Do not simply believe what
you hear just because you
have heard it for a long time.

Do not follow tradition
blindly merely because it has
been practiced in that way for
many generations.

Do not be quick to listen to
rumors.

Do not comfirm anything just
because it agrees with your
scriptures.

Do not foolishly make
assumptions.

Do not abruptly draw
conclusions by what you see
and hear.

Do not be fooled by outward
appearances.

Do not hold on tightly to any
view or idea just because you
are comfortable with it.

Do not accept as fact
anything that you yourself
find to be logical.

Do not be convinced of
anything out of respect or
deference to your spiritual
teachers.

You should go beyond
opinion and belief. You can
rightly reject anything which
when accepted, practiced,
and perfected leads to more
aversion, more craving and
more delusion. They are not
beneficial and should be avoided.

Conversely, you can rightly
accept anything which when
accepted and practiced leads
to unconditional love,
contentment and wisdom.
These things allow you time
and space to develop a happy
and peaceful mind.

This should be your criteria
on what is and what is not the
truth; on what should be and
what should not be the
spiritual practice.

-From the Kalama Sutta, The Buddha

It seems that addiction, or any self-destructive behavior, starts when we walk out of hearing distance from our own voices. We listen to our parents, our church, or teachers, our TVs and radios, and we are rarely told to listen to ourselves, our souls. Once we are released on our own, we have no idea what to do with ourselves without being told by outside influences. We trip, we fall, we fall again, and again and again, and because of what we are taught early on, we see this as failure. We feel guilt, we hate how the guilt and the "bad" emotions feel, so we ignore them, we try to numb them, we bury them and in doing so bury who we truly are. As so many wise people have pointed out, you cannot have good without bad. It is impossible.

This is not to say that we should not listen or learn from others, rather, we should discover our own set of My People who speak to our souls. It seems that the soul needs constant renewal; from beauty, from struggle, from joy, from trial and error, from wisdom and freedom and wishes color and successes and victories.

If we ignore our soul, we become lemmings, and once we realize that we are being led to the cliff over the sea, it might be too late. Though I am coming to believe that even those lemmings could've said - "whoa. Wait a minute. We're gonna do what now? No thanks. I'll just step to the side and live."

I held my heart
in my hand
this morning
my brain was so busy
that when it gave rare pause
I thought that my heart
had stopped beating
my palm tensed
my thoughts whirred
and my heart began to race again
did it stop beating?
or did I forget to listen for it?

Smack of cool wind
Pushing on dense, hot air
clouds in the sky
like steel grey sponge paint
on a lightening white wall
Shivering trees
a storm holding its squalid breath.

Reckless and loose and renegade
uncaring, unfeeling
deceptively soothing rumble -
then a bright menacing flash
and roaring
demanding attentiveness
to its power

A mash up of
sight and sound and pressure
making ominous foreshadows
my God, in your infinite wisdom
How do you paint
such a clear picture of
how I feel inside?

I just found 4 more journals. 4 more.

I have been looking for it, that inspiration, that thing I need to succeed in this...I have been looking for it outside of me. Which is good. That should always be, in order for things to be balanced.

But I think that it is time to find it inside. I think I am ready.

Music. Music makes me cry. Like a hungry baby. A soul aching for a cleansing. Touch me please, so I can feel. Alive instead of numb, feeling instead of thinking. My brain is a force for my heart to reckon with and most of the time my brain overpowers and poor, poor heart. It cowers. But music restores it's strength and it's belief that the struggle to be ok with emotion is not all in vain.

Ben Harper's Welcome to the Cruel World album makes me particularly ridiculous. There was a time when I lay in my bed in the dark and looked out the window at the stars while that album looped over and over through my consciousness. Rare are the times that I will be still long enough to do that; I believe that those songs and that stillness were healing me. Since I was prone to breaking myself over and over for no aparent reason, it felt so good to surrender my bruises and scrapes to something outside of me that could tend to them. So that I didn't have to do it for once.

One song, The Three of Us...Ben doesn't even sing. No words, just two guitars. And it's like the guitars are speaking...more than just words. It's like he gets that sometimes words just aren't enough to communicate how you feel, there aren't enough words in all of the world sometimes to give justice to that beauty, that hope, that rage, that despair. So all of that gets infused into the guitars, the notes become the words.

When I am tired of all of the words, music is my solace. Something to curl up inside of and surrender.

(May 2001)

Remnants of sandcastles
dissolve in the sunset
sweetly forlorn;
minute statues
built in honor of
the blissful day.

