

    In the 20’s 40% of American Public Schools started teaching sex ed. In the 30s the US Office of Education began publishing materials and training teachers on how to teach sex ed

    In 1981 the Reagan Administration introduced the Adolescent Family Life Act. This law put a ton of funding towards sex ed programs that promoted abstinence. Abstinence was the single biggest influencer on modern-day sex ed curriculum. But, jokes on them, because research showed that abstinence-only-programs didn’t work. Teens still had just as much sex and states with absence-only-education had the highest rates of teen pregnancies. In fact a 2008 study reported that teens who received comprehensive sex education were 60% less likely to get pregnant than those who received abstinence-only-education. So in 2010 Obama cut funding for abstinence-only-programs by 2/3rds and for the first time ever the government began funding comprehensive-sex-ed-programs. This included conversations about contraception. Today both abstinence-only sex ed and more comprehensive-sex ed are equally funded by the government. This unfortunately still leaves us with only 18 states requiring those kinds of comprehensive classes.

    I think it’s important to know the history of sex education first because this really paints a picture of the sex education we have in the hearing world. It’s disheartening and not great. I can NOT possibly imagine how some deaf people are receiving their sexuality education secondhand from this already butchered topic. While I was doing this particular research, I have concluded that there is an appalling lack of research on the topic of sex education in the deaf community. Here is what I did find doing my own research by interviewing people in the deaf community.

    “Before the age of 18, where did your sex education come from? Who taught you?”

    B. Female 50’s: “I went to a mainstream school. We had “the sex talk” in health class, I had an interpreter. She mostly fingerspelled words she didn’t want to sign.”

    D. Female 40s: “I didn’t have sex ed in school, I learned from friends, and my husband.”

    “Did you feel accurately prepared with the sex education you received?”

    B. “No”

    D. “No”

    During my research for this, I have found so many stories where deaf people of all ages are deprived from their rights to be educated about their bodies, because often interpreters are more concerned about how the deaf student’s classmates who can hear would react when they see sexuality in ASL. Or it’s the interpreters themselves that feel uncomfortable with these signs, given the language it is so visual. With 85% of D/HH children attending mainstream schools that means most of deaf students are getting terrible sex education. There should not be a barrier to any person from receiving education they deserve in order to know their bodies and have healthy interpersonal relationships, let alone the deaf community.

    Other research reported that 95% of young deaf mothers stated they could not understand the written sex education information they had been given. 83% stated that they had left school with no sex education, or that they missed important information because it was not clearly provided in school. This could be due to the fact that their first language is ASL and not English. We also know that the majority of the deaf community’s reading level is that of 4th grade. Worse than that, in discussions with groups of deaf students they found there was extreme ignorance around using contraception. Many believed you could use socks, crisp packets or cling film as an alternative to condoms.

    Language barriers aren’t just inconvenient and frustrating, they’re dangerous too. according to a statistic put out by the Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, 54% of boys who are deaf have been sexually abused compared to 10% of hearing boys. 50% of girls who are deaf have been sexually abused compared to 25% of girls who are hearing.

    Even though, an overwhelming 96% of adults in the U.S believe that it’s important to have sex education in school, we are not doing a good job of providing it. We’re even worse at making sure that this crucial education is accessible to people who are deaf. If deaf people are not going to learn in school or at home, where are they supposed to learn and understand their bodies better to learn to celebrate and protect themselves. We need to do better. We need to break down these barriers by encouraging educators and parents in our community. Promoting accessible accurate and empowering sexual education could make a world of difference. The more we have healthy and authentic conversations about sexuality the more accessible it is for everyone.

    I decided to leave out sex education from a religious standpoint in this research. I think I could fill 5 more pages with people’s religious beliefs on the subject of sexuality and education. This was a topic I care a very large amount about. I tried to shorten it the best I could.

  • knock knock

    The task is not to get in. It’s to stay in. Over my stove there is a framed canvas with writing.

    “Experience everything, attach yourself to nothing.”

    Getting into this heart is not hard. I force my love on people. The hard part is staying long enough to get to the VIP table and not getting left behind. One of my biggest stregnths is one of her biggest fears. I can detach from anything. I left a sociopath; I can leave anything.

    Rip my roots up and just run.

    I won’t have children because they are too cemented to the ground. I am everchanging and a runner. If you get too close, I will escape. I will leave everything behind.

    You can get in, but you can’t stay.

  • hold door

    -The 6-week-old. Sounds harmless enough, but don’t forget this is just the beginning. Her father got mad at her mother, so he left the 6-week-old in it’s pumpkin seat in the parking lot of a Walmart.

    -The 5-year-old. Her stepfather hit her across the face, catching her front tooth on his watch. It was broken all through kindergarten.

    -The 6-year-old. Her twin sisters were born. The 6-year-old became invisible.

    -The 9-year-old. He said he would come to this softball game. He promised.

    -The 11-year-old. Playing Doctor was just a fun game everyone played with the girl down the street’s older cousin.

    -The 12-year-old. The first bone she broke by her brother and one of his angry episodes.

    -The 14-year-old. Screaming for attention, silently. Having sex for the first time, getting humiliated and riding the bus home alone.

    -The 16-year-old. Her father punching her in the face breaking her 13th bone. She was so clumsy.

    -The 19-year-old. She met Prince Harming and went on to write what she thought was a romance but turned out to be a thriller.

    -The 28-year-old. She sat pregnant in the doctor’s office alone to terminate her baby boy.

    -The 29-year-old. She moved her husband into a group home.

    -The 33-year-old. Processing a lifetime of fucked up guest lists.

  • your heart is an empty room.

    The piano sounds Apple says I listened the most to in 2024.

    Her hyperness when her meds wear off.

    The green of his eyes I see every time it rains.

    Good morning texts.

    Holding of hands that once shielded the abuse.

    My blue couch.

    The tone of her voice when she says, “GUTTER BITCH or titty baby”, her fake Italian grandmother’s accent.

    Blue

    Showers too long.

    Giggles, stories, jokes.

    Seeing her face walk through the door, knowing she won the war of getting out of bed.

    Cinnamon Tea, and coffee, Hallmark movies.

    Doris Doloris, who will be the biggest heart break of all.

    The shock in a broken face meeting strength for the first time.

    The Professor getting excited to tell me about the girl he likes or the sex he had.

    Books in The Nook.

    Blankets and hockey sweats.

    The end of the day when I lay my head down and remind myself this life is real, and I will wake up still safely in it.

    Smells of honeysuckle, sugar plums, and favorite flannels.

    Lovers that forever stain the walls of this heart.

    So much feminine rage and way too many damn shoes.

  • Home

    She’s mine.

    My first.

    Mine.

    My beautiful royal blue couch, I used for my bed after I bought for $500, I had to borrow from the business because I couldn’t afford her.

    Mine.

    Throw pillows no one complains about or throws on the floor.

    She’s mine.

    The 80 blankets, needing every layer for the human burrito, I sometimes turn into.

    Shoes line the walls, on display for the world to see. Not ever shoved into a closet.

    She’s mine.

    She’s quiet and safe and mine.

    Pictures and decor resembling genitalia and nudity.

    She’s mine.

    Fire escape where I’ve read, cried, and watched fireworks, with no one seizure or getting triggered.

    She’s mine.

    The floor I vacuum when I’m stressed, where I’ve never cleaned up someone else’s piss, blood or vomit.

    She’s mine.

    The nook, with the books, bamboo sheets, 4 pillows and what ever the fuck else I didn’t feel like cleaning up.

    Home is not something I feel I have had but she’s mine.

  • shhh

    She cries in the silence.

    Sometimes people hear her, but life can be all too distracting, so they move on.

    She wants to be strong, brave and resilient, but resilience was never an achievement when you’ve rather have not fought the battle.

    I should care more about her. Listen to her needs. Teach her how to care for herself.

    But if I take too long, if I dig too deep, she’ll need more than I can provide.

    If I look at her, really look and see, I can’t go back from that.

    If I really listen to her cries, I may find out they’re actually screams and that’s too loud for my broken ears.

    So I’ll do what I’ve always done, what everyone’s always done.

    I’ll shush her, ignoring her.

    As she cries in the silence.

  • I will give you space to feel your emotions.

    I won’t tell you to stop when you cry.

    I will give you the attention they didn’t provide.

    I will give you a family that is healthy and safe.

    I will give you words of affirmation and grace when you make mistakes.

    I will give you warmth and more than just basic necessities.

    I will protect you and never let you apologize for getting punched in the face.

    I won’t let your body be violated and your brain be convinced it’s anything less than capable.

    I will give you education, the way you learn it.

    I will let you grow and carry you through even on the ugly days.

    I will stand up and protect you, because sweet broken girl, you’re so worth defending.

    I will give you a home that is clean and calm.

    I will give you a name you will be proud of.

    I will give you proof of how incredible you are.

    I will give you the time.

    I will give you it all, because it was never too much to ask for in the first place.

  • fact of the day…

    Several studies, suggest that there is an inverse relationship between how often people have orgasms and their mortality. Studies have shown, more Os the longer you live!

  • arsenal of her

    My weapon is her,

    the author of all the pages filled with feminist words.

    My weapon is her,

    the single mother of 3 who escaped years of abuse and the shelter she has in her basement and the others to follow.

    My weapon is her,

    the big eyed 7-year-old that was told to shut up staring back at me every time I look in the mirror.

    My weapon is her,

    who lays awake at night fixated on how to save the world.

    My weapon is her,

    who has been violated by people she trusted and fights demons in her head, meaner than any human, daily but still manages to make all the jokes.

    My weapon is her,

    who shows up even when the world flashes red garbage.

    My weapon is her,

    the women who didn’t raise a quitter.

    My weapon is her,

    the girl we all had to kill to become the woman.

