Poem: Worth

This poem Worth is inspired by Beggin’ by Måneskin and is told from the point of view of my character from some of my books Mitch. Hope you all like it.

The deluge of anxiety sweeps over me

just at the sight of the two of them sitting at the table,

the two so-called rational cis men

looking at the supposedly childish trans man

like I am a problem to fix,

my determination not to take in their denigrating words

is strong but ebbing away slowly,

their contemptuous feelings hidden behind false maturity,

so much of my life has been battling these two men I love

in a bid to not have my personality eviscerated,

their intricate and subtle mental torture,

I have dreamed of escaping it countless times,

my mind flows to the time I left my home

to be free and happy,

preferring homelessness to the restrictive vibe

with my father and brother,

now my father sits there with my husband Nate

and they are looking at me like I am a petulant teenager

and I’m silently hoping my husband will act like my husband for once,

you would think he was married to my father,

running from one to the other has knocked my vitality down,

I came from a home with tension,

I don’t want my children to,

Nate please help me,

I will do this alone but I don’t want to,

I am broken down,

drained,

can’t you see that Nate baby?

Can’t you be like you were at the start of us dating?

Can’t we go back there and be a family who has each other’s backs?

I tried to be the man you wanted but I can’t do it,

our children need to know they deserve both love and respect,

I will fight my father like I always have,

whether you are with me or not Nate

but my mind is going,

if this is how it is meant to be however,

bring it on,

our children are going to know their worth

in a way I didn’t always.

Easy Weekly Quiz!

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Last Week’s Answers

1. Alaska
2. Madonna
3. 18
4. The Pacific
5. The cheetah
6. J.K. Rowling
7. Four
8. Steve Brookstein
9. Red
10. Vincent van Gogh

How many did you get right? Brag below. 🙂

Answers next week. Give it a go without Google’s help!  Answers will appear in next week’s quiz. Feel free to leave your answers in the comments. Good luck! 🙂

This Week’s Questions

1. Which author created the detective Alex Cross?
2. What is the capital of France?
3. What is the capital of Italy?
4. Which animal is mostly associated with Dick Turpin?
5. Moving On Up and Angel St were hits for which band?
6. Which author wrote the book On The Road?
7. In which country was the Tamagotchi created?
8. Who is the Patron Saint of Ireland?
9. What is a baby goat called?
10. In computers, WWW stands for what?

Beauty On A Budget: Casual, Autumn Going Out Look

Hi everyone! 🙂

Here is my latest Beauty On A Budget look. Hope you all like it. 🙂

First Steps

Use Miss Beauty London’s Ready Set Go! powder on your face and neck. Brush eyebrows and put the black colour from Miss Beauty London’s Eye Brow Kit on your eyebrows and under your eyelids. Put the pale green colour from Max & More’s 12 Color Eyeshadow Palette on your eyelids. Put the white colour from the same palette in the corner of your eyes.  Put Miss Beauty London’s False Lash Effect Mascara – Black on your eyelashes. Put on OG Outdoor Girl Blusher on your cheeks.

Final Steps

Put the dark purple colour from Max & More’s Baked Eyeshadow palette – Burgundy on your lips and cover with Miss Beauty London’s Lipstick Sealer.

5 Videos To Watch This Week On YouTube!

Hi everybody! 🙂

Here is my five suggestions for this week.

Social Issues

Firstly we have episode 21 in the Black American History series from Crash Course with Clint Smith. In this episode Clint discusses the case of  Plessy v Ferguson, the Separate Car Act and the Committee Of Citizens. Very informative and interesting.

TV

For the Strictly Come Dancing Movie Week the dancers performed a dance to music from In The Heights for the start of the results show. So much fun and all the dancers done amazing especially Cameron Lombard.

Next up is all the dances from Strictly’s Movie Week. There was a lot of great dances this week. John and Johannes absolutely smashed it. Rhys and Nancy’s routine was epic. Rose and Giovanni’s dance was very beautiful. AJ’s and Kai’s dance was beautiful too. They were the standouts for me this week but yeah, lots of great dances.

Next here is Mikeekee’s sixth RuPaul’s Drag Race compilation. I love these compilations. Always fun.

Music

Finally for today, here is Dermot Kennedy’s Better Days. This is a great music video for a really excellent song. The storytelling in Dermot’s vocal is simply stunning and it is a very relatable song. Absolutely beautiful job.

