An R.I.P Poem

I can’t find a reason why this should’ve happened. What can grow from of all this damage? What did you need that you didn’t quite have yet? How could you do this? Betray your family. The one thing you’re known for is your loyalty, an undying need to protect those you call family.
I think some days the anger was all you had left. Your soul so stained, tainted, depressed. But there was always a light regardless of your darkness, I just think you were blind to the beauty you harnessed. Your heart was gold, but the world is cruel kid. You found your vices and threw out the blueprints. You never were the type to follow a plan, you’d say “fuck it”, start buckin, and be your own man. But was the price of your life worth that lack of a plan? I know if love could cure an addict, you’d still be out here, goin’ at it and none of us would feel this pain that’s left in the wake of your absence.

I remember that day by the water, we were so young and free. Completely unaware of how it’d turn out to be. What would we have done if we knew this was next to come? I never knew you’d die, using a drug as a gun.

R.I.P. Joseph Shultz

June 2, 1992-June 23, 2016
by Ashley King

© All Rights Reserved 2017

You Are Me, I Am You

I kiss the corners of your piercing blue eyes and my soul explodes as you reward me with your toothless smile. I will never take you for granted.  

I listen to your giggle as you play with your Gigi and I’m encompassed by warmth, enveloped with love, destroyed by happiness. How did I ever know love before you? 

I watch you sleep, closely examining the rise and fall of your chest, listening to your soft snore and dream induced murmurs. I would give a million of my lives to preserve yours. 

I see you see things for the first time. Your eyes light up and focus in, your brow furrows in that curious way, and you examine. You take everything in and I spend a significant amount of time wondering what you learn from it all. I will teach you everything I know, and then I will learn more so I can teach you more. 

I watch you play with your hands. I love those little fingers and palms so much. You twiddle your fingers around each other and examine every inch of their magnificent creation, almost as much as I do. I wonder what things they’ll create, what they’ll touch and feel, where they’ll explore. I’ll show you every beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. 

I see your head turn on a swivel when you hear my voice. I feel your heart slow when you’re upset and I wrap you up in my arms. I play with you, imitate you, watch you mimic me, and I have never loved anyone more. I see me in your eyes and I see you in mine. I hear my voice in yours when you yell just because you discovered you can. You are me, and I am you…

I will cherish you every moment. I will remember every second. I will embrace every day I get with you. You are not mine, but you are a piece of me. I do not own you, but I made you. You are my daughter, you are my life, and I will protect you and love you until the end of time. 

by Ashley King

© All Rights Reserved 2017

In Pursuit of Perfection

“Just a little bit thinner”, she said to the flesh that dared to stretch tightly over her bones. Razor sharp angles chiseled from years of practiced self loathing and starvation…

“Just one more shot”, thought the boy who stared into the abyss that is amber colored poison. Dying to be a man, dying to gain the liquid courage this foul drink offered, courage to talk to the pretty girl. Dying to have a story to tell his buddies Monday morning in the locker room…

“You’ll never be good enough. What the fuck is wrong with you?” she thought to herself. Another B+ on another exam that she studied 10 straight Adderall induced hours for. Her father’s voice rings in the back of her head… or is it hers?

“Just a little bit faster” thought the kids. Running from death, running from life, running from existence itself. Striving for perfection, pretending not to care, stifled by the dichotomy of it all. Wanting to succeed, be better, be faster, be smarter, be… perfect. 

We stand at the precipice of our own sanity and every time, we jump. We hurl ourselves into oblivion in search of, well, we don’t actually know. We reach for a standard that was made by fuck knows who for god knows what purpose. There’s an invisible bar that’s been set and we will kill ourselves in an attempt to reach it. “Be better, faster, stronger, smarter, braver”. Be everything. Everything they said to be. Everything they want us to be. Everything that someone else was made to be, just not us. We are infinite. And yet, we stuff ourselves into manmade boxes. Boxes that stifle our uniqueness and limit our existence. And for what? 

