without trust to mature
Spreading seeds
again
I left home full
split into nothing
birthed into halve
to return whole
I will reach
home in the mind
return in the flesh
my home is not a place for less
Olivia Brown
I like my loves to be so midnight black they merge with blue. Let me hold the sky in my hands. I’ll be the sand in yours. And together we’ll have the heavens and the earth and like the stars in between we’ll collide. Be one with me and I’ll be one with you. I an I, like yin & yang, the sun & moon, the night and day. Rest and wake, pulse and wane, collide & recede like air, like blood, like water, like us.
When you’re abstaining from sex, horny from PMSing and a fuck boy decides to text you, it’s not usually a laughing matter but today I found the hilarity in the comedic timing of this testing situation.
Not today Beelzebub!
I’d been awake in the early hours reflecting on relationships and the ways I’d mentally willed anyone to love me in the past, authentically or not, just to fill the agonising hole of isolation that comes from being on the Autism Spectrum; unable to satisfy a human need for connection and communication.
Social awkwardness mat not sound like much of a feat but when you spend your entire life desperately attempting to befriend with no ability to make small talk, give eye contact, relate to emotion or speak honestly without your brutalism piercing a world of grey emotion amongst your black and white being, it’s an endless agonising trauma.
Nowhere feels like home. Your puzzle piece doesn’t fit the emotional jigsaw of your family and open displays of affection make you squirm, so the general neurotypical consensus is that you’re cold, distant, unable to reach, unable to love.
Your silence and rigidity invites bullying, your emotionless bitchy resting face offering a betraying propaganda of what truly lies beneath the surface.
Fortunately for me, I can connect with male energy. Find safety, freedom and comfort in the confines of masculinity. Be the cub to a feline and parade with soft extroversion in a social space whose rules I can better understand.
Unfortunately for me, being a fatherless woman searching for masculinity to connect to within a hypersexualised society often doesn’t bring male best friends I can play fight and go on endless platonic adventures with, but guys interested in one thing and one thing only, that irresistible pleasure too many are willing to go to great coercive and predatorial lengths to get: panty pudding!
I’ve used apps in the past naively trying to befriend local people with similar interests that for some reason all happened to be males with ulterior motives. The app is called Befriend, not try to date and have sex with. Why can’t people just follow the rules?!
I gave into some of them, accepted that sexual connection was better than nothing, but in the process learned that intimacy was not the cure to my loneliness but a need to love myself.
Suffice to say on my journey to self love predators came along at my most testing moments, so I’ve disconnected from all males, deleted numbers and started a fresh. But this guy, just doesn’t take no for answer.
He’d tried to get me to go out with him for months, refusing to acknowledge my trauma and stress of being raped, my distrust for all men and need to be by myself for healings sake. I couldn’t take the constant pestering so I explained to him very politely that I would no longer be able to speak to him.
He replied ‘cool.’ Really? A guy that went as far as crying down the phone expressing his love for me (I’d seen him once briefly when we first met through a mutual friend) and his wish that he could treat me right replies with that unfazed monosyllabic retort! I knew what he was after but it’s still disappointing to be proved right.
Thankfully I didn’t hear from him for months (thank you Jesus, he finally got the message!) and in the very moment I found comfort in the realisation that I’m not interested in sex, dislike the thought of absorbing so many people’s energies – in what appears to be a social norm of many short-lived intimate relationships – and wanted to dedicate time to controlling my sexual urges so that nothing may have power over what I want; he pops up with ‘you good?’
I bursted out with laughter. The audacity was side-splitting, timing even more so. The number was unknown (fuck boy identification #1) but his profile picture was a funny meme I remembered he’d used before – Well done, Autistic photographic memory 🙌 – so I went straight over to the block button and deleted the message.
WOW, who would’ve thought I’d get to a stage where I was able to ignore attention from a guy.
Imagine had I been vulnerable and in that desperate space to have anyone to connect to regardless of intention! I’m not in this period of hibernation for nothing, I’ll be damned if I dont learn something.
