Phosphor Emery Alethes
@phosphoralethes.bsky.social
Trans, queer, AuDHD, & disabled memoirist/essayist & actor. Parent to 1 human & 1 dog. I write about identity, trauma, & shame, building bridges of authentic connection through vulnerability. Working on a memoir/essay/abandoned novels hybrid. | She/They
Totally fair, but also let’s not lose sight of the context. It’s clearly systemic, both in terms of conforming to beauty standards of MAGA men and in being what women must look like to be taken seriously in that world. Not calling you out. Just want to reserve some finger pointing here for MAGA men.
November 1, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Totally fair, but also let’s not lose sight of the context. It’s clearly systemic, both in terms of conforming to beauty standards of MAGA men and in being what women must look like to be taken seriously in that world. Not calling you out. Just want to reserve some finger pointing here for MAGA men.
Sometimes, I lean very hard on certain words. Sometimes, I purge. Mostly, as I build meaning, I make the music sing and accept that most things I write end up having keywords that repeat more than is generally recommended (and teach me a lot about what I’m writing), but it works for me.
May 4, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Sometimes, I lean very hard on certain words. Sometimes, I purge. Mostly, as I build meaning, I make the music sing and accept that most things I write end up having keywords that repeat more than is generally recommended (and teach me a lot about what I’m writing), but it works for me.
Depends. Language is music. Repetition/symmetry are powerful, multi-use tools. I’m also Shakespearean actor. Fave teacher says abt repetition, “Already in room” (i.e., say differently).
I ask: Does it do something new? Add/detract? Serve the music/build meaning? Feel true to the piece & my writing?
I ask: Does it do something new? Add/detract? Serve the music/build meaning? Feel true to the piece & my writing?
May 4, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Depends. Language is music. Repetition/symmetry are powerful, multi-use tools. I’m also Shakespearean actor. Fave teacher says abt repetition, “Already in room” (i.e., say differently).
I ask: Does it do something new? Add/detract? Serve the music/build meaning? Feel true to the piece & my writing?
I ask: Does it do something new? Add/detract? Serve the music/build meaning? Feel true to the piece & my writing?
“Except to create space, through such acts of radical vulnerability, for others to share themselves, too—to create space for the sorts of authentic & authentically vulnerable connections that cannot exist in silence.
These words are your invitation: join me if you dare.”
These words are your invitation: join me if you dare.”
The (Im)Possibility of Seeing — Peatsmoke
Phosphor Emery Alethes But that is the problem with points of reference, with appealing to something one might understand to explain something one might not. Often, a point of reference becomes a po...
www.peatsmokejournal.com
April 17, 2025 at 3:09 AM
“Except to create space, through such acts of radical vulnerability, for others to share themselves, too—to create space for the sorts of authentic & authentically vulnerable connections that cannot exist in silence.
These words are your invitation: join me if you dare.”
These words are your invitation: join me if you dare.”
I won’t be erased. Not by RFK Jr. Not by you.
“But, mostly, I still don’t know how to be different, how to be seen or understood, how to exist in this story blind world as myself. …
Except to be brave enough to repeatedly proffer my innermost self, to share a me that can never be fully seen.”
“But, mostly, I still don’t know how to be different, how to be seen or understood, how to exist in this story blind world as myself. …
Except to be brave enough to repeatedly proffer my innermost self, to share a me that can never be fully seen.”
The (Im)Possibility of Seeing — Peatsmoke
Phosphor Emery Alethes But that is the problem with points of reference, with appealing to something one might understand to explain something one might not. Often, a point of reference becomes a po...
www.peatsmokejournal.com
April 17, 2025 at 3:09 AM
I won’t be erased. Not by RFK Jr. Not by you.
“But, mostly, I still don’t know how to be different, how to be seen or understood, how to exist in this story blind world as myself. …
Except to be brave enough to repeatedly proffer my innermost self, to share a me that can never be fully seen.”
“But, mostly, I still don’t know how to be different, how to be seen or understood, how to exist in this story blind world as myself. …
Except to be brave enough to repeatedly proffer my innermost self, to share a me that can never be fully seen.”
To see another is an active choice.
“Part of what it is to be autistic in this world…is to be misinterpreted again & again & again, to be read into someone else’s story, seen through a lens that often wildly distorts us…To have our own lived experiences invalidated, normalized, minimized, erased.”
“Part of what it is to be autistic in this world…is to be misinterpreted again & again & again, to be read into someone else’s story, seen through a lens that often wildly distorts us…To have our own lived experiences invalidated, normalized, minimized, erased.”
