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I just found a website making money off my words.

“I am not a snack for your starving ego, I am soul food for someone who actually has one.”

I FUCKING WROTE THAT. IT’S MINE.

You can now wear my heart, on a t-shirt, sip coffee from it or pack your groceries in it.

Oh the fucking irony.

My New Year’s resolution was to start making a living from my words, and someone else already is.

Just as I am about to publish this wherein I begin by saying…I cannot, for the life of me, write snippets. Its epilogues or nothing.

But not soul food.

I’m hard pressed to find pull quotes that can stand alone without the context of the article to support them.

I am way too wordy.

I am not a poet.

I am barely a writer.

First person flowery diary entries on a blog platform do not a writer make.

Oh god, I just realized what I am. I am a reality TV show.

Ew.

Unscripted chaos. Grade 10 reading level for the most part. No one to bleep my swear words, or edit.

I have a quarter of a million views upon this website. So I’m doing something kinda right I guess.

I take issue calling it a blog (even though it is) like some strippers hate being called strippers (even though they are).

I’m friends with some seriously good poets/writers.

I don’t want to ask them how they do it. I know there’s no answer. There is no scientific formula that can condense 500+ rambling words into 50 or less poignant ones that shoot straight through the reader’s heart and either lift it up or dash it against the rocks of their psyche, depending.

I am a drunk throwing punches willy-nilly at a bar fight I have no business being involved in, landing a couple by fluke but mostly just looking the fool.

If I was alive when the bible was written I wouldn’t have had a fun job like proverbs or psalms, I am the long ramblings that make not a lot of sense out of context and Methusala begat Junopres and they raised sheep for in the valley of evil with their 89 kids until one of them did something stupid 26 pages later and there was a righteous smiting by the Lord amen and shit.

When I first started writing this thing I had no structure or discipline. Still don’t but (lucky for all y’all) I do have word counts. My maximum has been set at 1515 per article. I too am a Sesame Street child, if I have to scroll too long to get to the end of something I lose interest.

I know why I am like this.

Panda and I had a conversation yesterday about my ‘attachments’. I get attached to people and things.

I know why, I lived my formative years without people and things.

I write so prolifically and wordy because I didn’t write a word for 25 years.

Poems I had written while high on acid were the trigger for the burning of all my writing at age 15.

Everything went into the fire and I shut my mouth for a quarter of a century.

Including the collection of short stories I had published at age 12. The poem I won an award for at age 11.

All I ever really wanted to do was write and that went up in flames. Recognition for words was not as important as medals for sports, good grades etc. What I wanted didn’t matter. What would the neighbors think?

It’s funny now that I am an adult and I do my own things, the things I chose to do are the same as the things that brought me joy as a child. Writing, photography and I made jewelry for a time. I am pretty good at them.

And now that I can live and write out loud again I have to say all the things.

Never had a boyfriend in my teen years, gotta have all the boyfriends now.

Didn’t have a lot of clothes growing up and my closet is an overflowing gypsy magpie nest of sparkles, flowers and covetousness.

Once you see the source of the problem, it becomes easier to fix.

This blog is about self-discovery, documenting the ridiculous things I do, find the patterns and reasoning and work it out.

I admire poets, I love the gambit of emotions they can elicit with a few well-chosen words.

Doesn’t mean I have to covet or emulate.

I am me… wordy, nerdy, needy, slutty and dressed to the gypsy nines…and that is okay.

But I can share them

https://www.facebook.com/Alfawrites/photos/a.2264284423710295.1073741829.2250573485081389/2558340770971324/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/poetryofmonsters/photos/a.460130384088031.1073741827.460116800756056/893102647457467/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/Jmstormquotes/photos/a.1586930328210390.1073741827.1586920178211405/1903553426548077/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/BeautifulMindsAnonymous/photos/a.1577818049137125.1073741829.1574368502815413/1725339101051685/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/nicolelyonspoetry/photos/a.1693005940956852.1073741828.1692616304329149/1816684971922281/?type=3&theater

The moment you think you are cursed you are.

The secret is all inside your head she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free…
Paul Simon

Twice this calendar year I have had men approach me and say that they are cursed, doing some penance, trapped in their own minds, possessed by demons or something like it.

Comes out sounding like ‘forgive me mama for I have sinned.’

If you need me to exonerate you I will. My telephone to god breaks and is in repair of its own accord but I forgive you.

They think they have to pay for the dark thoughts and less than shiny deeds of their past.

No baby.

