I am telling my story on this platform for a handful of 'reasons'... It seems that I have basically 'exhausted' all other resources. My family has been toxic, to me, for as long as I can remember. I have tried to gain closure with them about the past - with the hopes of curing my anxiety/depression and, (to me?) more importantly, becoming best friends with my parents.

It is the day after the Fourth Of July. My fiancé and I are being kicked out of the apartment by the landlord because he is not on the lease and he has been living here though all the four notices that we have found in the crack of the door on a sheet of printed paper. We’ve got one month to find out where to go and have been talking about our options.

DEAR JULY,

Mary has been seeing William for only four months, but she feels as if she’s known him forever. Constantly, they text each other, they talk and chat for hours at a time on the smartphones. They can even finish each other’s sentences before it ends! But now, as they sleep on William's bed and William wants more than conversation.

According to Bustle 80% of millennials have been ghosted by someone they were dating, and while rejection is never pleasant it can be much harder to cope when someone you like simply drops you. Ghosting is very much a modern trend, and while we'd like to think we're all above it the truth is most of us have done it at some point, too. The soft ghost, sometimes called the 'zombie', and breadcrumbing (giving someone just enough attention to keep them interested) are supposedly less offensive versions of the big G. Of course, there are those who would say that watching someone slowly drift away from you is worse... Whether you're in the middle of that process, seeing them slip further and further away, or you've been completely ghosted it can be hard to know what to do.

Two matches when lit on fire then placed next to each other and if close enough, will burn eternally together. They were grown in a small town in the eastern part of the world. It is funny people named it a dandelion because when the sun kissed it the glow that it exuded resembles what can only be the reflection of a specific version of the sun. If you happen to come across one that hasn’t fully bloomed, you would be tempted to pluck one up, severing the corpse of such a gift into two and blowing away the connections it took a lifetime to grow. You do this in hopes of being granted a wish which we both know is pathetic. Such a gift should only be left to grow and to bloom into something that can stand in the suns’ way and reflect to the human eye the closest thing it would ever come to staring directly into the sun. Although most of the time people do this to dandelions, the only explanation I have is that from the premature death of what would become beautiful is the mere theft of the power that it takes to create something in life.

For the past few days, #TransWomenAreWomen has been trending on Twitter. This is after Stephen King tweeted just that which got J.K. Rowling to unfollow him and delete a tweet where she thanked and praised him (after he retweeted an excerpt from a thread of hers).

When I take a look around me today, one thing has become abundantly clear: We are living through an age of antipathy. Whether it's lockdown protestors that would have the ‘old and weak’ sacrificed for the right to get a haircut, the people yelling ‘All Lives Matter’ - not as a statement of solidarity or support but rather as a rebuttal to demean and dismiss the Black Lives Movement, or the parent that refuses to vaccinate their kids and thus endangers the rest of the kids amongst them for otherwise cured diseases, a vulgar pattern of exceptional egocentrism appears.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor' - Desmund Tutu

Greetings, Vocal readers. Pride Month has finally arrived. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, we have to remember that we’re still fighting for equality for all LGBT people. I know that marriage equality has been legalized for almost five years, but queer people are still being discriminated against and denied services. We have an election coming up in November and if President Trump doesn’t get re-elected, the next commander-in-chief has to be committed to fight for the rights of gay and lesbian people and condemn discrimination of all forms.

Like many in my generation, I am single. Alone, all alone with nobody to love, hold, argue with, take cute pictures with or go on holiday with.

Going through my old highschool book collection since I’m home, I’ve been rereading some of my favorite texts for the first time in six years. Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Virgin Suicides (1993) has become a cult classic, but it seems especially fitting for this time. Quoting Dazed editor Claire Marie Healy, as many find themselves confined to their bedrooms reminiscent of highschool nights, this pandemic has made us “teenagers again. Waiting for our lives to begin.” The film by Sofia Coppola turned twenty during quarantine, setting the bedroom-bound Lisbon sisters in our crystallised collective consciousness for the foreseeable future and perhaps resonating with us more than ever in the midst of a pandemic.