    My weapon is her,

    who fought while she cried.

    My weapon is her,

    the one who rages.

    My weapon is her,

    counsels others when she herself is broken.

    My weapon is her,

    who is many.

    My weapon is her,

    educates herself when she is ignorant.

    My weapon is her,

    who came before me.

    My weapon is her,

    who suffered loudly, so I could heal louder.

    My weapon is her,

    and all you have is him.

  • you should care

    About my deaf friends who are about to lose their right to interpreters and the only connection to this hearing world.

    You should care

    About the women’s crisis centers you’re taking money from to give to the victim’s abusive cop husbands.

    You should care

    About your mothers’, wives’, sisters’, daughters’, and friends’ reproductive health.

    You should care

    About the 19-year-old that was adopted from China by her white christian parents that’s about to get shipped back to a country she’s never known.

    You should care

    About what you have done. The carnage you have uneducatedly decided to create. This was too important to not question what you were voting for.

    You should care

    About the family I created and only still exist because of.

    You should fucking care

    About anyone but yourself.

    You should care

    About education of the thing that created you in the first place.

    You should care

    You should just fucking care.

  • El Deafo by Cece Bell

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars


    Adorable book about growing up hard of hearing



    View all my reviews

  • fact of the day…

    In World War 1, more soldiers were admitted to the hospital with syphillis or gonorrhoea than for any other ailment, except for influenza.

  • I need you to know, I’m not afraid of you. Worst things have existed before you darkened my inbox. The wars this body and mind have fought and won. The skeletons hanging in this closet would shock you. They would traumatize your little league stalker brain.

    I’m not afraid of you, but my body has kept the score. You’re not powerful by any sense of the term, but you’re pressing buttons you don’t deserve to press. These bombs aren’t meant for you. I am a loaded gun and you’re getting awfully close to the trigger.

    I’m not afraid of you, I’m bigger, stronger, smarter, and way more tainted than you could ever live long enough to be but you’re knocking on doors that have not been opened in years.

    I’m not afraid of you. Im afraid of me, because of you. I’m afraid of the reactions that kept me safe in the past. I’m not afraid of you. I’ve sneezed out things scarier than you. I’m afraid of who will come out when you trespass and ignore the keep out signs. Paid professionals have worked tirelessly to keep the nightmare I could become locked up.

    I’m not afraid of you, oh no. I’m afraid to lose the version that was created before you mistakenly tiptoed along. I’m not scared of you little boy. I’m afraid of the punishments you’ll endure that were never meant for you. I’m scared of you winning the lottery you didn’t realize you were even playing.

  • Wind pushes things that don’t want to move.

    The song of the day text. I don’t even like most of them but I hang on every word trying to hear the hidden meaning.

    The coffee that I will be thinking about the night before.

    The “I’m obsessed with you”s

    The AirPods that make my brain happy to exist.

    The hard couch across from Emma.

    The desperate calls to Sharon.

    The green highlights when I check my progress.

    The vacuum on the mats, hardwood and carpet.

    The pop of the pad that seems so rare nowadays.

    The next book I get to dive into with its questionable titles and taboo context.

    The jokes from the Julie’s and the Steve’s.

    The “I love you”s from the best friend I miss so much.

    The calls from out of the blue.

    Dirty thoughts.

    The shoes that clutter my house.

    The little brussel sprout pics.

  • I got married because I needed to have the stone in my garden of life. I needed to know I was worthy of love enough to be proposed to. Enough to have someone cry when they saw me walk down the aisle. I needed to have the pics and the gown and the party. To know I could feel what being special felt like. To be the center of attention.

    I don’t believe I was grown enough to make that decision. I don’t know that I experienced enough in life yet. I skipped some stones.

  • fact of the day…

    Exhibitionistic Disorder is a mental health illness that centers on a need to expose one’s genitals to other people. 🤠

  • id’s for the deaf

    I believe deaf and hard-of-hearing people should be required to carry ID cards identifying themselves as deaf or hard of hearing. Unfortunately, we live in a very hearing world. The world wasn’t set up for anyone that isn’t a hearing wealthy Christian white man. While we are trying to change the world to be a better, safer and more accessible place to exist, there are things we have to do to accommodate ourselves throughout this life. It’s not fair, but it’s what we have. For example, I don’t believe women should have to learn self-defense, but given the world we live in learning self-defense is vital instrument.

    Having an ID card could make things easier, not better, but easier for the Deaf and Hard-of-hearing community. I think carrying one should be required, and I think there should be requirements for what that means. Business and establishments should have a set of standards on what it means having someone deaf visit. There should come a knowledge for the hearing community when they come across someone with the ID card. Simple things like not yelling someone’s name when a deaf person orders a drink at Starbucks. Going up to them and handing them their drink. Family gatherings with hearing people, figuring out how to include the deaf person in conversations. Handing note pads or iPad to deaf people with ID’s that come to restaurants. When you go to Disney World, showing your ID and having special glasses that show captions for every show. Or going back to the first reaction assignment, providing the Deaf and Hard-of-hearing interpreters for the day when they visit. There shouldn’t be “Deaf Days”, we as a hearing community should do better. So to summarize, I believe deaf and hard-of-hearing people should be required to carry ID cards identifying themselves as deaf or hard-of-hearing. And I believe that means the hearing world is required to be more educated as well.

  • fact of the day…

    In addition, rates of bisexuality in samples of men have been found to be higher among African-American and Latino men than among white men.

  • the pink blanket

    I have a blanket I bought at Sam’s Club. I didn’t need a blanket, but it was so soft I had to have it.

    One morning he had a seizure. I did all the things, put him to bed. Then the adrenaline dump came. I found that blanket, still in the shopping bag. I wrapped it around myself and silently released the ugly emotions. I stayed in that blanket the remainder of the day.

    5 years later I still have that blanket. It’s old, dingy, and straight up gross. I fucking love that nasty bitch. She’s the dingiest thing I own. I fucking love her. I just bought the same exact blanket and I go to sleep with the new one. I wake up with the old one. I love her.

    I think I’m attached to her and my couch because I wasn’t an attached kid. I didn’t feel safe around the time I got that blanket. Around the time I started to reparent myself. I finally feel safe enough to be attached to things.

  • for keeps

    There’s a box full of reminders of the memories.

    It was a beautiful day, but it wasn’t my day.

    There’s a box full of the money spent.

    White dress I hated and makeup caked on like I was auditioning for memoirs of a geisha.

    There’s a box full of obligation but not hate.

    It doesn’t taste like regret though.

    Something blue, the guarder that was too small on thick thighs.

    Something new, the white heels I loved but didn’t wear.

    Something old, Aunt Pink’s pearls, she was smaller in the neck than I was.

    There’s a box full of things that could have been, that should have been.

    Fake flowers and mini chalk boards for the pics that didn’t come out like the Pinterest picture I wanted.

    “Just married” leather jacket that was so fucking hot but the dress broke.

    There’s a box full of wedding things that sits in my parent’s garage that hasn’t been opened and hasn’t been processed.

  • I’m not much of a writer. I’m not sure I even enjoy it. But, with no solid SPARK of INSPIRATION, I’m here. I’m in this new wave of exploring my brain. It’s a new little world I’ve discovered where the walls are no longer PRESSURED with an abundance of unfair and undeserved stupidity. Instead, now choosing to live in HOPE and AWARENESS of exciting possibilities of what my CONSCIOUSNESS is capable of.

  • happy place

    The waiting room at the airport.

    I use to go there when I’d feel lost or needed to hide from the world.

    In high school I would break up with guys at the airport viewing center.

    It became my place.

    Eventually I moved to the inside where you can wait for someone to return from their trip.

    It’s quiet, comfy and most of the time, empty.

    You can stay there for hours and no one questions.

    I loved watching the return of important people in others’ lives.

    They are no one to most, but to the person they are coming home to, they’re someone.

    I watch the warm loving embrace that always seems to last just a second too long.

    Its outer worldly.

    Like a peek into so many different stories than my own.

    That was oddly peaceful and calming.

    Reassuring almost.

  • 10 lies and a truth

    Here lies Lindsey…

    1. She saved herself until marriage.
    2. Her love for animals went beyond that of a normal human.
    3. She loved all people.
    4. She never said an unkind word.
    5. Her personal motto was modest is the hottest.
    6. She was so humble. She once wrote a book about sex is meant to be between one man and one woman and missionary being the only way.
    7. He was always level headed.
    8. Her family was a quiet group of people that she cherished deeply.
    9. She died never having an orgasm, and was happy about it.
    10. Masturbation was the devil’s own creation, and as her one last dying wish, she asks you to never partake.

  • little dreamer

    I have been in a long-term, committed, polyamorous relationship with a few items that live in the top drawer of my dresser. I am a sexually liberated woman, so I like to end my day by getting really intimate with these items. Because this is the last thing I do before I fall asleep, I have sex dreams often. Sometimes it’s fantastic sex with someone in my life, usually not someone I’m sexually attracted to. Which consequently does make it slightly awkward the next time I’m around them. Especially because when I see them, I have the unfortunate realization; they’re definitely not as good as they were in my dream. I also tend to have the occasional food dream. Then comes the queen-of-the-world dream, where I rule a made-up land like the one in Road To Eldorado. There’s always someone naked in my dreams, usually he’s the guy controlling the gondola in the city I run. Sometimes the people serving me in my dreams are the human versions of my vibrators. The castle is in the shape of a vulva. Surrounded by a river full of tears of my exes. No children, but most of the men are pregnant. The trees are all peach trees and Lizzo is the sheriff.

  • Divorcee written in my notebook next to all the mandimonium birds.

    Blue belts held my rib cage in tightly.

    Cocktails tasting like everlasting memories.