The pursuit of “perfection”. 

by Ashley King

© All Rights Reserved 2017

Pedestals

I remember when we first met,

we could talk late into the night.

You made me smile so much,

I swore I was high on life.

You made me so fucking happy,

In a way I didn’t think could happen.

You start to get negative,

when all your past loves caused damage.

But you were incredible,

and I thought “This is it.”,

I thought you were the reason,

for all the years of bullshit.

But time wore it’s way into us,

And you started treating me poorly,

and I found myself forgetting,

all the things that made me happy.

You asked me why I stayed with you,

time and time again.

And I told you that I loved you

and didnt want it to end.

But somewhere in the mix,

I somehow failed to see,

that the man that I once loved,

existed only in my memory.

I was living in the present,

but hoping for the past,

and the more I wanted the old you,

the more it didn’t last.

You would get so fucking nasty,

condescending and mean,

You’d accuse me of shit, belittling,

when only you were guilty.

When the last fight would end,

You would beg for my forgiveness,

I just wanted real change,

But eventually I’d always give it.

I only wanted the simple things,

kindness, love, and respect.

But the longer we lasted,

the more you seemed to lose it.

Over time I grew angry,

Chock full of resentment,

You said so many things,

no longer repentant.

Your ego grew and grew,

and my loving man withered,

and the sadness that you caused me,

turned into something bitter.

Where once you were humble,

you became cold and cruel,

You used to value my opinion,

then you deemed me the fool.

You lost your respect in me,

by no fault of my own.

And once we had our daughter,

She was all that kept us whole.

In the end, I only wanted you to love me.

But I guess that was too hard,

from so far above me.

Pedestals make even the best of us look ugly.

by Ashley King

© All Rights Reserved 2017

Rape Culture Internalized

If we ask for trigger warnings, we’re too sensitive. If we don’t laugh at rape jokes, we’re too serious. If we get raped we’re either “asking for it”,  lying about it, or “lucky to get the attention”. And if we, as women, rape someone then it’s invalidated because we’re just too weak to ever rape anyone. Right?

Welcome to rape culture. The world of sick one liners and serial predators doing 6 months for violating a woman in a way that she’ll remember forever. We live in a day in age where a man can rape you behind a dumpster while you’re unconscious and instead of being described as a rapist, the media will call him “a promising athlete with a bright future”; and of course they’ll mention how that future “is ruined now”. You know whose future they didn’t mention? The fucking victim’s!

American facts are this: If you’re rich, you aren’t a rapist. If you’re a celebrity, you aren’t a rapist. If you’re a promising athlete, you aren’t a rapist. If you’re a woman, you aren’t a rapist. If you’re a husband or wife, you “can’t” be a rapist. If you’re a politician, a television star, a police officer, a judge, there’s no way you’re a rapist. If her skirt was short it wasn’t rape, if she was drunk it wasn’t rape, if she cried the whole time but didn’t say no, it wasn’t rape. If she said no halfway through, it wasn’t rape. If she comes forward after other victims have, she wasn’t raped. If she sleeps around, she can’t be raped. If he’s a boy, he can’t be raped. If you go to a prestigious school, you can’t be raped and you definitely aren’t a rapist. And as mentioned above, if she was unconscious but you’re white and privileged, it wasn’t rape. But if you’re black? Definitely rape. And no, I’m not being satirical or funny. I can show you case after case where judges, the media, and juries of our peers, treated the aforementioned statements as truth. Disgusting isn’t it?

We see it everyday and the sick part is that most of us are either numb to it or have heard it so much that we believe it. Have you ever wondered what a rape victim was wearing or how much she’d had to drink? Have you ever seen a survivor and thought she looked like “the type who would lie about it“? Do you agree that female students should be banned from wearing spaghetti straps while the quarterback is allowed to go shirtless? Do you believe that if women act in a certain way they can stop themselves from being raped? Do you think “it’s pointless” to make affirmative consent a part of our sexual education courses? Have you ever taken part in “slut shaming”?  If so then you are a part of rape culture. They fed you bullshit and you swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker. If that offends you then maybe you should ask yourself why, instead of getting offended about what a stranger said on the internet.

