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men

Soulmates and Cicadas

October 9, 2016

I think I finally have an answer to that age old debate.

Not the chickens.

Soulmates.

Whether they come into your life like a tsunami and fuck shit up or like a gentle rain that washes the old away and nurtures the ground you walk on.

Western philosophy says natural disaster. Eastern says just naturally.

For the longest time I longed for the west, I went there and it felt exciting yet familiar.
I am now leaning to the east. I have never gone that way before.
That is where the sun comes up and everything starts over again.

Yes, this.

I am not going to sit here and call a man my soulmate. It’s so overused, it doesn’t mean anything anymore.

I also take issue with the phrase ‘love of my life’. I will not know who that is until the end. I have loved with my whole heart, many versions of love by many versions of me and that is enough.

Not once did I not try.

I have soul sistas and funk soul bruthas galore, I know how that feels, to be completely and utterly yourself in a room full of people (or just with one person) who just get you and love you and cheer on your every move. And sometimes they have to shake the baby and say ‘snap out of it.’ depending. Tribe is overused too. They are just my people.

I have met men who knocked me over with a look. Others who created storms that raged in my body with a single touch. I have been torn apart and held together with their words and eventually their silences. And in all likelihood I have probably done the same to others.

I have had all manner of butterflies in my belly. Young innocent ones that woke up with some carnal need I had no understanding of and the excitement of the unknown caused them to flutter and flirt with disaster after disaster. I have had ones with razorblade wings, hard cutting things that threatened to tear through me responding to fear, words I wanted to believe but I knew deep down they weren’t true.

Or when I looked at one in a parking lot, moments after a first kiss and said “oh honey, you are going to shred me and I am going to let you” he tried to argue, tried to volunteer for the position of getting torn apart, but those weren’t my words, those were wings whispering the truth and they spilled off my tingling tongue before I could stop them.

The butterflies have spoken.

Can’t take it back now. It just is.

And it was.

And it was worth it.

Before that moment I had suffered a long absence, like my butterflies were really cicadas and went dormant for extended periods of time. About 17 years give or take. With the occasional one showing up out of time and place sang for a brief moment on some sticky summer night.

God I missed them.

And now these.

These are new.

Lepidopterists have yet to categorize these gossamer winged things.

Out of the blue my dearest Brother Matthew messaged me. Poetry of Monsters is his.

He said

“It’s right there, waiting. Hold true and it will be clear. Love you”

He wasn’t wrong. I was still smirking and smiling at my phone from being claimed moments earlier.

Two words.

My girl.

That I am.

With this new one came a new breed of butterflies.
Not nervous, not sharp or nauseating. Not beating warnings against my belly nor striving to be touched and being denied.

The opposite.

Strong, silken, languid caresses. Matching the ones he was writing on my skin while I sat in his lap.

Wings in the lower part of my belly whispering yes, this, here, him over and over.

Same thing murmured when I came around the corner at the restaurant and laid eyes on him the first time.

Something in me exhaled with relief.

I think it was my soul sighing.

The cicadas are awake.

unable to even

Wedding Rings and Other Things

October 6, 2016

Him: “We’re just waiting for Sarah’s family to arrive”

Me: (oh Jesus no)

Random wedding guest: “Who?”

Him: “Sarah’s parents”

Me: “Sean, what did you just say?”

Him: (one more time for the kids in the back) “Sarah’s parents aren’t here yet.”

Me: “No Sean, I’m Sarah, you are marrying Erin remember?”

Him: “Oh, ya. Erin’s parents. Sorry.”

Coulda stabbed him in the heart with his boutonniere pin.

Coulda woulda shoulda.

He wasn’t sorry enough to stop himself from doing it twice more.
Not during the ceremony though, small mercies.

I had enough before the sun went down and bailed. I should never have gone.

Don’t go to your exes weddings mmmm kay?
Even if they INSIST, just don’t go, chop a limb off if you have to but just don’t go.

I’ve been to a few weddings.
Twice as a flower girl, those marriages are still going after 30+ years.
The next marriage ended eventually.
The first one I went to wherein I was a friend of the bride…she’d pulled me into the bathroom a week before and said “I don’t want to do this.”

“You don’t have to, you can stop this, it’ll be okay.” I said.

She didn’t stop it, she left him 3 months later.

I’ve never been a bridesmaid nor a bride.

Went to 2 weddings last year, both beautiful and wonderful.
I went to both alone and left feeling really alone.

Been engaged a handful of times. If that hand had closed around a firecracker after lighting it and was missing a digit, which is kinda a metaphor for said relationships, dummy me didn’t know when to let go.

I didn’t keep the rings.

The kind of man I want works with his hands and couldn’t wear a ring anyways.

There is a scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral wherein Duckface is speaking to Hugh Grant and says something to the effect of “You don’t have to enter every relationship thinking ‘I must get married’, but you can’t be in them thinking I mustn’t get married either.”

I was Hugh Grant. Until recently.

My dad looked at my mom and said ‘that’s the girl I am going to marry’, and he did.

