People always say they see life or light behind the eyes.

That glimmer of hope, they say, that's the prize.

But what of darkness?  Of lost faith and pain?

Why are these never spoken about or go unseen?

I saw a girl, her mouth curved in a smile.

But I could see that she had been dark for a while.

Her outward appearance was masked with fun,

But behind her eyes, you could see she was done.

There was no life seen inside those green eyes,

All I could see was the death inside.

I am fat.  Pleasantly plump.  Curvalicious.  Round-ish.  Shapely.  Rotund.  Chubby.  Whatever people call it now a days.  

And ya know what?  I don't care.  Let me see if I can share some common misconceptions about me and my fellow fatties.

1)  You must eat all day.  

Actually... no.  I have to remind myself to eat most of the time.  Just the other day, I didn't eat anything at all until 3:30 PM, after I fainted at the library from low blood-sugar.  I know, this is terrible.  And no, I don't do it on purpose.  I simply don't like eating when I'm not hungry, and I'm usually only hungry around 4:00 in the afternoon.  This is me most days.  Setting reminders on my phone for every few hours to eat something, granola bar, whatever.  Then, I have a few days every month that I want to eat EVERYTHING.  My go-to fat kid snacking day is typically full of pickles and pickled foods.  

2) You probably only eat food that's bad for you/processed foods.

Do I want a cheeseburger sometimes?  Hell yeah I do.  And I get one.  What about tacos?  Um, yes... Taco Tuesdays.  And my favorite fast-ish food?  Hot Wings.  The hotter the better.  But on regular days, my cravings include pickles, asparagus, salads, watermelon, cantaloupe, broccoli... I think you catch my drift.  I've literally had people tell me "Oh wow, you eat so healthy for someone on the plus side."

3) You must have high blood pressure/diabetes/etc.

Nope, my blood pressure is perfect, no diabetes, no high cholesterol.  My doctor, the first time I saw her, came in after running all these tests and blood work and had this stink eye look on her face.  She says, "I don't mean to be rude, but you are really healthy for someone so overweight."  Never start a sentence with "I don't mean to be rude..." because that in itself is rude.  Haha.

4) You are sad you aren't skinny.  You must dislike skinny women.

Um... no.  I think one of the most glorious things about humanity is that we're all different.  We come in all sorts of shapes and colors and sizes.  I love that.  We are art.  I think that society tells us we have to do this or that or look like this or that... but who cares?  Are you happy?  Then be happy.  Do you want to lose weight because it would make you happy?  I will be right behind you supporting you every step of the way.  Do you want to gain weight because you'll be happy... then hell, let's go eat.  I believe that we are so focused on what people look like, we forget to see who they are.  We become completely blinded by how much someone weighs or what kind of clothes they wear or how they fix their hair, that we don't even take the time to see how amazing they are inside.  How funny they are or how nice they are or how innovative and adventurous they are.  We miss out on this totally awesome person.  Why?  Because they don't look like society's standard of beauty.  Screw society.  What has it ever really done for you besides bring you down?

5) You'll never find a significant other/someone to date.

Erm... if someone didn't want to know me because I wear a size 18... then I don't really think that not having them in my life is any kind of loss.  I see it as a plus.  (haha, see what I did there?)  Also, have you ever been on awkward dates?  For real, though... blind dates can show someone just how lovely it is to be single forever.  The person who will eventually come into your life?  They'll think you're freaking amazing and wonderful and that rainbows and butterflies shoot from your arse hole when you fart.  Trust me.

Now, the word fat.  It doesn't bother me at all.  And I LOVE when people try to use it to insult me.  "Well, you're fat."  I always laugh and say "I know right?"  Because... I am.  Fat is a descriptive word.  It's like saying "She has black hair."  If you choose to see it as just another word, it doesn't offend you.  It becomes powerless and truthfully?  Kinda funny.  Fat.  Fatty Fat Fat.  Fatty Kins.  I love that word.  Fat & Fabulous.  

Also, let's not body shame anyone who doesn't look like us.  Because, HELLO, why do we want everyone to look the same?  That would suck.  We would no longer be art, we'd be copies.  That's just shitty.  How about, we just let people look how they want to look and be happy.  I like that idea better.

I consider myself somewhat funny.  Enough so, that I plan to try my hand at stand up this year sometime.  I love making people laugh.  There isn't as much laughter in today's crazy world.  I am truly convinced that if more people laughed, this world would be better for it.  After all, love may make the world go 'round, but it's the laughter that keeps us all from getting dizzy.