My personal power made me smile today and I celebrated with my anti-fuck boy repellent song; Beniton Work Remix 💅
https://soundcloud.com/benitonmusic1/work-radiomix-beniton-aka-jack-frostt
Join me in chanting the lyrics:
Woman don’t you ever give a man a chance to use you because you know he will neglect you.
And if God inna yuh life and you believe in unu self, it nuh really matter who be against you.
If a man nuh treat you right (desert him)
Inna your business dem (lurking)
Tell dem straight up, (yuh nuh like it)
Dem always gwarn like dem are (the nicest)
From the day me know me set, me know me (righteous)
Dem only know you when dem end up inna (crisis)
Nuff uh dem out dere a waste gyal a waste man
nuh mek dem move like a yuh dem a wait pon
Dem always a turn on a bend of frustration
Always a guh bruk it, dem nuh set a foundation.
Di bad mind ting ah nuh go work, di hypocrite ting ah nuh go work.
Tell your ex to guh look wuk, and tap mix up inna dirt!
You took a guillotine to our relationship, was this your approach to killing time, killing me, KILLING ME, reviving my fears of what I couldn’t be with others besides you. I was beside you. Lying on my side letting the tears subside. Baby tears.
You reduced me to vulnerability. This moment to silly insecurity.
You were everything you said you weren’t. Let my scream and no’s go unheard.
I Said No.
How many times do I have to say no, no, no, no, no, Oh is it rape when you’re withdrawn to quietness. Fear the awkwardness of violence. Love the person but not the moment, let your feelings go, endure the process.
I said no.
Persisting, pleading, complaining, misleading. Did you think me nice with a wince on my face. The price of trusting, protecting and loving myself…loving you. You were everything, you were everything you said you wouldn’t be. You forgot I was present but remembered your needs. I’m here! Are you really here, were you ever here, in my heart? The genuine, intelligent, emotionally mature and empathetic young man, young rapist.
He was there in the hour conversations, daily, fairy-tailing about our potential. Keeping my heart full with promise that you were a breath of fresh air, fresh starts to the retards who fucked so many before me, before I thought you could be different, were different, you were worse.
Tearing, breaking, reducing what I don’t think I can nurse.
Now strangers are examining me the way you did. Examining what you did. While I lay there worrying about your mental health, wealth & future but what about mine.
What’s left of my ability to love. Can’t trust or protect without being hurt again. Can’t love without remembering you, remembering I said no.
Olivia Brown
Night in a cell, I’m in the cell of my mind. Trapped in suicide-dull future ahead. Looking at my phone to the weekends ahead, the week ends are dead, like the petals slipping, dripping from my spine.
Surprise, you opened me up. Can you see the pain, the bruising, dissipating yellow, acid to dust, for trust that was played. A pawn to your game, no longer in your mind. What happened to the sunshine, gone, the light I began to feel.
Now its tunnels & darkness and broken fragments and heartless replays of your theft, theft of me. You make it hard to feel what’s left with me. What’s left of me. What’s right. I might just stop, searching for the rose petals shed. Leave them for dead, like you, like me, like the fallen leaves off the tree of life, turned to strife, in a night, that was the worst of them all.
I didn’t see the fall, coming to pull me into darkness, distance, death. Can you hear my last breaths?
Olivia Brown
“I cant take off my colour or gender and leave them at the door. Nor can I leave behind my history. My presence is political – Justice System.” Amended from Gloria Anzaldúa Haciendo Caras
Your betrayal of me was not rape, but to force me into a system of justice designed for my oppression.
Oh, Brother of mine, that was the worst betrayal of them all.
Take away part of my spirit, but do not wake the generational pain of our people within me. Do not expose me to this trauma again. Do not break me down from the inside.
You are all I have to trust. We are all we have to trust, oh brother of mine.
Every thrust was a lash on my back. The blood of my womb not a source of life, but a gaping welt, a battle scar of this life we call human. You bathed in the hue of man and drained it dry. Left a tub of emptiness and a drain for a brain too full to function. Licking at the tunnels of poison on the journey to the underworld. There is no light down here, unless a manhole cover is opened.
Am I a hole, a cavity, that only a man can fill at his will. No.
