Tag Archives: am writing

I Loved You

I loved you
like water
like the grass
like liquid mercury
inside of blown glass

i loved you
like soft snow
and meditations,
like you were
the chosen one.

i loved you
inside cages
on rooftops
where lilies grew
through rock quarries.

i loved you
innocently like lambs,
openly like rain clouds
demanding the
sun come out
i loved you.

i loved you
like disease accustomed to,
like rabid dog bites
oozing with foam
because the pain
had become my home.

i loved you
somewhere in the distance,
like tart lemons
and bitter beer faces,
i loved you,
and then i loved another.

i loved another,
like the same as you,
same habits,
same stench,
same brick walls,
trapped inside the absence.

i loved another,
like more tears on baby cheeks,
more bruises on scraped knees
like open wounds
and belly screams on
roller coaster rides,
i loved another,
and then i loved me.

i loved me,
like acceptance,
and purity,
wholesomeness,
and mistakes.
like wistful memories,
and regrets,
like fading sunsets.

i loved me,
like imperfection,
and joyful smiles,
like yearning
and fighting,
constantly running,
to keep from hiding,
i loved me,
now i love them.

i love them
like learning,
like figuring it out,
and compassion.
like accepting the afterlash
of my actions.

i love them,
like hope
like understanding choices,
like intent of thought,
like harsh truth,
from singing voices.

i love them,
because i loved you,
who taught me to love another,
until i learned to love me,
so i could love them.

(written 1/11/2011)

https://anchor.fm/venniekocsis/embed/episodes/I-Love-You-e1k5sc/a-a3tho1

 

Vennie Kocsis is the best-selling author of Cult Child and other publications. She is a also a poet and hostess of the podcast Survivor Voices Show.

Alabaster Possibilities

I sit in the silence
of a million swirling thoughts.
I don’t accept this separation, and
I chew on the assumptions
like they are the last supper.

I see ghosts pass me,
they flatter me by choice;
their words swirling like
raindrops that make my hair moist.

I am alive with decisions
as the voices whisper,
calling me to stay on path,
”don’t get side tracked.”,
and I listen intently.

I kneel beside a flower.
She is starting to die.
I hold her lovingly
as her petals cry.
I wish to breathe for
every fish that has expired;
wish to Love for
every soul weary and tired.

I open my arms to
receive the Moon.
I am spiraling sunlight
where my skin is anew.
I let Love become me.
I am one with the leaves.
I look into the Mirror
to see the divinity in me.

There is a world around us.
It breathes and weeps.
It is filled with open wounds
from the pain that seeps.
Unable to feel hate only
passing disappointments,
which give way to forgiveness;
as I step through the gate
where Love awaits.

I hold moments in my palms
like diamonds of time
that teach me to smile
so the rough waters will calm.

I wash tears with compassion,
sprinkle relief on lowered faces,
I am passing out rations,
a taste of a new day.
I am touching momentary madness,
turning it into sanity,
where the children skip,
and the sadness becomes happy.

You bathe me in acceptance,
and for the first time ever,
awakened to my worth,
where actions blend with words;
where beauty comes
in forms of laughter
like alabaster bath houses,
where the skin is released
into the steaming sea;
where we Love freely;
because time has gifted us
infinite possibilities.

walk with me beside the ocean.
it’s been a while since we’ve spoken,
and i was hoping we could remember,
the days when we danced together.

(written in 2011)

Vennie Kocsis is the best-selling author of Cult Child and other publications. She is a also a poet and hostess of the podcast Survivor Voices Show.

Swaddle Your Heart

Where do I go when I float?

Away from the frayed tentacles

Of memories and ligaments,

Strained from twisting, turning,

Child, they said, this hurts me

More than it hurts you. No.

I go back to moments and sit,

Quiet inside the hopelessness it’s

Good to remember this; to never forget

Lest I leave behind the reasons why

I fight until my brows ache.

You got lucky if you didn’t get raped.

It takes the soul away; flight, it

Wanders in dark nights and mires,

Like quicksand, it is the hand of

Every time we were violated

Again and again and again.

