#111 - Modern Segregation

Today’s words: Amend, Elite, Use, Define

Word count: 194

Completion time: 27 minutes

Summary: Representation from a young age matters.

--

She knows how to talk

But not how to use her voice

She knows how to walk

But not how to prevent others

From walking over her

She knows how to add, subtract, divide

But the collision caused by the division

Of black versus white is something

No child can fight...alone

Children will copy what they see

Like to be whatever stars are on TV

But it’s the elite who choose who to use

On the big screen in Vue.

...Take 2

I’ll amend what I said

and begin with this instead:

When that child came home one night

She said, “Mummy, I want to be white.”

“Child, why?”

“White people are beautiful.”

Who put this in her head?

Who sat down with her on their lap

And told her she wasn’t all that?

No-one needed to.

It doesn’t need to be explicit

For someone to exhibit self-loathing

If beauty is all around and it’s wearing white

The other colours don’t shine as bright

The dictionary can define ‘beauty’ and it won’t have a race

But nearly every beautiful face we see looks the same to me

And barely any will look like me

#99 - Seeing Red

Today’s words: Power, Hands, Sharp, White

Word count: 361

Completion time: 18 minutes

Summary: A man who everyone expects too much of finds other ways to display his aggression

There are references to self-harm, so, yeah.

Note: Despite the last sentence, there ARE other, safer ways to handle issues, and it's best to talk to someone if you're feeling this way. I was just trying to step into the shoes of someone who thought that it was the only option. Stay safe, guys x

--

Society has given him too much power, he thinks. Trust a man with that much power and they have the ability to destroy almost anything; many obstacles will be obliterated just by his existence. But what if his main obstacle, his main challenge, is himself? How does he knock down that barrier? Easy.

He looks down at his hands, grabs a sharp knife and destroys the only solid thing that is supposed to keep him together, the thing that’s supposed to protect him from harm. He realises quickly that it can’t protect him from everything, most of all – himself.

People expect him to get angry, to lash out, to quit being a pussy if someone agitates him and he decides to turn his cheek only to get it slapped.

“You’re a man, aren’t you?”

He was. He was a man, but he was less of a man than the men who weren’t so passive, so weak, so...’girly’.

As a child, he’d wonder why he preferred to hang out with girls, why his facial hair never really developed, why he hated action movies. Boys were supposed to hang with other boys, boys were rugged, boys loved explosions and fight scenes. And if he wasn’t a boy, a man, what was he? The answer wasn’t hidden beneath the skin, in fact, there is only one answer: a boy who isn’t like other boys is a boy. No more or no less than the ones who act ‘like a boy’. Still, he struggles.

He scratches his skin like it’s an eternal itch, like he wants to rid himself of it altogether, like he wants to start again in a new, better body.

He drops the metal implement into the sink, watching as it draws a swift line of red against the white porcelain. This isn’t the right way to live my life, he thinks, and it won’t solve anything, but if I can’t use my hands against others, I’ll use them on myself. It’s safer that way.

There are better ways to handle it, it’s easy for an outsider to say, but what if it felt like the only way to release pent-up aggression?

#94 - Eyesore

Today’s words: Remodel, Unadvised, Education, Delicate

Word count: 295

Completion time: 18 minutes

Summary: It’s possible to change yourself to fit society’s definition of beauty...but they’ll only find something else to make you feel ugly again

--

She leans against the peeling wallpaper that’s covered in roses as she picks and scratches her delicate skin. She wants it all gone, wants to remodel herself from the beginning, make it so that she comes out perfect.

When a drawing comes out wrong, the artist crumples it up, throws it away...if the drawing’s conscious, why can’t it redo itself? If it knew that it was an eyesore...would it be unadvised to tell it to change? Sketches can be erased and redrawn, edited and re-edited as many times as they want and it’s okay, so why not for humans? That’s what she thought.

“I want to be beautiful, skinny, lighter, I want to...”

...Please all of the people who only aim to make you feel worse about yourself.

If you change everything about yourself, they’re only going to throw more insecurity at you. Once you’ve cleaned your pretty white dress, bleached it white and ironed out all the creases, they’re only going to find more barbeque sauce and ketchup to dirty it again.

If you give up on looks and try to get a sound education, they’ll mock you relentlessly because you don’t know as much as them, and you’ll never be as smart because you’re a woman. Not only a woman, but a black woman.

Descended from savages, illiterate fools, closer to animal than human. Monkeys can’t read.

Though, once you realise that you can never please them...you don’t have to care so much.

Instead of pleasing them, please yourself. Be someone that you would be proud to know, someone who other people can look up to.

Get up from the floor and fight conformity, don’t submit to it.

