it started with a playlist. a fun little playlist about happy emotions I've been having, with some happy, bouncy love songs. I went to make the playlist. and I ran into problems.

namely, that there are no such songs by female artists. which is awkward when you're looking for love songs, but every love song is about the manic pixie dream girl, which in my case makes me sound like I'm making a playlist about how much i adore myself. that's not exactly the goal.

so why are there no songs by women about joy? why are we not given the chance to express our hearts about something other than heartbreak?

two artists I love released new album artwork recently. I won't name them, but you may know them. two girls, neither of whom are anything close to christian, but both of whom have largely been willing to keep things classy. posing nude, for mainstream albums. this isn't some sort of niche art. this isn't a secret tape. this isn't a scene in a MA-rated movie. this is two girls who have decided that the best way to reclaim their bodies, to take them back from the industry, is to feed into the cycle, to strip down and say "this time, it's for me."

Why have we reached a point where women feel like the only way they can be empowered is to do exactly what they're "supposed to do", but under their own instructions? why does being our own boss suddenly mean that it's empowering to expose our hearts and our bodies and our deepest hurts?

we can't write about things other than our grief. we can't speak to our joy. we are not permitted to HAVE joy. why? it doesn't sell. i have not seen captain marvel and i don't plan to anytime soon, but i have seen marvel's other female-headed story, WandaVision, and I speak to that when I say: our grief is marketed.

but WandaVision does it differently, because it takes the story of a woman's grief...and shows her desperate quest to find joy. despite the fact that we know what's going on...so much of the story is a slice of life. a home. a family.

disney princesses were what we were raised on, but now we're led to think that's a fairy tale, something we can't have. "don't get your hearts set on finding a prince," they've told us. sometimes, that means we need to be realistic.

what it leads to is this expectation that men can treat us like dirt, and because fairy tales aren't real, because we are the damsel clawing out our own existence from dirt with no knights or fairy godmothers to save us, we are nothing more than dirt. we are cinderella. we are the maiden made of dust, the girl whose only worth is what she can give. not her heart. not her abilities. not her dreams.

it's not realistic to imagine a happily ever after, or a man who loves us and would fight dragons for us, and so we stop. we settle. we get ourselves hurt. and the cycle starts all over again, as we tell our sons it's okay to not be a prince charming, as we tell our daughters they should never expect to be a princess.

I want joy. i want beauty. and sometimes it feels like I'm clawing for those things with my fingernails. because i haven't wanted to settle. because I don't just want any man that comes along, I want a prince. is that so much to ask? it shouldn't be.

but no, if i want my dreams, i have to get them. i have to rake them in and give away all the deepest darkest parts of myself. my grief and my heart? they are yours. my body? belongs to the highest bidder. i am not trying to break into hollywood, but when i want to tell stories, isn't it the same? my heart split into a thousand pieces and distributed among all of the people i invent.

and you all want to make sure it's truly my experience. that the trauma is actually mine. that the hurt belongs to me, and i didn't invent it.

give us your grief, they say. give us access to your grief.

tell us exactly where your grief is.

and I say: no.

my grief will inform my stories. my truth will be there.

but you don't get to know where.

you don't get my heart.

you don't get my grief.

i might be a woman, but that does not give you access to me. my empowerment comes from my joy and the fact that i want to chase it. i hold myself to a higher standard. i hold the man who will pursue me to a higher standard.

watching world? you do not get all of me.

industry? my heart is not yours.

i am not a sexual object. i am a woman, and i have hopes and dreams and my heart bleeds but it also sings. i will have children one day. i want love. and that is not your business.

my heart is not yours.