Rock with the sadness, my loves.

Hold it bravely in your tender arms,

Like a baby you can re-love the child;

The defiled despair living there

In the core that is shattered and torn.

Fly with the visions, sweet thrivers,

Take back your mind. Release the ghosts.

You are not that anymore; not the

Forgotten child in the chains

Of monsters and madness. No.

You face yourself in the mirror;

Command the past and swaddle

It into the depth of your soft heart.

Vennie Kocsis is the best-selling author of Cult Child and other publications. She is a also a poet and hostess of the podcast Survivor Voices Show.

Nature and Love Are Crucial To My Mental Health

2

I am heady from the smell of ocean. I walk slowly to the vast, rolling surges of white foam.  My son, the cinematographer, snaps photos of my bliss, following silently as I dance and skip. Life becomes different when I am with the sea. It is humbling for me. It is reminding me that I am small within the realm of infinite reality.

I am surrounded by my family. Babies toddle about, smashing sand into hollow, plastic turtles, their faces giggling.  This joy that has emerged from the depths of my ancestral traumas and struggle, has instilled in me a deep appreciation for the small nuances of life.  You see, this journey has been a scattered learning curve filled with crashes and burns. I have been into the depths of its darkness and risen into the brilliance of its light. I will not fall again.

6

I press my toes into the sand, aware of the soft scrub of the grains against my feet. I enjoy the firmness of this beach, impacted, forcing me to dig into and be present with the awareness of this feeling. Grounded inside the sensation, I let the earth infuse with my skin, sending her energy into my spirit.  She is soft and firm.  I am safe above her.  There is no rumbling of engines or honking of horns.  I am here in this moment completely alone.

5

The wind lifts my dress. I am in surround sound with the soft roar of the waves. They are a symphony rising and falling, reminding me that in an instance, swells can turn. She reassures me, that even if pulled into here tidal arms, sleep will be cool and peaceful. I feel every cell filling each drop of her endless depths move inside my skin. We resonate together, as even the seagulls crying out to the fish become a faded echo.  On this shore, I see dimensions I’ve never traveled before.  I see possibility.  I see me in the sea.

4

I wonder what happens inside of the mind and spirit when a human just walks into the sea? Eventually the body becomes numb from the dropped temperature. I imagine there is scramble and a struggle against the pulling of the waves as the limbs lose the ability to fight.  An acceptance washes over when the mind realizes it will never return to shore. The eyes close and gulping in the salt, the waves become one with the spirit here. Inside this liquid world, beings exist, the same as me; different environment; Otherkin.  It is not a walk I desire.  It is a wonder, a curiosity, a movement of my mind.

I am grateful for my life. It is big within this smallness. It is filled with surviving and thriving. It sings the songs of promise. It tells me to hold on, keep fighting and stay strong.

I stand inside this diminutive yet immense piece of planet; one so beautiful, yet filled with abominations beyond the imagination. I must return to the reality of my mission; my dedication, to make a difference. But just for today, I escape, just me and the waves.  I am infused by the sea and my family.  This is where I am balanced; when all is calm; where there is no storm; when we drift gently and in harmony with the tides.

3

 

Vennie Kocsis is the best-selling author of Cult Child and other publications.  She is a also a poet and hostess of the podcast Survivor Voices Show.

My Mother Didn’t Want Me Calling Boys So I Wouldn’t Look Like a Slut

Cover Only

“Rise of Sila” book cover – coming soon!

As I’m writing “Rise of Sila”, the sequel to “Cult Child“, which details my transition as a teenager from growing up in a cult, to adjusting with American culture, the many ways in which I was conditioned by my child sexual abuse is coming out in deeper ways.

Excerpt from “Rise of Sila”: “I feel confused and lost.  Boys come to school all the time with “love marks”, as everyone calls them, on their necks.   Why does that make me bad?  When it comes to boys, things aren’t so different in this world than they were back on the farm.  Boys get treated better out here too. Girls? We’re dumped if we say no when they want to have sex with us and sluts if we say yes.  My second lesson is that because I am a girl, even in this new world, I will still never be right.

