and maybe it's because you feel your life is running away without you.

wallow in your shoes

(damp from your trek in the creek, your socks squish between your toes)

were you ever driving the car?

or was the steering wheel always dragging your hands along with it

like it's doing now?

you could eat cotton candy while you drive,

shoving fistfuls of melting sugar in your mouth

while the trees go by

getting greyer and smaller

until you realize it's because you're bigger now than you used to be;

does that mean you're colourful?

your chin is sticky with the remembered candy you didn't eat

and your eyes have strayed from the road

you thought you weren't the one steering

but you crashed into the crumbling side of the overpass

and blamed yourself

if you had turned right

what's the last thing you remember?

the way your knuckles looked, clenched around the wheel?

the way your teeth felt electric?

the way the wall loomed? you noticed every crack

perhaps for the first time

you make a left turn, by the overpass

hauling the battered car back onto the dirt road

socks squelching between your toes, foot on the gas

remembered cotton candy staining your teeth

and on you drive

wondering if the steering wheel would keep on turning if you let go

who are we to say what matters?

instead of forcing our subjective beliefs down each other's throats,

why not let the mothers, the only ones who know

the heavy weight of this choice

make the choice

do you think it's harder for you, a bystander,

than it is for the mother cutting a piece from her body?

if she has decided this is what's necessary

who am I to say no?

who are you?

Why is it controversial to say

"If you feel like a woman, you are one"?

I'm only a woman because I know I am,

Not because you told me

I'm a woman because

I've thought about womanhood

And felt femininity

And embodied the everything of the Universe

And maybe you're a woman (or not) for a different reason

He is smooth as an egg

But I dare not touch his skin or he might get cross

He is the son of a son of a son

And all his fathers spurned us

The sun peeks in through dusty blinds

So I take my cues and watch through eyelashes

Every glint of reflected light on him

And when the haze goes purple with dusk

Perhaps I will stand up and say something

"...she arose with flaming glory..."

But I might be too shy

And never let him know that he need not be his fathers;

I'd forgive him if he wasn't

I was raised Christian... sort of.

My mom is Christian, and we went to church every Sunday, but it wasn't what you think of when you think of "church". I mean, it did have a pastor back in those days (although it doesn't anymore), and we sang songs and went to Sunday school and all that. But a lot of churches seem to come from a place of "this is how it is" and this church seemed to come from a place of "let's explore our Christianity together".

My dad used to be Christian, but is now an atheist and has been for a while. We didn't know that growing up, though; he didn't talk about it.

So we were raised Christian. It's true, and I'm not sure why exactly I feel the need to add "sort of" to that, but I do. Because yes, my mom's Christian, but when non-Christian friends of hers find out, they tend to go "you don't seem like a Christian." And yes, we went to church, but it's the sort of church that welcomes everyone, and I mean everyone. Which is what all churches should be, isn't it? But most aren't like that at all.

Anyway. I'm not Christian. It came about gradually (as most things do, at least in my life); I got to that age where I started considering what I really believed, instead of just assuming everything I was told was the truth.

And I found out I love spirituality. I love learning about spirituality, connecting to the divine, thinking about my own beliefs, talking about spirituality; I love it all. It's become an important part of my identity, one of my favourite and defining traits: I'm a spiritual person.

And it's always a bit sad to me when people are religious, and lose all touch with spirituality. Religion should be a vessel, a framework to explore and connect with spirituality. But hey, what do I know? Everyone's different and maybe it's better for those people to approach it like that.

But my dad's always trying to tell me how alike we are, how he was just like me at my age, and I give him a raised eyebrow and say, "I don't know about that." One of the most important things to me is my spirituality, and he's all "Science! Facts! Evidence!" which tends to rub me the wrong way. But he tells me he was spiritual too at my age.

And that just makes me think, how sad. Your disillusionment with Christianity, the framework you used to define your spirituality, made you lose that spirituality altogether.

And maybe I'm completely wrong, but that's how it seems to me.

Nowadays I would say I'm a witch (don't tell my grandparents; they don't even allow the Harry Potter books inside their house, because they're possessed by the Devil or something?) And the problem with being a witch is that no one knows what I mean when I say that.