Most of the series of poems above and below were written in my late teens early twenties. A few were written when I was 15 or 16. I knew that a book of my poetry existed, but I thought the contents were paltry at best...but there are 43 poems in this one book alone. I am a little shocked that I had forgotten this, how much I loved writing these words, and the fact that I have so grossly underestimated my ability to communicate what I am thinking and how I am feeling...

I can't believe that I lacked such faith in something so dear to me.

Wow.

(Written sometime in 2001, 2002)

Every light in the house
is on
trying to drown out
all of the things
that we didn't say -
darkness shifts around
in the corners
waiting to seep into my light
and permeate my brain
my heart beats
ever now and agian
it's only doleful desire
to beat for someone
with another heart
dancing in honest light
intoxicated with love
that is so powerful
it could never create anything
but what it is -
Truth.

Deficit In Philosophy

Exhaustion gained
after much sleep.
Distraction to the extreme,
Fidgeting
Fighting
Then taking steps forward
back towards what
away from that.
Explosion?
most likely,
although contingent on the
Facts
THAT CHANGE
scattered ecclectic collections
forever to deplete
my store of
Sanity.
I struggle
against chains
that tighten as I move.
Peace answering me
must consume my
Raging contempt
seal my hot mouth,
bind my contradictory wrists,
and shut down my brain
so I can Breath again,
normally.

I might imagine
that I look a certain way
a carefully crafted facade
not fully done at the seams
whether it be nails
or string
or fine silk thread
that I use to keep it together
it is faulty material
and it is not working

Things
grotesque unsavory and unflattering
Things
leak out, ooze forth,
staining and spotting and spreading
horrified I see it coming
I see the tiny leak, the pinprick hole
in the dam of ridiculously emotional water
I see it dripping and know it's only a matter of time
before the dam bursts

I could call out, I could shout, I could
stick my pinky finger in the hole
super glue, cement, a freakin' band-aid...
I could do something.
But I don't.
I watch as the infinitesimal speck becomes
larger and grows until
others start to notice
they look work worried
they look at me and wonder why I don't look worried

It's because I knew it was coming
I did nothing to stop it
and I don't know how to fix it
I just sit in my brain and watch what makes sense
become a ruin
and know that it didn't have to be this way.

"You are a girl who never looked in the mirror."

Pictures. Lots of pictures today. I could look at pictures, take pictures, monkey with pictures, all day everyday. I am obsessed with capturing that moment...sometimes I think that I should put the camera down and just BE in that moment; I've gotten better with that, the camera is not as attached to my face as it used to be. But I still get that itch. Maybe I can scratch it now by just doing something with those photos.

Speaking of being in that moment...that Moment's Gaze...I am trying to take each little teeny tiny little thing, every happy happenstance, in as I would a deep cleansing breath. I have the sentiment tattooed on my wrist, figure I should try a lot harder to live by it. It's hard, really hard, to not get caught up and bogged down in the day to day. But just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not doable.

I'm sayin'...

Written July 9th, 2008.

I am the kind of dork that likes to type. I like to hear the sound of the keys click-clacking, the fact that I've been able to type without looking at the keyboard since I was about 10 or so. I like to watch the words form quickly, letter by letter across the screen. What was once vast whiteness is now marked with something that I created. Even if it's just an e-mail.

I like writing with a pen better, though. Especially using pens with that richly pigmented ink. I like to watch it sink into the papper, tattooing the pulpy skin of a fresh sheet. I like to imagin writing on my own skin, letting the ink sink in and mingle with my blood. Ink and blood in my veins. Words to spare, sentences forming as quick as the sheen of sweat on a muggy day.

I got your stories. I got your words. I got it all right here...

...yeah. Right here.

Take the rain. Not in waiting for the sun, but as another, different beauty to enjoy about life.

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.

Say something.

Something...anything...just to let me know that you are there. That's all I'm asking - to know if you are there. Because if you're not, I can't be either.

I wish I had the ability to be nostalgic - write pretty,flowy, meaningful words to commemorate 2009 and wax poetical about my hopes for 2010. I seem to lack the gene that makes me get all gooey and tearful when it comes to the end of one and the beginning of the other. We start all over all the time; well, at least I do.

What's the big deal?

So, to you, 2009, I say: Adios. I am happy for my health, my family, friends and good fortune.

2010: Let's see whatcha got.

'Cause I'm game.

Can't stand the quiet noise
that infiltrates my ears
and makes
my brain do cartwheels
I need to fill the white sound
with solid black knowledge

It's hard to type when you are laying down...

Here's the thing. I think that I am attracted to half-people...well, half-men, for a reason particular to my situation. "What we have here, is a failure, to communicate."

