Loud Mouth Brown Girl

When I started this site, I was highly focused. I had to be. Everything had to be said, in the moment, right then and there. I had to cut all ties, burn all bridges, and cut everyone, place, and thing out of my life, before I was ready to explode. But explode I did.

For decades I kept secrets I had no business keeping. I protected the worst in my society, to keep myself and my family safe. I don’t regret how it went down one bit, but I do regret that it went down at all.

If those men had chosen someone else, if they had chosen to behave as heros instead of as abusers, everything would have been different. For decades I had zero autonomy over my body, mind, and soul. In my few coherent moments I remember often being alone, thinking “maybe” Jesus was listening, but never entirely sure.

Sometimes I would talk to myself about what was happening, hoping someone would hear me, and eventually put an end to the pain. No one ever did.

The people who could have done something, decided not to look beneath the surface of my behavior, they decided I wasn’t worth checking in on, they decided I was worth discarding. And when I asked for help, they told me I wasn’t worth the trouble.

Then I grew up and I found a way to make it stop. Lots of people around the world want to claim that it was because of them that the abuse stopped, but the truth is if I hadn’t spoken up I’d be dead and I know that for a fact.

I could have and in a way did, go to the Bikers and tell them what was going on, but if I had gone and done it face to face, a war would have started and the streets of North Delta would be filled with the kind of blood that would stain forever.

I didn’t want that. Yes, I absolutely want revenge, I want to make those men feel every horrible, awful, insane, thing they did to me. But that’s not who I am today. That’s because I did the fucking work, released the trauma, and am in the phase of healing where I am so close to being ready to let it all go, I can taste it.

I have so much more that I am hiding, and I want to find a way to tell you every secret that I am hiding, in a way that makes sense to you, since I’ve recently learned…not everyone understands my creative language.

When you learn to talk in a way that no one else in the world can understand, it can be truly freeing. A language that is all your own that you don’t have to share, sets you free from social convention and allows you to say things out loud, or in your head, or on paper, that you wouldn’t tell another soul unless you absolutely had to.

However, when the time comes that you want to express yourself in a way that others understand, sometimes falling back on your own language, your own style of communication, is a hindrance to effective connection with those around you.

My love language is anger. It’s not because I want it to be, it’s because that’s what I was taught to build up over decades of abuse and neglect.

If it weren’t for my mom, the truth is that I don’t think I would have survived these last few years. I think I’d definitely have ended my life one way or another, and while I owe all of you beautiful readers plenty of thanks, it’s my mom that kept me above ground.

While she wasn’t able to protect me as a child – as much as she wanted to and did try – she has more than made up for it these years not through money or hotels or even keeping me safe, but by taking this ride with me, and just having faith that one day giving up everything we’ve ever known, will be worth it. On the off chance that it’s not, I’m really sorry mom. I wanted things to be so much different.

But they aren’t different. Accepting that has been hard, it’s not easy to accept that the life you wanted, the life you thought you’d get the chance to build toward, was stolen from you by outside forces.

I’m not talking about a man, or even a partner. I’m talking about the fact that when I was a child I wanted to go to Rome, to study the ancient texts, to walk the streets that Jesus walked, I wanted to see the sky through his eyes.

Yesterday I struggled to write because it was as we call it in the Roman Catholic sphere, “Crucifiction Day.” The day that Jesus was forced to carry a ten thousand pound cross, across the desert to the perfect hill where they nailed him to the cross as he said “I forgive you.”

In two days time, Jesus is supposed to be “Resurrected” which will lead us into summer, where we will celebrate his return to the Earthly realm.

How the fuck does that sound any fucking crazier than Persephone leaving the icy heat of Hell to ascend to the Earth where her very presence brings us spring?!

It doesn’t. But over generations, men have convinced the world that the stories women use to share their gifts, to understand the world, and to teach the world about itself, are evil practices designed to take us away from the ultimate goal of joining Jesus in Heaven.

But the thing is that if Jesus is dead, he’s not going to be found in the houses built in his name after his unholy reunion with his father. He’s going to be found with the people who need to see him the most.

He’s going to be found with those who want to see, can see, should see, would see if they weren’t convinced that what they’re seeing “Isn’t fucking possible.”

Anything on this planet is possible. Anyone can be any fucking thing they want to be, that’s the God damned rule. Yeah it’s hard, no it’s not fucking easy, but if it were easy it wouldn’t be worth having and that’s the point of Jesus’ life that no one understands.

Jesus didn’t have an easy life. He was abused, spat on, ridiculed, laughed at, and had to prove himself over and over and over again before people started to believe and if we’re being real fucking honest, it was only when he helped keep the richest among his peers drunk, that folks started to believe.

I believe that Jesus is an important figure in our history, but I don’t believe he’s the only singular savior. I believe there are women in this world, living and dead who have changed the world simply by existing the best way they knew how. And in return for their desire to just exist, they were raped, beaten, tortured, abused, traumatized, branded, and then burned at the fucking stake while being called evil.

The spiritual math don’t fucking math when you realize any path designed to up lift women, is also the one filled with men calling them evil as they slice us to death by a thousand different kinds of cuts.

I believe in the Goddess because science itself tells us you can’t have one, without the other. I believe in God because I’ve seen shit that I can’t explain in the English language and I don’t know how to express what I’ve seen in any other form than paint on canvas, and even that is difficult as fuck because I can’t make my paintings 3d.

Life is hard. It’s not supposed to be easy, and I know you all want me to share more of my joy, but the truth is my joy feeds my soul, and by the time I think to post about it, I’m too busy enjoying the moment to worry about capturing it for social media.

That’s what my religion has brought to me. Yes, in Jesus’ name I was abused, tortured, branded, and raped over and over again for decades. But like him I was a victim. Unlike him, I survived, and I am still here to tell my story.

Yeah it gets better, and then it gets shitty again, and then it gets better, and you just learn to enjoy the ride.

I know it gets rough, but if you find people who you can hold on to, and if you can remember that as much as you love the folks in your life, they may not be there forever, you’re going to be okay. Regardless of which spiritual path you choose, I beg of you, choose one that feeds your heart, and allows you to share your heart as often as possible without causing yourself or others harm. Just a thought.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall, The Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl