The orange and blue flames of candlelight memories from birthdays come and gone illuminate brown stains from spilt ink and paper cuts on your family's hardwood desk.
The soft mahogany that carried the weight of library books with cracked bindings, that weathered broken glass, finger scratches and runny noses.
The writing table that saw crayons and watercolors fade into pen and ink and now your old pencil with the grooves worn down right where you're used to so you can hold it without cramps as you scrawl through notebook after notebook and bite your tongue.

You can't let the heat of words burn inside your throat as you sew your mouth shut with the red thread your mom used to patch your overalls with in fifth grade.
The sagging brown and blue jeans with baby yellow fabric covering that rip in the knee where the neighborhood boys pulled your ponytails and knocked you down.
When you felt your palms scrape against the concrete and you were finally enlightened to the fact that they don't tease because they like you, but because they like to see you in pain.

Never forget that morning when that pain finally ****** you off enough that when you rode your purple “girls bike” up to the rack before saying bye to your daddy you purposefully ran your back tire over a puddle to splash the group's new ninja turtle shoes.
The sneakers your neighbor had and you were jealous of because you wear a dress and he wouldn't let you borrow because they weren't gonna match, no matter if you were trying to climb the fence in his backyard and your bare feet got scraped in the end.
The stinging of the metal matches the stinging in your palms from being tripped and the stinging in your fingertips from the days of paper cuts from making collages on that old wood desk and you write.

You write loud enough that the scratching of your graphite on paper echoes around the room and you drown out slamming doors and harsh conversations.
Your fingers are as quick as the automatic whisk that you always turned up to high when your mommy would turn around, just so you could watch the cookie batter get just… too… close… to the edge of the bowl before shutting it off in the nick of time.
In a split second moment your lead breaks and you stare blankly at the scribbled mangled words that travel in circles around your book.

And the embarrassment and anger and understanding that this world's filled with ******* wells up behind your blank eyes and bubbles in between your teeth, seeping through the red thread.
It dribbles down your chin and creates a pool atop of the grey words the clear saliva of sadness eats away at the paper and wood like acid.
Imagine what it was doing to your stomach, but don't think too much about it, just pick up the safety scissors and ignore the ocean inside.

Those scissors aren't just for paper snowflakes anymore, they're not plastic in pretty colors, no now they're heavy and metal and cold in your hands.
They're built for adults, for greying and melting faces, for the weight of a world that ignores beautiful broken bottles on the sidewalk and walks by a cute cat,
Or says “It's Just A Girl Thing.”
Or “Boys Will Be Boys.”
And they make you wish you were back blowing bubbles in your treehouse as you sneak a juice box and pretending you're the  captain of a pirate ship.
Instead of sitting at this desk with a broken pencil and dripping face.

When summer’s light is gone and winter’s come,
The birds all sing and soon they will take flight.
A soft and soothing beating of a drum
Will play as Pan brings in the coming night.
As fast as summer’s light has gone away,
So flees the love you have for even I.
Oh how I wish that I could make you stay,
But like a bird you must return and fly.
In truth all that I wish is for your joy
And if you need be free then hasten, go.
I beg you please, my heart do not destroy
It could not weather any beat or blow.
      I beg you, venture on your way my dear
      But never please forget who you’ve left   here.

“Nasty Woman”
Olivia Leap

In a society where a man can rise to power with statements like:
"What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?"
When asked about military ****** assault,

When he can claim that: "the look obviously matters...like you wouldn't have your job if you weren't beautiful."
When talking to female reporters,

And against powerful women, more qualified than him, one who decides to try and move against him, he mentions her husband "disagreed" with some of her positions,
As if the husband had say over her actions.

I am proud of my gender.

I am a Nasty Woman.
I am female and I am strong.
I will not accept that one who is so offensive and unqualified as this has any power over my mind.

I am a Nasty Woman,
And I will stand with my fellow transgender sisters, my cis sisters, my queer and gay and bisexual sisters, my immigrant sisters, my black sisters, my muslim sisters, my minority sisters, my oppressed sisters and we will not step down.

I am a Nasty Woman
And I will not back down when approached by racists and sexists who believe that the future is somehow going to be better.

I am a Nasty Woman
Who will not forget that a man can say he would look a gorgeous woman in: "the fat, ugly face of hers" with no repercussions,
That a man obviously racist, fascist and misogynistic can somehow sweep through our country and rise to power.

I am a Nasty Woman
Who is disgusted that someone who states he would date his own daughter if they weren't related
Is praised as a powerful man.

I am a Nasty Woman
Who is deeply upset that people even think of supporting
A man who states that all that matters is to have: "a young, and beautiful, piece of ***" beside you
That a man who obviously shows indifference and disgust for those different than himself and his ideal views, has so much power.

I am a Nasty Woman,
And I refuse to respect someone who has so little respect for me.

I am a Nasty Woman
And I can't wait for one year, two years, four years from now when
The people will take back our country from a "***** grabber"
Who couldn't respectfully hold a debate without dropping the "nasty woman" card,
Which I am proud to now carry
And will carry forever

I lost inspiration
Let it leak out of my boat
And into my lake.

But I've dredged it up with my broken net
And found myself again.

She's so beautiful

            With her drooping eyes and tired smile

She's so beautiful

             When she wakes up with cowlicks and sleep residue on her lashes

She's so beautiful

               Her sweatpants Mondays and princess weeks

She's so beautiful
She's so beautiful
Shes so beautiful

She's so beautiful

              With her sadness and joy and expression and kindness
              With every word of truth

And every word of love

I sit at my computer

And stare at the screen

Enveloped in the monotonous repetitions running through my head

Words of doubt and fear

And sometimes joy

All in a single tonality
Leaving my emotions meaningless

The illness catches branches low,
heralds beaten unseen woe.

It grows inside me, spark by spark,
a fire in my favorite park.

Jewels forgotten, rivers clean,
mark it by the ashy sheen.

It's gone again; it's worth your while,
stab yourself and spit up bile.

Your days are done and I will rise,
I am back to claim my prize.

///

Bigfoot is real and the government is
Run by lizards dressed in human skin!

Wake up, sheeple! We're being invaded by
Beings from beyond the moon who want to
Steal our culture and **** our land!

Chemtrails are killing free-thinkers by the thousands
And we'll only be safe if we retreat to that commune
In the middle of Utah

Brothers and sisters, you wouldn't think a
Blanket encrusted in ***** could do so much
Damage but clearly we've underestimated the power of deceit

Brothers and sisters and everyone in between,
The land isn't ours and it isn't theirs, and it'd serve us
Well to remind ourselves that the land has always belonged to
Itself and that's never gonna change

It's been several generations now but the blood is still
Fresh and nobody can blame you for being
Sour, but for the love of the gods, it's high time
We transform that anger into motivation

We're more than hokey voodoo magic and
Prophecies about reclamation or apocalypse, or
Cheap drugs and casinos

We're back now, we were never gone,
Just buried