I don’t know if this is just another level of social media redundancy; another sinew of vanity to self-assurance or a partition from world and mind.

My oldest brother caught me blogging, once, when I was fourteen–and told me blogging was just mental masturbation. That it was something people did to flex for personal gratification: there was no purpose, no productivity–just selfish pleasure. I don’t know if he was wrong, or callous, or if I had just caught him in the middle of one of his moods. But in that sentence I re-evaluated my entire self-worth, regardless of the intent or bias behind his thought.

In that sentence I became ashamed of two things: the only organic talent I’ve ever cultivated (writing), and the only organic conflict I’ve ever formed (my sexuality). In that sentence, I realized the essential nature of my shame.

I’ve spent the past seven years discovering how to come to terms with being the youngest and only female in a male dominated hierarchy; how to come to terms that someone else’s idea of shame could be valid yet irrelevant–how my talents and my body were mine and mine alone.

The idea then, is that this will be me in the one form of expression I’ve ever only understood: in the one place that I never brought myself to be allowed.