His parents met as teenagers, before the war. When he came back his family actually hid my grandpa from my grandmother saying “once Neva knows he’s home we’ll never see him again.” That lasted a week, and proved to be true. They loved each other so much. So do my folks.

I met my “one I want to marry” when I was 13 years old. For 26 years I didn’t want to marry anyone except him.
Yes, I agreed to marry 3 other people, but somehow I knew it was bullshit and that it wasn’t going to happen and it seemed rude to say no so…

Anthony proposed three times between 2006 and 2011, told sisterwife he had to because I found the ring in his pocket when I was gathering laundry. Not sure how explained asking me twice more after that, not sure I care.

Survey says, whatev’s.

It was because of the Black Wedding of Sean and Erin that I came to find out how I had been ousted from my farm life years prior.
I was sleeping with Sean you see, back in the days of being engaged and enraged with Anthony and our sisterwife.
Sean’s best friend told Anthony where I had been spending my nights.
Sean made sure Anthony found out so I would get thrown out and go back to him.
That same friend made sure Anthony found out I was at the wedding too.

Ew.

None of them loved, honored nor cherished me. And they did not forsake any others and want only me, so again whatev’s.

Made me feel like shit though. Probably the worst I had ever felt. To be betrayed like that under the guise of being loved. To be forced from my home, as shitty as it was, before I was ready to go.

I think that is part of the reason I value the free will of others so much. I know what force feels like, to be cornered, abandoned, manipulated, used and tossed away with no choice in the situation other than whatever notion brought me there is the first place.

Bob Marley said there is no bigger coward than a man who awakens the love in a woman with no intention of loving her back.

On this, and most things, Bob and I are in utter agreeance.

Whatever they awoke in me felt like love, until it didn’t.

“Her heaven will be a love without betrayal” (Beyonce)

Yes, this.

The night I met the Giant I read his palm in the blacklight. Saw him getting married, focused on his career, can’t remember much else, but he is going to have one serious accident or illness and smooth sailing from there.

I joked that he wasn’t the one for me because I was never getting married.
I’ve never been that little girl who plotted, planned and schemed about her wedding day. I just didn’t. My parents eloped. I was 6 when Charles and Di got married, watched some of it on TV. Looked like a long expensive mess to me.

I still see it as sacred. I still want to be chosen by someone that I love, who loves me and stays.

It hurt me that the Giant thought me a joke really. He said he would stay and was gone in a week.

Just because I don’t have my head full of flowers and rings and white dresses doesn’t mean the idea of loving someone for a really long time doesn’t appeal to me. It is in my DNA after all, this forsaking of all others. I was just handshy for all of the reasons listed above.

The end of Four Weddings and a Funeral is Hugh Grant saying to Andie McDowell, would you agree to not marry me and stay not married to me for a really long time.

I like that ending.

I do.

men

Just call me Angel of the Morning

September 21, 2016

Just call me angel of the morning, angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.
~Juice Newton

I just looked that song up and it is way more depressing than I remembered. It is absolutely about a one-sided one night stand. Nope nuh-uh. That is not what I want at all. I think my child’s mind mixed that one up with My baby takes the morning train (Sheena Easton)…I can get behind that sentiment, because he came home and she was waiting for him.

My child’s mind, constantly misunderstanding lyrics. Early memories of music and early mornings.

My alarm went off at the same time as the church bells. Chimed 6 times, and I was out from under the covers by the last bell.
It’s still dark. Wrapped myself in a blanket and sat on the porch sipping coffee, smoking and musing about my day. I had a letter to write, and a book idea that presented itself yesterday. Of course on a day where I slept in and I couldn’t do a damned thing about it, although for the first time since I started this new job I was tempted to call in sick.

I’ve had my alarm set for 6 for a while now and I don’t often get up. Preferring instead to stay in bed, force REM sleep and enjoy the strange dreams that occur in between 6 and 7:15.

(I was in prison, you came and I handed you a tiny precious snake to look after, you said you would)

Also, I have been getting into the wine and staying up later than I mean to.

There is something magical to me about being up in the darkness, just a little glow from one or two incandescent bulbs. The radio turned on low, hiss of the coffee maker, sleepy eyed and wrapped in blankets.
It meant something different when I was little. It was a break from our normal routine. It meant an event was occurring, like a trip to London, field trip at school. Excitement, different than trying to scarf down my cereal before it got soggy and the trek to the bus stop.

If I was exceptionally lucky two things would happen. I would get to watch cartoons until the bus came and even more important, I would get to see my dad. Standing in the glow of the stove light, sipping his coffee and I could hug him before he left for work. My dad worked a lot and those tiny extra moments were precious.

When I lived on the farm I used to catapult myself out of bed at 5 or 6. Not because I had chores to do, I had finely tuned my critters not to expect me till 8 or 9am. But for the stolen moments of peace. I don’t need both my hands to count the hours I was actually in that house alone over the course of 6 years, so I started carving out my own alone time. Occasionally jumping in my Jeep to catch the sunrise over the causeway.

