True Colors Hidden, Beauty Forgotten

Copyright Eli Edward Evangelidis

How can you say that you will show

Your inner truth like blood on snow

When you keep truth hidden inside

Rather than risk hurting your pride

How deep within does your pain go?

What you hide within cannot grow

The light in your soul will not show

Do you know what resides inside

How can you say

Do you think that your love can grow

Not letting your true colors show

Who you are is always denied

What you wish is hidden inside

Is a lie worth getting to know

How can you say

~Cie~

Prompts Used:

Click the banners to find out more about the prompts.

Note:

For tonight's exercise in self-abuse, I have chosen the Rondeau. I don't know about you, but I find this to be a challenging form.

Here is how you form a Rondeau.

(1) A A B B A (2) A A B with refrain: C (3) A A B B A with concluding refrain C. The refrain must be identical with the beginning of the first line.

Christine says that while she encourages pieces that touch on the lived experiences of those who identify as LGBTQ for the Pride Anthem challenge, it isn't a requirement. 

While I for one give not one single rip about anyone's sexual orientation and would ask that others return me the same courtesy, I will disclose that my poem was written from the POV of someone who hid their mental health issues for many years as opposed to someone who felt forced into the closet regarding their sexuality. However, the poem is for anyone who feels as if they have had to hide a key part of themselves in the often closed-minded world in which we live.

Fat Friday #2: A Constant Barrage of Hate Leads to Suicide Ideation--Shocker!

Dear Debby Ryan:

Your garbage fat suit doesn't look anything like an actual fat person's body or face. Fuck right off with that shit.

Love,

An Actual Fat Person Who Is Sick to Death of This Kind of Bullshit

This is a response to a post on Medium Daily Digest by Your Fat Friend.

A lot of the time, Medium Daily Digest is a trash fire of self-congratulatory mental masturbation. However, there are a few pearls of wisdom among the rubbish. This post is one of those pearls.

The following is my response to said post:

Oh, Honey, if I could reach through the computer and hug you, I would.

I will tell you first off that I'm a fat adult. I'm also a mythological creature. I'm a fat adult who is food insecure. I only eat one or two meals a day. I am not so disabled that I can't work at all, but I can't work anything even close to full time. I don't get food benefits. But I can't possibly exist because fat people are constantly stuffing our faces, amirite? The thing that makes my situation even worse is the fact that not only does the entire world think I'm a glutton when I'm half-starved, there is this horrible personality in my brain whom we can call ED.

As you may have guessed, ED stands for Eating Disorder.

ED praises me when I starve myself.

The thing is, all of society's revulsion and all of ED's praise don't mean doodly squat. I'm still fat. Not "a little bit chunky" fat. Full on fat. 300 pounds fat.

With all of my endocrine problems, it's extremely unlikely that I'll ever be anything but fat.

I yo-yo dieted, engaged in orthorexia, and tried to hate myself thin for 33 years.

When I was young, I would lose weight with my dieting attempts. It always came back with friends. Once I was in my late 30's, the weight stopped coming off. 

I finally discovered size acceptance and Health at Every Size.

Maybe if I'd stop receiving constant messages that I'm disgusting and worthless, I wouldn't always be thinking that I wish I had the courage to end things. Believe me, I hate myself. I despise what I see in the mirror. I think I'm the worst kind of failure. I'm not even allowed to see myself in a neutral light, let alone a positive one.

Shows like "Insatiable" do nothing to help. 

By the way, is that trash still on? I gave it a thumbs down immediately. I was utterly disgusted. When I was still able to work as a home care nurse, I would sometimes watch the Disney channel with my patient. I thought that Insatiable's star, Debby Ryan, had created a really cute show with "Jessie," which she both produced and played the lead role. I was utterly disgusted with her for going along with this "Insatiable" garbage.

You're fine the way you are. I'm fine the way I am. It's our society that's messed up and wrong.

Here's a link to my comment if you want to give me hand claps for it or something.

Conclusion:

Fat people are not here to be the butt of your shitty jokes for your shitty TV show or anywhere else. 

