I stood

with my back to the sun.

Open.

You faced me

Sunlit

Held up your arm to wave.

I saw the shadow

of my heart

in the palm of your hand

and grinned.

You came to me.

"How I wish you were here...
we're just two lost souls
swimming in a fishbowl,
year after year...
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.

Wish you were here."

- Pink Floyd

MOTION WITHOUT SOUND (1st draft)

I type
and I stare
sigh
and I backspace
oh good god, oh god, delete
delete delete delete.
Humming hollow
through the pages
of my far too often on holiday brain
is something complete,
rich in texture
heavy with substance
and warm in embrace.
but, where is it really?
my fingers ache often
trace the shape of letters in the air
hoping that just once a black & white word
would hang there
sweetly crisp,
like contrail in the sky...
a wisp of a clue.
my lips form words
my mouth a study of motion
yet without a sound.

I think I will come full circle back to you. It's the being patient for that Moment's Gaze that I'm gonna have a hard time with...

This made me cry...

VIRGO:

A woman I know was invited to a party where she would get the chance to meet her favorite musician, psychedelic folk artist Devendra Banhart. On her last look in the mirror before heading out the door, she decided that the small pimple on her chin was unacceptable, and gave it a squeeze. Wrong move. After it popped, it looked worse. She panicked. More squeezing ensued, accompanied by moaning and howling. Soon the tiny blemish had evolved into a major conflagration. Fifteen minutes later, defeated and in tears, she was nibbling chocolate in bed, unable to bring herself to face her hero with her flagrant new wound showing. The moral of the story, as far as you're concerned: Leave your tiny blemish alone.

We live in bars...and what, and what, and what do you have to say? You live in a: office, a house...a cave? Send me you love, from your perch of regret. I will have fun, but you will forget.

I chose this life.

Take this from me...

I imagine holding my head in my hands, gathering the worry from my skull like dandelion fluff.  Letting it collect on my fingertips and palms, holding it out as an offering and blowing it away, onto the wind. 

Inspiration

...from my friends comes in small, potent doses, just when I need it.  I am a packrat of bits of encouragement, direct or by example; I tend to forget about these little gems but always seem to stumble upon the when I need to hear them again.  Like this one:
 
"And by the way, you don't have a tiny oragami boat.  You have a kayak.  Turn the one oar on its head and use it as a paddle, then you can move forward."

 

It's like your "rules of engagement." Not that kind of engagement, stop freakin' out. I shudder to think of what would happen to this friendship if I came at you with my own version...we never really leave the backyard, do we? 

The worst thing you can do is take me for granted. I just realized...you are well on your way.

Somewhere over the rainbow...
Always on the otherside
the otherside way over there
Never at peace with here
or now
Just then and when and what if I...


The moment you realize the rainbow
leads to your soul
the pot of gold
you can see through the rain
the blinding sun
and realize that life beyond
Is life right here and now.


And it is so much bigger
than good enough

I am of the fish or cut bait variety. I'll leave my line in the water for a very long time...maybe longer than I should. But once I decide that my patience and time is not worth it, I don't care how big the fish is that I am waiting for...I cut bait. Stretch my back out of the kinks that slouching on a dock will give you, crack a huge yawn, and contentedly walk away from the day.

I have no problem chalking one up for a loss, as long as I gave it all that I have.

No.

I like when the moon is 3/4 full...that's when it really seems like the man in the moon is real...true.

In My Mind

I have to be bigger than this...the whispers in the shadows can't get under my skin anymore.  Or at least, I shouldn't let them.
 
Bless.

I know that an emotion is real when I am surprised by it.

Odd, right? Like, I feel these tears slipping from my eyes and I think "what's this...dammit! I just had a feeling...what tha HELL."

It's not that I don't want the feelings, or that I can't feel them...I just spend so much time looking out for myself that when something does waft to the surface, I am caught totally unawares. I am too busy providing you (and more poignantly, myself) with the image that I could care less, but that would require more effort than it's worth, so I can't even be bothered to expend that much energy in caring even less than I already do...sigh I am already bored with this conversation...see what I mean? Well, you maybe get my drift.