It’s okay. I’ll stay down here in my darkness, reach boiling point and rise like heat on your bitter winter day and deny you the warmth you do not deserve. Drift home into the atmosphere and penetrate your nerves. Make you feel my presence and realise I am a present that will never be yours.
You are a hole, a cavity that you can fill yourself, you’re no longer a brother of mine.
Olivia Brown
Photo credit to The Icing Agency
To mark #AutismAwarenessMonth I’d like to publicly express my gratitude for Birmingham’s art scene in adding value to my life as an autistic adult.
Aged 17 and on the cusp of adulthood I was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, one of five forms of Autism. The invisible disability impacts my ability to communicate and relate to others & simple social tasks such as following social rules, reading facial expressions and interpreting information causes me significant distress and anxiety. It is this discomfort & the consequential isolation that follows that lead to a sharp decline in my mental health and a battle with suicide and depression. At the time of my diagnosis, I was making my third attempt at A Levels at a mainstream sixth form but with a lack of understanding from teachers and heavy social pressure I was forced to end my time in education. With little awareness of Aspergers in the health sector & budget cuts to autism services in the Midlands I was left with no outlet for support, work or education until I discovered art!
In search for cultural things to do in Birmingham I came across the Midlands Art Centre’s Cannon Hill lectures, a series of weekly talks aiming to demystify the creative industries and teach creative skills to young people. I hadn’t left the house or encountered any one for almost a year, but it was a steep challenge I met with acceptance. MAC’s creative producers Amy Martin and Daniel Whitehouse disproved my fears of rejection & made me feel incredibly welcome & it is with their guidance I was able to access an opportunity to explore different art forms and gain a wonderful introduction to Birmingham’s art scene. The vast array of free tours and exhibitions available at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery lured me out of isolation and into the art world where the endless inspiration available improved my anxiety and depression. With creative initiatives like Galleries Night, Digbeth First Friday and creative meet-ups popping up around the city I’ve been able to meet new people with similar interests whilst expanding my artistic palette.
Thanks to my improved health & an introduction to Ideastap, an arts charity now facing imminent closure, I was able to start applying for voluntary roles in creative producing & marketing and with a roster of experience gained from working with STAMP, BeatFreeks and What A Woman Needs was shortlisted to join a young creative marketing group; The Icing Agency. Since November, I have been working under the guidance of freelance arts marketer Kate Andrews, building my knowledge surrounding arts marketing and working on real briefs among eight other young creatives. My communication skills have developed significantly and with so much practical experience under my belt I now feel capable of spreading my wings on my own.
I’m determined to give back to Birmingham’s art scene by improving art and culture in the city and my developing project Shout About Brum in partnership with Joe Hale of The Icing Agency (he’s the guy on the far right) aims to do just that. We want to see cohesion and collaboration between arts organisations in the city & thus decided to set up a collective open to every individual, organisation, business, project or charity working or interested in Arts & Culture in Birmingham and the wider West Midlands region. We aim to shout about Brum culture, find inspiration from other cities to improve our art scene and take creative charge in re-branding our city a cultural hotspot. When I look around I see an incredible amount of potential for our city. From the vacant warehouses filling Digbeth and the Jewellery Quarter that could hold start-up projects, artist-led exhibition spaces & rehearsal rooms to the abundance of talent present in our thriving open mic and spoken word scene & the general public’s untapped interest in culture. I adore observing the glowing faces of Birmingham residents’ taking pictures with the Bullring Bull sculpture or stopping to enjoy the entertainment of buskers. So many people are completely unaware of the art right under their noses and I dream of creating an arts marketplace and street performance culture in the midst of Birmingham’s retail district for everyone to enjoy.
If you’d like to find out more about Shout About Brum or join the collective, follow our new twitter @shoutaboutbrum News and updates coming soon.
I’m bursting at the seams with passion, ideas, vitality, confidence and self-belief and it’s all because of Birmingham and it’s arts and culture. I am indebted to you. You saved a life and that is more than enough evidence of the value of the arts.
Thank you!
❤ Olivia
thecreativewallflower 