Why am I writing this? Let’s be honest, I’m all over the place, this isn’t my most polished piece, and the words aren’t intertwined in a powerful way that has the maximum amount of impact. But it’s important anyway. And it’s close to my heart. It is my heart because it is my story. I’ve been slut shamed and victim blamed. I’ve been cross examined in court by a man who didn’t believe me, despite the fact that I was 8 with damn near perfect recall. I’ve given depositions and I’ve had a rapist blame it on me. I’ve been objectified, sexualized, and silenced my whole fucking life. I’ve sat next to my male friends as they told rape jokes and made fun of women who require trigger warnings. I’ve had terrible things happen to me and thought “But what if no one believes me?” I’ve had my birth mother look at me and say “Well you know he only did it because of what you did”. “What I did” was nothing more than an excuse my mom’s boyfriend fed her for why he put his hands down my pants while I was sleeping. And for the record, I didn’t do “it”; a fact which I’d told her a year earlier when he’d said I had blown him and that’s what made him think it was okay. But I guess it was easier to continue to date and fuck the man if she chose not to believe me.

I’ve sat at a table of 10 women and contrary to popular statistics, listened as each one told their own sexual assault stories. Truth be told, I don’t know if I know one woman who hasn’t been sexually mistreated in one way or another; and that’s not even mentioning the countless men. And out of all of the ones I can think of, not one reported their rapist/abuser. Why is that? Mostly, they didn’t believe anyone would do anything about it and it was easier to live with without someone invalidating their trauma. Also, they didn’t want to be blamed or shamed for it. They didn’t want to be put through the judicial process all to have a judge put a 6 month sentence on their lifelong trauma. The world is a twisted place and I could go on for days but I truly don’t think that anything will change it until the people start to. And that can’t happen until we start recognizing all the ways our thinking has been slowly distorted over the years. Say these things to yourself over and over again if you have to: only rapists cause rape, men can and do get raped, a man or woman’s sexual history has nothing to do with their assaults, a rapist can be from any socioeconomic class, race, background, gender, or area; and the act of rape should offend you far more than the word itself. Do some research, educate yourself, and stop perpetuating rape culture. If you aren’t fighting against it or educating yourself about it then you just might be a part of the fucking problem.

by Ashley King

© All Rights Reserved 2017

Temporary

Feelings can be a truly terrible thing. Only they are capable of making you think you’re suffocating when you’re not. That you can’t take one more step when you can. That things will never get better when in fact, they will. Our ability to feel is what makes us human; and it is what makes us volatile and unpredictable. They are why so many people stay in bad relationships out of fear, why people kill themselves, why so much damage has been caused by and to so many. They are the reason that everyone has a poison, whether it be drugs, sex, love, or any other thing that can be abused in an attempt to numb our existence just a little bit. 

They can make everything seem too loud, too big, too hard. Simply put, they’re extreme. 

But they are temporary. And they aren’t fact. A feeling is just your perception of any given person, situation, or circumstance; but the amount of power it holds over you depends on your state of mind for it’s survival. How you react to that is your choice. The ones who kill themselves break my heart the most. I’ve been in dark places before in my life, where I felt like suicide was the only answer. But I’m still here today. I’m here because someone told me “This too shall pass”, “Feelings aren’t facts”, and “Don’t quit five minutes before the miracle happens”. At the time, I didn’t believe a single fucking word of it. I had experienced so much pain in my short life that it was all just a bit too much; but their words were just enough to make me wait a few years. 