Sometimes I feel dead inside until a song comes on, it enters my body as easily as air, sustenance that consumes me, instead of I it. As it flushes my cells with sound and light, it becomes whatever I need it to be at that time. So many times it is the next breath that I need to take, the next step that I can't seem to put my foot forward into.

I could not be me without those notes, each singular one, and the whole that they create. But I could not be me without the silence, either.

This will never be easy.

I see my life in fragments. Physically represented by the no doubt thousands by now scraps of paper that I have accumulated, bits of writing that I can only start and never finish. Words and thoughts and phrases and rhymes and dialogue and ideas...all little atoms of my soul that I can't seem to bind together. I constantly feel like I need to find whatever it is that will make the notes a song, the words a story, the atoms a physical being that I can see. At least in my mind's eye.

And I think that I will...and I don't think that I have been searching in the wrong places...I think that more than anything else, I just need to be me and that's it. I am searching for a reason, and I like that. I think it would be settling if I wasn't still looking at this point.

Just like that

He said, "I knew the first time I met you, when I shook your hand.  It was so cold, and you were trying so hard to be professional and act like you care.  I wanted to warm you up, make you relax.  That's all it took."

Because you were too scared to be a part of my life.

That's why.

Ever feel like a fraud? Nodding and smiling like a bobble-head doll, cheeks plasticized and round, eyes vacant as if they have no soul...

Yeah. Me too.

I am my own worst enemy. 
 
And this battle is getting out of hand.

Love

I am so glad that I can say "I love you" to so many amazing people, unabashedly.  all that much better that they love me too, unabashedly.  I am also happy that you became one of those people.  Miss you, excited for you.
 
Love you.

I found it. I found the thread that I have been looking for, and it seems to be the right one. Know how I know?

I cried.

Whenever I pray, I cry. Whenever I see or hear or experience people living their dreams, I cry. Beauty, passion, love. They all make me cry. It's this raw, cleansing feeling, this peace that floods me wholly, just for a few seconds. This all out abandoning of my masks and walls is always good.

Rare. But good.

I Crave Ink

Almost literally itching to write.  Keep writing random thoughts and words down, just want to sit in my cozy little apartment with my pen and paper and immerse myself in these developing currents.  Get completely swept away.  But I can't, and it physically hurts.  I can feel my voice in my throat trying constantly to get out, and it hurts.
 
Solace in this pain, though...at least it means that my voice is still there.

Glutton for Punishment

The cluelessness (feigned or genuine) astounds me.  But what is even more spectacularly astounding is my eager willingness to deal with it. 

Bad

Bad, bad bad, the reaction I just had to some news that I was given.  It was relief over negative news at work for someone else - relief because it didn't directly effect me...I was not "in trouble".
 
This tells me that I am not in a good place - this tells me that I am walking around between these walls waiting for the axe to drop and that is a horrible feeling that I shouldn't be dealing with.  And it's my fault that I am.
 
I don't like the person who is so cowed at this point that she would think like that. 
 
It's just not worth it.

People.

Respect your support staff. Whether you're in a corporate setting, a restaurant, a grocery store...understand that these people are actually the ones who make things run. And run smoothly, so you don't have to worry about it.

Our receptionist is like a ring-leader in a circus. And she is on point; she makes sure of it. She's been at this gig for 20 plus years and knows more about what goes on in this place than we do. When you work with her, not against her because you can't be bothered to defer to her better judgement, she will make sure that you look good and make your life that much easier. When you are running around like an idiot, it's your fault, not hers.

You could not do your fast-paced job without her. So say hello when you walk by, even if you don't need anything. Ask her for things, don't tell her. Communicate with her, don't assume that she doesn't need to know.

This applies to any setting that you are in - it's a team from the bottom up, but those on the "bottom" are just as important as those on the "top." And in the real world, the one where you are not that important, there isn't a bit of difference between "bottom" and "top", except maybe in attitude.

So be respectful. Dammit.