Freedom is just chaos with better lighting. (Alan Dean Foster)

Another 5 year relationship, he was up at 5am and gone by 6. He’d let the dogs into the bedroom and I’d snuggle them for 20 minutes before I got up, again, just enjoy my alone time before getting myself off to work. Sadly, that man couldn’t be alone, so by default I wasn’t ‘allowed’.

Now that this second book idea has made itself known, 5:30 with a snooze it is. The muses have spoken.

I have to make time.

Life isn’t something I have. It’s not something that happens to me. It’s something I participate in, wander around with childlike wonderment at the beauty of, and something I create with my thoughts and actions. I want to be awake to enjoy it. My night dreams are mystical magical things that are fun to interpret. But my day dreams are infinitely better. I sat awake this morning in the dark and let my mind wander to a time and place that haven’t happened, yet.

It’s been over 3 decades since those frosty fall mornings as a child, waking up early just so I could have a few extra minutes with my dad.

I am 42 years old now. I don’t have to steal moments or feign sleep to get alone time. My life is my own and so is my time. And I cannot think of a better way to spend it than waking up before the sun, to the hiss of the coffee maker, wrapped in a blanket just to be awake enough to spend a few extra moments with a man of my choosing.

Uncategorized

Scars and Stars

September 18, 2016

Oh my god.

I am actually happy.

Cue the tears.
(They are currently cathartic, full of overwhelm and gratitude.)

This is the point where I would usually see something shiny, veer off the path, start falling for some fuckboi’s bullshit promises, slap on some Radiohead and sabotage the shit out of everything.

Fucking Postcards from 1952 history repeating and rereading old articles instead.

Radiohead would have been a safer, saner choice.

Forget about your house of cards and I’ll do mine

Not today Satan, not today.

(author’s note: of course 2 nope, now 3 of them showed up AS I was writing this)

I have this loop in my head right now. U2 song, Elvis Presley and America “you’re through with me but I know that you’ll be back for more.”

History dictates that if I build myself up, they will come. If I get happy it’s like turning on the porchlight and they use it as a beacon to find their way home. My porchlight shines like the sun apparently, or the Stella Polaris. I know this like I know the constellations in the freckles on the back of my hands. These same hands that were once held and then dropped without warning.

What if I decided not to be here when they came back?

What if I stopped living in the past and started being here and now?

I’m already doing better than before.

I’m fighting the good fight right now. Against doubt, fear and temptation.

I am almost strong enough to look the god’s in the eye and say ‘fuck it, go ahead and tempt me’.

I have been saying no like it’s my first language. But just to demi-gods. The titans remain blissfully quiet.

I can do this. Been practicing.

Something was planted in me when I was young and it gets watered when I am happy. But it is not a good thing that grows, it’s a vine that twists and turns and chokes the life out/blocks the light out.
It only recedes when I go back to being lost and alone wondering what the fuck just happened. Then I get to breathe and see clearly. As much oxygen as I can sneak in through the sobs and as clear as I can through tears anyways.

My natural state of being is to love and not to be loved back?

That can’t be right.

How did that switch get flipped from lovable to unlovable?

More importantly how do I switch it back?

It’s become pathological. I pick men and situations that feed this thing. The seeds I plant have come in these packets labeled temporary. Perennials. Nothing that comes back on its own accord. Just stuff that dies when its done and I have to start over. Or worse, I hand them salt and they sprinkle it on the earth before they go and nothing grows for a really long time.

I said to a trusted friend ‘I don’t even know how to move with this much space. I don’t know how to not cover my mouth when I laugh trying to hold myself in and back.’

He texted back two words make noise, and I have been. Joyous ones unto the lord. Derpy deep-throaty laughs. Moans of pleasure. Whatever feels like flying out of my mouth.

The moon was full last night as was I.

I read something it being a good time, astrologically speaking, to “use your wounds to learn and not worrying about healing them”.
Fuck, I wish I could find it, but I don’t want to get distracted by the shiny internet before I get this out.
I’ve lost my head, my hands, my legs and my heart and I am still standing, feeling, touching and seeing. Even the worst wounds heal on their own. This I know. Just like the earth reconciles itself, as do we.

But what have I learned?

I am trying so hard to be good. So hard to focus. So hard to just be okay being me. No edits, not hiding. It helps that he is unapologetically himself and doesn’t mind me being a dork, seems to prefer it actually.

I had a moment after, sitting in his lap and there was this feeling of butterflies, trying to beat their way out of my stomach, trying to reach his hands, his skin, his anything. And I had a fight or flight response. I remembered my third option and I froze. Just stayed in the moment. I stopped being scared and those troublesome butterflies started to feel nice, all flutters and caresses with gossamer wings. He touched us. Repeatedly.

I sat on his couch last night and I watched him. I watched him watching a movie, getting up naked to stretch after sex, heading to grab us another beer and over my shoulder as I walked out the door to go home.

He doesn’t look like anyone or anything I have ever seen.
He doesn’t act that way or speak their words either.

He looks like nothing I have been through.