The (Im)Possibility of Seeing — Peatsmoke
Phosphor Emery Alethes But that is the problem with points of reference, with appealing to something one might understand to explain something one might not. Often, a point of reference becomes a po...
www.peatsmokejournal.com
April 17, 2025 at 3:09 AM
To see another is an active choice.
“Part of what it is to be autistic in this world…is to be misinterpreted again & again & again, to be read into someone else’s story, seen through a lens that often wildly distorts us…To have our own lived experiences invalidated, normalized, minimized, erased.”
“Part of what it is to be autistic in this world…is to be misinterpreted again & again & again, to be read into someone else’s story, seen through a lens that often wildly distorts us…To have our own lived experiences invalidated, normalized, minimized, erased.”
What I can do is challenge others’ certainty that their lives/experiences/stories contain mine. I can, with my own visibility, call out their story blindness, their inability to recognize that we are all living our own, separate stories, how we can only ever see through our own eyes and stories.
April 17, 2025 at 3:09 AM
What I can do is challenge others’ certainty that their lives/experiences/stories contain mine. I can, with my own visibility, call out their story blindness, their inability to recognize that we are all living our own, separate stories, how we can only ever see through our own eyes and stories.
I cannot be seen or understood through a neurotypical lens, but, for decades, it was the only lens I had through which to see & understand myself.
I wish I could share my essay on my autism & how compulsory neurotypicality & compulsory abledness have harmed me, but I can’t until it’s published.
I wish I could share my essay on my autism & how compulsory neurotypicality & compulsory abledness have harmed me, but I can’t until it’s published.
April 17, 2025 at 3:09 AM
I cannot be seen or understood through a neurotypical lens, but, for decades, it was the only lens I had through which to see & understand myself.
I wish I could share my essay on my autism & how compulsory neurotypicality & compulsory abledness have harmed me, but I can’t until it’s published.
I wish I could share my essay on my autism & how compulsory neurotypicality & compulsory abledness have harmed me, but I can’t until it’s published.
My first & so far only publication, which defied everything I’d learned about existing—&, therefore, being masked & closeted—in this world. I’m proud I kept believing in it, even when many journals didn’t, & went through with publishing it, despite my terror.
www.peatsmokejournal.com/fall-2024-no...
www.peatsmokejournal.com/fall-2024-no...
The (Im)Possibility of Seeing — Peatsmoke
Phosphor Emery Alethes But that is the problem with points of reference, with appealing to something one might understand to explain something one might not. Often, a point of reference becomes a po...
www.peatsmokejournal.com
February 15, 2025 at 1:13 AM
My first & so far only publication, which defied everything I’d learned about existing—&, therefore, being masked & closeted—in this world. I’m proud I kept believing in it, even when many journals didn’t, & went through with publishing it, despite my terror.
www.peatsmokejournal.com/fall-2024-no...
www.peatsmokejournal.com/fall-2024-no...
You—and, eventually, we—are part of a seemingly interminable vanguard of artist survivors, and I just want more and better and less retraumatizing and exploitative possibilities for you/us/all of us. My heart hurts.
December 23, 2024 at 12:26 AM
You—and, eventually, we—are part of a seemingly interminable vanguard of artist survivors, and I just want more and better and less retraumatizing and exploitative possibilities for you/us/all of us. My heart hurts.
Seeing others is a way of seeing ourselves. And I just wish we didn’t have to retraumatize ourselves to make ourselves and our stories seeable and salable and, to whatever extent possible, seen.
December 23, 2024 at 12:26 AM
Seeing others is a way of seeing ourselves. And I just wish we didn’t have to retraumatize ourselves to make ourselves and our stories seeable and salable and, to whatever extent possible, seen.
I’m not defending trad publishing here. I just think it’s a deeper problem. How do we make people see without that othering & objectifying & sensationalizing? How does society better see trauma, become trauma literate? How does trad publishing & other media do so & then change?
December 23, 2024 at 12:26 AM
I’m not defending trad publishing here. I just think it’s a deeper problem. How do we make people see without that othering & objectifying & sensationalizing? How does society better see trauma, become trauma literate? How does trad publishing & other media do so & then change?
But I think humans are so wired to avoid seeing the painful & traumatized parts of themselves unless they have to that it’s mostly too uncomfortable to see and hold trauma that can’t be rationalized through othering, that they can’t buffer themselves from. Sensationalizing does that.
December 23, 2024 at 12:26 AM
But I think humans are so wired to avoid seeing the painful & traumatized parts of themselves unless they have to that it’s mostly too uncomfortable to see and hold trauma that can’t be rationalized through othering, that they can’t buffer themselves from. Sensationalizing does that.