Beauty On A Budget: Casual, Going Out Look

Hi everyone! 🙂

Here is my latest Beauty On A Budget look. Hope you all like it. 🙂

First Steps

Use Miss Beauty London’s Ready Set Go! powder on your face and neck. Brush eyebrows and put the black colour from Miss Beauty London’s Eye Brow Kit on your eyebrows and under your eyelids. Use the dark pinkish-purplish colour (the colour under the pale pink colour) from Max & More’s Baked Eyeshadow palette – Burgundy on your eyelids. Put Miss Beauty London’s False Lash Effect Mascara – Black on your eyelashes. Put on OG Outdoor Girl Blusher on your cheeks.

Final Steps

Put Simple Pleasures High Shine Lip Gloss in a pale pink shade on your lips. Put Miss Beauty London’s High Shine Lip Gloss – Show Off on your lips. Blend the two pink lip gloss shades together and put Miss Beauty London’s Lipstick Sealer over them.

Part 5: The Inner World Of Bullying

Photo by Dee @ Copper and Wild on Unsplash

This is the fifth part in my 12-part series The Inner World Of Bullying.

What Bullying Feels Like

Photo by Morgan Basham on Unsplash

Being bullied is one of those experiences which you don’t know what it’s like unless you’ve been through it. You go into a situation where you are just being yourself with all good intentions and you soon find yourself in this relentless spiral. It is usually every day which you face some form of abuse whether it is verbal, physical or otherwise and you feel like you can’t break out of it. It feels very unfair, hurtful, embarrassing and awkward. You see other people not facing the same things you do and while you are happy for them, you don’t understand why you have been targeted. But a survival technique comes into you and you feel like you must battle through to get to some better time and better place where things won’t be like this anymore. You keep your dreams in your focus and they keep your spirits up that this won’t be forever. Still the days while it is happening are long and difficult to get through. You want to just go about your business, do your thing but when you come into a situation where your bullies are present you can’t avoid the taunts and the cruelty which they are always ready with and afterwards you often have to gather yourself together to fight through once more. Though difficult, you go through time after time of getting back up and fighting through once more. It takes its toll on your mental health and even if it doesn’t affect you completely at the time it often does after when you have time to process all that you have been through.

Bullies Like To Find Your Weakness

Image by Schäferle from Pixabay

Bullies like to find what they perceive as your weakness in order to exploit it. If they find out you are lacking in confidence about your appearance for example they will target that. If they find that you are very protective about your family and friends, they will make comments about your family and friends. You have to be constantly on your guard with them and it is maybe one of the reasons why people who have been bullied are overly guarded later in life. Yes, I can confirm that happens. There is a sort of a poker face I suppose you do without ever learning how to do it in order to survive and not give them any ammunition. The problem down the line is that you can tend to do that with people you don’t need to do that with but when you face people who are not for your good it can be a useful skill to have. Still it would be better to learn it under other circumstances.

You Find It Hard To Express Yourself

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

I often wonder what type of a person I would be if I wasn’t bullied and if I didn’t face other trauma I faced. Would I be more confident in putting across my opinion? Certainly I am not the best person at doing that in daily life or in a group situation. Honestly if I didn’t write my opinion wouldn’t come out very much apart from my chats with my sister who I can talk about anything with. It is a shock to me when people value anything I have to say because my confidence in what I think and say has been lowered by my experiences. Am I boring? Am I a troublemaker? Does what I say even make sense? Is things I say wrong? It is a shock to me or as my sister says a culture shock to me when I hear people being at ease having their opinions. Like having a cup of tea or something. I’m delighted for them and I admire them but I don’t know how they do it. Nowadays we live in a very opinionated world and I adore it. The joy I feel at witnessing people fighting for the rights of themselves and others is immense. It makes me so happy beyond words. But I definitely feel I could have contributed my two cents much more if I wasn’t so damaged in certain ways by the bullying and all the other trauma. I know that’s the aim of people like that and I fight against that the best I can. The thing is though that bullying and facing trauma make you extremely passionate and when I get out of my fears those bad people with badness in their minds about people won’t know what has hit them.

Be Strong, Opinionated, Good And Kind

Image by athree23 from Pixabay

We are not taught in this world often enough that we can be all of these things if that’s who we are and how we want to be. But it’s so true. Bullies play on your quality of kindness and your fear that by standing up to them you are being unkind to them. You are kind, you don’t need to prove it. If someone is bullying you or by extension abusing you in any way or being discriminating or ignorant towards you or anyone else, you have every right to stand up for yourself or someone else. It says absolutely nothing about your kindness and your goodness. Be confident and know you are kind and good and that you have every right to stand up for yourself and others who you see facing terrible things. Being strong is good too and having your opinions, from someone who struggles with that, is good when you are trying to help yourself or someone else facing unprovoked abuse. I forgot that I could be strong, opinionated, kind and good all at the one time and I know that is a source of many people’s mental health problems. You can be all four and I admire the combination you have so much. Never believe the lies bullies and abusers tell you. You do you and be happy. There is so much hurt in this world, you are valuable and your goodness helps so many people out there. Keep going.