That being said, I do have moments where I need to stop and be serious.  I am a mess.  My life is a mess.  I moved away from home at the age of 17 and supported myself (more scraped by for myself than fully supported myself at times) ever since.  I was unable to go to college more than one semester after high school due to needing to work a few jobs or weird hours and pay bills.  Gradually, after hard work, I found what I thought might be a career for me.  Unfortunately, after five years, that came to an end.  I decided to go back to school (as seen in my previous post).  As my job was going down the drain, I found my life following in the same fashion.  I was in a terrible relationship with a person who was not very nice.  Those two big happenings in my life led me to here.  Looking for work, but that is proving to be unsuccessful.  (I'm going to be honest here and say that the lack of job offers really does surprise me.  I thought I would find work fairly quickly.)  I am doing well in school, thankfully.  Honors Institute, all As, 3.89 GPA.  That part of my life is awesome, sometimes a little on the difficult side, but overall I'm happy with school.  I'm starting to grow worried about bills.  What if I can't find a job?  I've gone through quite a bit of savings already to keep the bills up to date.  

Also, I've moved from my old place with my not so nice ex, out to the country where cost of living and life in general is less expensive.  That also means that most of my friends don't live close, nor do they keep in touch.  I sometimes feel very isolated and sad.  I'm generally a quirky, happy person.  Weird, too.  I like my Weird flag and fly it high!  So to be so melancholy at times bothers me more than it should.  I have a great life, a few great people in it, a good head on my shoulders, a roof over my head.  There are so many people out there who have had more troubles and deeper woes than I have, and I should not complain.  I know this.  But I do think, also, that letting it out is necessary at times.  You have to be able to breathe out, talk out, remove somehow that negative energy inside of you to be able to let the positive energy back in to take control.  I like this quote I read once.  It said "It's okay to have a breakdown sometimes, just don't stay there."  It's true.  We, as humans, have been conditioned to believe that having moments of doubt or moments of actual emotion means that we are weak.  I disagree, having emotion, showing that we ARE human?  That doesn't make people weak.  It makes them strong.  Strong enough to feel.  In a world so empty of feeling something, anything we need to learn that feeling is okay.  Feeling happy is great, feeling sad or angry, well that's human and it's great, too.  As long as we can understand how to process those feelings in a healthy way and not become destructive, we NEED those feelings.  This is why people are so angry in society today.  Anger is a reaction of being unable to process and understand what emotions you are actually feeling (typically sadness or fear of something).  Let's be human.

So, this post went an entirely different route than I thought it would.  But hey, writing from the heart here, scattered as though it seems.  May this post help someone in some way today.  It definitely helped me to write it.  :)

HOW TO SHOWER LIKE A WOMAN

1) Take off clothing and place it in sectioned laundry hamper according to lights and darks.

2) Walk to the bathroom wearing robe or large t-shirt.  If you see husband along the way, cover up exposed areas.

3) Look at your womanly physique in the mirror - making mental notes about working out and eating better.  Criticize every little detail.

4) Get in the shower.  Use face cloth, arm cloth, leg cloth, long loofah, wide loofah, and the pumice stone.

5) Wash your hair once with cucumber and sage shampoo with 43 added vitamins.

6) Wash your hair again, just to make sure that it's really clean.

7) Condition your hair with grapefruit mint conditioner enhanced with natural avocado oil and coconut oil.  You don't really know what the coconut oil does, but everyone talks about it working miracles all over the place.

8) Wash your face with crushed apricot face scrub for 10 minutes until your skin is a nice shade of red.

9) Wash entire rest of your body with ginger nut and jaffa cake body wash.

10) Rinse conditioner off of hair.

11) Shave your entire body.  Twice.  Damn goosebumps...

12) Turn off the shower.

13) Squeegee off all wet surfaces in the shower and spray mold prone spots with cleaner.

14) Get out of the shower, dry with a towel the size of a small country.  Wrap hair in a super absorbent towel.

15) Check entire body for any zits or small stray hairs.  Freak out.  

16) Return to bedroom wearing towels.

17) If you see husband along the way, cover up any exposed areas.

HOW TO SHOWER LIKE A MAN

1) Take off clothes while sitting on the edge of the bed and leave them in a pile on the floor.

