The St. Louis Snow

Boys in boat shoes come down from the rafters upper crust to the massly understated, under policed, of the rich and famous. Small time corruption small town exclusives. Secret handshakes and blood oaths. What vows do you hold sacred? The first influencers; the marketing team of every single company in the US of A. In the 1990s... ... What can be more entertaining than me? I'm hilarious! I was supposed to be a boy, I check in with myself time to time still liking my insides as is. But... I legit was predicted to be a boy and my father was all too happy to oblige his pride. It's super obvious to everyone else how divided we are as a "family," in front of the Jones's. And yet, we can't talk about it. And we certainly can never strive for that reality. Appearance thereof suffices... Even tho the very big bold line of division doesn't stop with generations. Now G differentiates between the lineage of HER grandchildren and my niece are of different creeds. We ar...

I'm in that self isolation phase where all my friends are either introverted or a million miles away. My immediate family is either Catholic and thus exclusive/unaccepting of authentic me... OR crazy. And also a million miles away ... I often wonder if my family kept trying to escape their respective hometowns? My older cousins. Younger cousins. I also escaped the notions of such segregation and pigeon hole effect in personalities, that is STL. I don't doubt that my old friends went thru their own tribulations and are still good people.  But the whole of that city was.... What I thought was detrimental... I didn't want to always be the slow fat girl who acted weird and flirted with everyone's bf. *You were boring, your bf was into the nerdy shit I was into. What other 15yr old girl would be into Stargate and Firefly and Buffy?* There kept being opportunities to leave and I kept taking them, eventually settling down in this area (ATL). I never stayed so long in a city an...

Water used to be thought of as an entity. It was thought that if one cell of a being touched one molecule of water, that that entity was ruined or tainted.  The first public neighborhood pools were opening nationwide after World War II. Men came home from war, eager to forget the strangers they blew up and start families of their own, socializing around pool decks with unchecked rage of their recent sins against Others. It probably operated from sun up to sun down, everyday of summer, with the exclusion of lightening strikes within 5 to 10 miles, ever since it was discovered that water conducts electricity; it must also conduct toxicity. All could attend and swim and have good wholesome fun, but the only caveat was you couldn't be black.  Around the 1950s, people started relaxing those policies for people of color. It was really dependent on who they knew, who trusted them, and their kids. That they knew the power dynamics and the summer heat didn't just shine from a star at t...

I am quite tired of putting on a façade of pretense for the sake of others around me. Sometimes it’s necessary to skip the bs of small talk, especially when I'm overwhelmed and need specific help… to just say “I'm autistic and am overwhelmed, I need xyz” to a retail worker and them being blunt back helps immensely. But for the sake of close loved ones, I am tired of putting on masks to be a certain way around THEM for them to feel comfortable. Sometimes, my authentic self intimidates others; I match words with my deeper feelings and I talk openly about my trauma… on the off chance some ears hear my plight and the strength I’ve gained within, to inspire others to be so open with themselves is a quaint byproduct of being myself. I had thought I could be myself around someone who would accept me for who I was. That I’d continue to be myself and them to love me no matter what… when in reality, they were bent out of shape, walking on eggshells around what they assumed was my weaknes...

TW... rape. birth/operation/hospital/nurses. grief. exploitation. I don’t remember the day I had to let go of the idea that I'd see Them, again... (around 2014/15?).  I know I couldn’t keep thinking about Them. Everyday They were on my walls, Madonna holding the Infant (a picture of me so pale, a loss of massive amounts of blood, thus the complexion). A glimmer of someone I have never really met. What if I am in the reality where I got the second chance, and I'm squandering it? Where I didn’t have to pay with my life? A person who may not ever want to know me? A person who will develop better, without me... Will I live up to Their expectations? Will I disappoint Them? A person who has been described to me in about twenty letters, and a handful of printed out pictures.  I’ve never heard Them speak. Will I know Their voice? Will I know Their face? Everyone says they see me in Them, but all I see is the negative space, where I see him. The living memory of who They are, walks thi...

So Brother is into The Office. Him and SIL are like die hard fans, the way I am about Doctor Who, or so I figure... I could never get into The Office... Steve Carell looks too much like our dad so... I just can't and won't...  Besides Catholicism, I don't really know what to get them or talk to them about....So I forget to reach out to them... Their lives are always changing and it's hard to keep up because sometimes it's really really triggering me in a bad way... and it's not anything bad, persay... it's more like a weird jealousy? Like I am excited and super happy for them and their lives, but I know deep down that I'll never have what they have... not in the same way. Is it because I deny the Church in my life, or is it because I don't want the idea of pigeon hole my one and only community? I don't want to hang around people who are all of one mind... I like the diversity. I know that I am better for it. ...  I don't reach out to family b...