Themes of Fire - Model #2 - Cycles of Abuse

There are many themes of fire
That refine the bond that trauma builds

In the beginning, he will tell you
That you are the only one that matters
You make his world brighter
Like the only candle that can fend off the
darkness
He is the warmth and you are the light
In this theme of fire
The flames are passion, love, and hope
But above all they are false

They are tongues of flame probing you for weakness
Probing you for vulnerability
Did someone break your heart before him
Did your parents not love you enough
Does your mind ever become your enemy
He will blame you
Tell you that your misfortune is your fault
That if you loved him as much as you said you did
Your life would be in line
He will raise his voice
So that you will lower your head in shame
He will try to kick you out of his car
In the middle of the bypass
Saying no one has ever pushed him so far
He will threaten to beat the shit out of you
And give you bruises to match the ones on your heart
In this theme of fire, he shows his true colors
You will see them as works of art
And forget one of the basic rules of nature
The more brightly colored an organism is
The more toxic it tends to be
In this theme of fire, he will rake
You over the coals
Dangle you over the flames
And claim that his not dropping you into them
Is a sign of love

Eventually he will calm down
And you will think that this tranquility
Is the result of your ability to soothe
The beast within him
No, it is only lying dormant
Like an inactive volcano
Waiting to erupt
When strategy calls for it
What you have to understand
Is that his love and anger are tools
To use whenever the time is right
When the circumstance calls for it
You will be so grateful for this moment of inactivity
For this reconciliation
He will tell you
If you just stop making me mad
If you just stop talking to your friends
If you just give me money
If you just hate yourself
Then I will be happy
And by definition
You will be happy
In this theme of fire
You will soak yourself in gasoline
And beg for his spark

As you will learn
Nothing keeps him happy for long
He will drain the life out of you
Until you are nothing but a shell of your
Former self
His instability
Will manifest in you as anxiety
Depression, post-traumatic stress disorder
Anything he can convince you will be cured
By you appeasing him
Your friends will call
You will tell them everything is fine
It is easier than saying that you are ashamed
For staying
That you are embarrassed for everyone
To see how small you've become
How close you are to breaking
You will go through this cycle
Until something gives
And something will give
Something always does
Hopefully
You remember your own flame
The candle that existed before the thought of him
You will fuel it with the hope that there
Is something better out there
Even if you don't know what it is
You will gather up courage
In a last ditch effort
And say, I can't take it anymore
I'm leaving
He will react predictably
With volcanic rage
And blazing anger
He will tell you that you are worthless
And shady
He will tell you that no one else
Will ever love you the way he did
He will ask you
Who is going to love you now?
Who is going to love you now?
And with a voice that for the first time
Recalls its strength
You will say me
I am going to love me now
I am going to love me now.

Stifling Someone's Essence Is a Form of Violence - Model #1 - Intersectionality

I am not simply one
I say to myself in the mirror
Contemplating the different layers
That form the whole of my being
The different intersecting identities
Borne from struggle and discovery
Invisible to the outside world
Yet so integral to the world inside

A friend of a friend told me that his
friend's roommate came out to him the other
day
Gathered up the courage needed to tell him he was
gay
His roommate said - Can't you just not be that way
Can't you just ace the gay away?
Better asexual than homosexual
Better me feel comfortable
And you feel marginalized
Adjusting yourself to my heterosexist tendency

The problem with intersectionality is that people
Always want to censor some part of you
Turn you into a shifting microcosm
of adjustable identities
They always want to change you

Part Two - A girl from my hometown
Has an aunt who used to be her uncle
Aunt Lily used to be Uncle Hawthorne
And like all flowers, bloomed when the time
Was right and the bud was too tight
She tried to explain this to a friend
But the girl wasn't all that good at botany
Didn't understand the struggle of transit
The struggle of a woman beating her face up
With make up so people will stop calling her a boy
The struggle of slipping into heels sharp
as daggers arrayed against the slurs of people
who would call her a man to stifle her essence

The problem with intersectionality is that
people will always try to stifle your essence
and keep you from radiating it.
Stifling someone's essence is a form of violence.

Part 3 -
I know this girl from Lambda Alliance
that everyone keeps calling greedy
She's bisexual
Apparently she can't pick a team
Apparently she can't pick a side
She can't just be bi
She's always only "bi for now"
Always bisected by people with
No concept of spectrum
No concept of fluidity
No concept of the damage that's done
When you force a person into two closets

The problem with intersectionality is that
You often find yourself running in and out of closets
Trying to justify the permutations of self
That make up who you are
That people fail to understand
That intertwine so delicately
Like a piece of art
A carefully crafted figure
Forging self into reality.