2) Walk naked to the bathroom.  If you see your wife along the way, shake wiener at her making a "woo-woo" sound.

3) Look in the mirror, look at your man-hammer and scratch your ass.

4) Get in the shower.

5) Wash our face and armpits.

6) Blow your nose in your hands and let the water rinse them off.

7) Make fart noises (real or artificial) and laugh at how loud they sound in the shower.

8) Spend majority of time washing privates and surrounding areas.

9) Wash your butt, leaving those coarse butt hairs stuck on the bar of soap that smells like auto air freshener.  New Car scent.

10) Shampoo your hair, make shampoo mohawk.

11) Pee.  Twice.

12) Rinse off and get out of the shower.

13) Partially dry off, fail to notice water on floor because curtain was hanging out of the tub the entire time.

14) Admire wiener size in the mirror.

15) Leave the shower curtain open, wet mat on the floor, light and fan on.

16) Return to bedroom with towel around your waist.  If you pass wife, pull off towel, shake wiener at her and yell out "helicopter!!"

17) Throw wet towel on the bed.

2016 was a year of change for me.  I lost my youth.  (I turned 30.  Ask most women, this is a big deal.)  I decided to go back to school to one day teach art and history.  I still FEEL young most of the time.  Then, my classes started, and I found myself surrounded by young men and women under the age of twenty. 

For the most part, age hasn't been discussed too often.  But, of course, the first days of classes everyone is curious about the person sitting next to them or the Professor decides they want to know a brief version of who we are and why we're there.  During one of my Humanities classes, the Professor told us that she would need all the money up front for the field trips we were going to take this semester.  She said she took PayPal and also checks.  I pull out my checkbook, write the check, then jot it down in the register and balance it.  The young girl next to me, she is 19, gasped.  "Oh my gosh!!  I've never seen one of those in real life!" (talking about my check register) "You even do all the math stuff and everything!  That is so cool!"

My eyes got wide and my face went to a lovely shade of lobster.  In that moment, I felt like shit for ever calling anyone old.  I do remember what it was like to be 19.  I remember feeling like people who were older than 25 not only were old, but that they must have really had their lives together.

Now, I'm the old one.  I'm a Freshman in college, I have no real career, no children/family of my own (well, except for my dog), and I do not have my life together.  It's a complete mess at the moment if we're being honest.  But it's my mess, and I'm learning to embrace the season of changes I'm going through.

I guess the moral of this whole post is this:  I spent my younger years yearning to grow up.  I imagined exactly where I would be and what I'd be doing when I turned 30 (I was way off).  There have been a whole lot of moments where I got depressed or angry or frustrated that I was nowhere near where I had wanted to be, but I've come to realize that no one has their life together.  Not really.  Life is just this crap shoot of good and bad.  We get what we get, and it's up to us to choose how we react to it.  If we choose to let it make us bitter and grouchy and sad, well then that's what we'll be.  If we choose to be thankful that we get any moments at all in this fragile thing we call life, then we see quite a bit more of the good than the bad.

So, I'll be happy that I'm old and decrepit to my young classmates.  I'm a much better student at 30 than I would have been at 19.  I'm more hungry to learn than I would have been.  

Class starts soon, so I better get my Depends on and my cane.  ;)

Words and thoughts......not enabled and apparently not allowed between the living and the dead. She does speak in dreams to me though. Nightly.

I can see her clearly....cannot touch her but I can feel her even more real than before. Just in a different way, almost as if she is flowing through me and connecting with ........ joined with me. I don't have a word for it.

I feel her every intention and her moods.. It is as if by breathing her in and having her wash through me.

Today she was being really silly and playful. She does this a lot. I know that she works hard to keep me here just like before.

She has adapted to this new life (?) much better than I and she lets me know that it is important that I keep myself intact.

She made me stop listening to the Smiths and told me to quit drinking. That helped a bit.

I tell her about this huge void that has become my way of being and she pulled a duck face at me.

I whisper that I love her and she smiles.

We have this baby. His name is Mojo. Well......thats his pet name. His real name is Marcus Oliver but we called him Joe when he was in her tummy. Prosperous Joe to be exact. A friend came up with Mojo and it fit for a couple of different reasons.

He is all farts and giggles and everywhere at once. She is at the center of his world. She is also at the.center of mine.

Her and me......we didn't need a traveling companion to compliment or complicate our life together but he laid designs upon us and I totally had it coming.