And today I am truly blessed. I have amazing friends and family. I have a beautiful daughter who fills my world with light. I have my life. The feelings are still there, sometimes they are still extreme, and some days I still feel suffocated by the weight of them. But today I recognize their impermanence; and I try to give that more weight than I give the feelings themselves. I actively practice acceptance and I make the conscious decision on a daily basis to just do the next right thing for the next right reason, regardless of how I feel at the time. I owe almost all of the love and beauty in my life to that practice. And I never would’ve learned it had I given in, let the feelings take control, and chosen a permanent solution to a temporary problem. So, if you feel like shit today, that’s okay. Own it, accept it; and know that tomorrow is another day that you don’t have to let be weighed down by the problems of tonight. 

Life is short. And too many people leave us too early. So embrace your feelings, however temporary they may be, and be fucking grateful for the fact that you’re alive to experience them…

by Ashley King

© All Rights Reserved 2017

Controlled No More

I’ve learned recently that narcissists are very concerned with their image, how the world perceives them, and the things attached to them… like their cars, homes, partners…

I was a narcissist’s partner. I didn’t know he was a narcissist when I chose to be with him but I figured it out in time. Just like I figured out that he viewed me as an extension of him, a representation of him, something that was a part of him; but never just as my own unique, autonomous spirit.

I remember he immediately wanted me to get a job when we got together so we could get a place. It seemed totally normal, albeit fast, at the time. I started looking for waitressing jobs because it was easy, fast money. He was fine with any job but he started pushing me to try to find “better”, like an office job. I got two waitressing jobs in the next few months but eventually ended up in an office job. I was really good at it, so it worked out. Nothing wrong there, right?

He always hated my car. It was a 2004 Mazda Protege. I remember him constantly talking shit on it. When it finally gave out he gave me his old car and leased a new one for himself. This coincidentally happened right as I was about to leave him because we were fighting constantly. I didn’t stay with him because of the car; I had chosen to stay before he ever told me his idea. But I couldn’t help but wonder if he was giving it to me 1. So his girl wasn’t seen driving a “piece of shit” and 2. So I would feel like I had to stay with him because he gave me a car. Immediately after that I got pregnant though, and everything was great for awhile. No harm, no foul… right?

Next was my credit score. He did all these things because he was so concerned about me building better credit. I’d been on my own for a lot of years and had been fucked over a few times so I didn’t have the best score. He added to me to his credit card, only after telling me I couldn’t use it unless I was absolutely fucked though (not that I ever would’ve). Then the clutch went on my car (his old one) and instead of fixing it he decided that I needed to lease one so it could go towards my credit score and so I’d a nice four door for when the baby came. That’s a good thing too, right?

Then he set up my car payment and car insurance through apps on his phone. I was putting up the money for everything but he was the one actually making the payment. It saved me the trouble, but it bothered me. All of our bills were already in his name and I just gave him the money every month. I felt like a fucking tenant. But he really wanted to “take care of it for us”, so I let him. But the car and insurance payments bothered me. I have always been very independent. I’ve always taken care of all of my own responsibilities. I told him this and he asked me to “please let him do this for me” and for me to “think of him as my lawyer who’s just looking out for my best interests.” So I let it go. Takes the stress off of me, right?

Then I got laid off and went on unemployment. You have to refile your claim biweekly when you’re on unemployment. He said he would do that for me too. I pointed out that that was ridiculous. This isn’t a car that he’s a co-signer on, it’s something that’s solely on me. But he said he would feel better if he just did it and that then I “wouldn’t have to worry about it and could just take care of the baby“. We had an argument over it and he ended up being the one to file it. But hey, I couldn’t possibly ever forget to do it then, right?

