Diana Kurniawan

The Bitch is the one who spreads gossip because the girl with lesser than normal looks is fat or has a mole on her face. She talks like a bitch because she has no confidence and she has to put you down in the gutter or attack your braids and wear her thongs outside her jeans to show her beauty. The Bitch is the one who talks shit behind your back or in front of you to get ahead. The one who invites you to a party full of men who rape and tells you to get drunk and stay in the living room with those rapists. The Bitch talks shit about other women because she wants men to love her, and sees bad things in others because she wants others to affirm she is superior in comparison to other women. The Bitch be bitchin'....all the time, and she can't seem to want peace unless she gets a line of millionaires wanting to date her. She wants all the men or want all the men to date women like her. She doesn't want to work because she wants her man to compensate for her blow job she gives him at night, and this might sound double edged, but she feels she has to be compensated for everything. She wants men with money because she wants to be the princess and she's too good for work because it might break a nail or she might get tired. She wants his inheritance and yours too, in case you're rich. The Bitch is unkind. The Bitch is good to people with money or good looks. The Bitch is the shame of all women because she's an abusive criminal but she doesn't care and continues to harm hard working women who just wants to be stable. The Bitch wants to be bigger than life itself because she wants her life to matter, but ridicules the lives of others, even yours. The Bitch doesn't stand up for women's rights because all she cares about is money and men with money and sex and fame and more money. The Bitch tells other women to get therapy but won't get therapy herself. She feels other women are insane and needs to get therapy, crazy, or dumb. The Bitch likes her name because it's a compliment to bitches like her. The Bitch gets her name by being a big bitch, but the strange thing is...she loves it.

My eyes throbbed from sobbing after a sip of my half-calf Americano with skim milk at Trident Bookstore in Boulder. Alone at the back corner with my head down I mumbled crazy to myself with my eyes swollen red. Post-traumatic-stress-disorder symptoms often comes when I have inspirations and when I felt happy from a good day. Jesus, The Baristo, came to my table and held my shoulder. He asked, "Did I make the Americano too strong?" I looked into his eyes and said to him, "Are you trying to trick me? To go into Hell?" I wiped my tears with my left hand as my right was covered with snot mucus from my nostrils. "You drank some of the crushed Espresso Beans that was on the bottom of the machine. I need to clean that thing," said Jesus. I threw the cup at his face, and yelled, "You're a nasty coffee maker. Why did you give me suicidal ideations?!" I hated Jesus. Jesus wept. He took my hands and kissed them, then said, "I could make it all go away. But you have to stop drinking water."

 

 

 

I remembered him like he was the kindercare buddy I never kept in touch with. His smile, and that Italian curly brown hair and the naughty laugh. Sometimes a face was to be remembered and whether fondly or not, his face was in my brain this morning soliciting some attitude in me. I fondly remember him. I forgave him, and it wasn't without restraint that I chose to let go. But, he was in another state and I wanted him to live his life. I wanted him to be happy and I was still dealing with my PTSD and Depression and rape trauma. I was in trouble with my own mind, and I wanted nothing else but solitude and hospitalization. I wanted healing and I couldn't be with him, shame to say, but he was semi-perfect and I wished I kept in touch. 

 

Now, I will have to let go. I wish success for him and I wish blessings upon his life. I wanted nothing more for him then and the same now. I have no hard feelings and I won't recollect the past with some tragic memories of us fighting. I wanted to see him thrive and I hope he is. I hope he's doing well and I hope he will prosper, in any method that he would like. I want his success and I want to see him, even famous, with that good looks of his, I hope he kept running and paddling. I wish nothing but blessings for him. I hope he met God's grace and God's provisions. I wish a wedding with erotic love making for him and his wife. I wish him blessings. How, I would be so proud of him.

 

Sometimes we wish ill wills for our past flames, but I knew from the first moment I met him that he was special in his own ways. I hope he knew I had a good soul and a good heart, as I wanted nothing but good for us both. It's far too late and far too long for us to meet again, but I hope nothing but good things for him. I never wanted anything more. I pray he has support, hope and joy, and I hope he is well. I hope he lives well and gets on well with his life. I pray to God for him to have everything he needed and his desires to be aligned with God's will. I pray for good and I pray for well in his life. I hope he will prosper. Amin.