A huge part of life, and one that I tend to skip over, is going new places and trying new things.

I have to remember that once I landed in LA and after a day it felt more like home than anywhere I had ever been.

men

Sleepovers

September 14, 2016

“You can stay the night if you want you know.”

I wanted to scream with joy.

Deep breath. Calm down.

“No honey, I didn’t know that.”

Me and Jon Snow go waaay back.

I know nothing.

I presume nothing.

I demand nothing.

I ask very little.

I lie, never.

I came as close as I have to lying in a good long while. T’was a half-truth.

I filled in the other 50% the next day.

What I said was “I don’t want to bleed on your sheets.”

“You didn’t come prepared?” he said.

Good point…

I used to be. I used to have clothes, bathroom kit, with tampons and errrthing stashed in my trunk.

When did I stop doing that? And why?

Maybe because the circumstances that dictated I might need to bolt in the night are long over and I let it go.

I said “Honestly, it was 8 when you called, 9 when I got here, I figured I had an hour, two tops.”

That was the absolute truth.

He gets up well before the sun, his sister lives upstairs and shouldn’t be disturbed.
There were rules.
Or I thought there were.
I think he changed them, in my favor.

I guess enough time has passed, enough words spoken, enough exclamations of ‘go team’ for him to be comfortable.

He told me a story involving a few other women would come the night before, sleepover and still be there when he got home after a 10 hour shift. I recoiled in horror…how could anyone be so shameless, presumptuous and invasive? Bad manners.

I could never. Even if I tried, even if I wanted to.

Yes, I have allowed myself think about falling asleep after sex, waking him up with my mouth, how well he snuggles on the giant-sized couch and how it would translate to his giant-sized bed.

He fell asleep a few times that night, every time I wiggled or readjusted he would pull me back immediately and even closer than before.

I should’ve been happy, and I was. But I was terrified too. These are the kinds of things that would haunt me, I know my ghosts better than the living.

I hadn’t seen him in 6 weeks, and every ounce of my being wanted to stay, fall asleep next to him and draw the moment out as long as humanly possible and then make some sort of agreement with the gods to slow time down for me.

The one thing I DO know? Every moment could be the last one. So I make it count.

But I panicked.

I haven’t slept beside a boy in a good long while.
Last time I did, I was the interloper and I woke up not knowing how I got there, knowing I didn’t belong, that I had stolen time and sleep in a place I had no right to be in. Good thing I didn’t bleed on his sheets or she might have known I was there.

I never want to be the girl who leaves things behind. I won’t overstay my welcome or make excuses to come back. I abhor being where I am not welcome.

The girls my husband brought home loved leaving clues and excuses, both for them to come back and for me to leave. I didn’t listen.

This ‘one who said I could stay’ has been around for a good while. We talk every day, but schedules and vacations planned before we knew the other existed have made it so we haven’t physically seen each other in what felt like forever. But when I walked in, his sister said hello like I belonged there, the dog gave me a cold-nosed, warm greeting and he made space for me on the giant couch, pulled me right in and said I could stay.

I am sure that if my body functioned as bodies tend to do, at his house, he wouldn’t be disgusted and throw me out. He’d probably just say ew with a grin, kiss my forehead and point me towards the washing machine.

I know how to clean up my messes and leave no trace. Been doing it for years.

I have been trained that the best parts of me are the ones that don’t exist, just the spaces between. Between my legs where I let them in, between my ears when I pretend I’m not as smart as I am, between my words where I wait and listen, in the deep breaths where I gather myself enough that I can pretend my feelings weren’t just blown up by the bombs they just dropped. Ignoring the holes in the landscape of my psyche and acting like I was never there or hurt.

Until a boy I like asks me to sleep over and I have to pull off the highway because I am crying too hard to drive home.

Precedents.

-18 months with one and he begrudgingly said I could stay one night, so I fought exhaustion and risked falling asleep at the wheel to make it home. The relief on his face when I said ‘thanks, but no’ was all the answer I needed.

-3 months with another. He had such a bad sleep in my bed the first time I put him in the guest room and shut the door every other time he spent the night. Never did see his house from anywhere but the road.

-Another with preemptive, awkward excuses as to why I couldn’t possibly stay. I never asked.

*There was one good one in there, stayed at his house once before he fell apart and took any notion of ‘us’ with him.

It’s been 4 years.

I pretend these things don’t bother me, but they do.

I have this huge false bravado when it comes to men, dating and the things that have happened to me.
I never ever blame the new one for the ones who came before.

I’m too busy blaming me.

I was too loud, too much, said the wrong thing at the wrong time, expected too much, took up too much space, too much time.

So I keep them at arm’s length, pretend I don’t need anything beyond the slightest scraps of attention and affection and I starve just to make those spaces that were so coveted by the old ones that much bigger.

Truth is I am terrified.

I wasn’t ready yet.

To risk racoon eyes and morning breath, snoring.

What if I talk in my sleep and say half the things I am thinking?