Eventually Mama does ask me where Russ is; why he doesn’t call anymore.  I tell her he met another girl and doesn’t want to talk to me anymore.  Mama spends the next hour telling me that men are shit.  They’re all shit.  They take and take. That’s it.  So, I should expect it.  I should never trust a man as far as I can throw him.  If I carry one thing into my adult life I better take this one, Mama rants on.   Her voice fades into the distance as it has come to do when she begins to lecture.

I won’t listen. I will grow up to become battered and bruised by the men I would choose.  I will also become hardened.   She’s right about one thing, though.  Right now, as I sit here listening to her, I know I’ll never be able to trust a boy.”

My mother reinforced in me an ideal that males can never be trusted.  She did so any time a boy I liked didn’t like me back.  While she had strict rules about boys, so I wouldn’t look like a “slut“, such as not allowing me to call them because a “lady” always lets a boy call her, she also projected her own hate for men out through my coming of age experiences.

The layers of aftermath created by the abuse of Sam Fife’s Move of God did not end the day we boarded a plane at the Fairbanks, AK airport in 1984 and flew off to Tennessee.  It would settle into my skin and dominate how I experienced every aspect of my life in regard to relationships.

Writing this sequel is, at times, daunting.  Stories I once told as funny, in short, cryptic and satirical form, now take on a different perspective as I re-live the experiences.  They’re not so humorous anymore.  They are painful and raw.  They are a direct look into my own reality.

Most of all, they are making their way out of my DNA, through my fingertips, and into the pages of a book, which continues to tell my true story through the eyes of a girl named Sila.

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Vennie Kocsis is the best-selling author of Cult Child and the hostess of Survivor Voices Show and her live Sunday broadcast Off the Cuff. She is an advocate, poet and artist.

I Fasted For 2 Days. Here’s What Happened.

Water Fast

When I decided to try a two-day fast, my intent was to begin short stints of fasting and clear my mental status.

I did my research. I am healthy. I’ve never had high blood pressure or internal organ issues, so, after checking it all out, it was a go.  I chose a water fast. I would go two days without food, drinking a healthy amount of water each day.

I began on a Thursday, planning to end it on Friday and celebrate with a soft breakfast on Saturday. I felt determined and extremely interested in what my thought process would be.  I purposely made sure I had no food in the house to keep myself clean of temptation.

Thursday started with a cup of coffee.  I spent most of the day without hunger pains. At 12:16pm, I noted a growling stomach and a headache.  I was feeling calm and having few thoughts of food.  At 12:46 pm, I received an email notifying me that my phone bill was overdue.  Shortly after making the payment arrangement, I thought of food.  With a slight moment of worry, my brain had sent me to my addiction as a soothing mechanism.  The fact that I had to write the emotion made me aware of the connection and able to work through it.

Here are some notes I took on day one.

“1:20 PM – Hunger pains. As the day gets later, I’m reasoning again; that I could eat light.  Today I am focused on the accomplishment intention in this fasting.”

“1:52 PM – Feeling very focused”

“3:00 PM – Had a conversation with a friend about how difficult it is to find someone to date; how we wish we had that intimacy sometimes. Found myself thinking of food afterwards – possible comforting the feeling of lack of partnership?”

“3:47 PM – Fuck… this… shit… Why am I doing this? I’m soooooo hungry! AND nauseated!”

“4:30 PM – So need to eat something I feels – physically like shit – nausea is off the chain!”

I made it through day one by drinking a small cup of coffee in the evening to let the caffeine curb the nausea and headache.  I got a decent night’s sleep.

Friday, I started the day again having a small cup of coffee.  I spent the morning gulping water.  My notes for the day proceeded as I continued to struggle with thoughts of food.  At about 11:00 AM I thought about getting some soup, a bit of broth, just to curb the nausea.

 “12:39 PM – stomach growling like a mofo – goddamit!”

My stomach was growling, and a slight headache was growing behind my eyes.  I began to worry about not being able to sleep that night due to hunger pains.