Let’s play a game called ‘He’s just not that into you’. Below is a set of scenarios in which you have to respond to with a yes or no to the following question: “is he really that into you?” Get a pen and paper to jot down your answers and reasoning behind them. At the end, we’ll go through my personal opinion and dissect these responses. Ready? 🤝

Six years ago I met a guy who set my entire being on fire. I’m a preacher’s kid, so up until college I had never really experienced much other than drunken theatre party kissing, and I was too self-conscious and inexperienced to do anything about my raging sexual desires (it's always the quiet ones I’m telling you). I’d had crushes, child-like obsessions, but never had I experienced a mental and physical awakening than I did when I met him. Something in the way he looked at me, spoke to me, hell, the sheer fact that he wanted me made me both excited and terrified. Most of all, it made me addicted to him. I wanted him, I wanted his brain, I wanted his conversations, I wanted his laugh, I wanted his smile, I wanted his love. The sad part about it was, he was broken. Recently shattered and shut down to anything other than sexual desires, things that I was too nervous and not at all versed or confident in. I wanted time, he wanted action. He also wanted my friend, newly met as well, also recently broken, well versed in her sexual desires. They clicked at a speed that I could not keep up, nor was I at all happy about. It became a silent battle between me and her, frenemies to the tenth power. Passive-aggressive conversations, silent glaring, a battle of wills as we fought over his attention. Secret nights in the study room, slowly opening myself up to him mentally and physically in the hopes that he would choose me, that he was patient enough to work with me on my fears and my nervousness. Hope that he would take care of my body like he said he would via text, or the late nights when it was just us. It wasn’t enough. He chose her and I found out via Snapchat from a party that I wasn’t even invited to (we had the same friend group mind you). I was shattered. I had fallen for him in the time I was fighting for him, and seeing him hold her, kiss her the way I wanted him to hold me, it hurt more than anything I can remember. The very guy who told me he didn’t want a relationship, the very guy who took my virginity, asked her to be his girlfriend just days later.

We all have lessons to learn in life, and that was a hard 7 year lesson, but ready to re-start my life. Get done what I need to get done and that’s helping people, helping people who can’t speak up for themselves, abused men, woman and children, every person who needs my help and positivity, starting with my Home Town, people think living in the US should be great, home of the free, except we can’t openly write about content that is Non-Conforming, Out of the Realm of the Reality We Have Illusioned Ourselves with, I’d rather be me anyday of the week than A Mindless Conformer who has No Personality. I’m that person either You Hate Me or You Love Me No In Between. I know at this stage in life who Iam and What I’m not gonna be, and What I’ve Learned.

According to Bustle 80% of millennials have been ghosted by someone they were dating, and while rejection is never pleasant it can be much harder to cope when someone you like simply drops you. Ghosting is very much a modern trend, and while we'd like to think we're all above it the truth is most of us have done it at some point, too. The soft ghost, sometimes called the 'zombie', and breadcrumbing (giving someone just enough attention to keep them interested) are supposedly less offensive versions of the big G. Of course, there are those who would say that watching someone slowly drift away from you is worse... Whether you're in the middle of that process, seeing them slip further and further away, or you've been completely ghosted it can be hard to know what to do.

5 Steps to Getting Over Him

This time last year, I was sailing around Europe trying to live my best life. I was working again for a company called Yacht Week as a chef and hostess. I'd missed the season prior due to a devastating breakup with my ex-partner that I used to work with. I felt it would be an unhealthy decision to be in the same vicinity.

During these Corona Times, dating in “real life” might feel impossible. The world is embracing dating apps with more enthusiasm now than ever before.

We live in a time with access to so much, thanks to the internet. Every website has turned social media at this point and everyone is dealing with FOMO, the fear of missing out, a lot of us, who grew up in the age of electronics, technology, etc. are glued to our phones, as the older generations say. And many of those older generations frown upon the fact that we have all the means to find a partner over the internet.

We all know that women have a rough time on the dating scene, but the truth is that the whole process is just as tough for men. Being expected to make the first move all the time is nerve-wracking, especially for shy guys. While there's plenty of advice for women looking to make the first move on men, there's not quite so much insight for men looking to scope out their chances with a woman.

The wrench and anguish of an abruptly dissolved relationship can be enough to cause many people to crumple up into a ball and hide for months from the world, others it can make explode into fits of rage of rage and violence, others still have this chronic compulsion to find a new relationship as soon as their old one ends. All are relatively normal ways to deal with the death of a a particular relationship. In the case of a divorce, that relationship carries many additional complications often including kids and assets and child support and alimony, dividing up of shared friend groups and dividing up personal items, finding a new place to live, learning to acknowledge the failures that lead to divorce, and gaining a certain stigma, even if it is self impose. Being married young and filing divorce within 4 years leaves a lot of life to live out as a failure in love.

