You cannot hold the power I have been imbued with—not with your pinky finger, gloved hand or no.

If you attempt to take what is mine

I burn

I singe.

My time

My energy

My ears

My voice

I owe you nothing.

No Thing.

See?

You do not get to take when you are unable to give.

And what do you give?

A headache.

A waste.

Boredom.

Disrespect.

And what do I give?

The light.

Look, but do not claim.

Do not get familiar.

We are not friends.

You are a Black Hole.

I am a piece of the Sun.

You can have more than one altar;

One for working,

One for offering,

One for each element,

One in the kitchen,

The living room,

The dining room,

The bedroom…

Your altar is meant to alter your reality.

To shape your dwelling space.

To remind you:

All is sacred.

if a group of men in vests threw me to the ground and put bullets in my body?

or,

would you say that i should have been more careful?

that i knew better than to condemn those same men as they chained a brown man with a tongue from a different land?

would you say i asked for my death?

because i hit “record” and narrated the scene?

instead of putting my head down and walking away?

like you would have done.

God is a Black Woman

She doesn’t look like me or smell like me;

Her hair is twisted and multicolored in ways

that mine could never dream of being,

and Her eyes are as dark as two nebulas

nestled on either side of the center of the

Universe that is Her brilliant Brain.

There is no contest of Beauty greater than

Her own.

For She is all things and everything,

Wr…

Read more

All of the followers I have accrued over the years are through articles I have written, workshops and classes I have taught, and very funny videos, meme dumps, and political commentary I have posted. I have collaborated with actual celebrities, interviewed some of the world’s top scientific minds in medicine during the peak of the pandemic, and DM’d thousands of vaccine hesitant individuals in order to increase vaccination rates worldwide.

And I am fucking done.

It’s a platform that I have used and repurposed and grown for over a decade without buying followers or entertaining trends, and I am sick of being there.

I find myself posting “content” in the form of advocating for human rights, promoting other people’s businesses, books, and careers, and then quickly deleting the app off of my phone so I don’t have to interact with people in online spaces anymore.

My account has been restricted ever since 2021 for telling people that I received the Pfizer mRNA vaccine without labeling it as an advertisement. It wasn’t an ad, I wasn’t paid to promote a vaccine, I’m a public health advocate and I wanted people to know the vaccine was safe to take.

Just recently, it was further restricted for telling people how to incapacitate ICE in their communities by pouring sugar in the gas tanks of Nazi slave-catchers and teaching people how to use dryer lint as flame-catchers for Molotov cocktails. I can no longer go LIVE on Instagram. Oh well.

In the age of AI expansion and fascist theocracy, being online feels like complicity. And I no longer wish to interact with thousands of people in a daily basis. While I cherish the connections I have made and the community I have fostered over the years, I also really like clean drinking water and making it difficult for the government to track me.

I have stood with one foot out the door for about a year, now. I have flirted with the question “should I just delete my entire account?” And, I have had panic attacks and nervous breakdowns due to posts of mine that have gone viral, constant death threats and trolling, and scrutiny over my “political” voice from friends and family.

I have hit the bottom of my barrel of fucks. I don’t like being popular. I honestly would like to write under a different pseudonym than the one I am currently using and live anonymously.

I am not a basic millennial mom account, I don’t post pics of my family with “hashtag blessed,” and I’m not a highlight reel. I’m a fuck the government and YES, ALL MEN account. I have the phone number, email, and mailing address of the people I actually want to stay connected to; I have my own website and a substack where those who miss my online presence can find me, so what’s the hold up?

I should just go ahead and delete my fucking instagram, already.

Would I regret that choice?

Would walking away from something I worked hard to maintain leave me stranded in irrelevance?

Maybe.

Do I care enough to keep this shit rolling?

Not really.

(And yeah, the below picture says 16.9, but it keeps teetering between 17,000 and 16,999 on a daily basis.)

When you willingly move in social circles full

of people who approve of and promote racist, misogynistic,and xenophobic agendas, you do not then get a free pass in social circles that oppose fascism and hate.