“2:57 PM – Fuck whoever is cooking good smelling food nearby.  I am commanding it to smell like a pig farm! I also feel oddly high and I haven’t smoked a damn thing.”

“4:15 PM – I’m reasoning with myself to just have a salad tonight – to change the fast and only eat a salad in the evening.  Tummy growling audibly! Like a fucking choir from hell – a demon choir.”

“7PM – Had coffee with a friend who came to visit.”

“OKAY FINE! I also ate a small bit of bean and cheese burrito.  SHAME SHAME SHAME!”

As Friday evening progressed, I gained an intense clarity and focus.  I scrubbed my bathroom on my hands and knees.  I completed a plethora of small tasks that had been sitting undone for days.  In just two days of fasting, I had learned an immense amount of information about the way I think and how my emotions correlate with food.  I felt inspired.  I felt that my DNA had begun to reset itself.

I now intend to do five days soon.  I love a good challenge.  I have a competitive spirit. I want to fight my food addiction through this mental process.

I will journal it again, and share my experience with you.

Note: Please do your research and check with your doctor before fasting.  If you deal with medical impairments, fasting may not be for you.

Vennie Kocsis is the best-selling author of Cult Child and the hostess of Survivor Voices Show and her live Sunday broadcast Off the Cuff. She is an advocate, poet and artist.

Abuse Is Not Just “Being Harsh”

The Eyes Don’t Lie by Vennie Kocsis

“No, you don’t understand.” I explained through the phone. “I witnessed abuse; cruel, verbal abuse.”

Well, you know,” the lady on the other end replied, “some people can be a bit harsh.”

Harsh, that’s what my mother’s generation called verbal abuse. Harshness. Harsh meant you could be spoken to however an adult wished. Harsh meant you were a pain in the ass, always fucking up, couldn’t do anything right, controlled, sequestered, gossiped about, and all the while your abuser feigning to the outside world that they are a good person.

Too many times than I care to count, I have heard how wonderful and kind my mother was.  Yes, it was hard to watch my mother be nice to other people for the sake of appearances.  My mother’s abuse was subtle. She could pinch you on your upper arm to shut you the hell up while smiling at the stranger she was speaking with.

Harsh. This woman I was speaking with had just called blatant verbal abuse “a bit harsh.” I knew in that moment, that none of this was worth my energy.  It was futile to even try anymore, so I said, “Well, I love you.” Because I do. I have love for her existence and the gifts I’ve seen her display.

Then she laughed at me, as if the statement of “I love you” was ridiculous.  She actually outright laughed at me.  I was momentarily stunned.

“Well, I wouldn’t say THAT. That’s not something we just throw around.” She retorted.

I realized even more, that this is the problem. Lady, your generation didn’t tell us you loved us. You didn’t “throw around” love when we needed it, and you still don’t. You throw denial. You throw self service, because “who is going to do this and that for you because you didn’t keep up with age of technology?” You don’t throw out, “I’m sorry you had to witness that. This is not okay. I understand why you ethically wouldn’t want to be associated with that kind of behavior.”

Instead, I received defense statements which melded into victim blaming as if we are over-exaggerating; as if our feelings and observations and hurt don’t matter.  As if we don’t understand your blurred line between “Harshness”and blatant Abuse.

“Well, I say I love you to people I appreciate, so know you’re loved.” I reply. I realize it doesn’t matter. I can feel love for whomever I wish. If she chooses to mock it, that is for her to feel, not me.

I don’t have the where with all to associate myself with these kinds of apathetic mentalities. They are damning and counter-productive. They are petty and cruel. They are lacking depths of self-accountability, and there is not healing within those confounds.

There is a generational gap where the strong are over taking the weak. I feel a sense of empathy for the dying. A Generation of Sociopaths created a grave problem in our societal construct, spent the next fifty years studying these self-created problems, used their children as test subjects for their abuse and study and wrote mass books about it; books which contain no “on the ground” solutions. Regurgitation is not for our generation.