Fat people are bullied to the point of mutilating our bodies and sometimes to the point of suicide, and society sanctions this behavior.

Fuck right off with that shit. If you're the kind of person who sanctions bullying and scapegoating, you need to check yourself, because you're an asshole.

Also, fuck your concern trolling about fat people's "health." If you care so much about my "health," give me some fucking money so I can purchase adequate food. That will go a long way to improving my health.

Oh, but I can only be "healthy" if I'm fuckable in your eyes?

That's what I thought.

Fuck right off with that shit.

~Cie~

FOAD Thursday: To All The People Who Made Me Think I Was Stupid

Slow on the uptake, maybe, but not stupid.

I say "slow on the uptake," because it took me 54 years to realize that there were a lot of people who were full of a lot of shit who made me feel bad about myself for no other reason than I do life differently than they think I should.

There was the school psychologist in sixth grade who told my parents that I was borderline retarded because I had trouble with the pattern recognition portion of the I.Q. test. Even though I was writing at an eighth-grade level when I was in fifth grade, I supposed that I must just be stupid, because in sixth grade the teacher gave me an F on my story for following my outline too closely. He said that I must have written the outline after the story, which I did, but only because he said that we would be docked points if we didn't follow the outline we wrote for our stories closely. I don't and can't write that way, so I wrote the story first.

About ten years later, I learned that I was actually somewhat dyslexic, particularly when it came to numbers and patterns. Didn't stop me from thinking I was stupid, though.

To Gina or Tina or whatever your name was in the eighth grade who sneeringly called me a space cadet.

I think about too many things at once and have a tendency to go off in multiple directions. It may be somewhat frustrating to deal with a person who's like that, but it isn't an indication of stupidity. There are many intelligent people whose thoughts tend to be scattered. It might be an indication of ADD/ADHD, but not a dull mind. Anyway, I can't even remember what your name was, so I don't think you really matter in the scheme of things.

To all those along the way who have called me stupid, an airhead, a flake, and a loser, at long last, I say "fuck you."

Yes, I can be kind of a flake sometimes. I have a bad habit of agreeing to do things when I'm emotionally in a good place and then wanting to run and hide when I actually have to do them because I'm afraid I'm just going to screw them up. I'm a bad fit for a normal job because of this tendency. 

Being a bad fit for normal jobs doesn't make me lazy or stupid. It only makes me a bad fit for normal jobs.

Overly sensitive? Yes, probably, although there are plenty of people who are extremely insensitive, so it can be a push.

Defensive? Rather definitely.

Weird sense of humor that most people don't understand? Guilty as charged.

Weird in general and doesn't fit in with normal society? Absolutely.

Depressive, introverted, geeky, withdrawn, and possibly not even actually from this planet? Indeed.

Stupid?

Nope.

You don't get to hurt me with that one anymore, because it isn't true.

I may not have figured out how to use the weird gifts I was given in a lucrative way, but that doesn't mean I'm stupid. It just means that playing by the rules doesn't work for me.

~Cie~

WTF Wednesday: Assholes Will be Assholes

The following was written in response to a post by a person who has been accused by family members and so-called friends of lying about her illnesses, including cancer, because she "just doesn't look sick" and "doesn't act like she's in pain" and her attitude is "just TOO positive."

I find your approach enviable, and I don't find you pitiable at all. Yes, I'm sorry you've had to deal with cancer because I know cancer can take a lot out of a person, but I do not offer pity because pity is something no-one wants.

The best I can muster a lot of the time for the crap I deal with is an IDGAF attitude. I can't say I celebrate the hand I've been given. Then again, I do better with it when people aren't pitying me. I once said that I don't think I'd know how to navigate life without the lens of bipolar disorder, because I've never not had bipolar disorder. So, if I were given a cure for bipolar disorder, I wouldn't take it. People freak out when they hear things like that. Why wouldn't I want to be "normal?"