In short—if you regularly interact with MAGA voters in social settings to avoid making waves,

You are not a safe person.

You are not neutral, you are not merely complicit, you are an accomplice to hate and cruelty and therefore you cannot be trusted.

There is no such thing as neutrality in the presence of moral conflict.

At Least

by Wolf Terry

Look at this long list of failures in my hand.

look and wonder at all of the marvelous

mistakes i have lived long enough to make

and suppose my whole life

were swallowed by failures

in waves and currents,

eddies and froth,

all circling the drain

of my imperfections

I would not condemn myself

because

at least i tried

oh yes,

I tried

These past few weeks have been harrowing for anyone paying attention to the news cycle and the state of our world. With Climate Collapse pushing us closer to extinction on a daily basis, our “choose your own reality,” perspective as a collective culture, and the heinous evidence of world leaders sexually assaulting and grooming an entire generation of women and girls within a cult-like sex trafficking ring of billionaires, everything seems pretty grim.

And it is.

Yet, it is also an awakening.

An exposure of the cancer that we ignored for centuries; its malignancy feeding off of our apathy and consumerism until the whole system kills itself—eats itself whole.

We are bearing witness to the breaking of an ideology of power and dominance, and it is horrifyingly painful. And also, a relief for those of us who have been peeling back the layers of why it is so awful for some of us and easy for others(read: White Men, derogatory).

And we can see Hope blooming everywhere. From the streets of Minneapolis where women and queer folx created underground mutual aid distribution systems to keep their Black and Brown neighbors safe, to the world stage where European leaders are being dethroned, imprisoned, investigated, and held accountable for their involvement with Epstein.

But Hope is also in the small moments, too. The exchange of booklists with a stranger, the conversations about musical theatre with my so , the simple promise of an early morning walk with my very social Poodle puppy…it’s all around us. Gigantic and infinitesimal.

In the cacophony of chaos there are real, sturdy, true things that not only exist, but are building a powerful movement and shift in culture.

This mass deconstruction is not painless. It is not without harm. It is also not without Hope.

What was your dose of Hope, today?

They arrested a journalist today. Don Lemon. A Black Man. Brought him up on charges in violation of the KKK Act for legally covering a protest in a church during the Minneapolis occupation. I knew this was coming, and I expected it to come sooner than today.

The flooding of the zone is moving in currents separated by different tributaries.

Tributary 1 is the Jan 6 insurrection.

Tributary 2 is the Epstein Files.

Tributary 3 is Israel.

Tributary 4 is Iran.

Tributary 5 is Venezuela.

Tributary 6 is the EU.

They swap positions every day.

ICE terrorizes us to distract us.

Public Health has completely eroded.

Wherever and whenever they can, they flood the zone with murder, illegal processing, Supreme Court cases that come after our basic human rights in order to distract us from the decades of corruption.

It’s bad. It’s worse than bad. They want to starve us. They are kettling us in from strategic points along our northern border. Portland. Minnesota. Maine. This is all part of Project 2025. We cannot say we didn’t know. Women are next. Our bank accounts will be next. I do not trust anyone. Especially those close to me who remain silent.

They are taking children, and have been. The can only hold them for 20 days, then they traffic them to hotels, and God knows where else, before moving them to another detention center, another cage.

I am scared. I am terrified. But I will not lose hope.

I don’t want to die

While wearing my brother’s ashes around my neck.

Next to the whistle

I used to call my neighbors

To the scene.

-wolf terry

I don’t know how else to be. I refuse to look away or pretend like this doesn’t affect me and my family because we are white.

If you are too afraid to speak up, that is no longer a good enough excuse.

This is no longer about your comfort. It’s about your humanity. You have the choice to use your power and organize or be haunted by the ghosts of your inaction.

Here is a list to help you mobilize your neighborhood and protect each other.

Do something to help rather than allowing harm to continue:

1. Download the ICE Block app on your phone and report sightings, ASAP

2. Use your whistle. 3 short bursts to announce ICE presence. 3 long bursts to announce abduction.

3. Create a neighborhood patrol at bus stops to witness and document ICE abductions.

4. SHOW UP to ICE raids, record, bear witness, take down names of ICE victims.

5. Take care of your Black and Brown neighbors. Grocery shop, walk dogs, pick up children at school. HELP THEM FIND SAFETY DURING AN ICE RAID.