At some point I am going to fill that space he makes for me, the one he pulls me back into and actually stay the night.

men

Laughter is the Best Medicine

September 12, 2016

I haven’t been writing much lately. The book is stuck in a weird spot, my hero and antihero took themselves a walk ages ago and took my motivation and outdated muses with them.

I am also scared of manifesting what I’m writing about. I don’t want my book love anymore.

I found something better. Safe, sane.

The kind no one wants to read about, and the kind I don’t feel compelled to write about or share.

My girls tried to pry my phone from my hands last night to read what he’d said that was making me smile.

Nope, nuh uh. This is mine, besides, they would need a decoder ring and I am not sharing that either.

It doesn’t look like anything spectacular on paper.

I have had ‘spectacular on paper’. Boys and men who wrote so eloquently, words dripping with love and intention and promise. Then nothing… and the silence was deafening.

Magic words, conjuring spells and beautiful illusions.

That is the thing about loving these magic men, the final act is always the same.

Puff of smoke and they disappear.

Or they are just a man behind a curtain. Looking and sounding bigger than they are.

It wasn’t the talking wolf in Red Riding Hood that saved her, it was just a lumberjack who happened nearby.

Truth be told, I’d already killed the wolf. I don’t need saving, I just want some snuggles.

I was talking to a darling friend of mine. She is a writer and she loves my writing.

She sent me this.

https://www.facebook.com/MonikaCarlessAuthor/photos/a.808458765894457.1073741828.807727775967556/1175781619162168/?type=3&theater

With the message “I feel like this is about you and one of yours. Past love maybe?”

T’was.

He was my poison, and my remedy. For a while I had more of him in my veins than my own blood.

I had to keep him on a low dose, metered IV drip, the withdrawal was too much. Then slowly but surely I started weaning myself off. But every now and again, there would be a puff of smoke in the air, a turn of phrase and I would be back at square one, tremors, shakes, tears and a craving I couldn’t control.

I am feeling better now.

My cells regenerated, triggers lessened.

Time heals even the deepest wounds.

I called him by his real name for the 3^rd time ever.

Rumpelstiltskin Rumpelstiltskin Rumpelstiltskin

She got a little starstruck and curious, asked if her impressions of him were true.

They were, so I let her keep them.
Spoke only of his talent and intelligence.
His passion, intensity and wisdom.
How he motivated me to be better, at everything.

But one story slipped out and it made me sigh with a rather huge twinge of nostalgia.
Twinge is an understatement, this memory grabbed my arm, wrenched it behind my back and wouldn’t let go even after a 1000 cries of uncle.

He more than once said I was guarded, because I was. After a few scoldings I stopped talking too loud or too much. Kept my swearing to a bare minimum, tried to conduct myself with dignity and composure. Failed miserably, I am not a composed girl. But I tried. Only told stories upon request, kept my answers short, like I was on the stand, on trial. And I was. Left as much emotion at the door as I could. Held my dorky self down until she passed out from lack of oxygen.

Except this one time.

We were talking about the weather of all things, he was perplexed by how hot/cold my part of Canada gets. There were metric conversions and I said something ridiculously stupid and I started laughing. Hard. At myself. I had to put in Herculean effort to stop. When I get the giggles, there is no ending them, but I managed.

You must understand I have the derpiest laugh ever. It’s this low ridiculous chuckle better suited to an old black woman in a rocker on a porch in the bayou, with a slight case of dementia. My friends mock me as they laugh along with me, which makes me laugh even harder and derpier.

I love letting go, but in that moment (with him) I was scared.

That laugh was capable of crushing the eggshells I walked on with him.

I waited for him to make a thinly veiled excuse to quit the conversation.

Instead, he took a deep breath and told me a pirate joke. Even did a rather convincing pirates ‘Arrrr’ at the end for effect.

And I laughed my strange dorky laugh some more, and he joined me.

For a minute there I thought everything was going to be okay. With him.

I wasn’t wrong, everything is okay. It always is, at varying levels.

I hope he is okay wherever he is.

I learned something from all of this.

It feels so much better to be unedited.

Yes, there are things I can always change, tone down, turn up, learn, etc…
Life is a natural progression of refining who I am as a person as I experience the world. Seeing some of my behavior in others and using them as a mirror to reflect on what works and what doesn’t.

I laugh at older outdated versions of me. The girl who cared too much, who was scared too much.

Belly laughs are now (and always have been) important to me. They are my joyous noise unto the lord, my unabashed moments of bliss at being alive, they are a spontaneous explosion of gratitude for this one perfect moment. It is my brain mixing up a superb cocktail of happy chemicals and me getting tipsy on it.

Laying on the couch with the new boy the other night, he grabbed my hip in a ticklish spot, squeezed and I giggled. I apologized for immediately, saying I knew I had an annoying laugh, which is my knee jerk Pavlovian ingrained response. He proceeded to pause the movie and tell me funny stories in funny voices and tickle me until I forgot I wasn’t supposed to be laughing.

gypsy travels

My Lake

September 6, 2016

Driving home I could still hear the waves crashing in my head. I still can now actually. My lake was in fine, angry exhibition this time home. I felt proud, oddly. Standing in front of her, introducing my girls. Have you met the undertow? Do you know what to do if she catches you?