Not half-man like, as in Centaur, but half, as in, not whole, not complete, no matured, not ripe, not ready. Sometimes I feel that I am drawn to those who are still cookin' because I am too...simmering away at this vile brew that's festering and heating up inside of me. You see, I have to let the nastiness get hot and boil over - before I can create a culinary masterpiece that good and right.

And sometimes I think that it has not so much to do with me being done as it does with me not wanting to be held accountable; it's easier to be dismissive and not have to try with someone who is not a finished product. Still struggling, his missteps are forgiven. Because some how it seems, if he were grown, those errant choices would be more grievous.

But who is ever done? Who is ever not searching? Completely content? Even when you are happy, you always have an eye peeled for whatever it is that will make you happy next. We're like sharks...we can't just be still, or we'll die.

And aren't we a sum of all our parts? Past, present, nasty, good; we are all of these contradictions that we've created for ourselves in life, right?

Right?

Before the inspiration dips below the horizon of my heart...

"I gave her my heart, and she gave me a pen." Say Anything

I am starting to know when something is right...I feel it. I just know. I don't question it. It just is. Like an instinct. Like the sky. No doubt in the addled brain means a lot. But I am also learning that even though I know something, it doesn't always mean anything...because some of the feelings that I have, though valid, can't ever breathe the light of day if they are not shared. Other feelings are significantly mine: when warmth spreads through my belly: inspiration. When my pupils dilate, my lips part and my skin tingles: excitement, curiosity. When I isolate myself on the island of my cold side of the bed: loneliness, self-induced. When my toes hit the sand touch the waves: my spirit, my home. When my throat feels closed, tight, tense: mute. Oh yes, mute is a feeling to me; not using my voice, burying myself under a mountain of each other person's expectation will be death by silence. And it will be a quiet, hurtful violence if I allow it to happen.

It is ok to feel in color, to hear so acutely, to bundle up each tiny emotion in it's own unmarked box so that I am never sure what I am pulling out of the attic of my soul. It's ok to want to fish with the egrets in the salt marsh and covet Christian Louboutins: pumps, black. It's ok to be wrong, it's ok to fight when I am right, even if that means everything around me will change. It's ok to want it all, from one opposite end of the spectrum to another.

And it's ok to be afraid, as long as that fear is an impetus. Because if I don't take my respect for the things that I love and turn them into something useful for me and the world, it will be a waste. No one can write about the heart-breakingly beautiful shades that the intercoastal can be on any given day like I can. No one can wax poetical about her love of a small beach town and live in the greatest, craziest city in the world like I can. No one can talk my particular brand of smack and use the same mouth to sooth a fussy child like I can. No one can feel people and read people and really see people like I can. I can, I only have...all I have is to try. But I know before I can do any of it I have to be without fear. I am ok with trying and failing. I am not ok with dying and never knowing.

What I have longed for is this. The words; somehow communicating the intrinsic beauty I see in the things that are special to me. I have been trying to feed the longing with other things, I have been thinking that what I ache for is him, or that thing, or this place...when really I have been aching to be me. It all makes me stupid with distraction, discouraged that I can't seem to get it right and no one seems to get it. But I am not trying to be anything but a fraction of me, a shadow of the dark, sweet, honored power that I posses. I ignore and I pretend and I smile and I hope for the best, but nothing else will mean much until I use what I have at my fingertips...my very own heart. No one can see it or judge it or measure it, only me.

My gift is me.

You have a strong heartbeat. I can feel it when I am close to you, I can see it pulsing in that little tender area of your neck. And sometimes, when I touch you, even just the slightest touch, I can feel your heart begin to race. I thought at first that it was just your physical nature, but then I noticed that it happened when I spoke, too. Like a revving engine.

That's what I got. That's the only indication that I am different. There are few words, there are few actions. There is just your heartbeat.

It's just that I can't feel it when I am not close to you...

It seems that the can of worms that I have considered closed for years now has been pried open by the other owner of all of the memories, emotions, and f-ed up sentiment that I have been trying to stuff back inside of it since it's creation when I was years younger. My conventional method of sealing the lid on said can of worms forever, i.e. ignoring it's squirmy, burrowing, dank, dark presence and going about my daily business, doesn't seem to be binding anymore and the lid on all of this drama has for all intensive purposes popped right back off in my face because he is insistent upon allowing the mealy mouths of each individual worm see the light of day.

Curses.

My ex-fiance. Wants closure from me. The same man who dissappeared with no explanation while we were still engaged, tried for a second chance, watched me walk away, accepted my decision to not speak with him anymore, was without any knowledge at all of me for six years, during which time HE GOT MARRIED, and then randomly, TWO YEARS AGO, ran into me on the streets of the most unlikely city in the world to cross my path, and all of a sudden his world is in turmoil, his marriage goes defunct, and he feels the need to make amends with me...to get closure. From me. It's like an un-redneck version of My Name is Earl and not nearly as funny. I mean, I am not even close to being as searingly funny as Jaime Pressly is...