6. Contact local response teams like CORRN (Colorado) 844-864-8341 when you see ICE

7. Get trained in First Aid and take care of one another.

Love,

Wolf Terry

@wolfgini

The Wickedest Witch in the West

When your friends aren’t white, you finally get to season the food you make without worrying if it’s “too much flavor.”

When your friends aren’t white, you can rely on them to sit with you through hard times while all of your white friends go about their lives.

When your friends aren’t white, you feel differently about the world.

When your friends aren’t white, your awareness haunts you like a ghost every time you see someone in uniform.

When your friends aren’t white, you get sick of your own bullshit real fast.

When your friends aren’t white, you take time to process things other white people don’t notice.

When your friends aren’t white, your spirituality feels deeper.

When your friends aren’t white, you cannot ignore injustice.

When your friends aren’t white, you deconstruct your worldview.

When your friends aren’t white, you realize your skin color doesn’t protect them or you.

When your friends aren’t white, there’s so much you will never understand.

When your friends aren’t white, you get angry with yourself and other white people easily.

When your friends aren’t white, you fuck up over and over.

When your friends aren’t white, you learn how to give a real apology.

When your friends aren’t white, your heart is always full.

When your friends aren’t white, you don’t say “hey, some of my friends aren’t white!”

When your friends aren’t white, history becomes your favorite topic.

When your friends aren’t white, you choose knowledge over comfort.

When your friends aren’t white, you learn how to be a friend.

And i can feel it

like a flame rising

from the ash of a long-forgotten fire

A gust in the depths of a still-dark night

It is now that we move in

a different pattern

We fight

The beating of my heart

beneath my heaving breast

as i release the fear

i was born gripping to my chest

This Weak, yet impervious system

has cracked, like a glittering

geode

So much it contains

So much it has captured

But our Will is stronger

than shards of hardened magma

It is more broad than the shoulders of our forefathers

who either laid these plans

or the bricks of them with

their bloodied, calloused hands.

And i can feel it

the soul of a nation that never was

tearing at the loose stitches

of the Humanity holding US

together

i can feel it.

-wolf terry

My good friend, Jo Davis, recently published a collection of journal prompts constructed from quotes directly out of Audre Lorde’s essay A Burst of Light: Living with Cancer. As a writer, a poet, an artist, and a voice of activism, I journal every morning to clear my mind of jumble. I have been utilizing prompts from myself and others for awhile, now, but this particular collection of quotes triggered something deeper than jumble. During these tumultuous times, I find myself vacillating between holding my breath and screaming myself hoarse in hopes that a chorus of people who look like me (white people) will join. If you are a white person, and you are still reading this, I urge you to absorb the below stream-of-thought essay in the wake of Renee Good’s murder, and the systemic violence and state sanctioned murder people who are not white face every day in the United States of America. If you are offended or intimidated by the idea that your white skin is not impenetrable during this Authoritarian Regime, regardless of your silence and willful ignorance; you especially should keep reading. It is time to rip the band-aid off and engage in reality. I offer you these truths as a fellow human being who only has Hope left to protect her.

“I wonder what I may be risking as I become more and more committed to telling whatever truth comes across my eyes, my tongue, my pen—no matter how difficult—as I see it, people as I feel them.” -Audre Lorde

Response from my morning journal:

I know that my writing and my vocality against all things fascist are making me a target. That I am losing the blanket of whiteness I’ve been allowed to wear as a cloak of protection my entire life. That speaking Truth to power comes with the cost of my physical safety. But, I do not care anymore if what I’m doing is viewed as reckless by my white family and friends. It is the reality that they choose to ignore while they sit in silence and complacency. I am so angry at our mothers and sisters for doing so very little, for being unresponsive to the horrors around them. I cannot be that way. I am not wired to be docile. There is something feral in my veins that blasts through my system in hypnotic waves of light and prevents me from holding my tongue, banking my thoughts behind brick walls of indifference, damming up my voice in my throat. I am a force of nature, and my words in every form will flood the airwaves until they are heard and received.