You have the power to beat this, they just don’t want you to realise that

#88 - Only Human

Today’s words: Centralize, Glorious, Act, Detail

Word count: 138

Completion time: 8 minutes

Summary: 'Of all the creatures that were made, man is the most detestable.' (Mark Twain)

--

Sometimes I feel like I want to centralize all authority in the world and rule this world on my own. In this one glorious act, I could feed those who starved, free the unfairly imprisoned, and bring justice to all the under-appreciated minorities around the world.

I like to think that no detail would be left unattended, that I would straighten out this earth with a fine-toothed comb until all the knots and kinks were gone.

If only it were that easy.

I think that maybe humans were just supposed to be greedy and destructive, that without these traits, there would be no human race. There will always be defective humans, but they’re not seen as defective...they’re seen as human.

“I’m only human.”

“You’d do the same.”

“It’s human nature, you understand.”

I do understand.

I’m human too.

#73 - Forever Young

Today’s words: Gesture, Duchess, Eloquence, Vestigial

Word count: 435

Completion time: 42 minutes

Summary: People need to stop promoting the idea that looking older is bad...because why? 

--

Sam was a beauty. I don’t mean in the conventional sense...they just exuded this air of elegance and striking attractiveness that was difficult to explain; small things like the way the eyelids framed the eyes, the shape of their lips when they smiled, the smooth voice that Sam always complained was an octave out of place (with a vestigial hint of Irish), but fit them like Cinderella’s glass slipper. More than that, Sam’s demeanour, not to mention eloquence, was comparable to that of a duchess – polite, charming, and pleasant to be around; not to mention that Sam’s hair was usually curled in shoulder-length ringlets after a quick brush.

This was the sort of person who, upon waking, looked like they had spent a couple of hours getting ready. Sam could redefine the artificial ‘just got out of bed’ look and make it literal, something that only movie stars could get away with, but not them. There was no secret to it, Sam just had a face that looked good, no matter how ‘bad’ it was supposed to look.

Whilst you may think this a biased account, it’s not only me who holds this opinion. Often, Sam would be asked for beauty tips and bombarded with questions along the lines of, “How do you get your face to look so young, so fresh?” when in reality, Sam detested adverts that encouraged ‘anti-aging’.

“Why are people so scared of getting – not even that – looking older?” Sam asked out loud one day as we sat in front of the TV, one hand made to gesture towards their face. “There are people in their twenties fretting over wrinkles, getting Botox, praising their peers for looking so much younger than them, getting offended if they get asked for identification in bars...I don’t understand it, and it’s usually the women. People need to stop telling women that looking older is bad or unattractive.”

I piped up then. “When I was younger, we were under the impression that men always aged gracefully, getting handsome when they were in their 40s, 50s, maybe even 60s...but women reached their ‘expiry date’ after 40. We were just teenagers then, but as we were all very impressionable girls, we believed every word.”

Sam put one leg up on the sofa and faced me. “’Expiry date’,” Sam repeated, followed by a look of disgust. “Humans aren’t bits of food. I heard something similar, though...which, I’m ashamed to say, made me a little smug. Like, ‘Whoa, I’m still gonna be handsome even when I’m nearing retirement? Nice!’”

“You’re so lucky,” I teased.

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.”

#27 - Girl; No Frills

Today’s words: Fresh, Soup, Husky, Upheld

Word count: 656

Summary: Gender roles and stereotypes are stupid (story is not about Ellen Page, contrary to the picture below...)

Lots of people upheld the view that to be a girl, you need to fit a certain criteria.

You need to be emotional, passive, ‘pretty’...if not, you get tagged as more ‘boy’ than ‘girl.’

This wasn’t, and isn’t, okay.

The word ‘boy’ was always squeezed in somewhere to describe me: ‘tomboy’, ‘boyish’, ‘like a boy.’

I have a husky voice, short hair, baggy jeans to hang from my ‘barely there’ hips, baggier t-shirts that my mother said did nothing for my boobs. Just because I associate with boys doesn’t mean that testosterone is contagious, or that I’ll wake up one morning with a dick; just because I am perceived as more boyish than girlish doesn’t cancel out my femininity; just because I don’t wear make-up, dresses, or high heels doesn’t mean I have a gender identity crisis.

To qualify as female, the real deal, do I need to play up to society’s definition of what a female should act or dress like? If I splash out on a puffy pink dress for prom and fuss over whether my eyebrows touch or not, will I get the green light? Please; I already look fresh as fuck.

I’ve met girls who embrace the word ‘tomboy.’ They like being seen as ‘one of the guys’ because they think it makes them special. Shopping in the male section of the shop makes them stand out from the other girls; they feel empowered. Not being a girly girl meant that they were being non-conformists, real revolutionists.