I call Lake Huron my lake, but really I am hers. She soothes me, soaks my sins away, batters me with waves until my soul comes out clean. And I don’t know what she does to my hair, but damn. I didn’t want to/have to wash it for days after I’ve been in.

I don’t have a God per say. I have a moral compass of my own. I do what feels good and light and right.

We 4 girls spoke on the way home about religion and its purpose. Sacrificing virgins came up. I said “well this one time somebody killed a girl and it rained the next day, so they kept doing it for 1000’s of years.” And sometimes the rains came shortly after, because of weather patterns, not virgins.

That’s what it felt like in the lake that night. God’s marionettes. Tossed and tumbled. Thrown out, knocked over all the while blissed out beyond words. With moments of fear.

She deserves respect.

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.” Ezekiel 25:17

The line I was going for when I looked that up was ‘you will know my name is the Lord’ spoken in Samuel L Jackson’s specific cadence.

Lake isn’t evil, she might be God, or the closest thing I have to it. I crave her when I am lost, think of her often, bring home rocks, set up little altars, palm them when I am stressed out. I hear her echoes in my ears when I am homesick. I love her on the days I am up to my ribs and it’s so clear I can see my toes and I revere her on the days that she rages and churns.

I think she is just trying to wash us clean. Like when 6 of us went in naked, played and fought waves, riptide and undertow and laughed with delight. We all made it out, but there were a few waves, ocean sized, that had me sucked under talking myself out of that panic that will kill you. Ass over teakettle into the dark oblivion, no air, no idea which way was up. Then finding my feet, standing in awe and humbled as I coughed, sputtered and spit water back where it came from.

I am grateful for the reminder that she can get in anywhere she pleases. That water is relentless, changes shape, form, and eventually washes everything away.

I am water, I am her daughter, I can do the same.

the poet

Harley and the Joker

September 5, 2016

I wrote this whole article and I was looking for a pic to go with it, found this.

Sucker punch of truth right to the throat.

He did this to me. And I did that thing that I do where I tried to understand it, tried to be a better girl for him.

I watched Suicide Squad and saw myself in there. Just a ‘lil bit. But even a little of that is too much.

Apparently in a parallel Marvel universe Joker and Harley fell in love before he was damaged.

But not in this one.

I don’t want a life that resembles movies or comic books. I don’t want to jump into vats of acid to prove my love for someone. I don’t want my brain shocked and rewired to fit someone else’s ideal of what a woman should be. I have been a woman for 42 years and seriously, I got this.

There are spoilers in here.

You have been warned.

My dad’s middle name is Harley. Always thought that was so cool.

My dad is awesome.

The bar should be sofa king high for the men I date. And it ain’t. Couldn’t tell you why that is, probably best to ask my therapist. See if we can work that out before I date again.

I shouldn’t stand here and say that none of the men I have dated have cleared the bar. A few of them have, raised it a bit, right before they left. So, does that even count?

I don’t know what counts anymore. 1+1 should equal 2 but somehow it keeps coming out to 3 or more or negative one. There are variables and percentages and none of them add up to much of anything all things considered.

I saw Suicide Squad 1.5 times.

The first time didn’t really count as we went to the drive-in, pulled up at the wrong screen waited way to long in line for popcorn that wasn’t there and missed the first 10 minutes, and the screen was way too dark. Went back again to a small theater with reclining seats and took kiddo 1 and 2 with me this time. Saw the whole thing.

I braced myself the second time around.

I worried myself with my reactions to the relationship between Joker and Harley Quinn. I was secretly rooting for them somewhere down in my damaged little heart, and I didn’t like it.

When he tried to pass her off to someone else, I felt ridiculously ill. It wasn’t the concession stand hot dog neither. It was flashbacks, I had someone claim to love me and still try to do that very thing. Didn’t set my mind at any kind of ease when Joker shot the guy after. It felt like he killed the other guy for refusing her. Nope, nuh-uh. Not okay.

I have, in the past, fairly recent actually, fooled myself into thinking that was an expression of love. I was shocked and damaged into believing it was the ultimate in trust and choosing one another. It ain’t. Honestly…I don’t even think the joker in question was buying what he was selling either. Add him to the list of those who left.

I have balked at the idea of monogamy and marriage for years. I was tortured, manipulated and brainwashed into thinking that wasn’t the way.

Been out of captivity for almost 4 years now and starting to get used to it, comfortable in all this space to move around in, explore, try this or that. Red pills, blue pills, drink me, eat me, see if I learn, grow or shrink.

Back in my mid-twenties, high school sweetheart was on the phone, and the subject of my ex-girlfriend came up. “So I know you like women” he said. During the long pause while he gathered his thoughts and balls I braced for impact, waiting for him to ask for a threesome.

Maybe it’s my period, or the memory or both, but I am tearing up at his 15-20 year old response.

“I don’t want to share you” he said. “Is that okay? Would you feel like you were missing something?”