First off, the past is done. Can’t be helped, it’s over and only exists in your mind. I know people who live there, and they are the walking dead. Please come back to the here and now.

Secondly.

Universe doesn’t work that way.

The universal collective of energy that a lot of people like to call God is not very godlike.

Omnipotent? Yes.

Unfathomable by our little human brains? Uh huh.

Full of miracles? Damn skippy. (I just watched the sun rise over the ocean)

Judging you on your day to day and the shit you get yourself into? Nah.
Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Dreaming up punishments for you imagined indiscretions? Fuck no.
Even the act of saying Hail Mary’s only serves as a time out akin to what you would give a toddler.
Sit down and think about what you did.

There was a time when I believed myself to be cursed. A puppet at the mercy of some palsied madman in the sky.

I held my own strings the whole time. They were tangled from being tossed around in situations I should have cut and run from YEARS prior.

That’s when we get stuck, and in effect are cursing ourselves. When every sign and every cell in our bodies screams NO and we stay.

Even then, the lessons learned flailing around in that stagnant muck come in handy from time to time.

That was my crazy underground garage adjacent to rock bottom and three floors down.

I have been awful and dumb and I am sure I will be awful and dumb again in the future, I am human after all, but it’s my business and between me and my god.
That is all.

The universe is composed of energy. It doesn’t differentiate between good and bad. We are conduits, yes, but once it goes through us and back to the ether it’s neutral. We get to decide, both coming and going how to shape it and use it. And more importantly, when to let it go.

We are a creative bunch of meat puppets, bordering on narcissistic when seen en masse. Why is this happening to me? Why me? Oh I did a thing now I must be punished by some puppet master in the sky.

There are no strings, just string theory.

When I say something is between me and my god, I mean it’s between me and me. I punish myself for my misdeeds in more creative ways and for a lot longer than some imaginary white man on a cloud handing out judgement would.

My gut is my guide.

If it feels light, I go that way, if my stomach rolls, well…sometimes I turn heel and go the other way and sometimes I take a deep breath and dive in anyways. It’s human nature, it’s my nature. I accept the consequences. And I know beyond all doubt that everything is as it should be. Because it is.

Stephen Hawking said the universe does not allow perfection. And yet we all strive for it like it a) exists and b) is attainable.

It don’t and it ain’t.

We are fragile, fallible beings on a blue rock hurtling through space.

The prisons we lock ourselves into, the moral codes we look to as law, these curses and blessings bestowed on us by gods and monsters?

We made them up.

We are the gods and monsters. Angels walking, devils too.

I have been all of those things in the space of a day. Depends on who you are asking.

If you ask me I am a humble little meat puppet, fairly self-aware, trying to do my best and love as much as I can, as hard as I can as often as I can. That is its own reward.

Sure, if you fuck up by all means, sit back reflect and learn. Try not to do it again.

But if you do, I will be here to forgive you.

The universe’s timing is perfect, even if it doesn’t suit your ego. (Dean Jackson)

“You fuck like a god, I both love and hate that about you.”
(Because you act like a god too. Uncontrollable, only appearing when you feel like it and not when I need you, which is often.)

Feels awfully strange quoting myself, paraphrasing really.

But if you are gonna fuck gods, and I do, you gotta play by their rules. Which morph and change on a whim.

“God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Precisely that.

I got the following message from Our Sara of Lords

She said,

“Notes for a post
Every 3 months
Sex god
Jezebel in hell, the rest.
Persephone
You said to remind you.”

I replied, “Thank ye, the Pan thing reminded me already.”

Her – Me too. Lol. Thanks be to Pan.

Me – Always.
‘Who’s your daddy’ just popped into my head.
I need to buy a vibrator.
Left mine home.

Her – ‘I want your sex’ popped into mine. Lol. We’re ridiculous.

Me – (It’s because) we’re closer now.

She is my touchstone. She who knows all of the things I have done. She is the eldest and wisest of my three weird sisters, the one who made it safe to speak all my truth out loud. I can message her day or night and tell her I need church and she is there for me. She listens to my ridiculousness, my imagined sins which are actually just me enjoying myself and feeling some weird misplaced puritanical guilt over it. A holdover from Salem I suppose, when we had to hide what we were.

I am done hiding, mostly.

I mentioned in a prior blog post about how, although 2016 sucked god’s sweaty balls, I had an abundance of seriously next level sex.

Sucking god’s sweaty balls is what got me through. Well, that and the spectacular, otherworldly sexcapades that the ball sucking was foreplay to.

Seriously, somehow 3/3 of my top three were in this godforsaken year of clowns, gorillas and death.