It's as simple as this, here it is
Couldn't spell it out more clearly
There's only today, and the freeway,
And the pain that keeps you near me

The animation, of sinking souls,
Strung along a telephone pole
It's easy to miss

You could circle the earth
The universe
We're shadowed in the same light
It's coming undone
So you run
While I'm circling the drainpipe

An invitation to just forget
Well I'm not finished yet, I got big plans

Cut off the table, hon and do the math
Washed out and faded like a photograph
And I spell out your name across the overpass
It's as simple as that

It's as simple as this
What I miss, I will carry to the last day
Deliver my spark
Through the dark
To the angels in the ashtray
Saturation of hopeless need
But as the asphalt bleeds
Curtains rise and

Someday you'll find me standing in your path
Whether deep in the background of some photograph
And you'll see your name scrawled across the overpass
It's as simple as that

Simple's hard enough now anyway
Simple's hard enough now anyway

Someday you'll find me standing in your path
Somewhere deep in the background of some photograph
And you'll see your name scrawled across the overpass
Someday you'll find me standing in your path
Somewhere deep in the background of some photograph
And you'll see your name scrawled across the overpass
It's as simple as that
Simple's hard enough now anyway
Simple's hard enough now anyway
Simple's hard enough now anyway
Simple's hard enough now anyway

- The Solids

I want to be the next Jane Austen:

"...enduring power of Austen's genius as a writer; he ability to create singular characters who linger in one's imagination, her unparalleled sense of irony and wit, her brilliant dialogue, and her carefully woven plots. At the same time, Austen delivers a satisfying romance...and the sheer happiness of her main characters at the novel's end has its own appeal."

My eyes are leaking.  Hate it when that happens.
 
Oh.  And I think I'm gonna puke.  This is why I don't do emotions...at least why I don't do them well.

Shiver

I just had a little tingle that ran up my back that felt so. good. ...it was like an angel's devilish wing stroked my spine.  It reminded me of purity and lush, deep feelings that pause time.  In a few seconds I felt a rush of fresh air and this deep ache.
 
Stunningly delicious moment.

Quite a feat. What you just did. My edge is so far out there that if you reach it, and push me over it, you at least deserve the applause that you get from the few that stand on the precipice with you.

Welcome, my friend. They say.

Welcome to the club of few who see her turned back, as it sprouts the wings that it needs to surpass the edge, and fly away. Move on, if that's what you need to hear to understand.

This is the stupidest bullshit in the history of bullshit.  Zit on my face and I revert back to the insecure 15 year old who wouldn't look people in the eye and was practically mute (unless incensed or otherwise provoked) so people wouldn't look at her face.
 
Ridiculous.  If nothing else from all of the crap that I have put myself through, I should at least be able to resort to remembering I have a strong backbone and "this too shall pass" and all that jive...I refuse to believe that I have struggled for nothing...

Why?

Why. Am. I. Sitting. In. This. Office. When. The. Sun. Is. Shining. For. The. First. Time. In. Days. And. It. Is. Warm. Outside. For. The. First. Time. In. Months.  ?!?!?
 
Oh yeah.  Because my job has me whipped like a plow mule.  At least that ass gets to be OUTside.
 
 

I used to be a good writer.  I used to be funny, and insightful, and dexterous in the way that I spun words together to form a story, a world, a point.
 
Now I am dumb and encumbered by life's crap detritus and I can't seem to dig my nails into the grimy wall of this hole in order to pull myself out.  Clawing and screaming and shaking my ineffective fist I pause to sit at the bottom and wrap my arms around my knees, lay my head down and wish for defeat.  But I know that it will never come because I will never give up...
 
I am just resting my soul.  Building up my strength, my resolve, fixing a point with my mind's eye and aiming for it.  Don't worry - no matter how many times I have to try, I will Ne-ver give up.  Don't worry, don't worry.
 
You know I am talking to myself, don't you?

Hurry UP!

Hurry hurry, before you get buried under so much emotional baggage and bullshit that you won't be able to create a sentence anymore, let alone a full book of them.

Shit shit shit shit SHIT.
 
That is all.

These are your choices

Make it funny, make it a lesson, or let it torture you needlessly forever.
 
Bless.

My life is a series of corners that I turn to find the light.  One day I would at least like to exist in the light for a greater length of time...at least until a sweet darkness falls each night.

Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.

- August Wilson quotes

Him: "Kelly, you are a beautiful disaster."
Me: "Thank you."
Him:"The disaster part doesn't bother you?"
Me: "No. The beautiful part does."
Him: "Then why did you say thank you?"

Me: "Because it means you know who I am."

No. Peter Pan. I do not have a twin.

And the mold shattered when they made me, so it's a slim chance that you'll find anything close to compare.

Bless.

glazed gazing

I wrote this 5 days after I moved to Manhattan...I want this girl back: glazed gazing

There is not a sound in this world that I could give voice to, wrap my vocal cords around, that would do justice to the noise in my head.

I am starting to resent the fact that I allow people to make me dislike who I am.  No really.  It's making me angry.

I wrote this when I drove to Atlanta by myself to see Sasha in a tiny smokey club there. Andy thankfully went with me, and while I hung with the guy who inspired this poem, Andy stalked the perimeter of the room and the peripheral of my vision. This poem has always reminded me of him, oddly enough.


Hard hands
lingering at my hips.
The pulse of the beat
throbbing through my bitten lips.
I feel your
blue pinstripped shirt
beneath my skin,
the touch of the fabric in my fist -
or brushing my flesh rakishly
as you wrap your arms
about my waist
helps to spin the passion
of the night into my brain.
I move.
Aware of how near you are
how warm with sweat and fun.
Aware of the arousal
that lingers like
the thick smoke in the air.
I close my eyes
and let waves of feeling
get carried away
by the master of a trance...
I open them and you are gone
and I am left only
with the smell of you
in the beginning light
to remind me
of hard hands and bitten lips

Roses...

Rosie Rosie Rosie...she is growing in my head.  Beauty and thorns, and all.
 
And then her name was Roses.

I wish that I could play these computer keys like a piano...that the words would charm like a simple melody and communicate without heavy logic - that I could say how the music haunts my heart and makes me feel beautiful and alive and achingly real.

Drawn as I am to the hauntingly off-key ...it only strikes me if it's oddly juxtaposed to what society would rather see. Slightly ugly, a little worn and oddly bold is so shiny and pretty to me. I see it, this bit of macabre and I want to consume it...like a blood red apple with a tiny, cute little worm.

Dark beauty strokes the underbelly of my heart, calms me. I understand how rich and pungent the fallow side of a rotting log in the forest is...I want that deep texture and color, even if it comes with creepys and crawlys and things of a skeevious nature. They crawl away, or they make friends...but they are not scary.

I am not scared by the darkness. I am scared by the false light.

LIKE BLOOD LIKE HONEY

You want to catch your breath you want to get out
But as you surface you don't really know how
How to live upon the solid ground
Sometimes it's easier to let yourself drown

Love is
Thick like
Blood like
Honey

You cannot spell it out there are no words
Mrs johnson never taught me those verbs
On how to give myself and how to receive
It is something that's inside of you and me

Love is
Thick like
Blood like
Honey

Forget everything you ever learned
No one listens when you want to be heard
Just bleed the bittersweet
Seven sunrises and seven more nights
You'd think that we could learn to do it right
If nothing changes then i'm gonna stop
But do i really have a choice?
I think not

-Holly Brook

Reminds me of you.

Written awhile ago, but still ringing true...

My words mock me. They are harsh reminders, down to the very letter, that I am only operating at a fraction of my capacity. I feel that if I just try, if I could just concentrate for long enough, I will find a vein, a pulse to follow, and it will be the beginning of everything.

My problem is allowing myself to want and take and need and give everything without care. With wisdom, but without worry. I think that people give up and settle in the hulls of themselves and I find myself doing that and it's alarming. I know that everyday can't be rich with all manner of beautiful stimuli (and even as I write that I think, "why not? Who says?") And I know that it's good to still feel surprise and wonder and gratitude. But I think it's tragic, in a small way, that happiness and joy shocks me so much. Like I don't deserve it. And sometimes, I find myself trying to hoard it, like a tangible thing because I am not sure when it will arrive again.

The barrage of thoughts and indictments of self that are the fallout of my bad habits are exhausting. Stability is good. Roots are good, forming a foundation and a network, all good things. But stagnant, stale, tired and hurtful behavior is self-destructive and only lends itself to honing out the hull.

You are not above this happening to you, but you can be. This should be your mission, everyday. As elusive and indescribable as these steps may be, you need to actively seek them out, every hour of everyday.

Now.

