Let's say I had to write a new prayer. 
Like the Lord's Prayer 
Which I know by rote. 
But I think I am ready to...
well, just say something else. 
Because I like the idea of beginning and ending the day with a prayer. 
And I want a prayer I really believe in. 

So here is one: 

Dear Creator of All the Things: 
Thank you. 
For another day, another sun, another cloud, another sky, another moon. 
Thank you for the trees around me. 
For the words you've given me. 
For the limbs and toes and fingers I have.
Thank you for giving me choice. 
Thank you for expression and meditation, and eye contact. 
I will try to leave the world a little better today. 
I will do a kind thing. 
I will do a brave a thing. 
I will do a new thing. 
I will read something. 
I will sing something. 
I will eat something. 
Thank you Creator of All the Things.




​- D 

I have been struggling. 

Mentally and Emotionally. 

Being alone with my thoughts has been surprising. 
Because I didn't realize how many ugly thoughts I had. 
And while I wanted to push through it, there was something even stronger telling me to: "give in, stop, chill, relax, pause, introvert yourself, shield your energy."

I was scared to not have the distraction of making work, creating my social experiences, having a loud beat move my body. 
I didn't have the distraction of the bright lights and bright colors I filled my art with. 
I didn't have my collaborators.  
I didn't have my friends. 
At 4 in the morning: sleepless night after sleepless night after sleepless night: I had me. 
And my two Psychiatric Service Dogs I adopted this year. 
And the three of us...
We sat. 
I cried. 
They slept. 
I wept. 
They ate. 
I sat on the floor and watched them. 
And cried and hurled out a guttural whimpering until it grew into a loud silent scream.
I cried so hard that I screamed nothing. 
All on the floor. 
Of my apartment. 
Surrounded by dogs of absolute innocence. 

I was grieving. 
I was spinning. 
I was drowning 
in flashbacks 
in childhood 
in trauma 
in fear 
in rage
in jealousy
in a overwhelm 
in panic
in inadequacy 
in the voices of all the people who yelled at me through the years, 
the voices of people who cut me off, hit me, spoke over me, the people who never gave me space to: be, live, express. 
And here I was: in my adult age: not giving myself space to make anything. 
Instead, I was giving myself space to cry and mourn over my reflection.
I'd get angry at myself for not being grateful. 
I'd get angry at myself for doing NOTHING. 
I'd get angry at myself. 
And yet: being Queer has taught me to always listen to my body. That is my silent promise to myself: that I would always listen to my body. And make it a safe space for myself, so others could feel safe with it too. 
So I listened to it. My body: it was exhausted. 
Body needed to cry. 
My heart needed to become a pool. 
I have been hiding pain for so long, and only in the silence, and loneliness of aloneness could I feel it: just how hurt I've been. And I didn't even realize. 
And I'm able to look at it now, rather than drown it in false positivity that always has an expiration date. 
I am learning to...
walk again
talk again 
sing again
create again
be still again
without needing to be so loved. 
I'm learning to be okay not knowing. And trying to embody the empowerment of not knowing. 
And tonight, and forever on, just as it has always been: 
I believe in Queer Futurity Now. 
I believe in feelings: I believe in conversations about them. 
I believe in shrooms, and ayahuasca, and Ocean, and traveling alone.
I believe in Shamans, and witches, and visions, and worth beyond money. 
I believe in Queerness. 
I believe in Softness. 
And as the world seems to harden around me, I refuse to harden with it. And it's taken me this long to understand what my personal integrity is rooted in.
I will remain soft, I will be tender, I won't harden myself to "keep up." Because I know where hardening gets us: trapped, sick, angry, alone. 
So, this is my prayer for the world tonight: May we all have the Strength to Soften. 
May we all have the strength to soften. 
Because holy hell, I need it. 
​Don't you?



- D 

well, holy fucking shit 

the miracle is 

we are all struggling

and suffering

it hurts to be alive 

it's painful to be alive 

living is painful 

and the pain is isolating 

i can't get to the gym  

the gym?//???