Maybe it’s me. Getting more comfortable in asking for, nay, demanding what I want. As much as a submissive demands I suppose.
It’s all tied together. Having Her to confess to making it easier to open up.
If you judge me for the things I ask for, I don’t want to fuck you anyways, so there’s that then.

Ask and ye shall receive.

Bacchus, Pan and Dionysus.

Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Trifecta of sex gods.

I call one of them Daddy and he likes it. As much as I do apparently, so A LOT.

Another was my Holy Ghost, he who leaveth room for Jesus when he hugged me. Zeus and lightning sex mixed with Charon, the boatman for the dead. In the mythology that is my sex life I can mix metaphors and make as many hybrids as I chose, it’s mine. He is all of these things to me.

And the other…not ready to talk about that just yet. Sara knows and that is all that matters.

Let’s go back to Daddy.

I messaged him yesterday and inquired “do you like this shit too or are you just doing it to make me happy/wet/squirt/cum?”

“Oh I like it” he said.

Thank fuck, been waiting for you for a while now.

I just realized what is happening here, True Blood Season two. I am Maryann Forrester a devout follower of Dionysus, a magical creature in my own right and I am (not so patiently) waiting for the ‘god who comes’.

Because, when he does…it’s worth it, it’s divine, I have this some of the time. The way she shows me I’m hers and she is mine. Open hand or closed fist would be fine. The blood is rare and sweet like cherry wine (Hozier)

It all comes back to Dionysus. The sex and wine, the debauchery, orgasms of such intensity that I leave my body and I am left thrumming and vibrating at some ethereal frequency. Heaven for heathens.

I am also Jezebel in hell, so much fucking waiting in between. The version of Persephone I am is longing to go back into the dark. That is where the giant couch is. That is where snuggles turn to sex like the flick of a switch, from tame to beast mode.

Waiting for my sex god to come down from Mount Olympus (up from Hades or out of the woods or wherever it is he goes) and bless me with his devil dick.

Beast mode sex god monster cock.

I don’t just give blowies, I worship the thing.

‘Just hold my hair and let me suck your soul out’ head.

‘Mascara running making me look like a panda’ head.

The penitent [woman] shall pass.
Penitent…humble before god.
Penitent…kneel before god.

(I watched an Indiana Jones marathon Christmas day, hoping god would show, but he didn’t)

I was poised to kneel, atone for my sins. Worship.

I am still waiting.

Love is a demon and
You’re the one he’s coming for
Oh my Lord

Could I be Your Girl?
Jann Arden

I dated a waiter.

He worked at a high end billiards room near a university campus.

Late shift usually. Made good money. He was charismatic and charming, mostly. Megawatt smile.

I worked days back then. I think our relationship lasted longer because we barely saw each other through the week.

He was a writer too. A damned fine one actually. Had I been paying better attention to the signs at the time I could have studied him, learned things. But I was a silly little girl with a penchant for kinky sex and drama. He kept those parts of me well fed. Didn’t leave room for much else. He wrote erotica too, some of it for me or about me. Introduced me to a lot of things both literary and literally.

We had plans to meet up after work one night. I was safely tucked in the Annex at our favorite coffee shop, waiting.

He rolled in later than planned said he was looking around the room at all of the stragglers meandering after last call and he had to stop himself from shouting the following query…

‘You are afraid to go home and be alone with yourselves aren’t you?’

That was 1996 if memory serves and it is tattooed in my memory.

For the simple fact that it is the truth.

Alone.

One single word that strikes fear in the hearts of many. For others it is a soft blanket we wrap around ourselves when the world gets too muchy.

I am one of the others.

I had a conversation with someone who had been in jail for a couple years. Some of his time spent was in maximum security which meant a huge portion of the day spent completely alone. 22 hours a day, 6 days a week. He got to go out for an hour every Sunday.

“No one came to visit” he said, “just my mom. And when I got done being angry about it I realized we are all essentially alone.”

I know the feeling.

Never been incarcerated, but there were long stretches of days and weeks when I lived in the Milton house that I saw no one. Not a neighbor, not the postman, and definitely none of my friends. Literally months would go by and if I didn’t get in the car and drive away from the sanctuary of my beautiful home I wouldn’t have seen a soul I knew. I was chatty with the ladies at the thrift store, made a few acquaintances, but had it not been for my stubbornness and a brand new set of winter tires I’d have forgotten what my friends looked like.

