i know, i have been wondering how i was doing, too

It is summer now and it is glorious. I have been writing consistently again. At last. Something turned or fixed somewhere around mid-April and has been continuing to turn or fix gradually, but positively, ever since. This is very, very good. It feels very, very good.

I don't know how much effort I am going to put into publication submissions going forwards.

But I know, at least for now, I am definitely going to continue to write.

It is hard to suddenly, at 26, find yourself questioning the identity you have held dearly for yourself, as yourself, since you were 12 or so - the identity you thought you would always be, the identity you thought was what described you first and foremost, above all else. I always wanted to be a writer. I always was a writer.

Then for the last 6-12 months before April it got very difficult, and then I could find nothing worth writing about, and then I mostly stopped. And I wondered, if I wasn't a writer, who I was. And I didn't know.

If you want to be a writer, but are having trouble writing, may I suggest you read good books, books you like. Not books from a canon or books you "should" read, but books you enjoy. Easy books, or books about people you admire and love and are intensely curious about. Find a book that is so good you want to read it. And then another. And another.

And it may help you write again. At least, it may help you remember what you love so much about words.

current preface to e.h.b.

Okay. So I’m going to tell you some awful things. 

There were lots of awful things for me, growing up. Maybe that’s normal. I don’t know. I only know what I lived through, and some parts of it seem pretty fucked up. I’m a person, just like anybody else, and who I am is complex and impacted by these things, just like anybody else. I’m not saying I’m more special or hurt or convoluted. I’m just saying these things are things that happened, and they have been part of everything that’s made me who I am. 

I need to ask something first, though. And it might be hard, and it might seem harsh, and if you agree then you might find you have nothing that you feel you can say to me, after hearing these stories, at first. I hope you agree. I hope you understand. And when you feel like you can’t think of a single thing you can say, afterwards, then please - wait. The words will come. And because they are not what I always hear, they will be the perfect words to say. 

When I tell you my stories, I need you to do this one thing for me. 

I need you not to say you’re sorry. 

Yes, that’s what you’re supposed to say. That’s your immediate, sympathetic response. I know, I get it. That’s what I would immediately want to say as well. But I need you to consider this. 

I have told these stories many, many, so many times. I have told them to friends when they happened, to friends after the fact when I needed to explain something, I have told them to so many boyfriends and kissing partners and significant others and therapists, some of them I have told to every single therapist that I have had which is probably somewhere around half a dozen. I have been going to therapists since I was about 14. I have told these stories a lot. 

And so many times, I have heard “I am sorry.” 

I have told these stories so many times that I hate telling these stories. I hate having to revisit the same old sad thing I have thought about so many times before. I hate that I am dredging it up again, that it is still a part of my life, that when I tell the story I cannot help but think about how awful it was at the time. When I tell a story I cannot deny to myself what I went through and what I felt. I can and do block some of it, as I discovered when I read through my diaries - the pain seems less intense in a story than it was. What that really means is just that sometimes I find myself doubting if it was really as bad as I seem to think. 

But that’s besides the point. 

The point is that now, when someone hears these stories, stories which are, rightfully, stories that explain how I became to be me, a person who I have worked so hard to become and believe is powerful, tough, capable, independent, and in control: someone who can answer a fight, instead of succumbing to it: someone who NO ONE would ever think was a victim, or a survivor, or someone who must be treated gently in case of breaking, as if I were spun glass; someone who NO ONE would ever see as a warning of what could happen if…, a person to pity, a person to feel bad for, a person who could be victimized, taken advantage of, and when that someone, my audience, responds to these battle hymns with their admittedly well-meaning and psychologically correct apology - their “I’m so sorry you had to deal with that,” their “That must have been awful for you” - I become reduced to that person. I become a person to be pitied. I lose all the battles I have fought since then, as a result of then: I am stripped to a person who could not stand up, a person who could not protect herself, a person who was a victim  and now is a survivor. 

I am not a victim. I am a fighter. I am a conquerer. I am Who Shall Overcome. I will never be that person, who had those awful things happen to them, ever again. I have not been for a long time. At least, that is what I want to - what I must - believe. 

And so the very last thing I want, the only thing I do not want to hear in response to my stories of blood and valor, lost skirmishes and abandoned battlefields, is that you are sorry for them. 

I would never have become strong without those experiences that taught me where I was weak. 

WHERE THE WILD VOTES ARE

The nation wore its election suit and made mischief of one president and another

 The media called him, “WILD TRUMP” 

 Donald returned “I’LL EAT YOU UP” 

 so he was sent to Iowa without debating much.