    Exciting moments in and out of this building, watching the joy on her face through it all.

    ” love yous” loudly, and silently spoken.

    So many thoughts of men, women, and food.

  • o body, my body,

    I’m ashamed of my behavior lately

    How I’ve treated you.

    I forgot to love you, my love.

    O Body, My Body,

    You, my brave, strong protector.

    We worked so goddamn hard to be a power couple.

    I forgot.

    I let him distract me from all the work I put into loving you unconditionally.

    O Body, My Body.

    I stopped sitting in the shower holding you.

    We sat in that shower years ago, watching the blood circle the drain.

    I promised it was the last time we would spend apart.

    O Body, My Body.

    It was this mind’s turn to protect you.

    This mind’s turn to keep you safe.

    O Body, My Body.

    I saved you from the abuser just to turn around and become the nightmare.

    O Body, My Body.

    We are stronger than this valley.

    I will love you again, you’ll see.

    I will see you as I once did.

    O Body, My Body.

  • over cum ;)

    Family guilt

    Mrs. Lee, sophomore year.

    Every chipotle bowl I’ve ever had.

    I don’t know if I’ve overcome anything.

    All the things are scars in my brain right?

    Shit doesn’t go away.

    To just flair up in the moment.

    Maybe I’m stuck on the word “Overcome”.

  • cage fighting

    I knew the end was unavoidable.

    It was coming whether I chose it or not.

    The only choice I had was to; fight then retire & heal OR fight & die.

    Retiring from the sport was forced upon me.

    I wasn’t ready.

    There was no fight camp to prepare me for how much saying goodbye would hurt.

    I wasn’t fighting IN a cage. I was fighting THEE cage.

    My body was done before my mind was.

    I stuck it out.

    I woke up that morning.

    A collar bone out, 3 ribs clinging to floating meat.

    15 minutes.

    That’s all I had to do.

    Suffer through 15 minutes.

    15 opponents.

    2 swallowed shots of vomit.

    1 gnarly knee ride.

    I whimpered.

    I cried.

    I fucking made it.

    Blue and I’m done, I repeated to myself.

    I fought while my bones grinned and popped on each other.

    I fought my last fight.

    I gave it my all.

    Left all I had on that mat.

    Pissed blood for days and permanently glued ice to my body, but I earned that color.

    I knew the end was unavoidable and I won that fight against the cage.

  • El Deafo by Cece Bell

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars


    Adorable book about growing up hard of hearing.


  • But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. 1 Timothy 2:12

  • mess with success

    I’m sad. I’m mad. I don’t want to even be with him but he fucks with my trauma buttons. I hate him. So here I am, broken again. I’m not longer available to feel this pain.

    I’m going to live alone. I’m going to walk to work. I’m going to Domme guys and fuck people. I’m going to create rules to live by. People will know nothing about me.

  • inward i go

    I don’t want to write this week, which means I should definitely be writing. When you’re finished changing you’re finished. I don’t know. Nicolas said, Lindsey you’re ever-changing. I hated him for that. Now I don’t care too much.

    I’m going to change. I’m going to become an introvert. Share only to Spaz and in my writing. Become Rosa Diaz where no one knows anything about me. I’ve shared too much of myself. Showed my squishy bits and had my wounds called ugly. I don’t want that anymore. Inward I go.

  • shut the fuck up

    I don’t have time to think about what I’m going to do about it. If I let myself think instead of just doing the stuff, I may think too much and realize there’s a back door exit to all of this.

    I miss the days I believed I was dumb. Now that I’m fully aware I am not dumb, I have to actually find out what I’m capable of. How exhausting.

    I could be a 30-something peasant playing video games at my mom’s house. But unfortunately I got an ass ton of therapy. Trusted the nice girl with Michelle Obama arms. Started a business. Learned how to thrive without medication or a husband. Figured out how to study despite my dyslexia. I went and fucked around and quickly found out. Now I feel shit and know shit. And the more you know shit, the more you’re not ok with shit.

    So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to write then go get a drink. Wake up tomorrow make my coffee, domme the patriarchy and fuck up a whole lot of unfair shit.

  • The Johnson Obsession by Lyla Sinclair

    My rating: 2 of 5 stars


    Cute, hott, quick, read.

  • El Deafo by Cece Bell

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars


    Adorable book about growing up hard of hearing

  • Hello Shadow Work,

    Let me show you around. Walk with me down this hallway full of fancy painted portraits and locked doors. I know when you first arrived, I was not very welcoming. You banged on the door but I never answered. I’m now prepared to give you the grand tour.

    First up on the right is the photo of who I was when we met. I carried a lot more weight back then. Rarely smiled in photos.

    The door next to that is the Madison door. A beautiful room full of red hair, giggles, & smiles. The decorator chose sadness, blame and shame as the paint colors.

    Next up is the door to the Daddy Issues closet. It’s a boring closet where the baseball gloves and the unworn father/daughter dresses hang.

    This door on the left is our newest addition, the Stupid Attached Bitch room. We try to keep that door shut while guest are here.

    Next up is the door everyone wants to see but no one wants to go in. The bed is made and all looks nice. Although the curtains don’t match the drapes. The pretty furniture try their best to cover the body size holes in the walls.

    At the end of the hall here, is the door with a Do Not Disturb sign.

    That’s enough for today dear.

  • accomplished

    He drew a picture of Miss Lindsey.

    The first thing Parker Z%^$ (or Baymax, I like to call him) ever said to me was “I don’t like no body and no body gonna like me.” I got down on my knees to be eye level with this dirty, chunky, older brother of three. “Well then, I’m Miss Lindsey and it’s really going to bother you when we become best buds.”

    Years went on and I worked my ass off to get that broken kiddo to trust me. I got him to smile a few times, but cracking that hard candy shell was so hard.

    Until my last summer camp. In their smash journals, after 30 pages of ink black tornadoes, there was a prompt that said “Who is someone you can trust or look up to?”

    He drew a picture of Miss Lindsey

    1.4.24

  • dear girl,

    Stop apologizing for living. No one knows what they’re doing and no one’s doing it right. Which means everyone is. Stop saying sorry for making mistakes you’re not making. It’s just a plot twist.

    Dear girl,

    Leave him. Please leave him. He’ll never change, and you’ll just end up with a fucked up skeleton that makes you fall on the kitchen floor needing someone else to help you. Or he’ll kill you. You’re too important to lose. Somewhere out there there’s another little girl that needs you to tell your story to save her.

    Dear girl,

    Stop being afraid to tell someone you want to join them. Take the chance. People like you. Geronimo baby. Make your own fucking rules.

    Dear girl,

    Stop letting those demons in your head work overtime. I’m sure they’re tired.

    Dear girl,

    Explore the world. And do it alone. Do it with people, but only people that don’t suck.

    Dear girl,

    Your family are not the people that surrounded you when you were born. Family are the people that show up on a rainy Saturday morning just to support your dreams.

    Dear girl,

    He’s wrong, you’re right. Stop shutting up. You are smarter than that. You could run circles around those tiny tittybabies. Also dawk them in the face.

    Dear girl,

    Be gay, be so fucking gay. Be open and be proud.

    Dear girl,

    Brag about yourself, you’re so fucking cool.

    Dear girl,

    Say NO. A lot. All the time. Never stop.

    11.9.23

  • i spoke

    Early Tuesday morning I sat in a crowded court room.

    I remember practically nothing.

    Only two people knew I was there.

    Neither being my spouse or mother.

    I’ve never disassociated so well as I did when the attorney pointed the remote to the tv.

    Probably 40 people.

    Dressed nicely.

    Watching my rape like it was the morning announcements in high school.

    Just another Tuesday.

    For the judge, the attorneys, the accused.

    “Is this you in the video, Lindsey?” The attorney asked.

    Snapping me out of my safe disassociated state.

    She repeated herself.

    “Is this you in the video, Lindsey?”

    I couldn’t speak; an issue I rarely have.

    I looked at my shaking hands placed in my lap.

    The writing that covered the left palm read “Today, you become his nightmare.”

    I lifted my head, stared right into the cold eyes I once felt not good enough to look at.

    And spoke the biggest thing I’ve ever said.

    “Yes.”

    11.9.23

  • her family was a quiet group of people who she cherished deeply

    I wish you were my people.

    I wish for the spontaneous trips.

    The spoiled weekends.

    The guilt free loans and the countless amounts of grace.

    I wish you supported me the way I needed.

    I wish we were like the Irish family on the hallmark movies instead of the Gallaghers.

    I wish there wasn’t a 50/50 chance when answering your calls.

    I wish we communicated and you didn’t spit on the choices of my life.

    I wish I had scrapbook amounts of great memories.

    I wish I didn’t have to lose your future grandchild in order to end a fight or feel connected to you.

    I wish you could be Uber proud of the things I’ve achieved.

    I wish the text said “so proud of you!” instead of “can I borrow $20”.

    I wish Christmas for me looked like the Thanksgiving episode of Ted lasso, but I get Breaking Bad.

    I wish I didn’t have to fight for a seat at the table. Yelling to be heard.

    I wish we looked like a dollhouse family.

    I wish you were a quiet group of people who I cherished deeply.

  • lies

    Here lies Lindsey…

    1. She saved herself until marriage.
    2. Her love for animals went beyond that of a normal human.
    3. She loved all people.
    4. She never said an unkind word.
    5. Her personal motto was modest is the hottest.
    6. She was so humble. She once wrote a book about sex is meant to be between one man and one woman and missionary being the only way.
    7. She was always level headed.
    8. Her family was a quiet group of people that she cherished deeply.
    9. She died never having an orgasm, and was happy about it.
    10. Masturbation was the devil’s own creation, and as her one last dying wish, she asks you to never partake.

  • Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. Galatians 3:28

  • Body and Soul: Lucrative and Life-Changing Boudoir Photography by Susan Eckert by Susan Eckert

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars


    Fantastically well written. Very impactful book. Love. You can really tell the author has a passion for this craft.

  • dear white belt, 

    When I first met you, you were stripe-less and perfectly white, and I was perfectly lost and broken. I was younger then, had no idea the lessons you were about to teach me. Lessons like what healthy coaches and influential men look like, and how to strangle unhealthy ones. You taught me how to be part of, and lead a powerful team of badass women. You taught me that if you have authentic community in this life, you can roll through anything. The lesson of hard work equals success. When life zigs, we zag. You can cry through it all…but you don’t get to quit. You gave me permission to be a beginner every single day. You gave me the space to fight fights I never deserved. 

    When we met, I was tattoo-less. I believed I’d be with him forever. Thrive didn’t have an address. The Storm wasn’t a thing. The tribe I call my own was nothing but a movie made dream. Everything has changed. I changed a little bit every time I tied you around my waist. 

    We have cried together, won together, lost together, healed together, bled together, worked through triggers together. Thank you for reminding me of how far I’ve come. Thank you for humbling me. Thank you for kicking my ass weekly. 

    Signed, 

    Siren the Deceitful 

  • sexy

    Eyebrows on fleek.

    Long hair, wild and free.

    I look at my naked body in the mirror.

    Standing up tall, damn I don’t brag enough.

    Being on top arm stretch out tall touching the ceiling.

    Orgasms.

    Hairless legs.

    Messy bun, large hoodie, booty shorts.

    Laying upside down on my couch.

    Feet pettied.

    When I get the perfect angle for my nudes.

    Rash guard stuck to my sweaty skin.

    Spats with swamp crotch.

    Making out with very little saliva.

    High heels & lingerie.

    Running.

    Long showers.

    Blazers.

    Boss mode.

    Reading.

    Glasses.

    Latex dress.

    Leather jacket.

    Dirty Dancing alone.

  • I don’t know, but maybe that’s the answer. Not knowing. I don’t know your life. I don’t know what you’re going through or what you’ve had to do to survive all your days before this moment. I don’t know. You can tell me, but I’ll never know. I only know me. I know my life, my choices and my mistakes. I know the moments I’ve been through. The sickening cruel thoughts slithering in my head. I know I was tortured and brutalized and I know sometimes I believed I deserved it. And that’s just it. That’s the connection. I’ll never fully know, but I know I deserve the life I have now. And if that’s true, then you must deserve a good life too. The connection is the unapologetic belief that no one deserves to feel how I felt at my lowest. The belief that in this short little life we have, no one deserves to live small and scared. Because if you deserve it, then that 21 year old kid from my past deserves it too.

  • post-its

    Remembering of things I shouldn’t ever forget, but do.

    Remembering like post-it’s on the bathroom mirror.

    Remembering that the long exhausting fight was worth it.

    Remembering I’m better alive than dead.

    Remembering that I’m loved, sexy, funny, and smart.

    Remembering that there’s more mountains to climb, people to help, and stories to be heard.

    Remembering that there’s more work to be done.

    Remembering of being worthy of saying no.

    Remembering I get to choose.

  • She wasn’t known for being the hyper or loud kid. Because she would rarely be seen without her little brother next to her, she wasn’t really known at all. But I knew her. I knew her favorite color was blue but that was Little Brother’s favorite color, so she’d say orange. She adored Gaga ball, she was the best at it. She’d only play if Little Brother was being held by me close by. She’d get so into the game. She’d just be a kid in very small moments until she’d remember life wasn’t about fun. She’d forget all her responsibilities then she’d be reminded and hurry to check on her little brother. One beautiful summer day she was playing. Her crazy wild red hair swinging with every smack of the ball and she got everyone out. She was on a roll. She got so excited, she ran over to me climbed on the wall and jumped on me.The most positive emotion I’d ever seen from this small human. Her little bony arms wrapped around my neck. All 40 pounds of her. “Captain Lindsey! I crushed’em! I crushed’em all!”

  • remembering

    Today is Thursday.
    I was born on a Thursday, not today though.

    I woke up chose violence.

    Started a scuffle with Him because he didn’t wake up in an overly chipper mood.

    I left the house.

    Went to my meetings then came back and flipped the script.

    I apologize and made things so much better.

    I went to the doctors and received care I needed in a clean environment.

    Went to work in my favorite place.

    Had a relieving convo with my mom.

    Now writing with amazing people I’m grateful for.

  • the legacy

    Lindsey was a free spirit.

    She was clumsy and messy. She surrounded herself with chaos of one kind or another.

    She made people laugh constantly. She was goofy and fun.

    She took a spontaneous approach to life.

    She was ever changing, and although she hated her ex for saying that, it was true through and through.

    Lindsey was adventurous and loved hard. She was loyal, and brave. Her great hair was always a mess and never wore shoes.

    She was stubborn but strong. She never lacked passion and always tried to build people up. She was loud and fearless.

    She was a big dreamer and was determined.

    Lindsey was bold and raw.

    She could read someone almost immediately.

    She had the most sex positive outlook on life and the best in bed.

    She never took life too seriously and adapted to her surroundings.

    She had a hunger for knowledge, and never let fear get in the way of trying new things.

    Lindsey will be terribly missed.

    She may have not made huge waves in life but she saved a starfish or two.

    Thank you, the reception is downstairs. Help yourself to soft pretzels and icees.

  • Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. 1 Peter 3:7

  • dear pookie,

    Thanks for the no’s and thanks for the yes’s. Thanks for the chucks, lightning bolt necklaces, and blackberry margaritas. Thanks for polar plunges and queen bees. Thanks for colored nail polish and black bean soup. Thanks for boudoir photo books and all the interest in the flavour of the weeks. Thanks for all the little things in the beginning. And most of all thanks for asking me what my story was the first time you got into my car.

  • we get it, you’ve got trauma

    Thank you for the constant laughter in this building.

    Thank you for making our friendship easy.

    Thank you for showing up and communicating.

    Thank you for making me feel cool and making me have imposter syndrome by telling me I’ve done things for you.

    Thank you for making me your profile picture on Facebook and your cool style.

    Thanks for being the easiest authentic friend I’ve had.

  • all i ask

    All I ask

    Is that you ride this ride next to me.

    Don’t ask where we are going or If we are there yet.

    I saved this seat for you.

    All I ask

    Is you let me cry and cuss, scream and fight while still seeing me as strong and fearless.

    Don’t remember this moment tomorrow.

    Don’t remember this weakness later.

    All I ask

    Is you knowing there is always room on this overfilled plate for you.

    Don’t ever think it’s too heavy for more.

    All I ask

    Is to be seen as the character I want to play.

  • emo kids

    I wish I had an option in choosing my emotions.

    Press on my nose to switch the emotion on any given situations.

    At funerals I have to pretend to be sad when someone I barely know dies.

    I wish I could channel that sadness and broken heart-ness I felt over a break up of some trashy guy that wasn’t good for me anyway.

    I wish I could choose to be happier when I’m given a thoughtful gift I actually think is dumb.

    I wish I could have the option to turn off all emotions when it’s just been too much to handle. Turning my brain completely off. I’d get so much done if I could skip the sad days and turn on passion when convenient.

    Yeah, that’d be cool.

    Not take on others emotions as well just getting what needs to be done.

  • The early morning prep talk “Don’t be a bitch, you’re fine. Cover your face, let him hit your body. You can take it there. No one will see the marks there.”

      Sometimes I wonder if I liked it. I like skipping to the explosion because I liked how it felt to get hit. The painful contact on my skin. I felt all the pain fully. Until at some point my body would go numb. Way before he was finished. I survived again. Another battle, and I lay here still alive. Victorious. Give me my trophy because I am invincible. I can survive anything. I felt alive knowing I was an inch from death but still breathing. Sometimes I wonder if I miss the fear and the chaos. Sometimes I wonder if that was actually the simpler unpredictable predictable times.

    • i will cut everyone off

      I want to write about how I will beat someone’s skull in with a baseball bat or hang someone’s bones as a wind chime from my fire escape.

      And all the other badass threats I can think of.

      But honestly, I’ve been doing it.

      I’ve been fighting for this life for years.

      I will just keep doing it.

      There are people in life that just get gut punched often.

      No reason, no order, it just happens.

      Life bitch slaps you and doesn’t give you other options outside of die, or do hard shit.

      I do hard shit.

      I have created my own spoonfuls of sugar but medicine still tastes like anal leakage juice.

      And sometimes, after you swallow it, you burp it up later for another round of bad taste.

      So I will, just keep fighting as if resilience is a badge I’m proud to wear.

      I will still show up every day.

      I will continue to laugh at all the things I shouldn’t find funny.

      I will ground myself.

      I will power through the nightmares.

      I will continue to put on the brave face.

      I will save face through the stories, I relate to so well

      And let the dumb tears fall.

      I will take breaks and breathe through the pain, at sometimes ignoring it completely.

      I will still build women up.

      And train for the battles to come.

      I will keep being louder than I was the day before and I will take two steps forward every day.

      I will keep doing the hard shit.

      I will keep fighting for tomorrow to be better than today.

    • Organized and chaos.

      The boxes we have labeled our brains.

      I am chaos.

      I’m always the chaos.

      But why is chaos bad?

      When did it become the undesired trait?

      The stress is what keeps us hungry.

      We thrive on the stress.

      The messy is where the deep beauty hides.

      There’s a place for the organized, clean, and ducks in a row.

      But there’s a place for broken, crooked, chipped and bent.

      Without the resilience and the road less traveled,

      Where would authenticity exists?

      Messy and wrong and stressful.

      Are the try, and fight and overcome.

      Two things can be true.