I realize it’s not the same thing. But when he told me that it tugged at the heart string called sympathy. I remember that drop in the pit of my stomach when I realized none was coming to get me, save me, help me or even just to see me. It was a sickening vertigo feeling, like falling in a dream.

And then I woke up.

I survived pneumonia alone, crippling depression, a flood, a court case, being snowed in to the point of needing heavy equipment to get me out, the birth of this website, the death of my old life, the letting go of my high school love, the entrance and exit of the poet.

And I did it by myself.

There were days I thought I wouldn’t make it.

It didn’t get better all at once.

Slowly, over the course of two years, I had mini epiphanies. Then it hit me. I couldn’t tell you what I was doing at the time, but I know I laughed long and loud, from my center. I’m still smiling.

I had kept myself tucked into relationships because I didn’t think I was capable of doing things by myself.
But I had been…
T’was I who went outside in -20 degree weather and pulled a heater core out of a scrap Jeep and installed it in my own, I had been trapped and I freed myself. T’was I who stacked the wood for the winter. T’was I who cleaned up every flood from farm springs. T’was I who nursed errrbody back to health through various illnesses. I’ve gotten myself out of every bad situation I have ever been in. Technically I got myself into them too but shush, that’s not what we’re dealing with today.

I believe everyone needs to go through this. Face being alone with yourself. Your thoughts, your fears, the deafening echoes of your psyche arguing with itself and the silence that follows. The quiet is the scariest part, but after that it becomes addictive.

The boy I spoke to is 19 years old and light years ahead of friends that are much older, and even me. He carries this calmness within him, this Zen that I can only attribute to someone who knows what it is like to go to the edge and stare into the abyss. I find myself gravitating to him, he is kindred.

We have no rites of passage as a North American society, no coming of age, no markers, no trials and I believe we are lost because of it. Trying to jam things and people into the holes in our psyche that would heal on their own if we gave them a chance.

Older civilizations would send their children out into the woods and (if) they came back, they were worthy, contributing members of society.

Not anymore. Parents are helicopters and babies are bubble wrapped. We carry around tiny computers in our hands and document our every move looking for validation for accomplishing very little. Every emotion expressed without being experienced or examined.

“I started to get that sad feeling and reached for my phone, but I thought ‘don’t’ — just be sad, let it hit you like a truck, I pulled over and I just cried like a bitch, it was beautiful. Sadness is poetic. I was grateful to feel sad and then I met it with true, profound happiness.” Louis CK

Let’s get right to the sex and death.

2016 will be remembered as the year of the reaper.

My girl Pippa posted the other day that 2016 wasn’t that bad for her.

I am inclined to agree.

I did at one point tell 2016 to go home for being drunk and mean, but Carrie Fisher had just died and I felt like I got kicked in the childhood.

Everything is relative.

Mind you, the shit I went through this year might well have killed previous versions of me. But I am not that girl anymore. Bigger better faster stronger, like titanium or adamantium.

My girl Nika and I were talking the other night and although her year has been utter garbage, we also collectively agreed that we had some damn fine next level other worldly best sex ever sex this year.

This is also true.

Wonder if being well fed had something to do with my super human strength and my ability to survive?

Survey says…

Fuck yes

Pun intended.

The girl I am now would never settle for the lack of quality or abysmal quantity of sex I had in years past either. Spooky, it’s almost like everything is connected somehow.

Yes, 2016 has been markedly steeped in death, tragedy and abominations against the lord.

It all began with the murder of Hamarabe and the asinine reactions of the internet at large.

If I was a god? That might have been my last straw too.

There have been several times I have wanted off the planet myself.

Speaking of Gods. I am afraid we are all in for some serious fucking disappointment when we collectively realize that 2017 isn’t going to be this magical clean slate where nothing bad happens, might I remind you that 19 days into the year will see Donald Trump moving from president elect to actual president?

I suppose it is easier to mourn the deaths of icons rather than face the slaughter of ideals. Or actual slaughter for that matter.

Gods don’t wear watches. The universe adheres to no calendars. Time is a manmade construct. So is the concept of good and bad.

A lot of what we are going through is man’s bullshit, all of it actually. I don’t mean men men, I mean mankind. We stopped being kind. Not that we were ever an overly kind race, now we just have tools beyond rocks honed into axes.

One of those tools is the venue by which I address you now, the internet. Upon which I learned that 15000 Americans woke up one fine November morning, got dressed brushed their teeth and waited in line to vote for a dead gorilla.

Come on now, we can do better than this.

I implore you from my soapbox web page please DO BETTER THAN THIS.

We have gotten lazy and whiny. Looking everywhere but within ourselves for something to blame.