That sigh of relief came straight from my soul.

It was more than okay.

My whole life up ‘til then and since then has always been guys finding out I had a girlfriend (or 6) and deciding I owed them a threesome.
Because? I slept with women once upon a time?

YA, UM…I DON’T DO THAT ANYMORE.

Bisexual never meant promiscuous regardless.

I love who I love. I want who I want, and if I want you, you don’t have to worry about who wants me. My body has ways of shutting that down, so does my mouth.

Once upon a time I had a Joker & Harley Quinn kinda love. A couple of times if I am being totally honest.

Intellectually I know better, but my heart gets so confused and easily swayed. Fucking movie love, has us believing, sadists, psychos and stalkers are capable of love.

When I took my son to see it we had a rousing conversation about how Harley had Stockholm Syndrome, had been driven mad by torture and captivity and it wasn’t love, it was madness and psychopathy. What good is being the Queen of anything if the King of the kingdom passes you around to his friends? That isn’t royalty, loyalty or love.

Then I saw something.

Joker’s right hand man comes into the room to tell Joker where his girl is. Joker is laying on the floor in a pattern of weapons, knives and roses. Top right there is a set of baby clothes.

In Harley’s ideal delusion, “he married me.” Heart sighed again. Stupid heart.
For a minute there I thought ‘maybe he did love her’, in his own twisted way. But that does not negate the fact that he first had to lock her away and drive her insane to force compatibility. I have been there, locked away for months at a time, drips of Chinese water torture wearing away at my self-esteem and my own morals until I was a bleached out crazy version of my former self.

“Will you live for me?” right before he had her swan dive into a vat of industrial chemical waste.

What I almost did. What I am writing a book about.

Logically I know this is not okay.

And yet I sat in the theater and cheered them on in spite of myself.

My eyes welled up with tears when she said “I lost my puddin’.”

I’ve lost my puddin’ a few times, lost my mind too…but that’s okay, I’m finding myself.

Something loving, mutual, sane and easy, hold the puddin’.

Uncategorized

Imaginary Friends and Enemies

August 27, 2016

…26 If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27 And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 28 But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Matthew 12:26-28

Stop dividing yourself between what you did and who you are.

Did a bad thing? Okay.

Still doing it? No. Good job darlin’.

He said: I was afraid to see you after 22 years. I know the things that I have done in that time apart and I somehow assumed you did too, but you don’t, do you?

I replied: Nope, I don’t, but it doesn’t matter, I’d love you anyways. You are what I remember. We’ve all done some sketchy stupid shit, myself included. There is no judgement here.

Funny enough he brought me handmade scrabble tiles that spell out L.O.V.E.

We only let love in this house.

We’ve both changed exponentially, but the things that made us friends stayed the same.

“Never apologize for how you had to survive.”

But everyone does. Just makes you human and humble. That’s okay.

We’re all trying to navigate the 4 lane highway between do no harm and take no shit.
But then emotions get in the way and we covet things/people we ought not to. Life happens and we get hungry.
Or we run into the selfish soul suckers and we find ourselves fighting them on their turf and terms and then the shame sets in.

What did I just do?

Doesn’t matter, the question is ‘what do you do now.’

Just get back on the highway, or climb in and let me drive for a while.

I’ll pick you up gladly, but leave the past in the rear view. Don’t tow it behind.

I have music, cigarettes and enough gas to get us far away from here.

People love to tell me the things they have done, their deep dark dirtiest of secrets.
And I listen.
I don’t ask why.
Why is a useless question.
You did what you had to do/wanted to do and no amount of worry/guilt or shame is going to change that.

If someone starts drowning in the past I throw a life preserver labeled…“But did you die?”

Yes? Cool, I am communing with the dead, how can I help you?

No? Let it fucking go.

I scrolled back through my Instagram and I was struck by how much things have changed.
I know I’ll do it again in a year and think the same thing. I chuckled at myself. I remember being sad because I didn’t get what I wanted.

Then I pulled myself out of the muck and mire of ‘what was supposed to be’ and setting my feet down on the firm ground of ‘what is’.

I was stuck in detours and rest stops that were actually really dirty and dangerous in retrospect.

Get back in the car.

As I look for stories to tell here I find myself falling back on Facebook/Instagram memories.
There is no drama presently, nothing to dazzle y’all with.
Just a girl who likes a boy, her job, her house, her friends, her life, in this moment, right now, as is.

The past is just a story we tell ourselves. Chuck Palahniuk

And those Gods and demons we thank and blame?

Just imaginary friends of our own making.

I do envy those who blindly believe in god. How easy it must be to give your every action over to an omnipotent puppet master in the sky.
Personally? I gotta call bullshit.
You did the thing and god doesn’t approve or disapprove, own it and move on.
If it made you feel bad, don’t do it again.

I am my own moral compass. If my gut flutters with butterflies, I go that way.

If my stomach twists and turns and hurts. I run. Or I hang out for a good long while, cry a lot and then I leave.

My friends that don’t believe in god still carry these heavy burdens of guilt about where they came from, the things they’ve done.