 

#Blessings #JustWrite

Dark were my days in 2007 and darker was my mind with it. There were times when all I had was anxiety, but there was a horizon unbeknowest to me upcoming to my life in the middle of Spring that year. Tucson, yes, Tucson, Arizona, in a Jewish Temple where I met Rabbi Harold Kushner, I realized that God had trespassed all forms of doubts that formed a barrier inside my heart. The Jericho wall fell down, through a rabbi.

 

At first I wanted to give up, because there was no such thing was belief inside me, and I didn't feel any changes in my heart. But, something tugged at me since I was a wee child, and that was the study of the Jewish culture and religion and racism, as I read the Serafia and felt a little closer to the real thing along with the Bible. It wasn't until I read, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, that I also realized that I needed God. I needed Joy and Hope that came along with it because I thought I was worst case scenario, but with God I was more than just a statement. I wanted more for myself, so I went to Tucson, to meet the him, Rabbi Kushner, and he uttered, "Small Doses of Joy, makes big changes."

 

I lived it, and treated myself, sometimes for just a Green Tea, and other times, Ice Cream, and yeah....so what with the weight gain, I was raped, who would want me after that, right? Wrong...people started to realize I changed, and my parents told me I was brighter and I tried harder, and I wanted more for myself that just hanging around the house on medication after a hard day at work. I wanted to go to work with a passion, and I wanted to go back to school for my graduate studies. The true statement rings bells in my ears, God Saves, and through Rabbi Kushner, I felt a change, more than I what I could have done alone. I needed his help and his small push towards me. 

 

Since then, I called it the Kushner Method. Small doses of treats and joys, and satisfactions, and hope in any form, and they are there (trust me) and you can find it anytime. When there were bad news, I look at pictures of funny animals, or when I fell down, I walked another mile to break more calories to lose weight. When the dog bites and the bee stings, and when I was feeling sad, I put on a funny flick on the telly or treated myself to a movie. Then, there I was...bad for a moment, but back for the long haul. 

 

The Kushner Method worked and it might be harder with age, because it gives us all a skeptic brain, but if one just trusts as a child, it will work. I trusted the kind Rabbi, and until now, I ascribe to his teachings, although I'm Methodist/Presbyterian, and I didn't worship in a Jewish Temple, whose to say I wasn't allowed? God sometimes uses others, and in peculiar ways that the weakest became the cornerstone that was stronger than I. The Rabbi was a holy man I trusted because he didn't want to see harm for me, he wanted healing, even for a gentile. 

 

I realized I was not alone, because there were about a hundred or more people in the audience, who sought his wisdom and saw him at the conference and bought his books. I knew Brene Brown was his competition, but boy, would she get a run for her wisdom. I love both, Brown and Kushner, but most of all, I do believe in God. Not because I was in a cult of some holy roller with a mission to proselytize everyone, instead I wanted to share my story. I was a survivor and I was trying to survive and I sought help. Now....I would be called a thriver, stable with my job and my heart and mind, and allowing the world to take shape without restraint and fears. The Kushner Method gave me resilience, and I became who I was meant to be, a writer, a beautiful woman and all in the making towards success in my own life, in my own ways. No shame with unbelievers, I wasn't writing this to put you down, but I wanted to share my story about the Kushner Method, and my gratitude for him. 

 

Thank you Rabbi, if we ever meet again, I will give you a hug.

 

There is a force beyond me incomprehensibly is forcing me to move forward and I fight it none. I tread on lazily often, but not without the knowledge I am not placing all of my wits to the task, therefore, in seconds, my motive transforms. I don't know why I try too hard to find out what is the force beyond me, to see if it is godly or the latter (selfishness). I end in the same spot of miraculous joy that I never intended to feel. It guides me and tells me what to do and shows me how to write and the emotions I am familiar with, and sometimes I feel like a robot, switching electric currents into my neurons to complete a task. Afterall, aren't we all robots with fleshed out brains? Am I any different, but that is it that guides me? I contemplate prayers and contemplate faith, and know that there is a nonsense that I believe in religion that I surrender to. Yet, others tell me it's dumb or non-existent. 