Sorry to spoil the ending, but it’s not 2016. It’s you and me.

Speaking of endings. Technically and numerically speaking 2016 was a 9 year. 9 is the end of a lot of things. It really did feel like 2016 was trying to kill off the 80’s and I do feel like we should all form a protective circle around Betty White until further notice, but still.

2017 is a 1.

We do get to begin again, but not because of some superstition or a date on a calendar, but because we have the chance to do this every day. We have the opportunity to wake up and say today is going to be better, today I will try, today I will be kind, learn something, and let something go.

Personally, I have a few chapters to close, new things to explore and some ego to let go of.

There is wiggle room here.

I won’t call bullshit on anyone who wants to exclaim ‘new year new me’.

Let it ride baby, I believe in you, let’s do this.

Celebrate the end of 2016 if it makes you feel better. But do not mourn what is lost. Let it go. Come in clean.

My girl had a comforting thought.
She brings light, it’s just what she does.
She runs Beautiful Minds Anonymous.
Yes, it’s sad that we are losing our icons, but they led really amazing, very full, blessed lives and left amazing legacies.
They did more living than most of us.
Let’s start living bigger.
Honor them and enjoy the life we have rather than mourning what is lost.

Live bigger. Laugh louder. Be creative. Do something with yourself. Strive for notoriety. Leave a mark, a big one. Change your corner of the world. Be remembered.

Depressed people change locations but not outlooks, happy people do what they can with what they have in the time given.

Do not enter 2017 without letting go of something significant from 2016
An old idea, label, habit, fear, concern of ego
Let it go to free up the white space for something new to enter.
Brendan Bouchard

I think this is a fabulous idea. And not just the first day, carry it throughout this next year.

It’s not easy but it’ll be worth it.

We have to be the change, the love, the light and the kindness we want to see in the world.

This is all on us.

We invented the construct of time, so by default, we get to invent how this year goes too, with our actions, attitudes and our thoughts.

Sarah?

Yes darling.

You get this look in your eyes sometimes when you are looking at me.

Like what?

Like, um, like you want to eat me.

(I smiled, bit his neck before whispering in his ear…)

Oh honey, it’s because I do.

Biker Body Pillow pointed out recently that I have a thing for boys with purdy mouths.

Oh honey, it’s because I do.

He has an amazing, next level grasp of the obvious. He takes my words, my moods and adds them to my patterns, subtracts the optimism and tells me what I need to hear, bless him. This comment served to remind me of times where I’ve made similar exclamations.

I’ve joked about wanting to build a summer home in Matt Damon’s mouth, somewhere tucked in the back of his left cheek. He has such a beautiful smile, changes his whole face into something ethereal.

I think BBP has noted this because Once upon a Gelfling…
Jesus wept that boy had lips to die for.
Trouty-pouty mouth. Sadly home to a tongue dripping with honey-coated lies. I ate those up too, who wouldn’t? I’d have sucked poison from his bottom lip quite gladly. In retrospect I think I did. But I didn’t die.

BBP was the antidote to my lovesickness then, and is Gelfling’s boss now, wouldn’t have met him otherwise.

So there is that then.

The opening paragraph is about neither of them.

Just one more jaunt into the past and I will bring it back around.

Once upon the 90’s I had a fucked up semblance of a relationship. My coping album was Holly MacNarland ‘Stuff’.

It contained such lyrics as …

Maybe I’m a coward, but I’m only scared of you. (Coward)

Didn’t mean to close the door, oh my personal whore. (Elmo)

Wake up dead man, can’t you see I’m starving. (Numb)

Summed the relationship up nicely. It wasn’t very nice.

She had another song on that album.

Porno Mouth

He’s got a porno mouth, got a porno grin

All the sighs.

Told you we’d get back here.

I have a very hard time keeping my hands/mouth to myself with this one.
Oh god that porno grin.

I am a writer, a dealer of words, a master of descriptions, I can transport you to where I am and have you join me in your mind’s eye, but for the life of me I cannot adequately describe what it is like to watch this boy smile.

Except to say it looks like summer feels, full of opportunity and warmth. It looks like the perfect arcs of sacred geometry and feels like the afterglow of an orgasm.

‘I tasted him and realize I’m starving.’

I’m ravenous. Ima sex-eater after all and pickings have been markedly slim.
Truth be told, I wasn’t looking to harvest.
I was fasting again, to get closer to god, but he wasn’t paying attention to my piousness.
Just like anyone with hypoglycemia I don’t notice I am crashing till I’m almost on the ground.
Hits me harder in the winter, my sun-eating and the prolific amounts of sex I tend to have in the summer keeps me floating.

