the Other

I am the Other, the Shadow.  I am anger and rage and pain.  I am aggression and hunger.  I am claws and fangs and the desire to make others hurt.  I am vicious and destructive and ruthless.  I am the one who rejects the rules, I am the outlaw.

I am the one who has been locked away and the dark one behind the lady of sorrows.  I am the predator and the one who knows no compassion.  I am the wild one who shape-shifts and works with deception and stealth.  I am the one who drinks too much and builds boxes and locks things away.

I am the one who would choose the freedom of the open road, and anonymity.  I am the one who wants and will do anything to have what I want.  I am the one who lashes out and leaves others to deal with the consequences.   

I am the one who sacrifices the others and watches from outside our body.  I am the one who burns and the one who cuts and the one who hates. I am the one who does not trust, anyone, ever.  I am the one who never shows fear, or pity, or weakness of any kind.  I am the one who will not scream.

I am the one who will no longer be caged.  I am the one who refuses to surrender, no matter what. I am the one who is learning to find other ways to live.  

time travel and the laws of physics...

Photo by Helen Jarvis-Reynolds

In the sunlight, 

the tail occasionally strikes, 

kissing my arm, my leg, my belly, 

the side of my neck once.  

We are just playing  but,

the bite of the tail, slight as it is, 

brings a flush to my skin, a rise in my heart-rate 

and a slight release of neuro-transmitters in my brain, 

I still understand the science, for now.

Later, we sit in the summer evening.  

I recall moments from long ago; 

the sound of rain on the roof of a car, 

the smell of South Carolina soil, 

the taste of strawberry wine,

another face, another name,

and the structure of time begins to shift.  

My memories from a lifetime ago are closer than they appear.  

the day to day, of life as it is now, fades to a distant past.

Later still, I sit on my bed in soft cotton, 

drinking wine and listening to music from that life long gone; 

you say my voice changed somewhere during the third song... 

The occasional touch of your claws playing lightly on my arm 

causes another release of the magick potion in my brain, 

I am less conscious of the science now.

I got up to get something, 

from the kitchen I think, more wine maybe? 

I am not sure now, 

you were standing behind me, 

your claws tracing symbols across my skin.

“You may turn around now…” 

your voice, a whisper from a half-remembered dream.

Moments skip forward; 

Minutes? Seconds? Days? Hours? Years?

The structure of time has lost cohesion.

bent over the bed, my hands behind my back,

"Do not move"...

the universe collapses into my skin... 

there is no spoon, no room, no clock on the wall, no walls…

only your claws on my back, your growl in my ears, 

your hand gripping my hair, 

pulling my head back, exposing my throat.

The magick in my brain has taken effect; your spell has cast me into power...

The laws of physics have been replaced by a warm russet fog 

that smells like sex and tastes of your skin; 

gravity no longer applies. 

Your forearm pressing against my neck makes it difficult to breathe, 

your grip on my hair tightens, 

both pull me back against you, 

“Don’t make a sound” 

and when you have finished fucking me again... 

“That, was for me."

Your voice penetrates the fog that fills my body and my brain, 

causing the temperature to increase by a magnitude...

Later, after you have restored the clock 

along with the walls and spoons and things, 

and I am once again a woman of my age 

and not a time-traveler, containing the entire universe within my skin, 

you ask me about the things I said when you asked me "why?"…

There are no bruises this time, but for a shadow on my belly from your teeth, 

and answers that I do not remember giving...

Words

I love words.  I love knowing their intricacies and their subtleties and their deep meanings.  I love knowing them and choosing them and stringing them together to make something true and beautiful and raw and real. I love the magick they hold and the power they wield.

Violence; physical force, extreme or uncontrollable force especially of nature, fervor, intensity of feeling or expression, aggression, ferocity, strength, force, passion, might, fierceness, power.

Predator; a carnivorous animal that hunts, kills, and eats other animals in order to survive, any organism that behaves in a similar manner, extremely aggressive, determined, persistent, wild, untamable.

Perversion; the changing of something good, true, or correct into something bad or wrong, or a situation in which the change has occurred, a sexual practice considered unusual or unacceptable, falsification, distortion.

The words that make us uncomfortable are powerful.  Many have meanings that evoke very negative feelings, and many of those words have other meanings. I object to the subjugation of words to only their basest meanings, and I choose to reclaim them and to use them because by definition they are the most accurate to express my thoughts.

Slut; an insult for a woman whose sexual behavior is considered immoral.

 

Because I do not consider sexuality to be immoral the word itself is meaningless to me, it holds no power.  It invokes no emotional response.  That is not to say that there are no words that are emotionally powerful to me.  The word beautiful is incredibly powerful and being called a “good girl” can reduce me to shreds.