 

I don't listen to others anymore when it comes to the knowledge of this force. I just know what to do and how to write it, and here I am writing without an MFA, which usually gives the creative license of artists to write. I have nothing, and started at nothing, a blank page even, but here I am writing. Words spelling out, splurging sentences onto the page although, I never actually say anything or know what to even type until I feel the force moving through the tips of my fingers, letting catharsis release the monsters and sometimes darkness unto the vast cyberspace.

 

I don't know why but I want to write all the time, and I don't know if other writers feel the same. I can write for hours endlessly for a whole day and even overnight (without coffee) but the lack of sleep will probably end in drueling bliss on my computer. Sleep aside, I want to write for hours, and the adrenaline just pushes me through. I don't why, and I am not sure if there is the ghost of a dead writer inside of me or not, but I feel like a writer, but am I? Can I justifiably proclaim myself to be one when I'm just a small time writer and poet. Do I deserve to call myself a writer when I am not in The New York Times or New Yorker? Can I compare myself to those luckies?

 

I'm going to keep going, and still write nonsense maybe, but here is me, writing something out of nothing.

 

#JustWrite

 

 

I could have been your mother, aching with my belly immersed in the slime of my cells full of medicine and drugged up placenta. I could have been a druggie with a past with HIV and Herpes, and pushing through the night at the strip show with just underwear and topless. I could have been a woman without a cause driving along the highway with a bloody wrist and a heart broken spirit. I could have been a single mom, asking for dollars and asking for handouts from strangers for just Huggies for exchange of something you'd want in my closet. I could have been worse, but I am grateful. I know my life and I could have been a lot of things, with a lot of things, because of a lot of trauma.

 

But I am not....not ever and nor will I ever be. I am me, and as my Papi said.....I'm beautiful and kind.

 

I could have been a shadow in the ghostly house on Sherman Way in Reseda after taking my own life with 200 mg of Seroquel if my brother didn't slap my hands. I could have been a statistics if God didn't intervene and took my show and rode on with it. I could have been writing nonsense that no one cared about, instead my jibberish ain't so and it would be a tragic mistake not to read me because the lessons learned would be priceless and poignant. 

 

I could have been a porn star after getting picked up in front of the bookstore to pose for Hustler and Playboy when the camera men wanted some quick buck, "And you don't have to do nothing, just look pretty and fuck," or so they said. They could have killed me with the shame. I could have been a wonder woman with a flying cape in my dreams from too much Valerian but it's non-addictive and it was fine, but I was a groggy froggy. I could have won an Oscar for being the most realistic rape victim, because I was one, but now I've survived it all, and I'm making ends meet and learning to write. Learning to be a better woman, learning to be a better human.

 

I could have been a magician, with disappearing tears. I could make them out of my eye sockets out of the tremors in my brain and they would all fall out magically, then I would wipe them and they would dry up. Voila! They're magic tears. They disappear with just a napkin and I could make more for free out of nothing. It would fall with the slightest jolt of trauma, so just shake up and shoot me and I'll die and no more tears. I would be the master magician, living and dead at the same time, exasperating oxygen till I am no more. I could have been so many things, and so many people, but I am not. I am grateful I am me. I was a lot of things and I was nonsense to a lot for a lot of people, but now I am not.

 

#My15 #JustWrite

The small kisses from her woke me up each morning and her paws scratched on my arm daily and tenderly. I woke up each morning with love in my arms and not a day goes by that I never have her attention since I bought her from a survivor. Her love is unconditional and I knew since the day I met her that she would be beside me until her dying days. She has a soft heart and a tough bark but loving kisses for me each moment she was given her life on this planet. There was a healing elixir in her kisses and her saliva on my face are potions of hope, love and joy. I knew she wasn't the puppy I deserved, but I got her, my angel.