I feel empathy for the waning because they will never know how good it is to heal, to love, to stand in truth instead of denial, to call moments for what they are, to own their own behaviors and make a choice to change them; to speak truth no matter who throws stones, instead of running on passive aggression. They’ll never what it’s like not to care what others think of them or not base their worth on another’s opinion. That’s rather sad, yet that energy is a dense weight on this rising Earth, needing to be healed or dispelled.

When a person is hanging on the edge of a cliff, there comes a moment, their hands become weak.  They know that death is inevitable.  Yet still, they grasp onto that rock with all of their might. Finally, they take that last breath, and free fall into the inevitable destiny of change.  Welcome to a new era of letting go and flying.

Vennie Kocsis is the best-selling author of CULT CHILD, and hostess of Survivor Voices radio show every Sunday at Freedom Slips.

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VennieKocsis.com

 

Why You Should Think Twice Before Collaborating


In my twenty plus years of writing and creating art, I have rarely collaborated with other creatives. I enjoy being a stand alone, independent person. Experience has also taught me some harsh lessons in regard to collaberating.

There was one good time on Paltalk in the early 2000’s when I sang a hook for a producer in Las Vegas. We did that for fun, creating a parody song. I still have the copy of it and occasionally listen, enjoying the memory. That one was a casual and positive, collective collaboration.

The few other collaborations I’ve done have left me jaded. I hear this often from indie creatives. So why does collaborating with other creatives end up like this?

What I have experienced is a simple lack of ethics and a self-serving intent. They simply don’t give a shit. They don’t think their behavior will ever come back to haunt them.

When I say I’m going to do something for someone I do it. If I’m having struggles producing the exchange I promised, I communicate about it. I care about my character as a creative being.

In my experience, ethical creatives are difficult to find, especially when dealing with any Hollywood related type individual. My personal experience had been that many of them are narcissistic sharks who will love bomb a person with a fantastic promise; a lie to get what they want. If you plan to deal with Hollywood types, armor up and lawyer up.  Frankly, lawyer up period.

Sometimes collaborating can be a great advantage for a creative who is starting out. It allows for networking and connection. I support guest blogging for writers. You get to control your content and you can share it as much as you want. I highly recommend this platorm for writers. I don’t consider this to be collaboration persay, as there is normally no exhange promise or writing as a collective. Guest blogging expands the reader platform for your writing.

However, in regard to exchange collaboration, the question remains. Is there going to be a balanced exchange of product and the sharing of creative work?

My previous, and certainly final, experience in being burned on exchange collaboration happened like this.

In 2015, I made a collaboration exchange agreement through email with a videographer. I wrote a poetic script for the videographer’s short video. In exchange, the videographer was going to make a video for one of my pre-recorded spoken word poetry pieces.

I emailed the videographer three of my recorded pieces. In a return email, they decide they liked my poem “Illusion”, a piece I had not publicized and would do so with the video was given to me to publicize. The videographer asked if they could put some music to to my poem. I agreed.

I waited. I watched the videographer making videos for other people, but my video had not arrived. I gave them time. I understand that paying projects come first. That’s how I work as well.

The following year, the videographer and family went through a transition, moved, had to re-settle, and so I gave space for them to balance out. Being patient and giving allowances, I waited, didn’t bother them, figuring when their dust settled, I’d receive what I was promised.

I observed as they did just that, becoming a part of a sensationalized situation. I still held space, feeling that advocacy work came first.

Yet, I saw the videographer was making videos and doing photo shoots for people. So, I decided to email and see had they forgotten about me? Possibly. It can happen when people go through life transitions.

Ok. I stay in my critical thinking, hoping I’m not witnessing what my gut had really told me from the beginning; that people will use others for gain, then throw them away.

I messaged the videographer on Facebook messanger. I could see the person had just been active a mere fifteen minutes earlier.

Again… my message Ignored.

They’ve been active on Facebook messenger since I sent the message.

Still ignored.

So, I am resigned to take it for what if is and let it go. Now I know how these people are. True colors have shown themselves. They attach to people for as long as they might gain from them and then its seemingly over.

I do things in writing for a reason. I am a writer who likes to have proof of truth. I document. I keep emails and messages.