Maybe this is the answer that we have all been waiting for. Maybe this in an of itself is the way we break the curse of the Empire. For me, it is more risky to stay silent than it is to remain consistent in my morality.

For other white people, it is a brand they are unwilling to wear. Our unwillingness relies on our comfort, but when that comfort is taken away; when it is stripped of us piece by piece, we will be left weak and bereft in our solitude.

That is what happens when we refuse to see ourselves in the face of another who bears the cruelty of our coveted comfort. That is what happens when we allow for the dehumanization of other groups of people with darker skin and different mother-tongues. By removing ourselves from the reality of our fellow human, we curse our future with disasters of our own making.

I am willing to risk my social standing and the protection of my white skin by letting the Truths I witness with my own eyes flow from the resilient river of my mouth, my stream of thoughts, my fingertips.

If you have been moved by my journal entry, I invite you to subscribe to my friend Jo Davis’ substack The ADHD Writer…Strikes Again. Below I have inserted the article from which I was inspired to write the above piece. Happy Writing!

The ADHD Writer...Strikes Again

31 More Wellness Journal Prompts inspired by “A Burst of Light” by Audre Lorde

Ready to dive deep into yourself for the next 31 days? Here are some prompts inspired by “A Burst of Light: Living with Cancer” by Audre Lorde. It is a set of journal prompts about her liver cancer journey that just breathed life into me on my wellness journey. I chose some quotes that I thought would help you as well. Write these prompts in order or out of sequence. Do this your way, with your own version of routine or consistency…

Read more

8 months ago · 1 like · Jo (Jonita) Davis

I’ve had a yeast infection for two weeks and it ran straight, smack-dab, into my period—which came two days too early.

How did I get a yeast infection?

From wearing yoga pants while having a hot flash.

If you’re under 35 and you were born with two “x” chromosomes, just you wait. This is you at some point in the next 10 years. And if you, yourself, are in the throes of perimenopause, I can hear you nodding along.

Now, let’s rewind it back a decade; back to a time when I was carefree, 92 lbs, and teaching yoga full time. Yoga pants were my uniform. I could get sweaty in them, I could run around and do errands after teaching back to back classes, I could live inside those fuckers until they stunk of BO and six different types of patchouli oil and NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN TO MY VAGINA.

Life was so simple and uncomplicated by a surprise hot flash at 1:30 PM while driving all across God’s Green Earth with a child and an extra large puppy in tow, K Pop Demon Hunter’s blaring, the sun shining in my face in just the wrong way, and the heat blasting instead of the AC. Back then, I didn’t have to worry about probiotics or electrolytes or remembering not to eat for 30 minutes after taking my thyroid medication.

Ahhh the luxury of having less hormonal rage and a closet full of lululemon in size -00.

Now, fast forward to that car ride: my thighs finally touch and I can’t leave the house without a bra, and I decided today of all days was a lovely day for skin-tight yoga pants. Much to my chagrin, I have swamp ass and I wish I could emergency park the car and run into the nearest snowbank. But I can’t because of child and puppy in tow. Fun for me.

We got home, and I thought nothing of it. “Another day, another hot flash,” as they say (they is me, I am they). Except it wasn’t another goddamn hot flash. It was the impetus upon which a yeast infection began to brew.

At first, I didn’t think it was a yeast infection. I thought it was my pubes growing in between maintenance days. It was itchy, sure, but I’m too preoccupied by kid and puppy and holidays to really pay attention to it.

Then…it was very obviously a yeast infection. If you’ve had one, you know. If you’ve never had one, imagine that a French cheese shop just opened between your legs. Super great time, mazel tov on your new business as a cheesemonger, you don’t have a choice.

And it’s all because of the stupid fucking yoga pants.

I did the whole monistat thing and, safe to say, I am back in the clear. But how fun is it that now my period is early, my hot flashes are worse, and my laundry has been piling up to the point that the only clean pants I have left to wear are—you guessed it—yoga pants.