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. 

i clean my apartment 5 minutes at a time 

and even to get to those 5 minutes 

it takes a whole lifetime. 

fuck. 

fuck. 

fuck. 
​

sometimes i feel that they do not make strong enough mascara for me to cry and and not have it run and burn my eyes. 

sometimes i feel that i have to make the choice between wearing mascara and not. 
 
sometimes i know that on days i wear mascara, i know that i will stifle the tears that readily come. 

sometimes i make the choice between crying and making a mess, or holding it together and not letting my mascara run. 

sometimes i don't wear mascara
on those days that i know that i will be crying, scratching, rubbing, itching, sweating.

sometimes i wear mascara 
on those days i want to stare a person in the eyes and let them know im strong. 

sometimes i wish my eyes could always look like they have mascara on. 

sometimes i wonder how mascara ever entered into my life. 

i remember that it was probably an old expired tube i found of my mother's, tucked far deep into a bathroom drawer. 

the bathroom drawer full to the brim and difficult to open. 

I want to know that I can make a living as an emotional person. 
And I do not mean, crazy. 
I mean, emotional. Someone who feels emotions and is attracted to emotions. 
Deep conversation. 

Some days, I feel so wounded
Too wounded to lead. 
Too wounded to adhere to discipline. 
Some days, I don't want to hold it together, because I feel that I can't. 

When I look back at all the places I lived in, I remember so presently, living in the office. The office above the Infiniti Car Dealership. I look back at that time of my life because I wish I had protection then. I feel like I wasn't raised with enough affection, and that's why I'm so needy for affection now -- but only affection from those I trust. 

I am trying to not feel so wounded. 

Or rather, the woundedness has its hold on me - its grip on me. Its weight on me. And while everyone sits with their pain, I feel that I've hidden my body inside of my wounds. I feel ugly. I feel cheap. I feel like I lack the fullness of a healed leader. 

And I think I get so frustrated with this limping self-image because I feel that the generativeness of my creativity knows I can do more. And knows I can recreate and invent new realities and safe spaces for curious appetites and emotional loss. 

I think I get frustrated that I don't have all the answers, and that I still limp around with these wounds. I keep waiting for the scabs to flake off -- but instead these wounds: they thicken up and become fatter. And it becomes difficult to imagine the skeleton of my body moving without the added weight of destruction and torment on me. 

I seek affirmation, I seek validation, I seek protection, I seek stable meals, I seek vegetables and salad, I blame my parents, I feel guilt for blaming them, I feel angry, I feel wronged, I don't want to feel like I will be held back for the rest of my life because I did not have stability. 

I almost wish the abuse I had gone through as a child was worse so that I could truly vilify it and let it become something I could terrorize and destroy rather than figure out a way to hold its wholeness and it's gray parts. I am exhausted from the dexterity of my softness and my empathy. I want my life back. I want to press on. I want to feel lighter and go for a run. 

I want to throw things into the trash. 
I want to love what I am now. 
And instead, I feel angry. 
And it is this loneliness that leads to my grief in solitude. 
It is this loneliness that becomes so unbearable as I am faced with the choice of whether to choose life or death. 
And I think I've felt so stagnant lately because I feel that I've chosen neither.
Please tell me I will be okay. 
Because I know you will be okay. 
But I don't know if I will be okay. 
And this is what loneliness is. 
And this is how the days pass.
And none one would ever know. 
If I didn't say it here. 

- 
Diana 

www.patreon.com/dianaoh
Venmo: @ ohyeadiana

MY DREAM!
is to 
Do exactly what I'm doing. 
Continuously. 
And live from my heart and speak truth and make a living telling the truth. 

My dream is to make unboxable things. 

My dream is to make people feel more fulfilled. 
Or rather INVITE people to feel more fulfilled. 
Because that really brings me so much joy. 

My dream is to live a life of integrity and allow people to trust in integrity again. 