They never stopped to think that rejecting anything to do with being ‘female’ fed patriarchal society.

Well I’m sorry, but my name isn’t Tom and I’m not a boy, not even close.

Don’t automatically shorten my name to ‘Alex’ because you think ‘Alexandra’ doesn’t suit me.

Don’t ‘forget’ to invite me on a girls’ night out, saying that you didn’t think I’d like it.

Don’t assume that I must be transgender or a lesbian.

That shit’s offensive.

Wearing Doc Martins and cut-off jeans doesn’t reverse my gender.

Let me decide who I am.

I once poured hot soup on a guy’s lap because he insisted, insisted, that I was a boy trapped in a girl’s body since I acted ‘just like him.’ He scrutinised the way I spoke, my clothes, even the way that I sat.

“A real girl isn’t like this; you’re a dude, right?”

A ‘real girl’ wouldn’t dare to dress the way she liked and not how society urged her to dress...

There’s no way a ‘real girl’ wouldn’t want to show off her womanly curves, am I right?

No chance in hell that a ‘real girl’ would stand up for herself by pouring her own soup on a guy’s crotch, yeah?

The only time that people attached anything feminine to my identity was when they called me ‘she.’ That was the only thing that people threw out for me; the only thing I could hang on to.

When birthday cards with ‘daughter’, ‘niece’, and ‘aunty’ were sent to me, I felt an artificial sense of relief...quickly followed by immediate irritation; it’s 2013, why is blue still for boys and pink for girls? It’s sad that it would be ‘making a statement’ if someone designed a pink card for a guy. “But he’s not gay” right? Don’t worry your homophobic little head – I’m sure your macho son won’t switch teams upon receiving something pink that isn’t a vagina.

What I’m trying to say is, gender roles are bullshit and I feel sorry for people who feel they need to embrace those roles in order to fit in.

You’re a boy? Grow your hair out and wear make-up if that’s what you want to do.

You’re a girl? Play-fight with your friends and wear boxers if that’s what makes you smile.

You don’t identify as either? Do both, do neither, I don’t give a fuck.

This isn’t a film audition, this is life.

#1 - Stares

Today's words: Fat, Embedding, Waste, Myth
Today's genre:  Romance/Horror
Words: 497 

 “Is it true that you eat a six-course meal every day??”

Josie often wondered where that myth had originated. Perhaps it was the time that she took major advantage of an ‘all you can eat’ buffet at one of the restaurants in town with some friends. ‘Never waste food’ – her mother’s motto.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” was also an often enquiry, and not because people were interested in her, but because they were interested in whether it were possible for a plus-size woman to have one.

A long-term relationship didn’t come until Josie was twenty-four with a girl called Melissa. Melissa was very pleasant, cheerful, and gorgeous; someone that would get several stares when they’d walk out in public. When she’d started seeing Josie, the stares changed; they weren’t accompanied by cheeky smiles or winks, instead they were paired with downturned mouths and looks of disgust. Society would always view anything above a size fourteen as ‘fat’.

At first it was bearable – she’d ignore it because she was in love and that was all that mattered; Josie was her teddy bear and Melissa was Josie’s panda bear. She had found this amazing person in Josie and she was happy, beyond happy, she was ecstatic, elated, euphoric, right? Wrong.

One evening when Josie was asked to meet up for a date, Melissa didn’t show up and Josie went missing. The stares became friendly again. She had lost the first person who had ever been loyal to her for an extended period of time, but at least her public image had been salvaged, she thought.

A few days after Josie’s disappearance, Melissa noticed a fresh-looking scar on her waist as she was about to step into the shower. Maybe she had scratched herself in her sleep, she thought. Knotting her brow and stretching her skin out to get a better look, she froze. ‘Hi, panda bear’ was embedded into her skin in small uneven handwriting as if someone had taken a knife to her. All she could do was stand there and stare. “Where did this...?” she began out loud, lightly touching the red letters that carried no pain with them. Thinking of Josie and inhaling sharply, she quickly covered herself up with her towel.

The following day on her inner forearm in the same handwriting was another message: ‘Why did you leave me?’ She focused on the word ‘me’ and tears began to form followed by shaking. Forcefully rubbing at her skin in vain, she closed her eyes and shook her head. “It’s impossible,” she repeated. “It’s in my head.” But other people noticed the messages, too.

A sentence would appear every single day without fail. She passed it off as an artistic experiment, but when they didn’t fade or stop, it became harder to excuse.

The stares eventually took a different tone and she was looked at oddly for the rest of her life, forced into a life of solitude.

‘I’ll be with you forever, Melissa.’