Stories

Growing up LGBTQ+ in a Small Town

By : Bobbie Padgett May 11, 2021 No Comment

When people think of small towns, I think a lot of the time they imagine some cute little place with a welcoming community where everyone gets along and loves each other. And while that’s not completely untrue it’s also not completely true either. As someone who has lived in a small town - that is technically labeled a village - for their whole eighteen years of living, I can say that small town aren’t always what they’re sometimes romanticized to be. When I was growing up, I thought it was exciting to live in my small town. I was fooled by the rumors of small towns being cute and loving, but I soon realized that if you weren’t a certain way, you didn’t belong in this small town. In my

Telling Our Stories

By : Miranda Kargol April 30, 2021 No Comment

At the beginning of COVID, I started writing fanfiction. Before this, I never pictured myself as someone who would be interested in creative writing. I wrote essays for school, and that was the extent of my writing. Then one day, I went onto AO3 to search for fanfiction of a show that I had been watching and as I was searching around, I was disappointed to find that no one had written any asexual fanfiction about this show. This is not an uncommon problem for the ace community. Many people find asexual stories to be boring, and since the ace community is small, there is an even smaller number of people who write fanfiction inside of it. That is when I realized something that would inspire me. I enjoyed writing,

How This Pandemic Challenged My Mental Health and Relationship

By : Vaneza Sosa April 30, 2021 01 Comment

When it came to dating, I never seemed to choose the right people for me. I had a terrible pattern of dating people that were emotionally stunted or had personal issues beyond any help I could give. I ignored red flags that were waving directly in my face for as long as I could. I spent so much time playing therapist to my partners that I never allowed myself to confront my issues. I knew I had them; I just never knew how bad my emotional trauma was until recently. I started dating my now partner a little before the pandemic began. A whole new can of worms had opened up for me in this relationship, and it opened my eyes to the amount of self-healing I needed to do.

a bubble of silence

By : emc April 30, 2021 No Comment

a bubble of silence sometimes being alone makes sense, i’m alone with my thoughts and my feelings and my discomfort. nothing really make sense these days, the world is in shambles and i’m lost in my own mind; but sometimes when i’m alone it makes sense. it makes sense that i’m tired, well exhausted really. i understand that there’s a toll on my body and my mind from what i’m feeling inside, i get that. it’s fine. sometimes I just need a moment to breathe and understand that this will pass because in the moment it doesn’t feel like it, in the moment it feels like i’m ripping my insides out of my body, it feels like my heart is on fire and i’m doing nothing. so when it makes

Queering Paganism: A Gay Practioner’s Perspective of Wicca-Craft

By : Parker Zimmermann April 30, 2021 No Comment

I stood outside in the darkness reciting over and over, "New moon. New me, New energy.” These words of affirmation are something you might hear from a pagan or someone who self proclaims themselves a witch. I am one of those people and as such, I honor the Old Ways abiding by the laws of nature. I worship the ever-changing cycles of the moon and the natural turnings of the seasons. I watch the ebbs & flows, and the death & rebirth of the world around us by participating in them accordingly. The sacred ground of the earth mother we walk upon was beneath my bare feet. I took the time to remember this blessing as a child of Gaia like all other living things, including the plants and the

Wandering Soul

By : Grace Hasson April 24, 2021 Comments Off

I have a wandering soul. Or merely a single breath of soul that comes and goes. Winds whisk it away like a wish flower’s whispers. She taught me love is not solitary or safe, that we are all in danger all the time anyway so why not dive in headfirst. We said our souls were tangled like loose threads, and I almost started to believe. Years later I say “Whisk me away again” to the open blinds dripping with blurred night sky. So the universe let me walk beside men who taught me not to keep my fingers crossed so tight, and people caught between threads and sheets and wishes just like me. And I found myself again. And again. Even when I didn’t think I was lost at all—there

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