I have never understoood why looking people in the eyes is such a powerful thing to me; more intimate than most acts generally judged as the end-all of intimate acts. I mean, I get the "windows to the soul" line of reasoning, I guess it's a little of that. But it's more that I can't hide from you if you're looking into my eyes. I can make my face a mask, I have mastered all forms of indifference as a painter does his canvas, as an art. I make absolutely no claim of being proud of this...in fact it's really starting to bother me. But I can keep nothing, no thought, no emotion, out of my eyes. I am painfully bare and exposed, you see me as the wounded thing that I am, scars and pride and even happiness and all...I don't think that I've much been ready for anyone to see this. I've wanted plenty to look into my eyes, but I haven't been able to let them.

My brain just waved a figurative middle finger at me and said "bugger off, I've stopped work for the day."
 
I think it might be mad with me for depriving it of sleep for two nights in a row...the sentiment "I'll sleep when I'm dead" clearly is not going over well.

My View From Here

All I see
in my mind's eye
are landmines matted
in the neurons
of my brain

And by the way, I resent the fact that this is like...like a common-law...relationship. I avoided relationships for so long as not to get wrapped up in this b.s. And here I am, by default.

Fuck.

I am stuck in the middle of a vast, clueless sea in a tiny origami boat.

With only one oar.

'cause God KNOWS, I love to travel in hopeless circles.

My life is in overtime right now...

"You're the red in her painting." - I Am Sam

So simple to know something so profound. To have that inate sense of gorgeous love and struggle and contentment and darkness.

But we ignore it. We ignore that simple right-ness; it's a small little beauty, really, even when it seems so complex. We ignore, in favor of the more brass and obvious pleasures of the world. The ones that are sometimes adversely complex, yet empty, meaningless, and ever harder to obtain. We are always searching for what will make things better, what will make us appear bigger, smarter, more beautiful, better to ourselves and the rest of the world.

We scorn innocence, pureness, faith and hope as naiveness and silliness. We are above it, we grow out of it. We don't remember this Neverland where colors are bright and fun is of utmost importance and love just is, because it's true. We never seem to understand that though we don't remember it, we are always trying to get back to it in the things that we do because we can never find enough to satisfy us like this particular little space in our souls.


Children are still there in their minds, if they're allowed to remain for the duration of their childhoods. And sometimes I think those with special needs are there too...they just never wanted to leave the warmth and amazement of the Never-Never for the seemingly bleak "real world". Others are lucky to catch glimpses of the light and the Lost Boys as they stream by in their debauchery...fleeting spots of sunlight that dapple the otherwise bleakness of the common day.

I see your real world. And I think I want my soul world instead. What I would give to be the red in someone's painting.

Scream

I wanted to scream.  Loudly and with much gusto.  But do you know what I discovered?  I can't scream.  My voice appears to be broken in more ways than one.

P.S.

I know this is for a reason, but I am in awe of my reaction right now...I am happy and hopeful, but terrified that I will mess things up.  This step means more to me for some reason, and it's just making me raw.

Go figure.

I lied.  I didn't mean too...in fact, I meant what I said and believe what I said...all of the things that came out of my mouth from my brain were true.
 
It was my heart, the lying bastard.  My heart lied to me.  And in it's trickery, it led me to believe that I felt something entirely different than I actually did.
 
Let's see if it can work itself out of this one.

Um. Yeah.

A reader calling herself Rebellioness collaborated with me to come up with five revolutionized approaches to the art of rebellion. I present them here for your use, as they identify the kinds of behavior that will be most nurturing for you to cultivate in the coming weeks. 1. Experimenting with uppity, mischievous optimism. 2. Invoking insurrectionary levels of wildly interesting generosity. 3. Indulging in an insolent refusal to be chronically fearful. 4. Pursuing a cheeky ambition to be as wide-awake as a dissident young messiah. 5. Bringing reckless levels of creative intelligence to all expressions of love.
 
- Free Will Astrology

I mean...your Grandma has a tattoo. But it means something to her - that's the only reason you should do something, dear. If it means something to you.

What do I love enough to brand myself with?

Is it bad that I am having trouble figuring that out? What I love enough?

I had another revealation...i am perfectly happy sitting by myself & watching people. What makes me uncomfortable is other people's discomfort when i do so.