But its winter now and I am hungry.

“For every kiss your beauty trumped my doubt.” Mumford and Sons

I watch this one almost obsessively and he knows it. I stare at his profile and watch the perfection of the curvature where his lips meet his cheeks. I feel like I’m being creepy, but he doesn’t seem to mind. When he catches me that grin gets maddeningly wider and impossibly more delicious. I am fixated and fascinated by the way he corners of his mouth pull away just so and expose the most perfect, sharp white teeth. All the better to bite me with. His wit matches his teeth. The words that roll of his tongue are akin to the petal soft bow of his lips…sweet and soft with a certain wickedness, strength and gentleness contained within.

I was talking to my girl the other day. She doesn’t like the way her boy kisses her, says it’s all pecks and nibbles, she wants to be consumed.

Not me, what she described sounds like bliss, when you can feel someone smiling while they kiss you, the hummingbird dance, hovering, lingering, then darting away just to come right back for more. Tasting, touching and teasing. The time for consuming comes and I let it.

We are star-crossed methinks. I cannot stake claim here and build anything, not even a summer home in the spaces between when we kiss. I will nibble and consume until I can’t anymore.

S’okay, for now I am sated.

One of my mamawolves put out a distress call late last night.

I was holed up in a hotel room in West Virginia, 5% battery on my phone, charger locked in the car. 11pm, 9 hours of driving down with 9 more to go.

You okay?

No

Uppit muppet, let’s go. I can sleep in the car tomorrow.

She lives so fucking far away. There is protocol for this.
Pajamas.
Tea in the kitchen.
Beyoncé’s Lemonade album.
Whiskey and pizza with Sex and the City marathon in the background.

But I can’t get there. So I sat up and watched the dancing dots and tried to siphon some of her pain away through the ether.

It could have been 4am and I could have been deep in the throes of having tantric sex with Channing Tatum’s twin in a little villa in Costa Rica with a symphony playing in the background and I would’ve said “hold up, I gotta check on this woman.”

The only collective chuckle we had during our conversation was when we both agreed 2016 was our best sex ever year and everything else really sucked.

Funny because it’s true.

She has rescued me when I have fought the monsters and made sure I did not become them nor succumb to them.

Her voice is so soothing she could make the Nuremberg rally speeches sound like lullabies.

She is logical, sweet and kind.

And she is having a rough year.

She likened herself to a laboratory bunny undergoing some massive, painful testing by some monster upstairs.

I know that punch drunk feeling. Struggling to get up just to get knocked down one more time, in new, viciously creative and terrible ways.

To scream into the abyss “ENOUGH”, just to have to hit back and say ‘not yet’ with a low evil chuckle.

I found myself loosely quoting O Brother Where Art Thou to her.

You seek a great fortune, you [ ] who are now in chains. You will find a fortune, though it will not be the one you seek. But first… first you must travel a long and difficult road, a road fraught with peril. Mm-hmm. You shall see thangs, wonderful to tell…

And, oh, so many startlements. I cannot tell you how long this road shall be, but fear not the obstacles in your path, for fate has vouchsafed your reward. Though the road may wind, yea, your hearts grow weary, still shall ye follow them, even unto your salvation.

I believe this to be true.

The only way out is through.

I also quoted Winston Churchill if you are going through hell keep going.

I’m not speaking from something I learned in a book or saw on TV. She’s having a parallel to a dark Christmas I once had. I transported myself back there and tried to think of what would have brought me comfort or even gotten through to me at all.

What I surmised was, this fucking sucks but there is an end.

And I told her to have a shower.

The fact that I had to regress and remember is, in itself, the harbinger of hope. It means I got out and so shall she. I know the strength of this woman, compared to the puddle of a girl I was when I was down in it, she is the ocean.

https://www.facebook.com/lulus.secret.desires/photos/a.776354805728050.1073741832.746691528694378/948670208496508/?type=3&theater

“I am sucky as fuck right now. You gonna put up with me?”

“Yep.”

He then did this maddening thing with his mouth where he smirked and bit his bottom lip a lil bit which left me no choice but to smile back and lean in closer.

“I promise when I get back I will be brave and strong again.”

“Good” he said and nuzzled my neck. “I like you strong and brave.”

Me too. I thought it…but didn’t say it. I just melted into the hug, it was a good melt.