 

Mimi was named because she replied to me when she was being her naughty self, chewing on my shoes and gnawing on my thumb and nose. Her relentless kisses greeted me each day and I won't let her live without hugging me for at least 5 full minutes a day. She lays her head on my feet beside me when I write and when I just have the time to read in my bed. This constant companion never bored herself with thoughts of how familiar I was, and how I was the same woman day in and day out. She once cried because her leash was pulled on too tight when I was angry and walking, and the tears in her eyes showed me her sorrows. I never did that again, not to my Mimi.

 

I asked for children but I was given a puppy, and it was better for me because she caused me no labor pains, but a lot of hope. I went into anguish the moment I discovered I would never become a mother and just a dog-mom, and the aging process was conspicuous. I was late in the game and may never be a player of a loving marriage but I had this loving creature I needed to attend to. There was no time to waste and only playful moments with her. I needed to be present and not cry too much or it would cause her to bark her lungs out as she cries tenderly with me in the process.

 

I tenuously write in the morning when the sun was rising as meditation and she awakes before me, reminding me of my daily practice. No lonesome moments and no laziness for this little doggy. She demands my attention and she wanted my commitment to the craft and to her, and I was a willing human. Fifteen minutes of bliss with each word typed on this blog meant she has her Mom's attention all day with me in the conscious space of healing with the craft of literature. Dismal thoughts and post-traumatic moments were no longer with me since I started practicing self meditation through writing. Perhaps she was my angel, although not the child I wanted, but the saving grace I needed.

 

#Justwite.

The soft ache, a burrowing nail

In the hollow space in my chest

My tear drops shine on my palm

Under the bright moonlight

 

Am I a destined Gatsby?

Imploring fate for true love

Witnessing marriage and bliss

In everything else but me?

 

The wishing brain, a portrait

Of the American dream home

My wrinkles say I'm late

Years pass and hope walks by

 

Will I be Eudora Welty?

Love letters with no response

Fighting for what I believe in

Yet no one believes in me?

 

The dreamy eyes, gazing at roses

Planning bouquets with no wedding

My purpose changes with time

I realize I might be a party of one

 

 

The scent of body odor

Strong grit for her dreams

Nobody cares if she cries

She pulls trash bins

Black hair and square glasses

 

Dirt on her tawny skin

Troubles she keeps to herself

No complaints, not a sissy

She stocks shelves

Strong, calm, and silent type

 

Dry and cracked knuckles

Tunes her radio to hip hop

According to her moods

Punch the clock on time

Shows her heart to no one

 

Some say she is a survivor

Others say she is a nun

I know she deserves good

Daily wage grounds her

Clenching to her personal Jesus

 

 

 

In my right palm, Sunflowers seeds

My head turned left in silence

People passed by, rioters ahead

Anti-Bushwhacked protest about me 

My heart beating, no words came

 

Fear winds in my brain, afraid of others

Go away from me, I have Sunflower seeds 

I couldn't move, forgot how, overstimulation 

Tears peaked out, still in silence, no words

Didn't know how to say it, too many people

 

Except Lincoln, all Presidents were implicit

The government knew conspiracies theory

Oppress the vulnerable to help celebrities

Controlling chaos with organized crimes

But, protests were legal, yet they punished

 

Anarchy signs, black masks, gas bombs

I wore white, and khaki, with my red heart 

I kept on breathing, Sunflower seeds

Took a seed, bit the shell, tongue the seed

Perhaps a seed calmed me down, waiting 

 

Back then, In my right palm, Sunflowers seeds

Embarrassed to talk, embarrassed to not

The country divided, war coming to us

Bushwhacked not just me, but maybe you

I felt hijacking attacks, manic coming, worries

 

Took a step forward, forgot about the rioters

Took my Sunflower seeds, forgave them all

The organizers met in abandoned stores

Churches, ESL centers, all Los Angeles liberals

I wanted peace but felt war coming, Bushwhacked