Joy, interrupted... again.

[cw: sexual abuse/pedophilia]

This past weeks onslaught of news about patriarchal abuse and pedophilia started interrupting any joy I was experiencing, and I am sure anyone else out there who is a survivor felt the pain too. I appreciated and was impressed by the outpour of rage, thoughtful and powerful posts, and essays calling for the destruction of patriarchy, and in particular those fucking asshole cismen. Thank you. But that’s not what I am doing here, because all I seem to be able to think about are all the survivors.

If I have one request, it’s to check in on your friends. This shit is triggering.  

As a survivor from a home (and beyond it) of sexual abuse and pedophilia specifically, I made a decision long ago that I would work hard to end adult supremacy, because it is the best way to fully protect kids from all abuse, including pedophilia. I also decided that these fucking abusers couldn’t steal my joy–that joy would be an interrupter to their violence, not the other way around. As I got older I started thinking that maybe if I embrace a more militant joy, and braid together my joy with my rage, a kind of joyrage, and then connect with others in these fights, we could be formidable against these fuckers and patriarchy! And of course, this includes the desire to destroy all forms of hierarchy and domination... I still believe this, and together we keep going. 

Below is a poem and a song about survival and my way to making kin. I wrote this piece when I was asked by the brilliant rapper and poet Time, to collaborate on a song for his aptly titled album, Depressed Joy–a theme that beautifully captures this timeline, so be sure to listen to the entire album!

This song is for all survivors. I love you.

xo carla

Joy Interrupted (feat. carla joy / prod. Time)

[Time]

I didn't remember those memories they remembered me
Grief bends time I felt nothing in that December freeze
I'm interested in amplification and transmission
Radio static seance I listen for loved ones who have transitioned
My cat under the covers giving a static periwinkle firework show that's joy
I broke my phone and watched Bacchus kill Apollo that's joy
I saw a blue heron it reminded me to breathe and find patience that's joy
The crickets chant like monks a crow shit on me that's joy
I'm a product of hot cheetos, top ramen, and sprite
I grew up on high fructose corn syrup preservative delight
What are wrinkles but mortality's tattoos?
Interrupted it rained commas we fight in hyphens and bad news
We used to make art, we used to laugh in shop class
Now we learn how to hide and dress wounds from shotgun blasts
Why mourn for the cocoon after the butterfly has flown?
What if silence isn't an absence but a vessel to get home?
Footsteps in the sand get washed by my seashore mind
Our DNA looks like an hourglass are we running out of time?

I sing joy even when it's out of tune
I sing joy even when it's out of tune
I sing joy even when it's out of tune

[carla joy]

the only emotions welcomed in my home were calm and happy.
So I buried the rest beneath the scars.

but scars are like cracks and some made their way to the surface
desiring to be together, these feeling friends gathered like a constellation out of formation, whispering, “dance” —

grief remained at the hinges sending a wave of shivers across my bodymind while anger and rage arrived first to the dance floor, and without warning
like a mother whose kid was Murdered by cops.

Not so invisible, more like a bomb.

Pain.

my tears took cover behind the calm exterior while intuition budded up with anger and rage, slam dancing they sang
“in collaborative motion we begin to heal”

time brought anxiety and excitement together into a lifelong push and pull, whiplashing me between being a wallflower and a dancing queen

Beneath the battle cry to heal, I found refuge with my invisible friend.

They were sharp—cutting new paths each time they arrived at my heart.
remaining invisible so I could play

I named this saboteur Joy

Joy knew that to become whole
We needed to move beyond Dis-eased
We had to Unfreeze

So, while calm walked the edges of the battle-terrain
deep below in the subterranean, and holding hands with depression, Joy invited me into their sacred multidimensional places

past the broken dance floor were animated rose scented realms

.pain free.

.adult-abuse-free.

Joy interrupted the captive terror as depression passed me a rose flowing with tears,

‘welcome to melancholy joy’

Then outside of blueness, heart’s interrupting Joy reached my bodymind by transmitting vital messages from ancestors who spoke from heart's DNA, remembering and holding on with grief.
Desires awakening — Pulsating love

Pit a pat
Pit a pat
Pit a pat

sang out-of-tune-Joy, as they took a thorn from depressions rose cutting through the subterrain, pirouetting towards calm, clasping hands on the frontlines as Burial beats joined with my heart, harmonizing emotions and igniting the dance that brought me to you.

Links to the song on bandcamp + a short video made by Time, and below is the amazing cover for Depressed Joy! (art by Gadooks)