W.
T.
F.

Why must we "bomb" the moon?

 
 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/13/moon-ice-nasa-lcross-disc_n_356926.html
 
What has the moon ever done to us, except be hauntingly beautiful and make people a little crazy now and again.  Man, we humans really can't leave anything alone.  Sheesh.

I exist in two small places...my shoebox and my cube.  So much for "out of the box" thinking...cliche, anyone?

If you are going to say that you don't care what people think...you really have to not care.  For real.  Otherwise you are just going to end up making yourself feel bad.
 
Trust me I know.

Ahhh...the inevitable "shoulda's": shoulda called more, shoulda asked more, shoulda visited more, shoulda tried harder...
 
I was wondering when these were going to set-in.
 
Shoulda's are useless to me and Grandma and my family right now.  Gotta concentrate on prayer and hope.

It feels different. It feels like a bunch of different things...it feels sad, and stoic, and wise, and slower. It feels like the kid in me might kick up a fuss when she realizes that I'm growing up. And it feels different because that usually makes me wonder what kind of mess I'm going to get into; now, instead, I just wonder what means of knowing and taking care of myself I will utilize to make myself learn, feel stronger, and move on.

When did this happen?

This hurt my heart...


Best for Last
by Adele

Wait
Do you see my heart on my sleeve
It's been there for days on end and it's been waiting for you to open up
Just you baby
Come on now
I'm trying to tell you
Just how I'd like to hear the words roll out of your mouth finally
Say that it's always been me

That's made you feel a way you've never felt before
And I'm all you need and that you never want more
Then you'd say all of the right things without a clue
But you'd save the best for last like I'm the one for you

You should know that you're just a temporary fix
This isn't a routine
With you it don't mean that much to me
You're just a filler in the space that happened to be free
How dare you think you'd get away with trying to play me
Yeah

Why is it everytime I think I've tried my hardest it turns out it ain't enough
'Cause you're still not mentioning love
What am I supposed to do to make you want me properly
I'm taking these chances and getting nowhere
And though I'm trying my hardest you go back to her
And I think that I know things may never change
I'm still hoping one day I might hear you say

I make you feel a way you've never felt before
And I'm all you need and you never want more
Then you'd say all of the right things without a clue
But you'd save the best for last like I'm the one for you

You should know that you're just a temporary fix
This isn't a routine
With you it don't mean that much to me
You're just a filler in the space that happened to be free
How dare you think you'd get away with trying to play me
Yeah
Ey
Yeah
Ey

Yeah
Ey
Yeah
Ey

But despite the truth that I know I find it hard to let go and give up on you
Seems I love the things you do
Like the meaner you treat me the more eager I am
To persist with this heartbreak and running around
And I think that I know things may never change
I'm still hoping one day I might hear you say

I make you feel a way you've never felt before
And I'm all you need and that you never want more
Then you'd say all of the right things without a clue
And you'll be the one for me and me the one for you
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh
Ooh

I have no idea what I am doing anymore.
 
I think that was the goal.
 
This could end one of two ways...I hope that it doesn't end the way it always does, 'cause I am bored with that.

And I need a neck massage. 

Night owls that also enjoy the morning-time are constantly on the verge of existing in a parallel universe called Madness.

An interesting thing is that I don't consider myself a writer. I write, everyday. It's not in the cookie-cutter way that I imagine that it should be, but I do. Little bits, pieces and diatribes here and there, a dialouge, a rant, a thought process that I cannot work out until I put pen to paper or fingers to computer keys. Maybe it's because it comes so naturally, I don't consider it a skill; a talent. But interesting all the same that I seem to discount something that so clearly is a part of who I am.

ugliness has a comforting quality.

It's familiar.

It sits around her shoulders like a cloak...a shroud. Ugliness is what she clings to when everything goes wrong. It's there, a well worn I told you so...I told you that you would be back. It's only ever a matter of time. I told you your thoughts would come here, then your feelings. I told you so.

Ugliness says that she could set her heart to burning and spread the flames of talent and passion like wildfire from sea to shining sea. That she could clean up her act and sell it as a whole show, off-broadway. Oh, and she can triumph over all those demons, brandishing the sword of success and pride. Yes, she can do all that.

But it won't be good enough.

Because she would prefer to sit within the solitude of darkness. She would prefer to throw the pieces of her dreams crashing to the floor, as fragile and ostentatiously smashed as dinner plates thrown at a Greek wedding. "Opa!"