Then we broke up. And he threw every single thing that he ever fought to do for me in my face. And in retrospect, he always did. He always talked about how much he “did for our family”. All the things he achieved for us. And he did do a lot for our family. That’s an admirable thing. I will always be grateful to him for helping me better my credit score, get a reliable car, and making me more conscious of how I spend my money. Those are good things. But he wanted constant gratitude and validation for it. And any time we fought he acted as if it was him paying all of our bills himself and providing this life for us. He was making the payments but I was giving him 75% of my income towards them. I pulled my weight until I gave birth to our daughter and then she became my full time job. Then even when I was the only one caring for her 99% of the time he still felt the need to minimize it and act as if I wasn’t doing anything to “help him”. He would “suggest” his way of doing things (what had worked for his first daughter) weeks after I’d found the perfect way for our daughter, and when I didn’t take one suggestion or another because I’d already found my own way he’d accuse me of “acting like I knew everything” and “being close minded”. There were suggestions I did take when I needed them though and it was like he needed me to constantly praise him for doing another thing for me or for us. I told him how proud of him I was all the time. I thanked him constantly for doing the things for me that I had told him I was more than capable of doing myself. But no, he had to do it; he just also had to receive constant admiration for it too. Somewhere in all of this I realized that it was all about control. Control of his responsibilities, my responsibilities, our life, me. 

I wonder if he ever saw me as the person I am or if I was always just a thing to be had. Something to check off of his five year plan. Girlfriend, apartment, nicer car, mortgage, house. Check, check, check. I loved him for who he was when his narcissism wasn’t running his life, our life. But he lost to his ego and I lost him. Then I walked away, because I had to. I am not a thing to be controlled or owned. I am a strong, resilient woman; made of fire and iron, compassion and love, empathy and scars, past and present, venom and fangs. I am so many fucking things and I just couldn’t fit into the box he wanted to keep me in. I couldn’t love someone who didn’t seem to love me for who I truly was. I couldn’t love someone who couldn’t truly see me. So I walked. And it hurt, it still does. I see him in my daughter’s face everyday and I’m reminded of all the good times. But the man I fell in love with is not the man he is anymore. And I didn’t sign up to spend my life with his body; I signed up to be with his spirit. And his spirit is being suffocated by his narcissism and ego.

The second you control something you love is the second you destroy it.

by Ashley King

© All Rights Reserved 2017

Victim Blaming

A friend of mine posted a photo on Facebook the other day. She’s a beautiful woman with long blonde hair, an expertly done smokey eye, red lips, and a “fuck you” look on her face. She was wearing black pants, black combat boots, a black and white plaid shirt, unbuttoned and tied at her hips. Underneath her shirt she wore a bright pink bra. That sign, along with her outfit, caused so much debate. Her sign read…

“JUST BECAUSE SHE’S DRUNK DOESN’T MEAN SHE WANTS TO FUCK.”

Powerful message right? She posted it along with a little excerpt that can be surmised as saying that what she wears doesn’t dictate what someone is allowed to do to her; just as her level of intoxication doesn’t make it okay for someone to touch her. She said that she isn’t an obect and that people sexualizing women and their bodies is rape culture. She said that it needs to end now and that she feels especially strongly about the topic because she’s a rape survivor herself. I’m a survivor myself and I was moved by her message. So after asking permission, I shared her photo and the accompanying message to my own wall. I thought it could empower other women as it did me. Instead, I spent 124 comments arguing with WOMEN about the photo.

The first woman who commented said “Of course she’s blonde. Idiot.” The woman she was commenting on is a Biology major who’s currently working on her thesis. She’s fucking brilliant and yet, when she posted this empowering message, the first thing that happened was another woman putting her down for her appearance and her intelligence level. This same woman then proceeded to say that my friend shouldn’t be sharing that message while “dressed like that” and that her choosing to do it that way makes her think that she’s just “another dumb blonde looking for attention”. I pointed out how ridiculous it is to say another women is dumb because of her hair color and asked her if she was serious. She was. She continued on by saying that she thinks rape is always wrong but that if “women had handled themselves differently in certain situations then it never would’ve happened“, that “the way a woman dresses can attract the wrong attention and we’re responsible for that“, and that nowadays “a lot of women lie about being assaulted“.

I was disgusted.