Guess who left the house in her extra-long grandma bathrobe and no pants today?

Because I’m never wearing yoga pants again.

It’s the second night of the Cold Moon and I am attending my husband’s company Holiday Event. I’m wearing finery cloaked in layers of protective perfumes as well as enchanted jewelry to preserve my energy and ward against harm in all of its form. I sat in the salon for four hours to renew my hair glamour spell. But to the eye of my husband’s coworkers, I am just an ordinary, suburban wife.

Until they engage me in conversation.

Some of these people I have met before, but many are new to me. My husband introduced me to some people in excitement, because he knows what is about to happen; I am about to work my magic and add dimension to the life they perceived their supervisor and colleague to have. I am going to break through the social norms they’ve been accustomed to tending in the work place, and make them laugh and cavort as they did when they were children. But this magic I wield comes at a small cost to me, because at a certain point I must reveal that I am a capital “W” Witch.

It starts off easy and hilarious. I tune into the energy of each individual with whom I interact and I perform with simple charm and witty banter. I reveal my lore in a shockingly fast and raw format without vagueness. I let sincerity lead us through the path of conversation with reciprocity and genuine interest in their person. I remind them that they are more than a cog in a wheel.

Eventually, the question of all questions is asked:

“So, what do you do?”

“Oh, I’m a writer. I do a lot of mutual aid work in my community. And I’m also a WITCH.”

A moment of silence. They think I am joking, flippantly stating my truth for shock value.

They don’t realize that this entire relationship we have built is because of witchcraft.

You see, my words are my spell work. Every spell I cast is an equation. I locate y with m(x)+b, and they didn’t realize that they are y until this moment. Now, they are stuck in this spot and forever doomed to exist on this plane with me. They will subconsciously be weighing every future interaction, every pre-existing relationship, with this one and wonder why they allowed themselves to accept disingenuousness and small talk before this moment.

While this may be my first in person interaction with them, they have happily eaten the homemade treats I send to the office with my husband. Baked goods and homegrown preserves that carry protection, health, and prosperity spells. They have been absorbing and benefiting from my energy long before now. That’s why I am so familiar to them. That’s why my husband comes home from work in good spirits, every day. That’s why their project market has expanded ever since he took the job.

It has taken me a long time to hone this power on a conglomerate level. Before now, I could manipulate personal and group energetic fields only through direct, in person, performative magics; through teaching yoga, singing, theatrical performance, public speaking, and the written word. Now, I am able to manipulate the energy of a collective from a distance, making my job easier when it comes time for me to reveal myself in person.

“Oh,” they say.

It is all starting to make sense.

“Wait, what? You’re a Witch? Ok.”

I just kind of stare and smirk at them.

The smirk says it all, really.

Because I don’t have to justify myself or explain anything.

They ask about the inner workings of a Witch life, and soon they realize it’s not as spooky or weird as they’ve assumed. I tell people that people pay me to do things like hex their ex or help spiritually support them through a child custody battle. I also tell them that I edit and write completely freelance and lead a crazy internet “famous” life in public health, social justice, and mutual aid.

We laugh and my Witchcraft is no longer a big deal. Because I am not only interesting to them, but I am interested in them. For the first time, in a long time, they feel seen by an acquaintance rather than socially accounted for. In the future they will come to our house for dinner, meet our child, and realize that magic really is real. And that those who wield it aren’t evil or strange. Sometimes they are disguised as suburban wife attending ritualistic holiday celebration.

There is this trend I’ve been seeing from mothers on social media that they are calling “simple living,”—and it’s anything but simple. This aesthetic lifestyle requires women to recreate 1950’s housewife standards of doing all of the household and childcare tasks while labeling it as “quiet, easy, comfortable,” while their husbands “lead and provide.”

The seemingly peaceful content of a woman in a soft cotton dress, hanging laundry on a line in an idyllic, meadow-like backyard set to gentle tinkling music is meant to attract young mothers with little or no higher education. It is meant to say “Why worry about the fascism surrounding you, when you can pretend like nothing awful is happening while quietly contributing to the horrors?”

