Handsome

I've been sitting with something for a few weeks: the discomfort I feel when people call me handsome.

I recognise that folks are just paying me a compliment with a word for what they perceive as my gender expression, which has been predominantly 'masculine'.  It just rankles and sends me into all kinds of  downward gender spirals.

So, here's a list of alternatives that can fill the 'handsome' void:

-cute (my favourite)

- breath-taking

- a picture

- pretty

- adorable

- suave

- guapo/good-looking

-radiant

- a vision

"Write or Die" or "Sometimes I Forget"

This might be an FoD post, but bear with me....

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I always forget, until I stop writing, how much I need it.

How much words, written words, matter to my Being.

I forget how much writing shaped my 'formative' years,

how it enabled me to sit through those classes,

walk through those toxic hallways,

make it through those dark nights, when it seemed like Dawn would never break,

How those words healed my wounds,

Saved my life....

Sometimes I forget how powerful seeing my words

--thoughts, feelings, desires--

on the page can shift my world

Colour it true

Remind me that I am here, with Complexity,

And that although my tongue knots with anxiety

My Silence is not Compliance.

Sometimes I forget

The landscapes I can create, the pictures I can paint, the Self I Become

With those words.

Sometimes I forget...

But when I remember

my world erupts with Intensity

More Complicated Than I Thought....

So.

I've recently come to identify as asexual.  And I have to confess I knew things would be difficult, but I had not... fully appreciated the complexity of the situation.

I do now.

But it's giving me a great opportunity to be more creative in my... expressions of intimacy. And I'm always down for more creativity.

 ♥