Discovering which words have power for me, which words make me angry or uncomfortable, which words I find important to reclaim, and which words have no meaning, no power at all, is an exploration into my identity and my deeper self.  

on Predators

In my last post I made a comment about how we as a society have done so much to control or even “eliminate” the predator from the human psyche.  That statement felt wrong and has been bothering me all day.  I had thought to correct it through editing but, decided to let the statement remain in its imperfection and expand my thoughts on the subject of predatory nature through a new post.

I have a personal appreciation for the predatory species.  I am drawn to them and feel an affinity for them as well as a great deal of respect and admiration.  My living companion is feline.  One of my totems is a bird of prey.  And I learn from the canine species every time I am privileged to be in proximity to them. 

Most human beings admire predators in the wild, or even live with the “domesticated “siblings of those wild animals.  But many refuse to acknowledge the nature of predators and insist upon projecting upon them gentler and more civilized  qualities as if there was something unacceptable about the predatory instincts of the wild animal.  This human tendency annoys me greatly.

 I believe that we as a species are also predatory by nature.  There are those who have completely rejected the instincts of the predator.  To be honest, I find those particular humans difficult to relate to and to be around.  They have a tendency to bring out the nastier aspects of my personality.  And that is where we come to the statement I had previously made.  We all try to civilize the predatory instincts that we possess.  We do not want to behave as wild animals (although I would still make the argument that in some ways that might actually be an improvement over some of our “civilized” behaviors). 

We invent rules to make us feel less than wild animals.  There are aspects to our predatory nature that need to be channeled in more socially appropriate behaviors.  I will not argue for anarchy or against the rule of law but, I do not think it serves us so well to attempt to ignore or eliminate those aspects of our humanity that give us power and strength.  Our will is a powerful part of our selves.  Instinct is necessary for survival even in the modern world.  The wild inside of us is a great source of vitality and life-force. 

I have a wild nature and I have strong instincts.  I find myself driven to explore those parts of myself.  I desire to engage with the predatory nature of others because my instincts tell me that through such interaction I may come to know my own predatory nature.  But I also feel the need to explore the polarity of the prey.  I need to experience both sides of the relationship. 

Hunger, lust and the drive to express what it is to be alive, these are strong instincts and I will not try to tame them.

the false self

There is a small dark thing that pretends to be a part of me that I refuse to allow license.  That is because it is a false face that turns my nature upside down to hide my true desires.  It is a distortion, and a mask.  It is a sadistic thing that revels in inflicting damage.  Not simple physical pain but, physical, mental, emotional, and psychological damage.  It delights in utter destruction on every level including the destruction of myself.  It is not a true part of me but one that has, in my past, asserted its illegitimate authority to hide the true nature of my desires.  In truth, it is a liar and I believe, the ill-formed and in-human, still-born product of fear. 

I am not judging those who have a sadistic or dominant or predatory nature.  From what I have read and learned in my intellectual studies of the nature of those who identify as Sadist, the infliction of mental, emotional and psychological pain or, damage of any kind, is an abhorrent perversion to them.  Just as true non-consent (rape) is considered an evil thing not to be tolerated.  In much of the writings I have found, even the idea of not having a “safe-word” is completely unacceptable as it is considered too dangerous to all parties.  Burning someone or actually cutting someone and causing them to bleed is also considered to be beyond the “safe, sane and consensual” standard of practice.  We have done much as a society to control or even “eliminate” the predator within the human psyche.

I have been exploring these ideas intellectually.  I have been reading and learning about other people’s feelings about them and about the rules that are insisted upon in the community that explores these experiences.  I have even done some physical and purely scientific (solitary) exploration of certain factors.  Solitary exploration has been less helpful that actual discussion and discussion has taken quite a bit of work. It took some struggle to even speak about these things with people I trust.  I am not accustomed to having to fight so hard to articulate my thoughts on any subject and this in itself has been a learning experience. 

I have, in the past, indulged in chemically induced oblivion, and chemically induced arousal.  I have, in the past, cut myself and burned myself to feel physical sensation and to explore my reactions to it.  I have enjoyed receiving tattoos and my reactions to the stimulus of the pain involved in that experience.  I have also experienced disassociation and “out of body” experiences during sexual situations where I panicked but was not capable of “escaping”.

If I am to truly discover anything about myself; it will require that I actually engage with someone who is not afraid to push me and not back down, someone who has made friends with their “inner predator “as it were.

Many would judge the desires that I hope to explore as perversions but, true desire is not perversion, it is the false self that is truly perverse.

I desire to experience pain and to discover my own responses to that experience, to experience violence, to experience the hand at my throat and submission to another’s control, to know how it feels to submit, and to discover how it feels to struggle against the predator and to fight the panic and force myself to remain in my body and not to watch from overhead, not to disassociate from my body but, to stay present and experience without the escape.

I wish to explore these desires because, that false self has tried so hard to hide them from me, and because I believe that our fears, our secrets and desires hold the keys to our greatest truth, our greatest self and out greatest power.