In short, and in its very essence, it is diabolical propaganda.

We know that the alt-right influencer market is awash with grifters, but what we continue to overlook are the quiet, beige women selling misogyny cloaked in cozy, cottagecore-esque scenarios that anyone with experience in raising children and cooking dinner knows is less “cozy,” and more “chaos” than what is being presented. Many are also anti-science, and refuse to vaccinate their children—or at least propagate anti-vaxx rhetoric while cashing in on their latest brand deal and maintaining access to healthcare, while the women they are influencing live in rural areas without health insurance or even a hospital nearby.

While the trad-moms pump out content meant to soothe the brains of young women while indoctrinating them into a fast-emerging cult, the words scrolling across the screen always read something like “Living the life of my dreams because my husband works hard, long hours so that I can dilly-dally.”

As a stay-at-home mom to an autistic, school-aged child, my day is not spent dilly-dallying. It is spent putting out fires, constantly and carefully calibrating a schedule, being an external nervous system for my child, cleaning, running errands, fixing shit, running more errands, fixing more shit, having my phone on loud in case I need to drop everything and run to the school because of a major autistic meltdown, sometimes writing, always researching and learning about my child’s brain, while wearing sweatpants with unbrushed hair in a messy bun.

My mom friends who have full-time jobs are doing all of these things while also maintaining a career.

And let it be known that my husband cleans the kitchen every night, cooks 50% of the meals, does school drop-off, does bath and bedtime routine, fills my car with gas because I hate doing that, knows the trash schedule, washes and folds the laundry every weekend, and is our kid’s favorite playmate. We are anything but a “traditional” household, but from an outside perspective we are in traditional roles.

I am not buying what these new-aged, pseudo-Christian trad wives are selling, because I know that being a SAHM is anything but simple, especially with babies and toddlers. I also know that Autism is not caused by vaccines or Tylenol.

What’s more, this false representation of parenthood and partnership for the young women who do fall prey to this harmful trend is setting an inescapable trap for generations of women to come. It reinforces a cultural norm that feminists across centuries have been actively trying to deconstruct; the idea that a woman’s place is in the home, birthing as many children as possible, and working endless hours for no pay.

The brainwashing and labor of women and girls is what allows fascism to thrive in an era where humanity knows better. By encouraging young women into a lifestyle that does not benefit them or their futures in the slightest, we are condemning our collective future. By removing young women from the “work-force,” we are enforcing an anti-intellectual agenda that ignores the importance of public education, public health, and science.

We are saying to women everywhere: your contributions to society are limited to your ability to get pregnant, have babies, cook and clean.

My idea of a “simple life,” is one where my rights are not constantly under attack, where my child has access to the support he needs, and where none of us—no matter our gender—are run-ragged upholding a system that only causes us harm.

What’s yours?

In some ways, I feel like an empty-nester, even though I have a 7 yr old and my life is very much a typical millennial parent’s life. In other ways, I feel like I figured out something many other cultures have known and practiced for centuries; living in multi-generational, multi-family households is a crucial form of resource sharing and community development that we Americans have been robbed of.

The lie of the “single-family home,” permeated our culture post WWII and never left. And because of it we, as a culture, have missed out on the joy of togetherness. Parents of young children have been deprived of a village that starts in homes filled with aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins. Our communities feel like they’ve been separated by age demographics instead of mixed with friends of your much younger sister or old neighbors of your grandparents. Eating chips and salsa with someone you would never talk to were they not a relative’s buddy leads to understanding and acceptance in a way that having a round table discussion with a stranger who just wants to argue doesn’t.

Living with my sister as an adult taught me to let shit go, to actually be involved in someone else’s life in ways that weren’t intrusive, and to broaden my own definition of “family.” Most importantly, it reminded me that how we live alongside others in the home translates to our outer world.

We have forgotten how to live with each other in a multigenerational way, and instead we live in separate spaces with separated perspectives, and very different realities.

Maybe that’s why we all feel so divided?