Confidence Is Key

Photo by Autumn Goodman on Unsplash

Bullying plays on our confidence. It can be unfortunately very powerful in doing so. Because of that it is vital that we try our best to keep our confidence as well as we can. This will help us with our mental health and our feelings about ourselves. Keep telling yourself how amazing you are and drown out all that untrue negativity. When doing that over time your confidence will grow stronger and stronger and you will become unstoppable against their bullying and hatred. You don’t need to show them hate in return because that’s not you but keep your confidence up. Protect yourself, that is far more vital than worrying about their feelings. They put their feelings first, you put yours and you’ll be on your way. Gaining confidence is not a race though so take your time and take pride in your progress and achievements.

Beauty On A Budget: Casual, Going Out Look

Hi everyone! 🙂

Here is my latest Beauty On A Budget look. Hope you all like it. 🙂

First Steps

Use Miss Beauty London’s powder – Autumn Beige on your face and neck. Brush eyebrows and put the black colour from Max & More’s 12 Color Eyeshadow Palette on your eyebrows and under your eyelids. Put the pale pink colour on your cheeks from the same palette as a blusher. Put the purple colour from the same palette on your eyelids. Put Miss Beauty London’s False Lash Effect Mascara – Black on your eyelashes. 

Final Steps

Put Miss Beauty London’s High Shine Lip Gloss – Show Off on your lips and cover with Miss Beauty London’s Lipstick Sealer.

Poem: Strong, Vibrant, Valid, Treasured

Today is National Coming Out Day and I wrote this poem for the day. Wishing all of my wonderful community the very best National Coming Out Day! 🙂

Photo by Raphael Renter on Unsplash

If you have came out

I hope it is a weight off your shoulders,

if you can’t

keep yourself safe and content,

to every person who represents

every letter and the plus in our community

I wish you all a happy National Coming Out Day,

we are a strong and vibrant community,

a community which I am so proud to be a part of,

this day live your truth

and block out all the haters

however close and distant they may be,

this day don’t feel any pressure to come out,

whether it takes time

or never at all,

you are a valid and treasured part of this community

and I wish you all much happiness and peace of mind

whether you are out or not

and whatever your path and your story may be.

Easy Weekly Quiz!

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Last Week’s Answers

1. Beijing
2. India
3. Bono
4. Angela Lansbury
5. Belgium
6. Dog
7. The Nile
8. Chaka Khan
9. Eight
10. Eight

How many did you get right? Brag below. 🙂

Answers next week. Give it a go without Google’s help! 🙂 Answers will appear in next week’s quiz. Feel free to leave your answers in the comments. Good luck! 🙂

This Week’s Questions

1. Which U.S. State is the largest?
2. Which singer had hits with Vogue and Papa Don’t Preach?
3. How many holes is there in a round of golf?
4. What is the world’s largest ocean?
5. What animal is the world’s fastest land animal?
6. Which author created Harry Potter?
7. How many gold medals did Carl Lewis win at the Olympic Games in 1984?
8. Who won the first X Factor in the UK?
9. What colour is the e in the Google logo?
10. Which Dutch painter cut off a part of his ear?

5 Videos To Watch This Week On YouTube!

Hi everybody! 🙂

Here is my five suggestions for this week.

Social Issues

Firstly we have episode 20 in the Black American History series from Crash Course with Clint Smith. In this episode Clint discusses the life and work of Ida B. Wells. An incredibly interesting episode about an amazing woman.

TV

This week on Strictly Come Dancing was Movie Week and this was the opening number. Excellent job by everyone especially from Johannes Radebe and Kai Widdrington. Such great storytelling and choreography. Very romantic and beautiful.

Mystery

From Barely Sociable, here is a very interesting short documentary about some mysterious disappearances and a book called The Paper Trip which is possibly linked to many unexplained disappearances.

Music

Next up here is a classic from The Real Thing. A brilliant performance of the band’s song on TopPop.

Finally here is a wonderful music video and track from M People called Itchycoo Park. As always I am totally in awe of Heather Small’s vocal.