It was 2015 when I originally handed over the script for their video. In 2016, I have Facebook communications about the video I was supposed to receive. It is now 2017. I still have nothing.

This is about seeing the ethical system of other people. Instead of a simple response of “hey, oh gosh, so sorry this has taken so long thanks for being patient.“, I am ignored.

Guess what that triggers? Shunning. Being extracted from.  A myriad of emotional battery replaying.

When I am treated this way, if someone asks me about them, they’ll get the truth of my negative experiemce. I don’t run in popularity contests. I don’t use people for personal gain then throw them away.

I’m not as pissed off at the lack of being given what I was promised, as I am at the blatant disrespect of being ignored. I’m no longer promoting those who are unethical people. I don’t care who they are. If you got mentioned by me in a radio interview, or your work shared to my thousands of followers and then fucked me over, you will never be promoted by me again.

There are no second chances when someone openly disrespects me. I don’t play nice. I don’t kiss the ass of academia, which is slowly phasing and dying out. I don’t worry whether someone is going to like or even endorse my work. Why?

Because running on this mindset is a recipe for being used, being bullshitted and it’s frankly, inconsequential. Most readers don’t give a shit if your novel has a forward written by someone with PhD after their name. unless you are writing an academic book.

Readers read content. I usually skip forwards as a reader, to get to the meat of a book. Most readers I know do the same. Blurbs don’t impress me either.  You can have a blurb from a president on your publication. If your book doesn’t interest me, that blurb is not going to make me buy it.

Additionally, it doesn’t necessarily sell your book. Marketing knowledge and the money to invest in advertising will sell your book/product.

So all of the spazzing and pining and usery I have experienced in my decades of being a public creative, from my experience, means nothing except being the teacher of lessons.

What matters to your audience is how well you write and create and more than ANYTHING, personally connecting with your target market.

In summary, my advise and perspective is to focus your time and energy on YOUR own work. Don’t give it away. Definitely don’t give it away on a promise, even in writing. Unless you have the resources and desire to sue, should you not receive what you were promised, more often than not, you will find yourself empty handed.

I also don’t want you to pattern your networking based on my experiences. Just take them into consideration and move forward better armed to build your boundaries.

And without QUESTION, follow your INTUITION. If your tummy feels off about it, say no and don’t look back. Don’t live in the mindset you “need” people to be successful. You only need authenticity and consumers for your product.

As you rise, people will tell you how much they can do for you, that their collaberation will make your work better, that their written forward will boost your sells and more. I disagree. I know authors with forwards by academia who are making nothing on their books because they have no marketing skills.

Good marketing is what matters. Investing in yourself matters. Your own voice will sell your product. So, think twice before collaberating. And remember, the imagined professional reference you think might endorse your product could also lose you consumers if that professional is not respected.

Don’t be afraid to stand alone.

Vennie Kocsis is the best-selling author of Cult Child and the hostess of Survivor Voices Show and her live Sunday broadcast Off the Cuff. She is an advocate, poet and artist.

Soul Genocide

She mimicked normal,
Smiling, wine glass
Lifted pinkie; copied class,
And she remembered back,
Carefree before this jump.

Into ash and stone
Leaping downwards,
This place would never
Feel like home.

Oh, did not she
Understand her strength,
When the wind
Lifts her wings?
To get through the storms
She would forget
Her own dimension
Without hesitation.

Windblown cheeks.
Born weak and
Barely breathing.
Timelines bending,
She had jumped back
To help them
Walk forward.

How the sun will
Burn her feet
And her eyes
Red from crying,
She will die and return,
Float in and out;
Take blows so she could
One day
Reveal
What they hope to hide.

Soul genocide.

Old, decrepit shills
Behind fading veils
Holding onto strands
In their decrepit hands,
They hope to
Keep the rope noosed,
But they are dying
And she is smiling.

Generation of horror
Deserves no honor.

Beliefs created excuses
For perverted abuses.

As the clouds drift
She gazes the sky.
Change comes soon
As moon cycles
Command the tides.
She breathes quiet.

