I need to pull out my brain and look at it in my hands. I need to feel it tense up and release at the birth of new thoughts and the death of old ones.
I need to be dissected. I need to be injured to have a case. But how can you show the burns on my brain, how can you show the lashes on my heart. I need to be dissected so I have a case, so they can see the proof.
I need my anger to blanket the ground. I want every living thing to be swamped…
Grief is an emotional state of being when an individual faces loss. Though it is commonly associated with the state of mourning when a loved one dies, grief can occur in other circumstances as well. Sometimes we grieve periods of our lives when we change from one season to the next. Other times it can be versions of ourselves that we no longer are. Grief, simply a state of deep sorrow, can also happen to individuals who experience great hardship such as abuse. Coupled with symptoms of post traumatic stress, this is an insidious factor of learning to cope after…
I first heard of the town of Lake Los Angeles from a film director and teacher of mine, Mike Ott, who made a film titled the same. When I watched this film for the first time, I was fifteen years old, going to CalArts in Valencia, California for a summer school program in film and video. The film itself is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. It tells the story of a Cuban man who helps people who have crossed the Mexican border by giving them a place to stay for a few nights until they…
You were right. But you already knew that. You knew that long before I did. We know in different ways, I’m sure, but combined we know everything.
Perhaps it took you time to know what you know now. It took me time. You already knew that too.
I’m sorry for so many things I hardly know where to start. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Sorry for your sake and for my own. I’m sorry that you trusted me with your stories and experiences of abuse and I betrayed you. I’m sorry I used those stories and experiences against you…
It has been little over a month since I left. It has been almost two weeks since I came out about the abuse. It has been a week since I’ve been home. And now here I sit, repeating the words “I am safe, I am human” with my feet planted on the ground and my palms turned towards the sky.
Many things have happened in between those times. Many things I am ashamed of, many things that have hurt people who don’t deserve it, hurt people I love. So many things that it feels much longer than a month.
At…
When I was in high school, there were two kids I knew who had died within a couple of days of each other. The first was a boy. He had brought a water bottle of vodka to school then left at lunch, headed down the freeway at a hundred and ten miles per hour, and hit the divider head on. His parents said it was an accident but someone said it was a suicide. My sister’s best friend was the last person to see him. She was at our house when she found out. I had never heard someone wail…
Indie Courtney
22, they/ them. Born in Sacramento, CA. Filmmaker, photographer, musician and writer. Currently resides in Sacramento and studies at Mills College.