Sorry. I just get angry at the sensationalizing & objectifying of people & their trauma. It hurts my heart. You, your life, your story deserve better. We all do. But I don’t know how it gets better. My book & esp. its first essay, which was published 2 months ago, are, in some ways, my 1st attempt.
December 23, 2024 at 12:26 AM
Sorry. I just get angry at the sensationalizing & objectifying of people & their trauma. It hurts my heart. You, your life, your story deserve better. We all do. But I don’t know how it gets better. My book & esp. its first essay, which was published 2 months ago, are, in some ways, my 1st attempt.
That—about trad publishing—is disappointing but not surprising. I’m sorry you went through that, that you’re going through it still, that making a living as a writer has come with trauma exploitation. How awful & outrageous! Your last 3 years are the dream. Sounds like they might be a nightmare too.
December 23, 2024 at 12:26 AM
That—about trad publishing—is disappointing but not surprising. I’m sorry you went through that, that you’re going through it still, that making a living as a writer has come with trauma exploitation. How awful & outrageous! Your last 3 years are the dream. Sounds like they might be a nightmare too.
There is an existing Trans News feed, but it doesn’t have everybody I want it to have. That’s actually why I came here, but just following those accounts was not good for my mental health in these times. I know some hashtags have feeds. Don’t know how much they capture.
December 21, 2024 at 8:57 PM
There is an existing Trans News feed, but it doesn’t have everybody I want it to have. That’s actually why I came here, but just following those accounts was not good for my mental health in these times. I know some hashtags have feeds. Don’t know how much they capture.
It still is. But I am learning to feel safe within myself, even as I—a trans, queer, and autistic person in the USA—exist under an anticipatory cloud of incoming threat. But that safety within myself (or, perhaps, safety with myself) is mine, no matter how unsafe my external world becomes.
December 21, 2024 at 8:50 PM
It still is. But I am learning to feel safe within myself, even as I—a trans, queer, and autistic person in the USA—exist under an anticipatory cloud of incoming threat. But that safety within myself (or, perhaps, safety with myself) is mine, no matter how unsafe my external world becomes.
I’m glad your three novels have found other lives, even through the pain of relinquishing them. My abandoned novels have new lives in my current book as artifacts of the self I was. I’ve abandoned a lot of writing. None has ever hurt this much. For now, I just believe this next life will be better.
December 21, 2024 at 8:22 PM
I’m glad your three novels have found other lives, even through the pain of relinquishing them. My abandoned novels have new lives in my current book as artifacts of the self I was. I’ve abandoned a lot of writing. None has ever hurt this much. For now, I just believe this next life will be better.
This scares me, and my temporary solution has been to ignore it and keep working to finish the book. I’m sorry it’s your current dilemma. Seems so exasperatingly at odds with our jobs and our fidelity to ourselves and our own truths and sometimes others’ truths.
December 21, 2024 at 8:14 PM
This scares me, and my temporary solution has been to ignore it and keep working to finish the book. I’m sorry it’s your current dilemma. Seems so exasperatingly at odds with our jobs and our fidelity to ourselves and our own truths and sometimes others’ truths.
I’m worried about the eventual editing and marketing processes, too, in terms of continually reopening what the writing seems to close. I’m sorry those processes were re-traumatizing for you. What was that like? How did the aftermath feel? What have you learned that might help with future books?
December 21, 2024 at 8:08 PM
I’m worried about the eventual editing and marketing processes, too, in terms of continually reopening what the writing seems to close. I’m sorry those processes were re-traumatizing for you. What was that like? How did the aftermath feel? What have you learned that might help with future books?
It’s a great question. I’ve rationalized the reopening of these wounds, until this essay, by acknowledging that those wounds already live within me, that they were already festering, and my work would help them heal. I was so young when these began that I just wasn’t resourced enough.
December 21, 2024 at 8:08 PM
It’s a great question. I’ve rationalized the reopening of these wounds, until this essay, by acknowledging that those wounds already live within me, that they were already festering, and my work would help them heal. I was so young when these began that I just wasn’t resourced enough.
I’ve been working on that. Thanks so much for reading!
December 21, 2024 at 7:55 PM
I’ve been working on that. Thanks so much for reading!
Thank you so much! I’ll think about it. It looks like the CNF community is more active & easier to engage with. That’s tempting. Question for myself is whether a 2nd social media app would be too much for me, whether I’d ever use both. & as long as I’ve got this start here & US trans news is here… 🤷
December 21, 2024 at 7:41 PM
Thank you so much! I’ll think about it. It looks like the CNF community is more active & easier to engage with. That’s tempting. Question for myself is whether a 2nd social media app would be too much for me, whether I’d ever use both. & as long as I’ve got this start here & US trans news is here… 🤷