He left after holding me, swaying a little in my kitchen. I made another coffee and sat down to write.
His words (and mine) echoing in my head.
I really do like me strong and brave.
Shortly thereafter it occurred to me…
Why not now?
Why not just be strong and brave right now?
I know I am going there anyways, I can just decide to be that.

So I did.

He messaged later to tell me he was going to be crazy busy for the next couple days and told me not to worry. Which is the text equivalent of a neck nuzzle by the way.

I replied “It’s okay. I am calm now.”

“Good, there is nothing to worry about.”

Abracadabra holy shit those are some magical words.

Poof, my attitude changed right before my eyes.

I leave in 4 days, not sure when I am coming home. The house is messy, I have laundry to do. I am mostly packed, but not all the way.

You know what’s gonna happen if I forget a t shirt or the laundry doesn’t get done or the floors don’t get mopped before I go?

Nothing.

The world isn’t going to end over dirty sheets and salt stains.

Speaking of…

You know what’s gonna happen if this next relationship in a long line of relationships that didn’t work out doesn’t work out?

Nothing.

I will go back on Tinder or run into someone at the grocery store and the cycle will begin anew. I kinda like the anew, its starts with butterflies and ends with cocoons of bed sheets.

I don’t know if I am Zen or punch drunk or what. But I’ll take it.

There will come a day again when I am sucky as fuck. I am a girl, or just human really and life is a series of highs and lows with some coasting in between.

There is no magical point in the future where everything is suddenly okay. Thinking there is just kills the joy of now.

I was listening to Lover’s Eyes by Mumford and Sons

Love was kind, for a time, now just aches and it makes me blind.

Ya, my heart got a little tender, bruised really. My eyes welled up, couldn’t see quite right.
I blinked and healed.

Marcus then repeats over and over I walk slow, I walk slow, take my hand, help me on my way.

I don’t want to walk slow just now, I know what is waiting on the other side.
Happiness for the sake of happiness.

I’m running towards it.

Wanna come?

So much can change between May and December.

I feel like I live most of my life between April and October then I just hibernate and regroup. We had a warm November so I stayed awake.

Spring I wake up and Fall I wind down. Winter = sleep.

This past May I still resided in my old apartment. I was supposed to be alone, but that never happened. Kidlet moved in, we got kittens, my puppers Alice loved them as her own. Sunshine (who would become my roommate) was over at least half the week. I got fired, I got tattooed, I got new glasses…that tattoo though.

My girl made me a work outfit and I took a mirror selfie so she could post it to her site. Posted it to Instagram, got a message asking what it said, scrolled back through looking for the pic above…and it wasn’t there.

I had only sent it to he whom it was intended for.

Loyal till the end and then some apparently.

I still won’t speak a bad word about him. He deserves as much.

But he is gone. He was around this time last year, gone again, back in May and gone again.

Still gone. But not forgotten. Tattoos are kinda indelible after all.

So be it.

All my boys of summer are gone too. Football was one night in May. Continued sleeping with the Giant into the spring, I don’t think we made it May. April mayhap. Not going to go digging in the dirt looking for specifics. That may have been the last appearance of Wolfling too. Hot Neighbor stayed around for most of the summer but I haven’t seen him in forever it seems. Thai Fighter, Lumberjack.

Oh my young ones. So beautiful, so absent.

Where have you been my blue eyed son? Oh where have you been my darling young one? Bob Dylan

I don’t really want to know, I just wish them well.

I thought I found love but I think it’s just more limbo.
My ability to look at something and believe it will last is intact though, despite the beating it’s taken.

Me and my big clumsy heart. We never learn.

As I sit here reeling, healing and dealing… I have realized I am doing really well. My optimism returns in spring, like bulbs planted in the fall.  Something inside me starts to stir, stasis ends slowly then all at once. Then I push through and bloom.

I had a glorious summer. Full of adventures, good sex, good company, a little bit of chaos and Tinder. This is far from the winter of my discontent. I am calm and content and resting.

I was claimed a few times, cast aside just as many (way more) and I am still here.

I decided something the other day. I am going to stop seeking answers. Instead I am going to start finding better questions.

Been asking “what’s next?” with a smile on my face for a bit now.

I think my favorite might be ‘why not me?’ not in a whining cajoling kind of way but more in an ‘everything is possible miracles occur and I am worthy of them too’ kinda way. I’m worthy.

The other night at work I was talking to one of my girls, mentioned my penchant for being a cougar and another girl chimed in stating very matter-of-fact “My boyfriend is 22 years younger than me and we’ve been together 7 years. We have had our share of fights but not a single one about age.” I could have kissed her had I known her a little better. Still might.