Into the dark matter die.
Take leave of Gaia.

She will vanish one day;
Become dust and ash,
Leaving behind a past
Scrawled on pages,
Telling stories of
Generations who
Perpetrated

Violence
Racism
Sexism
Abuse
Misuse
Judgment
Confinement

The truth they hope
Will continue hiding,

But trees speak loudly
Through vibrational air
And wind carries whispers
When truth is near.

No escape. No pennants.
No hope for Redemption.
They are falling matter
Slowly evaporating,
A virus of sagging skin
Wicked insides and
Accusations of sin.

Be that your heart
Stops beating
To end the weeping
As you become nothing
To nevermore arrive
Alive in existence again.

Be that your breath
Is taken in night dreams
To end the screams
Left over from their
Deviant schemes.

Be that in their death
Release the slaves,
The mind overtaken
Now re-awakened.

She spins circles
In the dirt
A line for every soul
Their apathy has hurt
And she prepares
To hunt, eyes closed.

©VennieKocsis

If We Have Rules Are We Free?

The first time I wore a two piece bathing suit I was fourteen years old. I recall the nakedness my stomach felt as it met sun and warmth. My skin tingled. I was shy. Yet, the more I fed my body with the light of the sun’s reflection, the more I embraced its glow.

I imagine this is how the woman feels who, for the first time, removes the hijab, or the long skirt, or the bonnet, or the many array of coverings that have been required for a woman to cover herself with, passed down through multiple years of differing doctrines and laws telling her how she must dress and behave in order to be desirable to a man and appropriate to others’ standards.

I imagine them all with their hair blowing in the wind, skin soaking in the kiss of breeze, free and respected in the true nature of her natural glory. She is me, once disallowed to feel sky on my thighs, told how to dress and what would make me wife material. Chained by my appearance to someone else’s ideal of what was proper, I drowned inside my clothing layers.

I’ll spend eternity alone if it means being free to be me, tattoos and dimension colored hair, making my own way, whatever that looks like. I dream of a day when women are honored for the uniqueness of who we are, not who people think we should be. When that day comes, and it is, I will hold hands with a long line of women, throwing off their chains and running, laughing, into the sea.

Vennie Kocsis
author, Cult Child

You Used To Be My Muse

There was once a time when I sent you love letters, and you smiled.  You were far away, always, in either spacial distances or miles, even when you were right beside me.   There were days when you thirsted for my words as if they were the last drop of liquid you’d ever drink again.  They would fill your lonely nights with hopes of better ones.  We never thought ourselves to be good enough, even inside of our inflated senses of ego, the mask that we thought let everyone know we were whole.

You’ve sunk into silence in these days, so many years later, as though your feelings were shred into so many pieces, they melted into the linings of your heart and hardened.   How does one make the decision to re-shape what has been formed into stone over so many years of fire if not to re-melt and re-form into what was the beginning of your existence, stars and floating sky.

I am at peace with being.  Where once I scorned myself, I no longer ingest the disinterest; the passive absence of spirit, held behind a wall of secrecy that cannot be infiltrated.   As I quietly observe the movement of this drift, I understand it, more deeply then I’ve ever seen into our ethereal strings before.   I used to cry from trying, defeated and wondering.  Now, I smile in knowing, because I will continue to float on this solitary raft, happily soaking in stars and overhanging leaves; joyful to be me loving me.   Whether I am loved by others is no longer a need.  Someone’s choice to give love is theirs to own.    I’ve learned to love myself enough to replace infinite lovers.

You used to be my muse as I was yours. You used to write poetry and touch the center of yourself; scribe beautiful rhymes that read as coded messages.   Now, there are robotic movements and steps backwards, unresponsive communications where not even silence holds whispers.

For me, every moment has become a muse.  Each tree leaf that softly dances in the breeze and every human face glancing at me gets read in seconds.  Inside those fleeting moments, I grasp language, expression and understanding of situations that don’t belong to me.   It is from there my fingers begin to speak, leaking out emotions that stir the swirling universes beneath my rib cage.

Here, I sit alone with myself, but I am no longer lonely.