I can't say I think bipolar disorder is a "gift." Before it was correctly diagnosed, it wreaked a lot of havoc. It just happens to be something that twists the control knobs in my brain in different directions than most people's brains. It can't be "cured," and I wouldn't take the "cure" if it could be.

If there were a cure for all my endocrine problems, I'd take it, because I hate having no energy. I've been tired my entire life, and it's gotten worse in middle age. People have no sympathy for that sort of thing because the illness is invisible. "Well, if you'd just get up and get going..." Yeah, if I had a penny for every time I heard that I'd have enough money to hire someone to get up and get going for me! Not that I'd actually want to do that.

I truly believe in accepting people as they are, and I don't believe in pathologizing people. Nobody lives forever. I wish my attitude could be more like yours, but I tend to be a bit of a gloomy cuss by nature, and no, it isn't a "choice." 

~Cie~

Stupid Is...

I am well aware that my presence has no meaning in anyone's life

Trying to host a blog hop when you are about as popular as owl dung.

I really don't know what made me think that anyone would participate in a blog hop I hosted.

As it always was in real life, when I give a party, nobody comes.

Even to a party where you don't have to bring gifts.
I'm also no longer welcome at some of the photoblog hops I used to participate in because I'm not a professional quality photographer and I got my feelings hurt by a joke someone made at my expense. 
Further, I've received no personal emails from anyone since my Gmail account got hacked and I can't be sure if it's because my emails to people are now being sent to their Spam folder (turns out this was happening with my emails to my brother) or because people are trying to hint to me that they want me to fuck off.
I am not feeling very good about myself right now at all.
I was going to write a Tackle It Tuesday today, but the only thing I want to tackle is working up the courage to actually off myself instead of just having another dumb day of suicide ideation. I know everyone would cheer if I finally just fucking did it instead of thinking about it and never pulling the trigger, so to speak. (I don't even own a gun, so I'm not going to off myself that way.)
I also know ain't nobody reading this. I could say I was going to burn down an entire city and mean it, and nobody would give a fuck.
I'm too damn lazy to burn down a city, and I'm not a pyromaniac. I like fire well enough in its place, but that place tends to be a fireplace or a BBQ grill. I'm not a fan of arson.
The thing that sucks is when I get into a place where I think "fuck it, nobody's listening anyway, so I'm going to tell it like it really is," and then people get up in my face for telling it like it really is.
So, then I go back to being more measured in my approach, and I get no response.
Let me just say this.
Fuck everything.
One day I will off myself, and then the world will...
Not give one single fuck. 
And that's the reality of things.
Stupid is...
My very existence.
Believe me, I'm sick to death of me too.

About Me Monday #2

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Today's About Me Monday is actually about my late maternal grandmother.
The following is a response to this post on We Hunted The Mammoth in which one belligerent brain trust of an "incel" stated that he likes to body-slam bitches who dare to look at him while he's walking past. Several people called bullshit. One said he probably reserves his tough guy act for vulnerable girls in their early teens and elderly women with canes.
These were my thoughts on the matter.
RE: the "body slammer" and elderly women with canes

Just remembering my late maternal grandmother. She would have taken up her cane and whaled on his ass. Where my grandmother went to school, they had outhouses, and there was a knothole in one side of the girl's outhouse. There was a boy who would stick his John Thomas through the knothole to make the girls scream.

One day my grandmother was in the outhouse when he decided to do his thing. She whacked old J.T. smack on the head with a ruler. The exhibitionistic young fellow ran off screaming and never introduced John Thomas into the girls' outhouse again.

My grandmother was raised as a fire-and-brimstone Baptist Christian, but she was no stranger to raising some hell when it was called for.

For those who are wondering, "incel" is code for "Involuntary Celibate." These assholes like to blame everything (particularly women) for their inability to get laid. They refuse to look at the fact that being belligerent sociopathic shits who badmouth everyone is what prevents them from getting laid. When you refer to women as "foids" (short for Femoid), your own mother as a used-up slut who rode the cock carousel for years before finally settling for your beta cuck father, and spend your time staring at your sister's "Chad" of a boyfriend with lust--excuse me, I mean glowering at him intimidatingly--you need look no further than yourself for why no-one wants you around. And no, it isn't because you aren't a "Chad." (In incel-speak, Chad is code for a hunky white guy, usually blond. Hunky black guys are Tyrone.) It's because you have the personality of a compost heap.