      Chaos creates impact whether good or bad.

      Leaving paths for growth.

      Chaos by definition Is complete disorder and confusion.

      Being always confused means you never have the chance to get bored.

      Out of disorder comes creativity.

      New life.

      All the deep emotions that get to be experienced.

    • diy

      Laughter of the powerful woman that have become my tribe.

      And the dirty jokes that trigger it.

      Sometimes silence.

      Sitting in the shower, head against the wall. Eyes closed, water running down my face. Wine glass of whatever I’m pretending is booze that night.

      Occasionally spending time with an unsmelly, uncomplicated man.

      But unfortunately uncomplicated man is an oxymoron.

      Reminding myself that I am a spiritual being by partaking in some DIY time.

      Womansplaining to myself if you will.

      Sitting on my gorgeous royal blue couch in my underwear doing a word search, watching trashing tv.

      Also cocaine.

    • calgon take me away

      Everything is changing.

      I like it.

      But it’s still change.

      Beautiful home with good smells and throw pillows that remain in the same place they were 12 hours earlier.

      But it’s still change.

      Quiet sleep with the middle of the bed being an option.

      Long showers with no one interrupting to ask if I know where the TV remote is.

      5 fucking seconds of peace and quiet.

      But it’s still change.

      New routine catered to my own self care.

      Being able to make decisions based on joy and happiness instead of traumatic based fear.

      But it’s still change.

      Scary

      And exciting.

      But it’s still change.

    • dear lindsey

      We did it right. Whatever it was, we did it right. Mistakes have always made life fun & interesting. Our personality so adaptable.

      We made the correct choice. I know sometimes you get confused and lonely, but this won’t be for forever.

      I know you’re scared pretty girl. We’ve always been afraid of the dark and the unknown. He was good practice for being the protector. For being the one that has to save us. This is the real thing now. We can do this. We can take care of ourself. It’s what we’ve been training for. You’ll be ok. You’re the strongest girl I know. We’ve been alone like this once before. We sooth ourself and made ourself feel better. This is no different. We didn’t make a mistake. We chose this path with our eyes wide open. You don’t need the dick you’re thinking about right now. You don’t need the fast food or to go to the store. Just sit in the fear Lindsey. Sit in it until you’re no longer triggered by the dark and the unknown. You are okay. You are good. You did good pretty girl. You are smart and wanted. You are bright. You are compassionate. You are needed. You are ok, Lindsey. You are good. You are safe in your own arms. You are good. I got you now. I won’t let the darkness get you. I will be your night light.

    • maybe baby,

      Tomorrow maybe

      I will be fluent in ASL.

      And run a marathon.

      Tomorrow maybe.

      I will have sex in every state.

      And visit Fiji

      Tomorrow maybe

      I will own a boat

      And have another sleeve tattoo with a thigh

      Tomorrow maybe.

      I will kayak, then camp, then kayak again.

      Tomorrow maybe

      I will open a summer camp and fill it with seasons of peace and laughter.

      Tomorrow maybe

      I will have a daughter and name her Fern, Orla, or Ryanne Rose

      Tomorrow maybe

      I will go on a cruise and go scuba diving in the coral reef.

      Tomorrow maybe

      I will go spelunking again

      I will get that cute notebook from TJ Maxx I can’t stop thinking about.

      Tomorrow maybe

      I will do it just maybe.

    • I thought you were broken.

      I thought my eyes were wide open when I walked into this.

      I thought I knew what you needed.

      I was going to pick you up, dust you off, and heal your busted broken wings.

      You stole mine.

      I gave you my secrets, opened my world to you.

      You left me feeling broken.

      Tried to show you a world without abuse.

      Showed you images of safety.

      I covered your head when it rained.

      I told you you could take up space.

      You stole mine.

      I made you believe you were beautiful.

      I fed you.

      You bit me.

      You made me believe I was ugly.

      You left no space for me.

      You became a devastating flood.

      You shoved images of danger in my face.

      You reminded me of the existence of abuse. 

      The secrets became the thrown you sat on and the weapons you used.

      You stole my wings and burned them.

      Covered me in mud and threw me on the ground.

      I walk around you so blind now.

      You tried to break me.

    • it’s tricky..

      • Women without girlfriends.
      • Men.
      • Religious people.
      • People without daddy issues.
      • People that don’t like Her.
      • People that don’t find me funny.
      • Virgins over the age of 27.
      • The military.
      • Baths.
      • People too close with their siblings.
      • People that go to the movies alone.
      • People super into their pets.
      • Some children.
      • Furries.

    • bad girl

      There once was a day.

      I’m sure there was a day.

      There has to be a day.

      In the history of me.

      In this span of my existence.

      In the 11,634 days I’ve been strutting on this earth.

      Taking up space.

      There must be one day I wasn’t a troublemaker.

      It definitely wasn’t the day I was almost a year, I helped my brother make it snow for Santa by dumping out the bean bag chairs.

      Maybe the day I spray painted the basement walls, no not that day.

      Maybe the day in the park when I bet Spaz she couldn’t climb up that tree, or stick her head in that fence.

      Both resulting in meaning cute firemen.

      I once wrapped her car in plastic wrap and replaced her bed with a dog bed.

      Those weren’t the days I wasn’t a troublemaker.

      Most days are filled with choices a better person than me wouldn’t make and cussing at people.

      I’m the main character in life.

      Therefore, behaving isn’t a chapter.

      But there once was a day.

      I’m sure there was a day.

      There has to be a day.

      Where I wasn’t a troublemaker.

    • Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. Titus 2:3-5

    • On that winter day…

      She decided she loves winter. I fucking do. I love the cold and I love the winter. I need to find winter friends. On that winter day she realized she doesn’t have any winter people in her life. They all freeze and turn white or they can’t survive in the lack of sunlight. I need a winter person I can snowboard and then bake cookies with. Oh my goddess I need a winter person in my life! I’m going to put an ad on craigslist.

    • you can’t have the winter

      I won’t let you take this one from me.

      I love snow.

      I love the winter.

      Hockey games & sled riding races.

      Every year since the first year I stepped into snowboard boots, I have counted down the days for the moments on the mountain.

      Snow boots and big coats.

      I won’t let you take this one from me.

      My skeleton screams.

      Like old rusty gears.

      My nose burns sharp spikes of pain.

      My fingers throb from unhealed bones.

      The cold doesn’t work for us anymore.

      My ribs stiff and sore.

      I won’t let you take this one from me.

      Snowflakes on your face.

      Chilly nose while breathing in the smell of hot coco.

      I love cozy blankets.

      Seeing my breath as I run with spikes on the bottoms of my shoes.

      Shoveling driveways for a quick 20 bucks.

      I love the crisp cold.

      I won’t let you take this one from me.

      I will suffer.

      I will freeze and I will ignore, because I love the cold and I won’t let you take this one from me.

    • hazel shade of winter

      So is life.

      Not white.

      Not black.

      Somewhere in the middle.

      Relationships with most people.

      My sexuality.

      Memories of my childhood.

      If you’re colorblind.

      Most of the clothes I wear.

      The third bar.

      Meditation.

    • bridges

      Craiggers. I don’t miss the cold bowl of soup that he was, but god damn was the sexual relationship hot. I gave no fucks about him. And he gave no fucks about me. We didn’t waste time texting or chatting about our feelings. We got together, hate fucked each other and went our separate ways. I miss the simplicity of that. I miss no expectations and no emotional roller coaster. Just great sex that was rough and raw and more like therapy.

      I also miss HipGuns. He was complicated, but the sexual chemistry was pretty great. He is dead now though, so that’s a bummer.

    • burn the bridge

      I want to burn the bridges to the memories that I’m not using as fuel to be better.

      Light them up and get off on the danger of the flames.

      I want to burn the bridges located in the back of my brain.

      I want never to have to cross them.

      The ones that lead to the good times.

      The memories I hate to admit.

      The ones where I uneducatedly felt safe in your arms.

      These are the small, rare moments written in permanent ink.

      Burn those mother fuckers to the ground.

      The moments where I thought I was so unlovable but was loved. 

      The times I got everything I asked for.

      I wish the bad overshadowed the memories of being the center of someone’s world.

      Light the match.

      I want to burn the bridges that lead to the nightmares of the twisted unspeakable things you did to me.

      I want to scorch the pathways to the things I have to keep because they’re too humiliating and degrading.

      Things I couldn’t come back from if people knew.

      The things only you and I know.

      The things that don’t make me strong but weak.

      I want to be the arsonist in my own brain.

    • I want a safe house.

      I want the couch that my broken friends crash on.

      I want the home where my girlfriends can come and drink too much and laugh until we cry.

      I want to not be in survival mode in my home.

      I want my home to be green. Not yellow, consistently trying to prevent red.

      I want matching decor and no pet hair.

      I want seasonal good smelling blankets and Christmas décor.

      I want my home to be an escape from everything else.

      I want to end a 12 year transition.

      I want trivia nights, bonfires, white santas, and friendsgivings.

      I want Lindsey’s home.

    • expectations

      • Be straight or have a label for it.
      • Being with your spouse is “strong” even when it’s not making you happy.
      • Monogamy.
      • I expect myself not to hold on to emotions and not feel.
      • I expect myself to age terribly.
      • I expect myself to heal faster.

    • wildest thing

      When I was fresh out of high school I met a man. We will call him Connecticut. He was in town visiting his best friend, who was my neighbor at the time. I hung out with him for 3 days before he asked me to go back home with him. Home was Connecticut. I said yes, because why not? I hopped on the back of his motorcycle and rode for a few days. I didn’t even know his last name. I didn’t care. I was young, free, and dumb. It was the best trip. I ended up spending 2 months with him on a navy base. I made new friends, got my first tattoo and just lived in LaLaLand. Rode home on a train.