Ugliness is strong and common and it can win. It seeps in and takes hold, like black mold in the wall. Sometimes she thinks that the only way to “Fix” “Everything” is to knock down the damn walls, the fortress consumed by mold, and build it all again.

Starting over is the only damn thing she knows how to do without a doubt in her head.

This article, from the Washington Times:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/15/troop-funds-diverted-to-pet-projects/

...sparked the following rant:

Hi, US Armed Forces? We're gonna need you to go “defend our freedom” in countries where we likely started most of these "fires" that we're "trying to put out" in the first place. We (US Senate) will give you a half a nun-chuck, some rainbow sprinkles and some duct tape to defend yourselves with; you'll pretty much need to make it up as you go because we don't have the funds to train you properly. Why, you ask? Well, because we (US Senate) will use the money that should have gone to properly fund your mission to make us (me and my overpaid over-empowered colleagues) look better. Here’s a gold star (in the form of a sticker, not a medal, we used THAT money to build a pretty fountain in Kansas that commemorates the growing of grass) for your valiant service on behalf of your country.

I don’t mean to make light, it’s not funny, but it does at times feel like this crap is one big sick joke…bring them home, or give them every resource that they need. There is no grey area here. Politics aside (which would be nice considering b.s. politics are the reason our brave men and women are dying daily for what we're not sure of anymore) I believe that every SINGLE military person fighting these battles for these fat politicians is doing so because they feel that protecting our freedom is the right thing to do, NOT because they feel that there is an tangible enemy or goal. IF they must be there, YOU (US Senate and anyone else involved in these decisions) must see that making sure, making DAMN sure, that our military gets what it needs takes precedence over Memorials and Institutions and the like. Both have their place and are commendable gestures, but gestures aren't saving any lives.

STOP WASTING THE LIVES OF THESE HONORABLE PEOPLE.

I am afraid that if you don't, we won't have any left. And it's slim pickins as is.

And then I found that I really didn't care.

I let it roll around in my brain a little bit, to see if any of its sharp edges would catch and sting as they cut into my grey matter.

I kept waiting for the gasp, the realization that it did hurt, I was bothered, and maybe I did feel a bit more than just a passing infatuation towards you.

I'm still waiting.

I thought the realization would be a revelation of sorts...a load off, a bright light, a click in my conscience...but in the end I think that I liked the thought of you. And if I really look deeply, it seems that it's always been that way; I liked the image of a man, which has always stood in the footsteps of a real one at my door.

Clarity was much more grim than I thought it would be.

She couldn't resist…she leaned back to get a full view of the other room to make sure there was no danger of being immediately observed (and therefore stopped) before she planted all five fingertips of her left hand in a different shade of watercolor paint, then brushed the palm of her right hand with a coat of black.

 

Then, after looking over her shoulder again, she ran to one of the blank walls ("minimalist is what we're going for…those photos would create too much clutter") and smacked her right palm against the wall, while marching the fingers of her left hand around it.  The rainbow colors were transparent, the consistency of a flimsy silk slip.  The black transferred to the wall as grey and made a pleasing suctioning sound when she peeled her palm away.  She knew it was slightly destructive, absolutely vindictive and would inevitably lead to a polite fight over her apathy towards making a nice home.  She knew, but she didn't care; the release that followed her little trick engulfed her entire body head to toe and towards her soul.

 

She had tried to talk.  She had tried to scream.  She had tried it all in her head while he was none the wiser,

It's funny when you know how late you are in the morning by who you see on the 6 train.

"Tall slightly Latin looking 40 something guy with curly hair that gets off at 33rd st...ok, I'm only a few minutes late."
"Tall-ish, very attractive black man who looks to be about my age and has no ring on his finger who gets on at Grand Central and off after me...yeah, I'm pretty late."

I have been avoiding writing I have been avoiding feeling I have been stuffing it all back down...I have been curling up in the cocoon of blankets on the oasis of my bed and canceling out all of my opposing thoughts. I have been staring glassy-eyed at the TV I have been turning my phone off I have realized that I need to speak and then I remember that I already have and it didn't mean a thing. I wonder and wonder and wonder why I am here but know at the same time that I am not ready to leave. There have been moments when I've thought of different cities and if it's not St. Augustine or NY these feel like cheating thoughts. I feel this raw gnawing inside all the time, nothing seems to take it away anymore.

I judge myself inadequate and can tell you all of the reasons why I fall short in the light of the world that I live in. I know in my brain what I am worth but it won't translate to anything real. No paper no conversation no work no success...nothing real that has meaning. I ramble and ramble and pause...