Feel free to share a link to a post about you or a cool relative of yours on the Mister Linky!

~Cie~

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #86 + Weekend Mini Challenge: A Portrait of Dystopia

Dystopian Portrait

Photoshop Manipulation by The Real Cie

Utopia was

Only ever a sad lie

Flawless fallacy

Pretty cars, pretty people

Not a place for those like me

~Cie~

Notes:

Today I found a couple of great prompts and flipped them upside down. 

The Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation prompt asks us to examine the concept of utopia in a Haiku or Tanka. Mine is more a Senryu than a Haiku. I do not question the existence of Utopia, but I postulate that it is more like Metropolis. It exists for a very small percentage of people. Most people are on the outside looking in, and some are completely crushed beneath the boots of the beautiful and careless dwellers of Utopia.

So, what portrait did I paint?

That of one of the people crushed beneath unrealistic expectations of beauty and brilliance and casually cast aside, not worthy of any sort of rescue because they do not adhere to society's standards of prettiness.

The person in the portrait is me. I chose it because I was sitting at a rather dismal-looking bus stop on the day of the 2017 Women's March. I would learn that day that not only had my health deteriorated more than I previously realized, but people are utterly self-absorbed, even the ones who claim to be "progressive" in their approach.

I managed to get through the entire march, which is a miracle in itself considering that I almost stopped several times along the way because I was becoming weak, but I had also become confused enough that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find my way back to the bus stop. 

When the bus stopped, everyone else shoved on board and the bus driver told me he wouldn't be able to take me. I said I understood, and I understood his position, but I kind of thought all those other people were assholes. I started feeling that wouldn't have happened to me if I was young and pretty.

 I was ravenously hungry. I had a Snickers bar, but I was trying to conserve it for "the right moment." With a lifetime living with ED (stands for Eating Disorder), I had learned to deny myself food up until things became critical. They were critical, but not critical enough.

I got on the next bus about a half hour later and had to stand. I was wobbling all over and my eyes were rolling back in my head. Exactly nobody gave any fucks. In fact, one spectacular dudebro about my age chortled and said: "I had to stand all the way there, now it's your turn."

Despite the fact that my eyes were glazed over, I managed a withering glare and said in a steely if somewhat shaky voice: "Buddy, I had to stand the whole way there too. Don't even try to pull that crap on me!"

He turned away and noticed a confused-looking young woman holding a bus schedule. He grinned and invited her to sit down in his seat. She didn't speak much English. He leaned in close to her in order to better "help" her, I suppose, because he was just a helpful kind of guy, at least if the person in need of help was a pretty young woman.

When a seat finally opened up, I scooted my ass into it as quickly as I could and scarfed the Snickers bar as if I hadn't eaten in a year. By the time I got off the bus, my feet were swollen and aching so badly I could hardly walk. This time, however, an angel appeared in the form of a very sweet Latina lady in her late 30's or early 40's who offered me a ride. I thanked her profusely. After the callousness I'd just experienced, her generosity brought tears to my eyes.

I knew at that point that I could no longer take part in events such as marches because I was no longer strong enough to do so physically.

I lost my job a couple months later because I became extremely ill and was pushed to keep working by my supervisor in spite of having a serious respiratory infection. I had a small stroke while working one night and ended up getting fired. Once my savings were gone, which happened reasonably quickly, I ended up living in poverty and have been there ever since. If it weren't for my son allowing me to couch-surf, I'd be sleeping in my car.

Utopia exists for a very small percentage of people. I used to dream of being something wonderful, of being a star, but over the years I've come to see that often those dreams end as nightmares.

So, you have a portrait of the kind of person that society doesn't want to acknowledge even though there are a lot more of us than most people care to think, and my skepticism that Utopia exists for anyone but the well-heeled in anyplace but dreams.