The blue waves crashed against the rocks, clapping together as the droplets hit the air. The grey bluish sky overlooked the calming beach. The air crisp with the smell of fresh salt water. His coffee steaming out of the brim of the paper cup. His mind wandering as he stares at the papers sitting upon his lap. Petition for divorce. Here he was an unemployed writing professor who had three successful books at one time, sitting on the beach staring at these papers. Here they sat mocking him. Only married five years and she was already done with him. She was just like everyone else in his life, they didn't just walk away they ran away. He pushed them away, every single one of them. Pushed them to the breaking point and beyond.

No, there aren't witch trails anymore- at least not in the sense you're likely thinking. The Salem witch trials, a dark series of hearings and prosecutions ended in the 17th century. Majority of people now see the hearings for what they were, mostly preposterous and fanatical with severe lapse in due process.

The main difference between a house and a home is that a house is concrete. A house generally refers to a building in which someone lives. In contrast, a home refers to any location that a person thinks of as the place where they live and refer it to a place in which they love and have a family within.

Five feet, sixty inches is the distance teenager Stella lives her life by, organizing her medications, decorating her hospital room time after time again, living by every single rule made for her. The daily routine was the only familiar thing in her life until she met Will, another Cystic Fibrosis patient a couple of rooms down, he made her question the rules and believe there is life still outside of the hospital walls. Five Feet Apart was written by Mikki Daughtry, Rachael Lippincott, and Tobias Iaconis, published in 2018, it quickly became a favorite for readers because of the emotion, plot, character development, and real life struggles for CF patients that were brought to light.

Social distancing and isolation have shown me how important touch is for us. The simple ability to receive touch and touch someone we love was so natural pre quarantine that I am sure most of us took it for granted. The simple act of holding hands and being able to kiss someone we love without the virus lurking over is a feeling that I will personally be looking forward the most after quarantine is over. Thus, I believe that the days after quarantine are going to be defined not by the experiences that we missed out on, such as going to the beach or going to Starbucks, but by the ability to finally touch and hug those we love with complete freedom.

There are times in life when our emotions get the best of us and the grasp of our own humanly bodies is nonexistent. In high school, I had a friend, let’s call her Dia. Even though we are no longer in contact, I will never forget an incident that I experienced with Dia. It was junior year of high school and like me, all my friends had packed schedules and felt like they were carrying the world in their shoulders. Having nine classes, and at least three of them being Advanced Placement really tired out a person. One day Dia and I were in the library, pretending to do work but mostly taking this rare free time to talk to each other.

As I have come to terms with the fact that I never had enough female friends, I embarked on a journey to discovering everyone's favourite question, why. The reason why I never had enough of female friends in my circles, and why it was hard for me to feel comfortable around them, until now.

I am smart, but Trivia games are not for smart people.

I am telling my story on this platform for a handful of 'reasons'... It seems that I have basically 'exhausted' all other resources. My family has been toxic, to me, for as long as I can remember. I have tried to gain closure with them about the past - with the hopes of curing my anxiety/depression and, (to me?) more importantly, becoming best friends with my parents.

It is the day after the Fourth Of July. My fiancé and I are being kicked out of the apartment by the landlord because he is not on the lease and he has been living here though all the four notices that we have found in the crack of the door on a sheet of printed paper. We’ve got one month to find out where to go and have been talking about our options.

DEAR JULY,

We laid in his bed, side by side, finally bare to what we were. Words fell into limbo, though I still engaged in playful, childish wordplay during the climax to reiterate our foundation. He observed my jovial facade; allowing it; contesting it through those beautiful blue eyes; those blues that said infinitely more than what he usually uttered through his lips. I looked at this passageway in my exploration, remembering their wetness from only minutes before. As I continued, nearing the culminating moments of the act, I revisited them once again. Wet, slightly chapped and nevertheless soft like the rest of his face. I looked at his exposed arm, the two moles on it mirroring mine, also on my left arm, also in the same spot. Only seconds away from finishing, I wondered if he also noticed our one resembling trait.