See........I have a checkered career as a parent. I got fired from my last gig for not being a team player. At that point I swore off them.

'The advantages are so worth all the sleepless nights, heartaches and sacrifices'

'Ooh they showed me what it was like to love unconditionally'

These are merely the stories you tell yourself to validate the experience and God knows I've done just that at times. So I should know, right?

All my illusions about being a parent were stripped from me. All that was left was the daily grinder of caring for a spirit in a meat suit.

Sounds cold yeah? It is, no argument. But this is what I had to work with / through.

In my own mind a perfect construct to see out my days in childless self reflection and wound licking.

So we have this baby. His name is Mojo. I didn't want him here but he knew better than me.

He knows I am broken and he is teaching me how to fix myself. In return I'm doing the very best job I can to care for someone without a safety net.

The one saving grace is that love fills the void after illusion has left. At least that is my experience.

Once again. We have this baby........

I know full well this is not how to gather friends or win a competition, but here goes anyway...

I don't remember a time when these bars weren't my Monet

Splattered feces and urine soaked concrete to cushion my feet and lull me to sleep

I have an inkling memory of my mother

Though only through images of her mastitic breasts seeping the stench of pus and my rotting brothers

There are so many here

I can no longer see

My eyes have become maggot habitat

But I can hear all too well

The screeching of bowels being shredded

The frantic breath of my neighbor as he's led by rubber boots

Only hoping he may return

Or maybe begging not to

They will come for me too

They come for us all

And I pray I die with the first blow

To my head

The electric current

That should render me paralyzed and shock my brain into submission

I pray that I die then

Please

I pray I do not feel my legs shackled and my body hoisted

Dragged through scalding water

Like so many of us

Awake

I'm not bright

They say

I've only the mental capacity of a four-year-old child

They say

But I see no children here

And I know what's coming

One day

I am witness to it

Every day

How could I not know?

We all know

We ALL know

Everyday

The bellows of death

And discomposure

Of pleading

And insanity

This is our Symphony

How could we not know?

The melody of grinding metal

Smashing

Clashing

Screaming

How could we not know?

I have never known an outside

Though I smell it on their feet

The ones that bash my face when I am

Against the gates

The ones that send me away from this

This...home.

Into the box car

They'll pile us

As if we're already only bodies

Stacked one on top of the other

No room to breathe

Some will die, already rotting before they step foot inside

Fate already sealed

Not strong enough for a sadist ride

They are the lucky ones

This is their last stop

The hungry ones will eat them

Why waste good flesh when you're starving

Why leave a corpse to occupy so much valuable space

It only makes sense

The rubber boots don't mind

Less work for them

There will be light for a moment

My first and last taste of fresh air

I can smell

Though my senses have been

Dulled by the aromatic mingling of burnt flesh and fresh iron with abscess and shit

In here

In the final place

It's stronger

And it dances with the sweet odor of decay

It's an unmistakable smell

Decomposing organs

Terror

Agony

Death

I hope I go quickly

I wish I could say that

I wish I'd known the outside

Or that I could soak in the sun

And bathe in cool streams

Or feel the tickle of sweet morning dew on my nose

I wish I could wish those things

But I know not of them

I only know

Steel

Iron

Shit

Blood

Death

Fear

Pain

I only know the frantic jolting

Driven by electric shock

And fists

I only know screeching and heart pounding

Corners

Claustrophobia

I only know fluorescent lights and needles

Pitchforks

Rubber boots

And soon I'll know what it's like to be paralyzed

And incapacitated

But finally useful

The waiting

Is

Over

I will be stopped

No breathing

I hope

I will be bled

Dry

And

Delicious

I will be blanched

Bald

And

Beautiful

I will be dismembered

Cured

And

Categorized

And I can't help but wonder

If you knew me...

Would you save me?

If you knew me

would you save me?

If I were like you

would you save me?

I think you would

Good morning

I'm your bacon.

Factory farming sucks for so many more reasons than just this.

It truly is horror in every sense of the word.

If it moves you, research...learn...love...

If it doesn't, research...learn...love...

We are all living on the same planet.

Feel free to SHARE wherever you'd like!! :)

I would like to note that I am not insane. At least, not completely…

“Why would you do that?" I was probably thirteen, my sister only seven, but that little brat had just put my collector's'edition Barbie in the bathtub, and I was thoroughly pissed and of course overly-dramatic and currently screaming.