    • all hail me

      1. Thou shall stay in your lane.
      2. No man or woman can make rules on others bodies
      3. You can make no commitments lasting more than 3 years.
      4. Must go through intense training with an exam to procreate.
      5. You kill, your family dies.
      6. Pee after sex.
      7. No pets in homes.
      8. Must move body for joy.
      9. 70oz daily.

    • hsk&t

      Head.

      These memories would cut you and leave you bleeding on the floor.

      Throat.

      These scars would traumatize you and make you incapable of grasping reality.

      Ribs.

      These broken bones would tell you the story you never asked to hear.

      Scars. Memories. Broken bones. Voice. Passion. Intuition.

    • use it as a weapon

      You’re welcome for making you strong. I created the trauma you are profiting off of now. Without the cries, pain, and fear where would you be? You should be thanking me. You should be grateful I still show up in your dreams to keep you from forgetting. I’ll never let you lose your edge or passion because I’ll never leave.

      Use it all. Use all those loud emotions in the quiet lonely times. It’s the only weapon I’ll ever allow you to have. It’s the weapon you’ll never get rid of. Just remember who taught you how to use it.

    • I see her.

      Not everyday, but I see her enough to know. I know what she looked like, as if I was outside of my body. a stranger even. She wore a green Blink 182 shirt and ripped jeans….Actually ripped, not bought like that ripped, with a studded belt. I see her every time I stare too long in the mirror. Her nose is covered in dried blood, and face is swollen. I see her sitting in the circle every class we teach. Eyes puffy and sticky from crying, although I never remember crying. At this point she’s accepting death, welcoming it even. I see her every time I’m proud of how far I’ve come. She’s all I ever write about. I see her every time I’m weak. She haunts me. She’s cold and limp. It’s dark. She’s making circles with her croaked fingers on the stained carpet floor. I see her. I see the life she had flash before her eyes. I should free her, help her out but I never do. I only join her. I climb into the trunk and hold her. Burring my face in between her soar shoulder blades. Apathetically sad, weak and hopeless. I see her. I still see her every time I start to forget about. Every time the oil smell seems too far away. The seconds and minutes. The hours and days feel never ending. Did they ever really end or are we still laying in that trunk together? I see her. I tuck her once beautiful hair behind her ear and tell her I got you. I love you and I will never stop fighting for you.

    • I don’t like the smell of blown out candles.

      I love the smell of peaches.

      I don’t like people standing too close to me.

      I love being hugged by a few select people.

      I don’t like the number 4.

      I love American Sign Language.

      I don’t like the smell of Covington.

      I love living in the city.

      I don’t like Sarah Thong or what ever the fuck her name is.

      I love Her from writing class.

      I don’t like Starbucks prices.

      I love their stupid cups.

      I don’t like racism.

      I love how I was raised.

      I don’t like fuzzy socks.

      I love my feet.

      I don’t like talking about my feelings.

      I love writing class.

      I don’t like texting.

      I love face to face.

      I don’t like wine.

      I love wine glasses.

      I don’t like being on a budget.

      I love spending money.

      I don’t like my dad.

      I love my grandmother.

      I don’t like mean people.

      I love fighting people.

      I don’t like the color yellow.

      I love the color purple.

      I don’t like my older brother.

      I love my little brother.

      I don’t like my house messy.

      I love to do nothing.

      I don’t like my story.

      I love my job.

      I don’t like most humans.

      I love my life.

    • reclaibrating

      I overthink too much, but not in the anxious or depressive way. But in the caring way. I think too much about stupid stuff. Like, how I could switch all my pants for elephant pants, and how to make money from it. Or becoming a comedian to prove I’m funnier than my ex. Why? Just to do it. Or opening a bar for Stephen to work at. Does he want to do that? Probably not, but who cares. Or what Jeff’s nips look like. Or what it feels like to have sex on this mat. I overthink things that aren’t productive and don’t matter. My therapist says it’s to distract myself from dealing with complex emotions.

    • jits

      Jits is suppose to be my safe place. It’s suppose to be the bus in which I transfer the next broken lindseys. It’s suppose to be the team, the community, the family. It was the thing I used to remind myself the answer to the question I have been riddled with every night at 3am for the past eight years.

      “I can handle anything.” Written on the gym walls.

      “I am strong as fuck.” Written on my gi.

      “I am powerful.” Written on my rash guard.

      “I am still alive.” Written in sweat.

      I lost my proof. I became human, and a weak one at that. I am still broken. My body cracked and everyone saw. The mat isn’t safe. Jits is where I find out I am just another broken body. My bones aren’t made of solid belief. They are broken bones. Unusable. Hindering even. Damaged from all the damage. My body isn’t my warrior fighting for me. She isn’t the hero. She isn’t the fighter. She is the score board. She is the unusable target that’s holes are too big to be significant. Jits was suppose to be the showcase where you prove what you are. But jits became the mirror of harsh reality.

    • So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 1 Timothy 2:11-15

    • dear linds,

      I’ve gotten in the habit of writing you letters, so I guess here’s another one:

      I want to be that girl. I want to be that girl we pretend to be on social media or in our mind. I want to be the cute girl that looks tough as shit but goes kayaking in her bikini and choacos. I want to be the color belt that owns the gym. I want to be intimidating until you get to know me. I want to be the example of getting your shit together after about for all the women coming through the door. I want to be the person people think they want to be. I want to be the person that makes people feel seen and heard. I want to see ghost from my past and not feel stupid after. I want to feel sexy again. I want to love the way lingerie feels and looks on my body again. I want to love my body for her looks again, not just for the things she does. I want to be fun and out doorsy again. Spontaneous. I want that for you and I will. I will grow up and make it happen. I did not peak at 25. I will do this.

    • colors

      Little Blue Cross

      I sat on the toilet staring at that little blue cross. You have got to be joking. It is April first after all. This was no joke. I was pregnant. I pictured that little blue cross jumping off the piss stick and strangling me. I wanted to die.

      Red Nothing But.

      I have seen red before.

      Eyes glossing over and adrenaline taking control of my body and brain.

      Kill or be killed.

      Nothing but red.

      I fought him enough to pin him down with my fist up.

      Kill or be killed.

      Yellow

      Corn on the cob.

      I have braces and he cut my corn off the cob in front of his family. He cared for me.

      Green

      Ireland, when he was the biggest man in the bar and defended me. He stood up to my brother and introduced me to the definition of a man.

      Orange

      Her orange curly hair and those size too small shoes that light up orange.

      Black

      The uniform pants She wore the first time I met her hung out with her and cried with her.

      White

      The ultrasound of Gummy Bear.

      Brown

      The door I slammed for the last time leaving him.

      Purple

      The margaritas we drank when we gave ourselves permission.

    • brown

      The color no one picks.

      No one loves.

      No one’s favorite.

      It’s the color of mud and the color of things people use to describe when some thing is bad.

      It’s the color of unclean and filth when you’re talking about a white rug after baseball practice.

      And if you’re talking about skin it’s the color people have seen and automatically assume less than.

      Brown is the color I pick.

      Brown is what I love.

      Brown is my favorite.

      Brown is the color of the hand-me-down shinning eyes I got from my mother.

      The color of messy perfect hair I received from my broken father.

      Brown is the piles of leaves we jumped into as innocent children.

      Brown is the color of skin we decided did not separate us when we adapted Him, his brother, and Her into our family.

      Brown was the trees we climbed creating core memories in my story book of life.

      The sand of beaches I have always escaped to.

      The color of edible comfort.

    • soo, so, so

      She was my grandmother. She died when I was a sophomore in high school. The last time she saw me I was in my homecoming dress, hair and makeup on point. It was the best I could have looked in the time I knew her.

      She taught me to sew, and how to bake and how to calm my hyper body with puzzles. I was her favorite. She was the kind of grandmother fairytales captured in their stories of cooking baking grannies. She was bubbly and always happy. Constantly laughing. Her husband was a stiff grumpy old man. He was the love of her life, and she, his. She would do something to make him mad and she’d laugh it off. I never heard her apologize. She never took her life seriously.

      I use to use their marriage as the example of what I wanted as a child.

      I was fun, so I wanted to marry a grumpy old man.

      I think I succeeded.

      She left a legacy for sure.

      She saw the beauty in life. She was the definition of pure joy. And I only hope I can be like that.

    • I want to be me. I want to see what white picket fence life is like. I want to know what life would be like if I met Him in college, had babies and drove a minivan with a house. Try in school, get good grades.

      I want this life; I don’t want the next life. I want every different version of this life.

      I’ve made too many wrong choices. They weren’t wrong, just messy. I don’t want chaotic. I just want to know what boring life looks like. The right choice Lindsey life. The life where I don’t come from baggage and trash. The life where I have small boobs and perfect teeth. The life where I didn’t make Him sell his house and I didn’t spend money on dumb shit. A life with no seizures. Life where my dad wasn’t mentally ill, and I wasn’t broken inside as a result.

      I don’t want to know another life. I want to know what the right choice life would be. I want to go back and rewrite what has been done.

    • Carpet floor. 2 book shelves full of books. I’m sure everyone has been read front to back.

      She had a tiny notebook in hand. We were laying on the floor under a bar table. Talking about shades of purples. Woman’s Fight Club. Cool tank tops, boots and leather jackets. Oh and the smoothie shop on the first floor! It seems so long ago now it was all a beautiful dream. But things never stay in dream land when it comes to her. Honestly I’m not sure how we got from point A to point B. Life just happens when you spend time next to her oozing sunniness. We created a wonderful dream like a lullaby. We could sell shirts. Have a desk made out of boards people break. What about a wall where people signed. I pulled out $5 and told her to give me hers. I folded the dream into T-shirts. She framed it and made it come true. She gave me a necklace that said “You are stronger than you have ever been.” Now night after night I feel the dream under my feet. I watch  strong women dream. And she’s still there, dreaming and holding a tiny notebook.

