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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 The book is stuck in a weird spot, my hero and antihero took themselves a walk ages ago and took my motivation and outdated muses with them.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.

regular lust

Boys Lie

September 2, 2016

Not poetry exactly. But pillow talk.

My girls wanted vacation dick and vacation dick they got.

I was the facilitator, I was the adulty adult, I was the common thread.

I drove us all back to the cottage, while they squealed and squirmed and talked much too loud. I woke up after 3 hours of broken sleep to drive the boys back to their trucks before the sun was up during what counts as rush hour in that tiny little town.

I used to be the girl getting driven home at dawn to make it to work, a lifetime ago.

As they were getting laid I laid in bed, worried at first for a myriad of reasons.
Are they safe? When 2 of them didn’t come back right away from the vicious lake I could not sleep. Then I heard a soft giggle through the window and relaxed a little until it quickly morphed into ‘what will the neighbours think?’

I only care what the neighbors think in said tiny town where I am from because that worry is in my marrow like a cancer I can’t shake, or a bone long ago broken that never mended quite right.

Then the soft gasping and moaning of sex came from inside the cottage and I relaxed a little into sleep. Had strange dreams.

The girl beside me on the other side of the locked door said she was a bit envious. I wasn’t.

Back in the days that I lived there I had no such friends, or very few. No one that wasn’t viciously jealous or angry when I got the attention, some attention, any attention. My ‘best friend’ would make sure there were days of consequences for minutes of pleasure. It was good to be home with my girls from the present hanging out in my past. It was cathartic. I got to see a very clear line between what was and what is.

I forwent the vacation dick. Joking that I couldn’t possibly sleep with anyone because I probably knew their brother/wife/girlfriend/parents etc. it’s a really tiny town.

Case and point, one vacation dick was my sister’s best friends little brother, born 4 years before I left that place so I didn’t even know he existed. He didn’t know about me either. The lake isn’t the only dangerous water. I am careful where I swim.

I found it odd and almost lovely to be sitting in the same place I had sat 23 years ago, at a table with a different incarnation of ‘my girls’ in the exact geographic location we used to.
Once upon a time it was almost always my job to get the girls and the car home. Some things stay the same.

Truth be told, I didn’t want anyone anyways. I am in the middle of sorting something out with someone and vagina has taken a rather high road about it. We begin to covet what we see every day, and what I see are texts from Lumberjack. I covet.

Mind you, I had a twinge of jealousy on the ride home. The two who got laid were speaking of pillow talk and snuggles.

Fuck I miss my lumberjack.

My kingdom for some snuggles, my kingdom to hear his actual voice again. See how closely my mina bird brain has mimicked his tone and cadence in the inner dialog when I am reading aloud the written reiterations I get from him daily. I heard a boy outside of a pizza place last week and my head whipped around, the voices were close, out east and steeped in honesty.

Then I wasn’t jealous anymore.

One of the bearers of vacation dick was actually a dick.

I sat quietly in the back seat as my 3 girls waxed poetic and got excited about how this one guy was such a good fit, the things he had said, he’d talked about trips to Bali. She was pontificating about how things might be.

I said nothing. But my mind was screaming no.

Just like every character ever in Star wars I had a bad feeling about this.

It was confirmed when we got home, found him on Facebook under a slightly different name than he had given, both profile pic and cover photo of he and his girlfriend.

There had been no mention of a girlfriend. Why say Bali? Overkill?

“Way to say everything I wanted to hear, asshole.” Was her message to him.

Here is what hurts me. And I will tell her this when I find the words.

Yes, it sucks balls that he didn’t tell you about the girlfriend so you could have made an educated decision. But all the things he did in the moment were good. They had prolific, great sex, we all went skinny dipping in crazy high waves and lived. We had a good night on the patio with an amazing dinner, laughs drinks, good times.

And now her memory of a lovely 2 day girl’s vacation is sullied not by a cute boy per say, but where her mind took him after the fact. She is mourning and angry about the things she wanted to see coming, not by what was.

When I lived in that town there was no Facebook to fact check. And I did have random sex with random boys who probably had girlfriends back home. It’s a cottage town and a risk you take for a night of fun.

I am not justifying his actions. They were shit. I just hope one day when she looks back on this she can appreciate the good times that were had and not the future she wanted that didn’t materialize.

I walked away from the weekend feeling clean and good and so very content with mylife exactly the way it is now.

Yes, I dream of Lumberjack and snuggles. But I am trying really hard to live in the moment and not look too far ahead.

Whatever will be will be. And what is…is good.

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

Coming Home

August 25, 2016

My boss pulled me in the office the other day and asked me what I wanted to do at this new company.

“Do you want to come in and casually help out or do you want to take over and run things?”

Told me to think about it for a couple of days.

I knew there was no wrong answer and I thought about it pretty hard. But I already knew the answer.

I am going to run it.

He wants to build a tiny empire and I want to help him.

My strong suits are his weak points and vice versa.

Every job I’ve had in the past lends itself to this one. I got this.