(everything above, all came out via text to my friend, Robert tonight. And here it all is here for you. Everything below is me writing from my guts for myself.) 

Clarifying my dreams grounds me. 
I feel grounded when I speak my desires. 
I remember that desires exist for a reason. 
I remember that my desires come from God. Whatever or Whoever God is. 
I find myself believing in this God. Asking it: how can I help?
And my God is not a Christian God or a Catholic God. My God is a Spirit, an Energy, and a Presence that wants me to fulfill my desires. Because my God gave me those desires. And as long as they are deeply grown from my honest and truthful existence, then I will have fulfilled my life's purposes. 
I don't like to think of a life's purpose as singular. I think there can be multiple purposes. 
I also worry and think about the people whose purposes are hurtful or violent or damaging to other people's lives and desires. And I question their dreams because I have trouble believing in people's dreams whose dreams are to annihilate. 
And I question whether their dreams come from a truthful and honest place, or from a place of their fears or their traditions or from their hurt.
I essentially believe:
That dreams born out of hurt lead to one's destruction. 
This is why we must tend to the hurt. To heal the hurt. To be emotional with the hurt. So that our dreams born from hurt don't continue to hurt others. 
This is why we take care of ourselves.
And the world contains these multitudes. 
And if I sit with all the varying dreams of all the people, I can get overwhelmed. 
And I remember, I cannot control peoples' dreams. I can try to help guide them. I can help by sharing my dreams. I can fulfill the prophecy that is alive and burning within me. I can help by simply focusing, remembering, and getting grounded in my dreams. 
To be grounded in my desires. 
This is where my answers lie. This is where connection lives. This is how I connect with others with integrity. This is how I trust myself. This is how I enjoy life. By remembering and appreciating my desires. 

Hot Regards, 
​Diana

I'm off social media. I've shut down my Instagram temporarily. 

I started to feel invisible. Lost in the air, like I was just noise adding to more noise. Like I was pollution. 

It's sad to accept and come to terms with this realization. But I know I'm not alone. Because I think this is what happens when we are becoming reborn in some way. 

I've spent a lot of my time on Earth with depression. I've spent a lot of my time on Earth in my head. And trying as a daily practice to calm those woes, to calm the voices inside and that's what my daily practice has been. That's what my art has helped me achieve: feeling at one with the present moment, feeling purposeful, feeling like my art could be an extension of my personality where I didn't have to hide. 

But now in the social media landscape, I feel...lost. Because I don't want to be pressured into selling perfection. 

Because I think the striving for perfection is what makes people feel sick. And it leads to feelings of inadequacy and a constant planning for a future that we are all making up and trying to make sense of. 

I feel lost these days. I feel scared. 
I am scared of what is to become of me. 

I can feel myself writhing inside knowing that I don't want to amount to nothingness and yet I feel so stricken down, like I can't rise to my purpose these days. And I am absolutely terrified to write all this and know that this exists in a public space where someone will read my thoughts - but I know that I have to get it out of me, and I know that I am not alone. And I know that hiding is a side effect of perfection, and I don't want to spend my days hiding anymore than I need to. 

I am trying to recalibrate my moral compass these days. I am trying to believe in the world again. I am trying to see color and vibrancy and guttural laughter. I am trying to remember and believe that I am plenty -- I don't want to just be enough -- I want to be brimming over with gratitude and spaciousness and love and joy. 

I am trying to like myself in a way that isn't fleeting. 

I am trying to write an anti-self-help book. Where I can let it flood - my memories and how they affect me in my present moment. I am dissecting my burn out right now. 

And in my quest to feel purposeful, what I have learned is that: other people make me feel purposeful and I feel so grateful that people haven't given up on me and that I am still invited to share my efforts, my point of view, and my work. Because it's those moment when someone else turns the lights on in the room, that I can open my mouth again to speak and trust the words coming out of me. 

So this is where I will turn to on those days and nights that I can't find the light switch -- I'll turn it on here. I'll remember who I am. Here.