Sometimes, many days of intense abuse pass and you forget that you are in the trench. Sometimes the pain and the constant looming threat of death and profound suffering becomes your whole world and you forget that part of your fight for your life is always keeping the public and especially the authorities informed of everything Fuckwad and the Goon Squad are doing to you. And when you are so deep inside it that you forget to protect yourself, something calls to you. A feeling. It’s what monotheists call “God.” The voice of the “soul,” the part of us that is infinite. The voice from within: It’s time to do another… oh please don’t say “spell.” Prayer? Wish? Divine Request? Request of whom? What the hell even is it anyway? Candle-burning with a small side of alchemy and hope? Or is it “faith?” Oh god. What a ridiculous word.
That’s why you can’t just use the word “spell.” You already know what they think.
It’s hokey….
You know….
It’s quirky and a little crazy, but this is why we like her.
Oh and don’t you get self-righteous, huh. You’ve got all the answers. That’s why you’re always the pariah. Why they laugh at things about your life that you don’t find funny. Why they think you’re ridiculous. It should be obvious to you by now.
It’s not just the tarot cards. It’s not just the way you talk about reincarnation and your boyfriend’s unusual gift so casually, or the fact that you don’t know most of the Bible or care about the history of Christianity, and YOU REALLY SHOULD! by the way.
Because the Bible is referenced endlessly in pop culture, your literature professors all said.
Cool I’ll get to know it that way then, you decided.
It’s not just all of these things. It’s the added enchilada of the “pagan” thing. And for fuck’s sake, Diana, PAGAN isn’t even your term. It’s one your subconscious pulled out of your asshole to try to explain where you sit on the religious spectrum. Because you know what they think. We know what they think.
And the term…THEE term… the one they want you to declare, to at least admit. The one that is still apparently an unofficial crime. The term that makes every dick within a 20-mile radius go flaccid as a troglodytic chill catches their companion scrotum with the cocky terror of the hunters who burned opinionated women like you hundreds of years ago.
But “witch” is so much cosplay now, and it probably was then too. The real crime was the pursuit of autonomy.
And quite frankly, you didn’t go looking for it. It found you, as if your ancestors scratched it into your genes 500 years ago. But that’s the kind of thing you shouldn’t say publicly because it sounds crazy and ridiculous and the exact thing misogynistic atheist “men’s rights” types use to besmirch your name. Because they think a view as narrow and unscientific as any dogmatic religion is intellectual wisdom and freedom.
But who cares what they think. It’s not important whether you care though because they impose their wrongness on you whether you acknowledge them or not and we’re acknowledging them right now anyway.
It’s okay to tell them who you are even if it frightens them. And whether you tell them or not, you’ll still be that anyway. And isn’t that kind of comforting?
So when that thing calls, nudges you to be…THAT…you’ll say your wish into the flame and the oils will leave their scent in the air and your wish will linger in the hot chime -candle flame, and it will work or it will not work, and it will be only yours and you will never have to tell anyone. Not directly. You could never mention it ever again to anyone. Or you could tell everyone.
You could re-pierce your nose and dye your hair black and hold invented pagan ceremonies and even put recordings of them on the internet. Just like this essay.
Or….
You could say nothing. Do nothing. Confess nothing. Describe nothing. You owe them nothing.
In fact, you could delete this whole essay, never publish a word of it, and keep it as your own little secret for the rest of your life.
Diana Spindler 