I had the job when I walked in the door, I just had to say yes.

And I did.

I knew it would change things.

Like being up at 5:30am to write. But I like being up when the world is still asleep.

I haven’t had a straight job in 4 years and that ended as badly as anything could. I was to have a 5 year contract, paid over the table, a chance to save my money and build a life. It ended fast and furious a few months in and I was forced to regroup. I did a pretty good job of it and I love my life now. That place literally burned to the ground after I left.

I’ve been getting by on the grace of god and a bit of my own wits. Mostly god, and my comfort in being naked amongst strangers.

I just moved in with my Sunshine and it’s not perfect, but it’s really good. I love our little nest, I love her. I want to stay for a while. I really don’t want to move again until I buy something.

I want to finish this book and start another. I want the book to do well enough to keep me comfortable for a long while. And it very well could. I finally cracked the thing open after a month of avoiding it and damn, it’s good.

I always figured if I won the lottery I would probably keep working, I don’t sit still well.

JK Rowling got knocked off the billionaire list because she gives so much money to charity. I will be that way. What do I need a billion dollars for? My sisters need houses, people need food, dogs need rescuing and I wouldn’t have a clue as what to do with that much money other than making sure me and mine are comfortable.

Comfort to me isn’t about yachts and limos. It’s a cabin in the woods by a lake I can swim in. With a garden and roses.

It is possible to be an optimist and a realist when you realize anything you can imagine is real.

My dreams are my own and the only thing needed to make my life better is to dream bigger and work work work work work.

I am poised on the precipice of finally knowing what I want and having that be a good thing for once. Bliss.

I still say to my son “it’s a one in a million chance that you will become famous or a rock star, or an athlete or win the lottery of have some stroke of genius or luck in your life that leaves a big mark. But never ever think for a minute that it won’t happen. It does, every day. People win at life, amazing things happen. Why not you?” It is within the realm of possibilities. Everything is.

I have my Eeyore moments, everyone does. Mine are usually regarding men and relationships because let’s face it, they haven’t gone well. If they had I wouldn’t be here talking to you good people about how to tuck and roll when shit starts to burn.

There was a back and forth on this meme.

I have a +2 credit or I’m at 7, if the 3 good ones subtract from the bad, and they do. My girl said it was never going to happen for her and I wish I could gently reach through the ether and tell her that isn’t the truth. People win at love all the time.

It came along right as Rob Breszney posted this

http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/20160825.html

And my horoscope.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)
I invite you to dream about your true home . . . your sweet, energizing, love-strong home . . . the home where you can be high and deep, robust and tender, flexible and rigorous . . . the home where you are the person that you promised yourself you could be. To stimulate and enhance your brainstorms about your true home, experiment with the following activities: Feed your roots . . . do maintenance work on your power spot . . . cherish and foster your sources . . . and refine the magic that makes you feel free. Can you handle one more set of tasks designed to enhance your domestic bliss? Tend to your web of close allies . . . take care of what takes care of you . . . and adore the intimate connections that serve as your foundation.

Of course I cried. I really want to go home.

My soul let out a triumphant bellow and a cathartic sigh.

I am so close I can taste it.

Of all these people, places, jobs and relationships I have tried to call home…they just didn’t fit. The bed was too soft, the porridge too hot something was always off and I would get rereleased into the unknown like a dandelion fluff on the wind. I would settle in hostile territory and grow anyway, just to wither and die and send my wishes back out into the world looking for somewhere to call home.

I am getting close to touching down, I can feel it. Somewhere where the ground is fertile and the sun shines and the rain falls, somewhere I can put down roots and grow that isn’t the cracks of a sidewalk or an abandoned lot.

Somewhere like a cabin in the woods, near a lake so I can swim. With a garden and roses.

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

men

Swimming without the Sharks

August 23, 2016

I notice patterns, it’s a thing I do.

Not quite Rain Man, although I do agree K-Mart sucks and hot water does burn babies.
I count crows, not cards.

I write things and other writers write things. We send our words out in little bottles to float through the flotsam and jetsam on the vast stormy waters of the internet ocean. Some are valuable and need to be caught, remembered and released. Some are like Wilson in Cast Away and provide company and comfort. And there is a lot of trash. This metaphorical ocean is polluted with bad metaphors.

I’ve been on this island of mine for over a year. I see trends in the things the currents bring. It’s probably just algorithms, but still. The internet is my ocean, I shall not want for things to read.

One week eeeeerrrrrbody is talking about wolves. Then they morph into monsters. Full moon comes and, moon things. There is weeks of goddesses and then masks floating ashore.

I have used poetic memes to weigh what sits with me like truth and what makes me roll my eyes.

Everyone has their own ideas, ideals, wishes and wants.

Anything that says things like “I am a queen bow down to me.” Makes me think (nay, KNOW) you aren’t a queen, you are an asshole.

All this talk of wolves is mostly done by sheep who have stolen real wolf’s clothes.
The real wolves are naked and don’t give a fuck…because they are wolves howling with laughter at the fucking sheep playing dress-up.