It’s my opinion that this woman is rape culture internalized. It didn’t matter that when her little friend jumped in to defend her she said she wasn’t dressed “like a slut” when she was raped. It didn’t matter that none of us were. She was still convinced that the way a women dresses can cause (or stop) rape. Where’d this idea come from? Some time, long ago, some man lied and said “Well look at what she was wearing! That’s what made me do it!” And our culture along with more sick individuals took this rapist’s piss poor excuse for their illness and used it as a reason. We then internalized it, told our little girls that wearing a skirt in the city is like leaving your door unlocked at night; we tried to blame woman for the horrible things that happened to them by saying “Well maybe next time you shouldn’t wear such a short skirt.” Why do we do this? I think it’s because we’re trying to find reason for such depravity. But at what expense? So many woman, an astonishing amount, are assaulted every year and they never come forward. They stay silent, because they don’t want their characters assassinated on the stands, their sex lives picked apart, their choices put under a microscope. They are terrified of not being believed, and they should be.

There’s a term in abuse therapy called “retraumatization”. It refers to when an abuse or rape survivor goes through a stressful event after the initial trauma that causes them more stress, damage, trauma. Oftentimes, the judicial process is just this; along with the initial report, having to tell their stories over and over again, I would know, I did it at 7 years old. And even at that young age the lawyer still tried to twist my words and trip me up. I told that horrible story over and over and over again. BUT, I would never take it back because I know I stopped him from hurting anymore little girls ever again. However, that’s not the point. The point is that there are thousands of women every year who choose not to put themselves through it because we fail them everyday, and they know it. Am I the only person who sees a problem with this?! They choose this because of women like the one who commented on that post. The ones who in trying to find reason for such a terrible thing end up blaming the victim and not the fucking rapist.

As my brave friend said, “The only thing that causes rape, is a rapist.”And she couldn’t be more right.

We need to end the violence. We need to stop blaming victims. We need to break down all the misconceptions about rape. What you wear doesn’t cause rape and it isn’t “asking for it”. Being drunk isn’t an excuse for someone hurting you, being willing and then changing your mind doesn’t give them the right to keep going after you’ve rescinded your consent. All of the responsibility for sexual attacks falls on the people committing them. Period.

by Ashley King

© All Rights Reserved 2017

It’s A Shame

I always admired your ability to set your mind to something and actually attain it. I’ve never seen someone turn such a low salary into so much. Self control. When it came to money, budgeting, working a job you hated, you were a master. You have this unbelievable ability to say “no” to yourself, especially for an ex-junkie. And I truly admired that, mostly because I’ve never been very good at it. 

You’d get this tunnel vision for what you wanted. Me, then the apartment, the promotion, the Army. Next came the new job, the mortgage, the house. One thing after the next; you set your mind to these things and you got them all. But your superpower had a catch. Among your many other character defects, you were never able to focus on more than one thing at a time. Remember, “tunnel vision”. 

And really, it’s a shame. Because now you have your nice, new job. You’re on your way to being a soldier. You close on your beautiful home tomorrow. You have a pink room for both your daughters, one of them being ours… But in attaining all of these things, you forgot about us. And so you will move to your new house alone. You will learn just how deafening silence can be. You will experience loneliness in all of its unique agony. And really, it’s a shame. Because I would have given you forever. Had you only been kind and respectful. Had you paid us just a little bit more attention. Had you just heard me everytime you asked me what I wanted and my answer was “emotional support”. Had you only noticed that the woman sitting next to you was slowly disappearing, her spirit decaying living a life of cohabitation. Partners aren’t supposed to just coexist; they’re supposed to live life together. And in trying to build that life, you forgot about the people you were doing it for. 

My heart breaks for you. I never would’ve wished this on you. Ever. My heart breaks for me. I never wanted this. I wanted our family. I wanted our life. I wanted the man I fell in love with. But you lost him somewhere. And when you lost him, you lost me. My heart breaks for our daughter; because she deserves so much better than us; and she’s not even getting “us”. I will always give her everything I have to give. But I wanted us to do that, together. 

Really, it’s a shame. 

And forever is a lie. 

by Ashley King

© All Rights Reserved 2017