During my farm life I knew a couple. They had tiny dogs and a nice house, horses and I loved visiting them. They’d met a million years earlier. She was married, with kids in high school and he was the paper boy. They had an affair and it never ended. I met them 20 years later and the love between them was obvious. I wish I was still in contact with her, she was always full of big sister wisdom for me.

I am drawn to men substantially younger than I. They suit me, their energy matches mine. I always walked into these relationships believing them to be temporary. But…on a long enough timeline, with enough of them under my belt with every possible open ending having occurred I had a thought.

Maybe I am actually learning, me and my collection of ‘we almost made it’. We did almost make it…getting closer. Closer…closer…

I am the only one stopping myself. My ingrained idea that it won’t work. Always looking for answers and not asking the right questions.

So, on that note, hey universe…

What’s next and why not me?

Everything’s impossible till it ain’t (Carnivale)

This is new.

I must have used up my crying quota for 2016 on the Giant. Thanks baby.

I swear I have this new superpower wherein something shitty happens and my mind immediately says ‘okay baby, what’s next?’

Earlier in the year I had ‘black 19’ stuck in my head I didn’t know what it meant. I think yesterday was my black 19.

I am calm. And I shouldn’t be. I might have just broken my heart in an irreparable way.

On the first day of retrograde I decided it was a good idea to have a talk with Lumberjack.

What am I, new?

For fuck sakes Sarah. I have left myself very clear instructions and I listened to none of them.

I wasn’t even sure if we were dating exclusively or not. So I asked. He confirmed just in time for me to say I can’t handle this.

So, basically, I had a real boyfriend for about an hour.

It was longer than that in actuality but still, kinda funny.

Opened an older article today called Tacos and Snugglefucks.

I was throwing a fit because I never see him, article says I saw him less than a month ago.

I lost track of time again.

Doesn’t matter I guess. It felt like forever ago. I had even forgotten that I had written about it. I kept waiting for it to get better with him, after vacation, after summer, after fall when it started raining more or snowing more. It’s a winter wonderland out there, the roads are ice rinks and he never came. Well not never, but not as much as I needed.

The light at the end of the tunnel is not an illusion, the tunnel is.

I really liked him, couldn’t tell you if I loved him or not, I haven’t spent enough time with him to know for sure, but the times I did were bliss. Survey says, I kinda did love him. I hated having to miss him. Kept saying ‘something will work itself out’. But it didn’t.

Apparently I am too proud to beg.
God better be opening the biggest most beautiful stained glass window the world has ever seen. Because that was one of the most perfect doors that I just slammed shut.

What good is perfect if you can’t touch it, see it, taste it, snugglefuck it and have tacos?

I am feeling kinda numb right now and I think I kinda like it. I teared up a little reading the article and writing this one but not my usual soul sobbing.

It’s the winter solstice tonight. Longest night of the year, with a lunar eclipse on top. Read a thing today that says this hasn’t happened in 500 years. Mind you I read a thing that said Halloween was on a Friday the 13^th too. It would be kinda cool if it was true…and it actually feels like it. Not just dark, super ultra crazy darkness with a retrograde on top. Apparently Saturn is doing something too. Fucking titans.

I always loved this day. It means tomorrow the days start getting longer, there will be an end to the snow and the cold. Tomorrow everything starts getting better. This is the fulcrum. Just a little bit further to the tipping point and I can start coming down the mountain.

This year it means I am 6 days away from vacation. I am heading far south enough that the sun will stay in the sky a little longer every day.

I might stay down there longer now that I don’t have anything to come home to. Sunshine offered to hold down the fort if I want to stay gone.

We’ll see.

Gone sounds good.

Rob Brezsny posted this yesterday

https://www.facebook.com/Rob-Brezsnys-Free-Will-Astrology-133041234078/?pnref=story

Behind your back, your imaginary friends are plotting with your inner child to overthrow your guilty conscience.

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Meanwhile, your future self has time-traveled into the past to enlist the spirits of your ancestors in a secret plan to unlock your sleeping genius.

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There’s more: The superhero you used to fantasize about being when you felt most helpless has been brought to life by the mad scientist in your psyche’s basement. Allies you never imagined you had are gathering there to offer their support.

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There’s no way you can prevent all of these plotters and schemers from giving you a big crazy dose of assistance.

I did cry when I read that. It just made so much sense to me.

Everything is kinda dark right now but the light is coming. This I know.

I just got a message from a friend, he said “I’m sure it will be alright.”

I replied, ‘it always is’.