My small, single-family home held three different generations. And now that the middle generation owns her very own “single-family home,” I crave for the togetherness we had. Sometimes—and this feels crazy to type out—I wish that all of our sisters and parents lived with us under the same roof. I wish that multigenerational homes were a thing, here in America. Maybe, if we make it a thing, it will help us build something beautiful on top of the ashes of the greedy, capitalistic reality we live in, now.

It is not grand

And when it is full

It is wonderful

But, when it is “just us,”

When we get to pay attention to one another

It is magical.

The bright colors painted on the walls

are just as cheerful

When only we are wrapped up in them

The food is just as delicious

And the company

Even more splendid.

There is no greater present

Than our reciprocal presence.

The stories are somehow funnier

And the memories that much more memorable.

The little hands

And fuzzy paws play together

And our feet are all scrambled up on the couch.

The laughter is merry and the twinkling lights are bright.

And today

Our cozy cottage is full of “just us”

For the millionth time in my life, I am in this conversation.

I am 5’0” on a hopeful day. My weight has fluctuated between 80-120lbs for the past 20 years. I have long limbs and slight features. I’m flexible and active. But right now I am not tiny.

I actually have an ass, and thighs that touch for the first time in my life, and I love it.

There is the myth that women have been told for the last 70 years: being skinny=being healthy.

It’s a fucking lie, and it always has been.

Like many women, I’ve struggled with multiple different eating disorders my entire life. From anorexia to orthorexia paired with over activity, fasting, and trendy plant-based diets, chemotherapy treatment due to ovarian and cervical cancers in my 20’s, to breastfeeding my child for 3 years while underfeeding myself. My relationship with food has been truly terrible. “One day I will binge eat Taco Bell and the next four months I will only eat Whole Foods” type of mind set messed with me on a cellular level, and I am finally free of it.

I’ve entered perimenopause at 36 and there is no turning back. I’ve cut my addiction to being praised for my tinyness and I am now determined to be chubby, muscular, and well fed.

I’m tired of hearing friends and acquaintances talk about their stomach as an excuse for not eating the damn sandwich with bread. I’m tired of trying to pretend that this nightmarish beauty standard doesn’t exist to keep women small and docile.

I sincerely want men to fear me. I want them to worry about me knocking them out, sitting on them, and eating them for lunch.

I like my strong quads and my cellulite because they mean that I am moving and nourishing myself. And I like letting my friends know that I don’t like their negative self body image. Especially the people who have birthed children.

This idea that we are supposed to look like blonde, 20-something super models after shitting out multiple humans, working full time, doing all the damn errands, and having to interact with asshole men on a daily basis is truly stupid. I’m letting my hair turn white, my ass get big and strong, and my tongue stay sharp, and I’m bringing every other woman in my life with me on this journey.

It is unhealthy to deny yourself delicious food.

It is unhealthy to look the same as you did 20 years ago, but with slightly tighter skin and inflated lips.

It is unhealthy to have a 20 inch waist and an “ideal” hourglass figure.

It is unhealthy to idolize “tiny” women who starve themselves to stay “perfect.”

Eat the damn food and stop punishing yourself for it.

Start walking everyday and do yard work to improve your strength and stamina.

Stop putting needles in your goddamn face and applauding celebrities who look like literal AI. It’s weird.

Don’t take the fucking ozempic just to shed menopausal belly fat. You’re supposed to have belly fat. Flat stomach’s should not be everyone’s goal, here.

(Just do yourself a favor and don’t get the Nachos Grande with two tubs of hot cheese at 8pm and expect to not have heartburn. You’ll get heartburn because you’re getting close to 40, and you’ll have to sit through the whole movie in pain.)

“I’m not really that tiny. I used to be and I hated myself. Now I don’t give a fuck what size I am.” I say to my friend.

We talk a little more, and I remind her that she doesn’t need to lose weight. She’s a normal, healthy size for her age and we feel gross because that’s what we’ve been trained to feel about ourselves.

We are all too fucking gorgeous and life is too fucking short to try and look like the blonde tiny girl on the silver screen. We need to stop feeding that false narrative and start physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally feeding our Selves.