This year hasn't suck as bad, my favorite movie of the year is Birds Of Prey, and it confirms more than anything that Harley Quinn is my Spirit Animal. It's inspiring me to go out more in Woman's apparel, whether Skirt, dresses, or Boots. I've been so wrapped up in caring about what other people thought, and the movie showed me someone who walked away from a bad situation to make it on her own. So stemming from that, Experiment On Me from Halsey as been my song for 2020. I say that because the Woman that's trapped inside by 300-pound body has been screaming somewhere along those lines and while I've gotten some cute outfits, I did go out in my beautiful Skirt. So I've been experimenting with walking in public with Woman's clothes on and not giving two fucks, it's an experiment that I want to pass.

I am by birth a being of internal stress. My veins and muscles only mere things for physical appearance. In time, I have become a man of many secrets and feelings. The more of each make for one to more scared and miserable. The tale I share is one of many secrets, this is a secret that has created more secrets and bought many sorrows to follow. Yes, I am a man of many secrets, among those being my love for another man.

If you have studied the MBTI personality types, then you will soon find that ENFJ (Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging) women are refreshing and enjoyable to be around. They have a fascinating ability to “fit in” with a crowd, however they don’t usually feel like they fit in to most crowds. I believe that ENFJ women are incredible for many reasons. Here is why:

When you are in a healthy relationship, everything seems easy and you both support each other and make decisions together. Your relationship might go through ups and downs but you always find a way to make it work. But in a toxic relationship things only get worse with time.

Most people want to find a partner that meets their standards.When looking for a partner, men tend to be much simpler than women. Women tend to be a little more complicated than men.A woman who is genuinely looking for a partner and not a sponsor will have a list of things they look for in a partner.For the ones looking for a sponsor all that will matter is the amount of money that he makes and the amount of money that he is willing to spend on her.

“He doesn’t even know I exist,” was my running thought every time I saw him. Every time I looked at him taking orders, standing confidently erect and flaunting every ounce of his physical beauty. This was never an intentional demonstration for he wasn’t vain despite having every reason to be; he was tall; his hair dirty blonde, wavy and soft, an imagined softness aromatized with his body's pheromones.

Trying

Two matches when lit on fire then placed next to each other and if close enough, will burn eternally together. They were grown in a small town in the eastern part of the world. It is funny people named it a dandelion because when the sun kissed it the glow that it exuded resembles what can only be the reflection of a specific version of the sun. If you happen to come across one that hasn’t fully bloomed, you would be tempted to pluck one up, severing the corpse of such a gift into two and blowing away the connections it took a lifetime to grow. You do this in hopes of being granted a wish which we both know is pathetic. Such a gift should only be left to grow and to bloom into something that can stand in the suns’ way and reflect to the human eye the closest thing it would ever come to staring directly into the sun. Although most of the time people do this to dandelions, the only explanation I have is that from the premature death of what would become beautiful is the mere theft of the power that it takes to create something in life.

Everybody says that Love can heal any wound. Love can make your dream of impossible. It can make you believe in yourself again and the people around you. It gives you hope for a better life and a life with a lot of hope. I have always said that I have a couple of relationships. Some of them become a marriage, I have kids, but to be honest. I have never fallen in Love, sadly. Every time I said that last part, people used to look at me like feeling sorry for me. And I never understood why, and I find it very annoying, why people would act like that? Like everything we do not know about, you do not miss it or do not care. But, to me, it was normal. I never have an example of what it is to be in a loving relationship. My parents were terrible with us and between them, so to me, that was a healthy marriage. Life showed me how wrong I was and how unhappy I was always. Two fail weddings and no love, and now I know why people felt sorry for me and why it was so difficult to understand me. I felt in Love with my kids but not with the father. It is sad. But life goes on, and not being able to fall in Love kept me from thinking about it unless somebody brought it up. And when they did, well, we know what I would answer, and we know what they will say and, of course, follow by the facial expression of confusion and pity. But I was used to that reaction. I had it all my life, nothing new. Well, nothing lasts forever; they say, we all get our turn to felt in Love. And God, what a wonderful feeling, and how painful it is, why do people like to fall in Love? So many ups and downs, so many tears of happiness and sadness at the same time. Now I understand how complicated Love can be, or it is us that complicate things? I do not know. It is so beautiful when you have all those butterflies in your stomach going around. You feel like singing, dancing, and being full of joy, feeling beautiful, strong like nothing can ruin your life. You feel like everything in this world is perfect; the past does not bother you anymore. God has sent you an angel, and you are blessed. Love, oh boy, I can get enough of this beautiful feeling. It is overwhelming!