Witchcraft, occultism, the esoteric... they're incredibly broad categories and that's what's so great about them. In reading about witchcraft, I've felt a connection to it that I never felt learning about other religions or belief systems. Buddhism is super interesting and I love learning about it, but it doesn't click inside me in the same way. When I learned about witchcraft, though, it just felt like yes. This is me.

I suppose the first bit of witchiness I came across was tarot. I had always had sort of a vague idea that tarot was a thing that seemed cool, and then I read a novel that featured tarot cards, I read online about how tarot reading works, I learned that the final T is not actually pronounced, and I went and bought myself a tarot deck.

And wow. My vague idea was right; tarot is so cool. It's not some vague concept that supposedly helps you in your life but doesn't really actually do anything... it's practical. It's relevant. It's had immediate positive effects in my life.

And a big part of witchcraft for me is about taking back my own power. Turns out spirituality isn't just something I can think about—it's something I can actually do. It can be so much more than just cerebral; it can be embodied.

I've also learned so much about myself through learning about spirituality. I've always loved introspection, self awareness and personal growth are very important to me, and I love things like the enneagram and MBTI and gender and sexuality for how they help me explore myself. Adding in things like tarot, ideas of the divine feminine and masculine, astrology, or magick (spelled with a k to differentiate from fairy tale, make-believe, fantasy magic) adds more lenses with which to view my Self.

When I look up "spirituality" the definition is "the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things." But that's not quite right. Spirituality is also concerned with the way the spirit or soul connects to material and physical things.

Everything is connected, interconnected, because everything is one. We're all manifestations of the Universe, of the Everything. Everything we do is an exchange of energy. Energy and divinity run through all of us, through everything, and we live in the illusion of separateness but nothing is ever separate.

Spirituality for me is connection, expansion. It's Everything.

Something I don't like about christianity is how... all or nothing it is. God is just good and perfect in every way, the Devil is completely evil.

There's just no way I can honestly believe in that, because I've experienced the world and that's not how anything is. I connect much more with ideas of balance, of everything being a little bit of everything.

Nothing is ever good or bad. Everything is everything.

they talk about attraction

like you're just a pile of metal filings

and when someone's a magnet,

you can't get away

they seem to think the fizzy feeling when we touch

will make my limbs do things I didn't mean

or make me scream and run away

or make me say something, confess

they act like it's inevitable

but haven't they ever smelled delicious baking

with no desire, no thought even, of eating cakes

because that warm scent is enough?

haven't they ever admired the strong, curving limbs of a tree

without planning to climb it?

haven't they ever sunk into a daydream

knowing they'll wake up

but paying no mind because now, right now,

this daydream is delicious?

have they never slipped into the moment like a hot tub,

where the water on your skin becomes

everything there

ever was

or will

be?

as if friendship were "less than"

and you're "just" friends

but what if friendship is all I want?

we were rock bands with unexciting names

the single glove

no one wanted

we waited on the road while tires

left tracks and wondered

if we would ever move so fast

sometimes the wind caught us and we thought we could fly

but

maybe if they came to the concert

our songs wouldn't be so bland

but we never learned how to speak

so our words are dust

and our names call nothing to us

but dust

do the songs have meaning?

is there someone walking along the curb, about to

pick us up and take us home?

we could be made into something new

but we don't know what

so we're just here

waiting

I'm sorry I believed him when he said you were selfish,

and it wasn't that I believed his words,

but the deeper threat behind them sank in, didn't it?

You told yourself, so what if I am a bit selfish?

but that wasn't what you felt when he said it and you knew it too

even if you pretended not to

(I knew it too, even if I pretended not to)

And I'm sorry, so sorry, that I believed for so long

that you didn't care

and would hurt others for your own benefit;

never noticing the way you

kept silent

when it mattered

The idea of causing someone else pain

scared you so much

and I never knew

(even though I was always you)

I suppose my greatest fear

is having fakeness poured into me

fill my veins with plastic and replace my

organs with pieces of artificially-coloured glass and chemicals

and when you're done

I won't be able to grow anymore

because the stems are filled with plastic

and the leaves are made of artificially-coloured glass and chemicals

so when the sunlight hits me

I can only reflect it back

and never soak it in

and when I creep into the shadows

I won't feel their embrace

anymore