    • this time around

      The lesson of this life is that I am not the main character of this story. I am not the center of attention. I have had an incredibly fun fulfilling all-about-me life, but as life goes on and I become older, my life is becoming less about me and more about everyone else. I spend most of my life supporting other people. Giving to others. Even my story and past aren’t even mine anymore. It’s used to comfort and relate. It used to be the thing that kept me strong. Now it’s the what-not-to do example, we built a business on. What drives me is now what I can do for other people.

    • nothing is black and white

      Instead, I will tell you things I will never forgive specific people for.

      • My father for choosing Walmart instead of Norstrom.
      • ZP for dancing with Penelope Parrot at the dare dance in 5th grade.
      • MF for so many things. You know what you did bitch.
      • AH for stealing my Barbie Dream Camper.
      • MW for being a dick.
      • Him for fucking up my ribs.
      • CP, you know what you did.
      • MG for not getting me a “Cute Is What We Aim For” t-shirt.
      • Her for the concert she went to last night.

    • comfort

      I am a try-er. I try things. I rarely have reservations on new things. Sometimes it’s hard to tell where my zones end and where they begin because of this. I tried a therapeutic writing class. Trying the class wasn’t the step. Just another thing to try. But putting my emotion into the writing was not in my comfort zone.

      Talking about my past without joking was foreign to me. Saying things, realizing thoughts from my brain; Putting them into the circle for people to see, hear, and making opinions about. Sounds like a comfort “no”. The memories, the truths, the secrets; all floating there. Naked and exposed. Realizing the grip on things I held on to so hard

    • cherry

      You took her.

      I said I was ready, but I didn’t know what that meant. Not really.

      You took her forcefully and fast.

      I didn’t even know you. I didn’t even love you or trust you.

      You didn’t deserve her.

      I was so young. Too young. You were young too.

      I don’t remember much about that place where you took her. But I could remember every other detail about that day. Your smell, that dumb laugh. I remember the blood, the confusion, and the tear-filled bus ride home.

      You weren’t nice, but neither was I. I don’t even know if you are to blame for taking her.

      I’m sure at some point you figured in out in life.

    • Just for me I do bjj.

      Just for me I sit in the shower.

      Just for me I do word searches.

      Just for me I sleep in the nude.

      Just for me I run blaring screamo music.

      Just for me I try new things.

      Just for me I say no.

      Just for me I forgive.

    • in the zone

      My comfort zone is very little clothes.

      No shoes.

      Good smells and not being touched.

      Cold enough for a blanket, never hot borderline arctic.

      My comfort zone is in the drivers seat and never smokey air.

      Hockey games but don’t cuss around kids.

      Deeper talk than small talk.

      Pain but not too much.

      Cinnamon tea and word searches.

      Security systems and locked doors.

      My comfort zone is everyone in view and sober.

      Loud noise of my choosing or no noise.

      Escape routes and visible exits.

    • “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Genesis 1:27

    • i am just so fucking angry

      Anger is the powerful mask my fear wears. It’s easier to be angry than scared. The memories and torturing moments still live in the attic of my mind, but I pretend they don’t. When I see something or have an experience that resembles the secrets, I get scared.

      No, oops. I mean angry.

      Hello triggers, it’s always nice to see you out of your cages, care to rage?

      I go zero to one hundred because I can’t relive it. I can’t be so out of control of my body and mind again. My eyebrows get low, my blood gets pumping. Ready to fight the ant hill I can only see as a fight. Kill the threat, end it. Fight and rage until we no longer fear.

      No, oops I mean anger.

      Sitting alone, broken, putting the pieces back into place, cleaning up the mess. I can’t feel that again. I can’t tiptoe around this life. So we rage. We rage before we need to, because I am just so fucking angry.

    • this coffee is so bad

      Sometimes jits is hard, sometimes mountain climbing is hard.

      I was told I wasn’t good at writing. So I never wrote.

      I don’t actually know how to answer that because I feel like I’m pretty authentic, at this point in my life.

      When I was with The Pastor, I stopped with my fascination with sex and quit the foot stuff.

      When I was with Prince Harming, I became someone completely different. I don’t know, tough question.

    • You have a scar; I have many.

      I cut your shoulder. Grasping the ribbed handle.

      I stuck the blade of that box cutter past the collar bone, down the shoulder.

      The rust smell, bled for days.

      You struggled to lift your arm.

      I ran my fingers over the cut. Sobbing. “I’m so sorry.” Was I?

      I may have been in the moment.

      Swallowing the vomit from my undeserved guilt.

      I was the worst. Hurting another human.

      You’ll have the scar forever. Because of me.

      The only mark I ever gave you.

      I was crazy, so mother fucking crazy. I was so ashamed.

    • rules.

      • Always pee after sex.
      • Don’t wear sweatpants in public.
      • Text your friends you made it home.
      • Shave your armpits…everyone.
      • Shave your downstairs, no one wants to go diving into Chewbacca.
      • Fuck yourself daily.
      • Drink water.
      • Don’t be nice to people who annoy you. You will regret it.
      • Try new things.
      • Don’t get attached to anything.
      • Don’t get married, it’s a trap.
      • Elope. Weddings are a waste.
      • Kids ruin everything.
      • Vacation often even if you can’t afford it.
      • Don’t save yourself for marriage, you’ll miss out on prime sex years. Prime experimental sex years.
      • Never forget your birth control.
      • Spit, don’t swallow. No man is worth that.
      • Try all genders.
      • Learn self-defense
      • Choose violence sooner rather than later.
      • Don’t do hard drugs.
      • Admit to nothing.
      • Don’t let anyone sleep in your bed.
      • Sleep naked.
      • Go skinny dipping.
      • Trust no one unless you have dirt on them.
      • Send nudes, but never show face.
      • Keep all dirty photos of exes for blackmail.
      • If someone threatens suicide to hurt you, hand them the knife and tell them to take it outside.
      • Don’t stay in a relationship more than 3 months and you will always be “the one that got away”.
      • Shave your head.
      • Travel the moment you’re legal.
      • Nothing last forever.
      • Believe you are the smartest person in the room, and you will be.
      • People don’t roofie soda.
      • Don’t give too much of yourself to anyone.
      • Always have a run away fund.
      • Keep your own secrets.
      • Go to therapy.
      • Fuck all your friends’ dads.
      • Fuck all your exes’ dads.
      • Don’t be late.
      • Don’t say the “R” word
      • Assume not everyone loves your pets.

    • I was sitting in a coffee shop, like I do so often, and a couple walked in. An odd looking couple to society standards. She towered, at least three feet, over him. She was probably considered tall for a woman. He was considered a short man. I hate that I noticed, but I did. And I loved seeing it. I love seeing real expressions of authenticity. They don’t let it stop them from being together. They don’t give a fuck, I’m sure they have or had reservations at first . We all do, we all “care about what people think.” Even when we try not to.

    • levels of hell

      Level One- Pittsburg penguin fans.

      Level Two- Bad Dads

      Level Three- Anyone that is mean to my husband. (Talking about you Becky) He’s a fucking saint.

      Level Four- Micheal Jackson

      Level Five- Abusers

      Level Six- Anyone who has ever raped anyone.

      Level Seven- Donald Trump (Ugly fat bitch)

      Level Eight- Child Abusers

    • in the afterlife

      My paradise would be perfect smells, interchanging smells. Constant hyper motivation. Soft pretzel place next door. Candy store across the street so I’d have to work for it. Orgasms without the work of sex. Flowers everywhere with food smells. No animals. Perfect nails that don’t keep you from doing anything. Something entertaining everyday. Never needing to relax. Be who ever I wanted to be that day. Try any hobby I could possibly try.

    • Dear Daniel,

      You weren’t a person, nor were you ever meant to be, and I accept that. I have to be ok with that, because I was never meant to be a mother. Though that doesn’t mean I can blink away the “what ifs” like I blink away tears. You were my little gummy bear. I talked to you more than I probably should have. I played you irish music, and read you all the books I started to hoard for you.

      I wanted you.

      Even though I never did, I wanted you.

      I wanted you to have your dad’s eyes and my hair. I wanted you to laugh like your father and have my sense of humor. I wanted you hyper, but smart.

      I wanted you.

      I was terrified. Terrified of being a mom, having a kid and all the things that come along with being a child of an epileptic and a battered woman. I felt you, that seems so weird to say, but I knew you, and I loved you. I loved you in such a bizarre never met you, but felt you way. I listen to the recording of your tiny perfect heartbeat every night. I wanted you. I wanted to hold you, and protect you. You would’ve been safe with me, if only you could have been safe inside of me. we would have called you gummy bear forever, you would’ve hated it at some point. You’d be a freshy right now. our lives would be so different, stressful, but worth it. Your father would have been your biggest fan. He’d be obsessed. He’d be the dad to annoy everyone at work with pictures of his son. 50 million photos of the same sleeping baby. You’d be his everything. You’d be mine. I wanted that gummy bear, I wanted you.

      Signed,

      The mom I was never meant to be.

    • When my husband and I started boning, we weren’t super serious, but definitely way more than sexers. There was a moment. A simple text. Saint Patrick’s Day is my favorite holiday, it was once my birthday. At that time in my life, no one had first names or correct information.

      The text came in at the exact moment I landed in Chicago.

      “Happy Birthday, I’m in Chicago as well, can we celebrate your day?”

      That was the movie moment where the plot twist could have happened. I didn’t know Stephen that well yet and marriage was a not-on-my-radar, not-in-a-million-years kinda thing.