Connor Chalfant Sings My Coffee Love Song

This is a short excerpt of something I am putting together about toxic relationships during modern times. This is Leona's conflicting thoughts on her fading marriage with her husband Travis:

Sooooo, I've been married twice (please do not judge me) and I don't blame my failed marriages on anything or anyone, because of my lack of not knowing what it is or what it means when I said my vows. One day I just sat and thought about what the man did or didn't do wrong, but what I was missing within myself. I started researching myself I became my own "project. Like, what do I believe my marriage vows mean to me? I said the vows, "for better or for worse, through sickness and health, for richer or for poorer, and until death do you part", not sure if those are in the right order. I just repeated what I was suppose to say at the moment to the man that was standing in front of me, not even thinking about how I really felt about what I was vowing to at the time. I really had to put in some deep thinking, to understand what each of those vows meant especially with me going into a covenant under God.

Weddings are a big deal. Even if you're both just wanting a small intimate setting with just a few close friends and family, it can be a significant undertaking. First there's the matter of details. So many details. Wrangling the guest list and bringing it down to a reasonable number of invitations an be tricky, Particularly when both parties have big families. Nobody wants to hurt people's feelings. Decisions are part invitation part obligation, held together by inevitable frustration. Did we invite too many or too few? Can we afford to host this many? Can we afford not to? You know how cranky uncle Felix gets if he thinks he's missing out. (all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this story are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred).

I'm writing this because I just watched the music video to "Watermelon Sugar" by Harry Styles and...it was really good. Frankly, this is somewhat upsetting. I've never liked Harry Styles before, I've always found him pretentious and irritating. Why then, has he just encapsulated all of my fantasies as a mixed Latino man in a three minute music video? Do y'all know? I'm quite confused.

I love you. I still love you. I've always loved you. I feel like I always will love you.

I want to lay in his arms, hear his voice whispering sweet nothing's in my ear. I want to feel safe and secure to know I'm not judged for who I am, let alone what I believe in, or what I do. To know my son is safe and secure, that my son is loved and supported by someone that loves and supports me, to know we are both treasured, trusted and respected.

Girls & Boys get ready to find your love partner….

Tinder, Match.com, Bumble, Hinge.... the list is seemingly never ending.

During the pandemic and shutdown I began seeing things a lot clearer with relationships. The interactions the reactions to others actions. Funny was having my own relationship problems of leaving a very unhealthy relationship. Felt so depressed seeing Facebook stories and people sharing and couples so happy. Have had a lot of relationships in my lifetime that was always missing something, just always ok but never feeling the true inner connection and intimacy when you find yourself in what I would believe love should feel like. Often wondered why I always felt drained in a relationship instead of feeling alive and happy. Have used the term not on same page many times to explain problems when in the relationship. Felt like I always was explaining the differences that were keeping it drained instead of alive. Then I did the constant checking on exes Facebook page and was so hurt. After 8 years together and a child together his page consisted of pictures of his children, brother, and sister, and dog. Just random pictures not of doing things or going places. Read through the feeds and conversations that his circle of friends and family were discussing. As I reviewd my circle of discussions and pictures of vacations people enjoying life. Again was blind at first just so hurt that he didn't want me and lacked respect for my needs and felt awful that he had nothing on his page that even acknowledged we were ever together. Then it finally clicked and hit me..Was like a rush of how we were not on same page and realized if he has a Facebbok page in the beginning of our relationship I probably would have identified sooner how different and truly not in same circle or page. Realizing times when relationships become toxic and exhausting and draining is due to not being on the same page which has an enormous effect in every level. My normal, my friends, my life was the way I wanted to be treated and what I wanted to hear and see. His circle was not at all where I wanted to be was not what I even wanted to hear or see. Realized missing someone who was never on the same page was a true blessing. Now I will make sure the next time I want to date that I dig deeper and make sure his Facebook page is alot more like my Facebook page so I wont have to feel drained wanting what was never going to happen. Actually gave me a way to truly define that whats normal to me is not normal to all.