THINGS I’M THINKING ABOUT AT 12:39 BY GRACE CANELLE-DANCE
i like boys who like cats and cats that like boys. I’m on the 67th page of my book and i’m laughing at the fact i have the 69th page soon. I like milk but only the green milk and i’ve never really been keen on milkshakes or dogs. In fact i hate dogs, i’m petrified. I can never remember important things like equations and facts but i can always remember the lyrics to my favourite songs or even my not so favourites (ahem, nelly, sclub). My room is like my brain, full of junk and other than having lots of cats i have no aspirations in my life and that probably should worry me but it doesn’t. The only things i think about nowadays is when the next time i’ll see my friends are and what we’ll do when we see one another. Because, as i’ve found, all the best people live far away. My favourite month is winter, i like the power cuts and the big jumpers, i like having the excuse to stay in. I don’t mind summer though but being cold is so much better than being hot. My favourite poem is “I want to be yours” by John Cooper Clarke, which i suppose can be seen as a generic teenage ‘love’ song written by a punk poet (slight twist) but “i want to be your vacuum cleaner, breathing in your dust” always makes me giggle and the lady of shalott is only good when i can remember most of it from analysing it in year 4, “willows witen, aspens quiver, little breezes dusk and shiver” i like muffled words and shouting yr favourite songs loud, i like standing in crowds of passionate fans and i like sitting alone in the woods, i try my best to understand people but throughout high school every friendship (other than two or three) i’ve ever made has been thrown back in my face. I over use the words; chill, party, rollin, cruisin, fab, ace, rad and cheeky. I don’t even know what i’m writing and i really need to sleep before i completely loose the plot.

School, the workplace, a breeding ground for slut-shaming and sexist remarks taken lightly. Living in a society where size 2 is the new size 8 and size 12 makes you overweight. Where getting honked at and your bum squeezed by desperate creepy men is a compliment. Where anyone who calls themselves a feminist is wrong, and women who like sex are sluts. how many people have you slept with? why does it matter? I am a woman, i deserve respect, i will not make you a sandwich and my place is not in the kitchen. my place is the classroom, the courtroom, on the frontline, breaking the cliques room, of male dominance. Why should i carry a rape alarm? Why does society teach don't get raped instead of don't rape? it's okay to shave, it's okay not to shave, wear your skirts short OR long, boobs out or in, just remember always have your head held high, feminism is the radical idea that women are people.

today i experienced the true wrath of the cult at school. the eastern european man put his hands on my shoulders and his head on my legs and started whispering "god save her" for around five minutes and then got up and did a weird little dance/song. i thought it was amusing yet at the same time, i was terrified. afterwards, he asked me how i felt, and for his benefit (and for the sheer hilarity of it) said i felt touched and free. his response was that god had entered me and i was no free.

the flash on my camera makes my hair look dark. it isn't.

this is me. small and awkward.

i don't know how more people haven't got mental health problems

thinking is one of the most stressful things i've ever come across

and not being able to articulate what i want to say drives me crazy

i think i should read more books to learn some new words

my brother used to read the dictionary, so i'm gonna start with that

x

today i was told by my head of year that i am incredibly messy, unorganised and would struggle to get anywhere like this to which i replied "einstein was messy and a genius". just because i have a high amount of bunting, cushions, own artwork and nude photography does not make me the unintelligent dickhead he assumes. i just have better things to do than 'be a woman'.

i would like to add that the bottom photo is the result of my bedroom after a party in which i'm surprised i didn't catch a disease. in fact, the photo was taken by my mother as 'evidence' to show that i was (apparently) off the rails. i'd also like to add, that in the bottom photo, you can see me, asleep, in what looks like a pile of period blood or sick. it's sick, oKAY.