      I stood there celebration and friends around me. Phone in hand staring at the green river in my favorite city, wearing my sexiest green heels. Having a very wealthy man, who is fantastic in bed reaching out ready to make my birthday memorable.

      I blindly chose Stephen in that moment and for all the moments to come. I chose to break the cycle that my paternal curse had put on me. Not only did I choose Stephen, I chose Lindsey. I gave myself a chance to deserve something I didn’t think I was worthy of. I chose happiness, loyalty, hardship, grace, impulse decisions, hockey games, movie nights, Chinese food, and laughter. I made a choice not knowing the outcome. I chose the right door and I fucking won. I can forever say I never tainted this pure childish real love.

    • friendsgiving

      Moosh’s perfect meal would be a cappuccino and a protein bar inside a gym full of sweaty athletes.

      Disneygal’s perfect meal would be a tall flippa flappa mocha joka next to a fire with obnoxiously fuzzy pj’s.

      The husband’s perfect meal would be anything edible served on top of my naked body.

      Barbara’s perfect meal…Lindsey it’s weird to talk about your grandmother after sexual comments.

    • i vow to forgive and build

      You are smart, strong, and important.

      I will forgive you.

      I will never stop building you.

      You are smart, strong, and important.

      I will choose you over doubt, fear, and expectations of others.

      I will love the you, you have created yourself to be.

      You are smart, strong, and important.

      I will honor the you, you had to kill to become this.

      I will remember what you went through without haunting you with it.

      You are smart, strong, and important.

      I will continue to advocate for you.

      I will continue to unapologetically protect you.

      You are smart, strong, and important.

      I will show up for you everyday, even if I’m not the person I want to be that day.

      I will continue to break walls.

      You are smart, strong, and important.

    • My mom is the most complex human. Christmas time last year I was pregnant with our gummy bear angel baby Daniel. We ended up having to terminate the pregnancy. It was still heavy pandemic time so I had to go in alone.

      My mom and I had been fighting since June. That didn’t matter in that moment. Nothing mattered except pure mother need. My mom showed up, held my hand, laid in my bed and cried with me. In that moment everything was forgiven and I felt loved. She knew exactly what I needed and showed up when it mattered. She dealt with my in laws, cooked me dinner and cleaned my house. She walked into my home being the person I needed her to be.

    • my words..

      This is what I want my words to do…

      I want my words to fight my battles, because my fists are tired.

      I want my words to fix all the broken people I meet.

      I want my words to make them believe they are strong, they matter and they don’t have to accept less than pure kindness.

      I want my words to change ideas, meanings and certain ways of thinking.

      I want my words to hurt and heal and break and mold.

      I want my words to be comfort.

      I want my words to be uncompromising and extremely unapologetic.

      I want my words to be remembered and repeated.

      Exampled and taught.

      I want my words to be spoken and heard.

      That’s what I want my words to do.

    • dirty chucks

      My shoes are never tied.

      It takes too much time.

      I slide them on and out the door I go.

      Sometimes the strings fray at the ends.

      Just a casualty of my life, I guess

      Some people take time to loosen and tighten and tie even bows.

      Not my dirty chucks.

      They’re covered in stamps from all the steps I’ve ever taken.

      They’ve been branded and sharpied.

      Ripped and degraded.

      But they’re still Chucks.

      I could have taken better care of them.

      Watched where I was walking and made a better choices.

      But my dirty chucks will still work and they still look cool.

      Dirty and worn.

      Broken and messy.

      But I still like them.

      You can damage them as much as you can.

      But they will always be chucks.

      They are strong and resilient.

      They are tough and messy.

      But they’re MY dirty chucks .

    • In this circle, I give myself permission to be creative and lead to the best of my ability. I also give myself permission to be real, and honest and raw. To enjoy what I’m doing.

    • shoes o’ the day

    • be brave

      I was the bravest when I terminated my pregnancy alone. At the time I hated that I was alone, but it is what it is. We couldn’t afford for Him to miss work, and with Covid, he wasn’t allowed in the doctor’s office. So, I went alone. I knew what they were going to say. The baby wasn’t developing, and I had to end it. I was not prepared for them to tell me he was a boy though. I hated that I was alone in that moment, but it is what it is. I didn’t want to end it, but I did it. I did it to protect my baby, to protect me. I made my first and last major decision as a mother and I was brave as fuck.

    • Spite is a great motivator.

      I do a lot of things out of spite.

      I’m a pretty brave person, but I also tune out of my fears a lot.

      Fear is an emotion, I ignore the most.

      It’s the emotion I have felt the most in my younger years, so in order to survive I just hold it to sit down and shut up.

      It does very well staying in its assigned seat.

      Anger tends to take over instead.

    • shoes o’ the day

    • voices

      My own. Just because in class I always say it’s my favorite weapon, but it’s not. I think I portray this powerful outspoken warrior that never has a problem using her voice. It’s all bullshit. I hate my voice. I can’t sing and it’s always been an annoying sound. It’s also the thing that has caused me the most trouble. Lies when I was younger. Verbally attacking my dad. Demanding answers from him when my brother stayed quiet. I’m the loud girl. Always in trouble for talking in class. Words come out sometimes I don’t mean. I stood up to Him one too many times. He would attempt to shut me up, when that didn’t work, shit got scary. Your voice can be powerful, but also dangerous. I also never say the right thing and people don’t like the loud girl.

    • the planet of sound

      • Compliments
      • Tennis
      • Hockey
      • Softball games
      • City sounds
      • Thunder/rain
      • Wind
      • Clock sounds
      • Zippers
      • Van Morrison’s Voice
      • Paper Ripping
      • Saxophone
      • Loud Drums
      • Gaelic Music
      • Fish tanks
      • Dryer

    • shoes o’ the day

      hey dudes

    • silver lining

      Moments.

      Moments of pure bliss.

      Moments like snapshots burned into my brain.

      All day long, watching TV, eating pizza rolls, jumping on the couch.

      50 million walks.

      So much laughter, drowning out the fear of the unknown.

      Our home was our safe space a deep hole we could fall into.

      To think.

      To breathe.

      To cope.

      To heal.

      Without explanations or excuses.

      We could lick our wounds in peace, and take the time we needed to rest.

      This was forced La La Land.

    • shoes o’ the day

    • dear weak-minded lindsey,

      I thought about writing this 1 million times, but I guess since She’s making me, now is a better time than ever. (PS: you blame Her for a lot of things, so you don’t have to think about you.)

      I know you’re scared, and alone, confused, and pissed. You have no idea who I am or that you’re capable of becoming me.

      I’m sorry for letting this happen to you. For choosing this for you. For us. I’m sorry it got so far. I knew those choices were the wrong ones, but I ignored them. I should’ve saved you way earlier, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t fight my way out yet. I wasn’t strong enough. I need you to hold on. Hold on because I promise it’s worth it and you do make it out of this. I so badly want to pick you up and hold you and tell you about the world you eventually create. You’re loved, like real, healthy, not scared loved. Like the kind of love you’ve had to work hard for. And he’s your best friend. You laugh all the time. You have a home and it’s safe. It’s your favorite place to be. You’re close with your family again. And our friends, oh Lindsey, our friends are amazing. You help people, women like you right now. You’re funny and people like you. You’re a business owner and Lindsey you’re strong, you’re so so strong and you don’t ever question that. And girl you’re happy. Like legit happy.

      It’s there and you’re gonna decide it’s yours. Just keep it together and keep your eyes open. We’re in this together.

      I love you kid.

      Love,

      Strong Lindsey.

    • shoes o’ the day

    • “Put your camera away and live in the moment.” This doesn’t work for everyone. Sometimes pictures are the most important thing. Memories are saved so deeply in our brains that sometimes without pictures, they stay deep. I will forever cherish these pictures and these memories with you.

    • little lindsey lulu

      At age 4 he forgot to pick you up again. I make time for self care.

      At the age of 7 you stared at the parking lot the entire game while playing 3rd base. He never showed. I post my writing on my blog because I’m proud of it.

      At age 13 he yelled at you, humiliating you, telling you, you were stupid, too hyper and annoying. I don’t surround myself with verbally harmful people

      At age 16 he made you wait outside the car for an hour while he made-out with his girlfriend. I rarely depend on people.

      At age 17 he cheated on you. I no longer put my worth in someone else.

      When you were 19, he beat you so bad you spent the night on the kitchen floor because it was too painful to move. I learned how to fight back.

      You pissed yourself at age 22 because you were locked in the trunk of a car for 3 days. I am strong in so many ways.

      You believed you were worthless at age 25. I fixed that hurt little shell of a child inside my soul waiting to be saved.

      I see you. I hear you. I feel you. I chose you. I met you at all those moments, picked you up and held you in my arms. I made you a safe place to grow and heal. I went back to pick up your pieces and put you back together. I got you now.

      You will never be alone again.

    • Oh girl. Listen. One on one, real talk. This is what I need from you. Stop spending money to fill the hole you have in your self where the trauma drama usually occupies.

      Be ok with the calm.

      Be ok with the boring.

      Lindsey, this is normal, welcome to the world of stability. Sit down and shut the fuck up. I know you’re only use to chaos, but over spending and over eating are not going to cause the waves you’re hoping to cause.

      And for goddess’ sake, go running again. Show up to class. Take care of your body again, and this time do it out of love. Not survival.

      Signed,

      The rational side of Lindsey’s brain.

      PS: Stop talking about sex so much, it’s getting weird.

    • sending up your bat signal

      A year ago I needed so much. 5 years ago I needed even more. I’m good where I am. A career I love, friends, joy, laughter, a great above average sex life with a husband I’m into this week. I’m good this week, not too needy, check back next week. I’ve gotten to the point where the world needs from me more than I need from it. I don’t hate it.

    • “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord”. Ephesians 5:22