That very night in New Hampshire a wall grew and grew -

It grew until it blocked out the Mexican cielo and the wall became the world all around

and an oil ocean tumbled by with a private sector oil platform for Donald and he sailed out of the Gulf up the Mississippi

in and out of Ch. 11 bankruptcies and over almost twenty years

of shuttered companies to where the wild votes are.

  

 And when Donald came to the caucuses and primaries where the wild votes are they waved their confederate flags and gnashed their teeth with glee

and swung their pink penises and shouted to show their security

til Donald said “LISTEN”

and tamed with the magic trick

of staring into all their dull eyes without seeming too bright

and they were comforted and called him the most like them presidential candidate there had ever been

and cast their marks for him as the new U. S. King.

“And now,” cried Donald, “let the wild Trumpus start!”

“Make America great again!” Donald said and sent the wild votes off to work without healthcare, regulation, anti-monopoly laws or social security programs. But Donald the king

of All American Things remained dissatisfied and wanted to rule over where no one could check him at all. 

  

Then all around from each corner of the United States

he smelled the rank socialism remains 

of what he called "the Hussein programs" and began to tear them down. 

The wild votes cried, “We voted a red House and red Congress in for you too - 

those asses distracted between Clinton and Sanders - we love you, 

we love what you do!”

And Donald said, “Consume!” 

The wild votes waved their confederate flags and gnashed their teeth with glee

and swung their limp penises and shouted to show

how scary they were meanwhile Donald stepped

abroad his floating yacht-fracker and waved good-bye 

to the strong dollar and after one term didn’t even bother

to campaign for re-election just retired and went 

into the night of his very own name which he had left waiting for him

in an accordion maze of corporate enterprises which shut

and opened but always remained essentially the same 

and he chuckled from within his silken bed and he whispered,

“How’s that for a joke, citizens? How’s that?”  

  

Then he reached over and he put the lamp out. 

that year i wasn't writing because writing was bullshit

oh yeah

this year

submission rejections

today I got a submission rejection from a journal that apparently couldn't even be bothered to insert my name into the address field, so my rejection read Dear Writer...

i just want to say i go through the work of figuring out not only who works at a mag but who the appropriate editors are, for at least 9 out of 10 journals i submit to, every time. almost every submission cover letter i send out is personalized in some way. yes, they generally crib off the same main idea/format, but often i type them up without even referencing my last sub cover letter.

if you get a submission that addresses your editors by name, and you can't be arsed to do the same courtesy for the writers you are rejecting, then YOU,

coppernickle

            see also: arc, valparaiso, rust + moth, contrary, SOFTBLOW

you are a fucking asshole press which doesn't serve the chance to reject my poems 

tattoos (think about this)

OK. I have eight tattoos. At least one is publicly visible at all times. It's small, though, and you have to be observant to notice it. That's scene setting.

Now, some insider detail for those of you who don't have tattoos: there are two ways other people generally deal with a person with tattoos. They either ask about them, or they don't.

Fact: people with tattoos generally do not inquire about the tattoos of other people. However, they will compliment others on their tattoos if they are particularly cool.

Fact: in general, by which I mean I can't think of a single friend I have who defies this rule but I'm giving people the burden of the doubt, I do not have a single person I consider friend who has ever chosen to inquire about my tattoos within the first, or even several, few times we have hung out or otherwise gotten to know each other.

Fact: it's kind of rude to walk up to a complete stranger and start prying about why their body looks the way it does...innit?

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that it's more respectful not to ask people about their tattoos but allow them to tell you if and when. Or like, talk to them about it in private and respectfully after you have known them for a signficant period of time, if you are really curious. Like, that if you are a person who walks up and talks to someone about their tattoo first thing, you have trouble understanding social boundaries? Like it's just not cool to approach someone and use their appearance as the topic of conversation. Kind of rude, I guess?

It's just funny how it's like, a universal code with people who have tattoos. They are cool about it. They're just...much more in the know and respectful, it seems.

hey guys i'm a sell out

Not really. I don't think I have a lot of regular readers on this blog.

Anyway I just found out about Amazon Affiliates which is supposedly a way you could make money off your blog if you advertised things that are related to your blog. This blog is all about writing and reading, and if I'm honest I buy most of my books off of Amazon, so I thought it could work.

Basically the only change you guys are going to see is that when I write about a book I'm reading I'm going to include a link to where you could purchase it on Amazon (if you wanted; no pressure!) at the bottom of the post.

See? Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.

I'm broke AF right now and anything'll help - not that I expect this will, really.

thanks and brokingly

ehb