Baby did a bad, bad thing. (Chris Isaac)

Again, I have to ask…but did you die?

It just means you are better than those who hurt you. Start acting like it.

You survived. Enjoy.

If you tell me anything and the beginning of the story is ‘once upon a time’ I will remind you that there is no such thing, all we have is this moment now and you’re spending it in the past?

Stop doing that.

Tell me where you are going, not where you’ve been.

They label this darkness as ‘demons’.

Stop.

That makes less sense than god.

At least we give god credit for the big, beautiful, miraculous things we enjoy.

What do those demons do for you?

Not a damn thing.

Mama says “If they can’t play nice then they’re not your friends.”

If the cd keeps skipping, toss it out the window and make a new one.

You are writing the story of your own life with the memories and feelings you choose you hold onto.
Edit yourself a better life.
Sugar coat that shit all you want, remember the good things. Put the rest in a filing cabinet marked ‘what not to do’, yell ‘plot twist’ and get on with your life.

No one will know in a year.

Gods and demons are just fictional characters, time to invent some better ones, and make sure they love you even when you are acting the fool. If they don’t, they aren’t your friends.

Smile at your own ridiculousness, because in the end, it won’t matter.

How about this… I am your flesh and blood friend, I exist and I absolutely forgive your absolute worst.

I’m your goddess of mercy.

I don’t care how you got here, I am just glad you made it.

Uncategorized

What if her Name is Actually Becky?

August 24, 2016

Mama Susan (My Queen Bee) said to me when I posted this meme…

“The day is coming when you’ll realize that your pussy is humble and you are magic.”

“Soon” she said.

I already have. He’ll probably see it too. Pray he don’t call me when he notices.

So what are you gonna say at my funeral, now that you’ve killed me? Here lies the body of the love ~~of my life~~, whose heart I broke without a gun to my head. Here lies the mother ~~of my children~~, both living and dead. Rest in peace, my ~~true~~ love, who I took for granted. Most bomb pussy who, because of me, sleep evaded. Her god listening. Her heaven will be a love without betrayal. Ashes to ashes, dust to side chicks…

I’ll drink to that eulogy.

Pray I don’t die here.

I’m not dead yet.

Once upon a time Sunshine said she was going to finish her water and get into the wine.

I said “baby please, drink that Ménage a Trois the Giant left here, get it out of my life.”

Rolled my eyes.

Middle fingers up.

She said she wasn’t going to get turnt, and I laughed, “How can you baby girl? It ain’t even a full bottle”.

She said ‘say goodbye to boys that don’t pick you & show up half-drunk with half-drunk bottles of wine’.

The biggest grin pulled up the corners of my mouth and I spit ‘tell him boy bye.’

Gift me liquor, tell me to keep drinking, then dismiss me for what you coaxed me to do?

no no HELL NAH

And I don’t feel bad about it
It’s exactly what you get
Stop interrupting my grinding
(You’re interrupting my grinding)

Middle fingers up.

Leave unfinished business in my house?

Tell him boy bye

Make me apologize?

Tell him boy bye

Text me while you’re with her?

Tell him boy bye

I ain’t sorry

I’d only heard snippets of Sorry by the Queen B. flipping through radio stations.

“… Her shroud is loneliness. Her god was listening. Her heaven will be a love without betrayal. Ashes to ashes, dust to side chicks.”

Heard it full through the other night and everything came rushing back. Broke my heart and filled it up simultaneously.

I love it when women get strong.

She was then I was the fucking side chick. I was ashes. The fire went out.

He poured ¾ of a bottle of wine on it after I doused it with 3oz of vodka in a wine cooler.

I ain’t sorry

Let’s have a toast to the good life

My therapist told me I am allowed to have more than one emotion at a time. I laughed so hard I cried.

I told Giant I had run the gambit of feels and landed on shame.

But there was more, there is always more…until there isn’t.

I am shocked anyone found my off switch as I am forever turned up and on.
I am pissed.
I carry with me the tiniest bit of uncharacteristic hope that he will wake up one day and he’ll realize what I am* and what he’s lost.
Beyond Most Bomb Pussy…

He always got them fucking excuses
I pray to the lord you reveal what his truth is.

Yes Queen B, she said it better than me. And those Beyoncelogues, damn woman. Preach.

Intuition, I knew this was coming.

Denial, I pretended it wasn’t.

Anger, I was venomous.

Apathy, now I don’t care.

Loss, his.

Emptiness, I found room to move in this space.

Accountability, I own what I did.

Reformation, I don’t want to be loved by halves, I’m whole on my own.

Forgiveness, I forgive, until I can’t anymore, and then I forgive myself.

Resurrection, I deserve better.

Hope, I am better.

and I can do better.

Redemption makes him look small.

He only want me when I’m not there

You better Becky with the good hair.

Sorry, I ain’t sorry

No no hell nah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxsmWxxouIM

http://www.bustle.com/articles/156559-transcript-of-beyonces-lemonade-because-the-words-are-just-as-important-as-the-music

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