She sat in the dingy water, naked and smiling at me with her layered shark teeth (that I could never remind her of enough because I was a horribly mean human being), making Barbie sing with delight at having a swim. She seemed unaffected by my tantrum, probably due to the frequency at which they occurred.

"I didnʼt wanna get mine wet," she said, "it ruins her hair."

"Well, why did you put mine in there? Why do you always ruin my stuff?" This question was asked on a regular basis, and it was never once answered to my expectation.

"I dunno. You don't'play with yours. You just left her in the box." She wasn't'taking this monumental event seriously, and my skin was starting to crawl.

"Ugh! I hate you," I growled menacingly at her and stomped through the door. Most people seem to feel these words hold a lot of weight, but we both used them on a fairly regular basis.

Honestly, I don't'even know why I was angry. I didn't'like Barbies at all. I was already smoking Marlboro Reds and knew how to roll a decent joint. But we spent a lot of time together alone, and I probably just needed a reason to feel violated. The only purpose for keeping that stupid doll was that my absent, alcoholic father bought it for me, and I thought it would be best to preserve it. 

I was fuming and ready for attack. I began sifting through the sea of toys and clothes and trash and fleas that was our bedroom floor, irately searching for her identical Barbie doll. It only took a few minutes to find it, as she played with her pretty often, so she was close to the surface. She was decked out in a pink floral sun dress and my sister had bound her plastic blonde hair into tiny little pigtails.

Now, before we go on any further, you should know my sister had tons of Barbies, most of which I had given to her due to not being the "Barbie type." I had stockpiled quite a collection regardless of the fact that I had zero interest in them whatsoever. Secondly, most of them were naked and dirty, half with hair that had been chopped to the scalp and their hands chewed off.

This Barbie, however, was well cared for by my sister, probably for the same reason mine stayed in the box.

I took that poor doll into the kitchen, my sister completely oblivious to my vengeance, and lit the gas flame on the front burner of our stove. Because I had recently become a self-proclaimed pyromaniac, this seemed to be the best course of action. I seized a knife (from an ever-mounting sink of dirty dishes) and held it over the flame until it began scorching black, then I used the hot blade to melt patterned lines into Barbieʼs dainty little legs.

From ankles to pelvis, I made sure to scar her, determined to leave her deformed and hideous.

I wasnʼt entirely satisfied with this, so I decided it would be best to remove her feet altogether. Out came the bone scissors and off with her toes. Her hair went as well, and then it occurred to me that her hands were unnecessary at this point in her life, so I stuck those in the fire to achieve disgusting little stubs.

When I was finished removing all of Barbie's'appendages, I placed her behind my back and proceeded back to the tub so I could torment her with her new and improved mutilated doll.

To my surprise, she was just sitting there staring at the wall.

"Hey." She looked remorseful. Uh-oh. 

With tears streaming down her cheeks, "I'm'sorry for putting her in the water. If you want, you can have mine and I'll keep this one since I ruined her."

My heart sunk as I realized what a complete dickhead I was. This would shred her into shrapnel, and here she was offering me repentance.

Feeling all my douchey glory, I replied like a typical teenager, "It's'okay. You can keep them both."

I backed away from the bathroom and for some unknown reason, I chose to open the door to the water-heater closet and chunk the doll inside. I couldn't'help but find a corner to cry in. Not only was I cruel, but a sadistic weirdo. I had shame wash over me profoundly, along with anxiety over the state of my mental health.

My sister was vehemently upset for a few days that she couldn't'find her Sparkle Eye Barbie. She wanted to make the pair sisters, like us, and she swore she left the doll next to her bed.

I couldn't'tell her what I'd'done, but I tried to make her feel better.  I made her Barbie clothes from pantyhose, popsicle-stick furniture, and a cute little home from cardboard boxes. We styled their hair and staged Jerry Springer shows. 

For the record, I'm'not a psychopath. We were left to our own devices way too often, and I think I had a lot of resentment bottled up towards my sister for being her caretaker at such a young age. I quickly grew out of my pyromania, pot-head stage, and I've actually turned into a fairly reasonable adult.

I did tell her about the Barbie when we were adults. She told me she really thought I didn't'want it because I just left her in her original packaging. "I was only seven! I had no idea what collector's'items were. Jeez, you're a sick bitch, aren't'you?”

And she laughed. Thank god.