This week it’s about love, this year really or if I am going to be totally honest, this life.
I am still learning what it is to love and be loved.

Correction, this week it is about equating love with the ocean.

There it is, that is better.

“My soul is so deep I want a deep love” rhetoric is right up there with the kings and queens of sheepland. Not buying it.

Turkeys often drown in puddles because they don’t have the common sense to get out of the rain.

But “I want a love so deep you need James Cameron to find it”. It’s really cold out there kids.

There was room for 2 on the headboard. Fuck that love.

I am tired of drifting, tired of drowning. I’d rather float.

I wrote this ages ago. Paraphrased the idea really.

It’s true.

I needed to stand up. I like knowing where the bottom is. Fuck, I love knowing where the land is. I like that stability of knowing where I stand. May not be as deep as the ocean but I have found these abysmal poets are all talk and no action anyways so I am drifting in a lifeboat interpreting Morse code, waiting for someone to come get me? Nah. I can swim. I’ll be on the beach with a bonfire, blanket and snacks getting wet and overwhelmed by the waves when I feel like getting wet and overwhelmed.

They weren’t wrong when they said salt water heals. It does, but it can suck you down in its depths too when the boys you cross oceans for make you cry the seven seas and liquefy into a puddle of tears.

I prefer waterfalls, flowing rivers and days at the beach.

No more perfect storms.

men

Red Riding Hood Escapes Neverland

August 22, 2016

One of my favorite books as a kid was The Ordinary Princess by MM Kaye.

A pragmatic fairy godmother ‘curses’ a princess with being ordinary. But in reality, it’s actually a gift.
Said Princess happens to be Sleeping Beauty’s great-great-great granddaughter. She finds herself a King dressed in rags (without amnesia) and after a little misunderstanding everything works out.

7 year old me was onto something. Good girl.

17 year old me got sucked into romance novels. The fairy tales for adults. Way too much conflict, but the sex was good.

https://www.facebook.com/KingsPoetry1/photos/a.1723946661175572.1073741829.1723932144510357/1802633866640184/?type=3&theater

I’m going to use one of my 3 wishes to pass on extraordinary, that apple is definitely tainted. Or just rotten.

I wish instead for a calm, peaceful love that nobody wants to read about and I don’t feel compelled to write about.

Once upon a time me telling tales about my dating history sounded a lot like “I met this guy we went on a few dates then suddenly its 5 years later we aren’t fucking anymore and we’re arguing because he can’t find the socks I just washed and I realize I never want to wash his socks again or fuck him ever. The end.”

That is how it went. I didn’t actively participate in choosing a partner or even dictating the relationship.
Someone found me and I just stayed, way past when I ought to have stayed. Lost my 20’s and my 30’s like that.

Fairy tale princesses that get rescued from whatever (usually in my case the previous bad relationship) end up just blindly loving the next prince.
For what? Showing up? What is he bringing to the table?
My princes became assholes that couldn’t do their own laundry and Cinderella is back in domestic servitude.

Happily never after that. Fairy godmama showed up late to the ball and she was a little drunk.

Next chapter.

Once upon a time I had my one true love. He was on his way to save me once when I was trapped in Mordor, or Forks.
He was living in Mexico, looking for work in Ontario so he could rescue me.
But then the girl he’d been banging told him she was both 20 and pregnant.
And then they lived happily ever after. Just had another kid too.
Kinda grossed me out that he messaged me a few days before she gave birth to tell me he loved me.

Fairy godmama got back into the schnapps.

We are all inundated with fairy tale love from such a young age.
I taught myself to read using Disney read-a-long records.
Someday my prince will come huh?

My best friend in grade two used to read a battered copy of Grimm’s Brothers to me every day on our way to school. I would help her with the words she didn’t know. I was never good at reading aloud but my vocabulary was strong and I won a spelling bee or two. We made a good pair. Still do.

My alone time at home was spent with my mother’s collection of My Book House Books. They were hers when she was little. I still have them. I escaped in there, tucked in my closet with a reading lamp and a bowl of Cheerios reading about the Snow Queen.

My parents love the fuck out of each other and always have. I don’t ever recall seeing them fight. That is part of it too. Imagine hearing as a child that your dad saw your mom and knew she was the one he was going to marry. There were no talking mice or magical lions or witches or poisoned apples or unicorns, those are really my folks, folks.

So ya. I thought it would happen for me.

I still do.

So, after my 20’s and 30’s came my 40’s and I turned a lot of pages. Sat back, spent some quality time alone out in Narnia, met some wolves who spoke in tongues. I figured out how I love and I started liking myself and being me. And lo there were others like me and I dated some of them and then…

And no and then.

Problem is I’d left a trail of breadcrumbs that led me back to the same type of men I equated with home.
Those houses were built with hay and sticks and were not meant to last.
I was hungry. There was cake.

The last handful of times I have tried to date anyone in the last few years read like fables about what not to do.

The Young Un took his (then) new girl on a road trip in my chariot that I had loaned him while he ignored me.
So Cinderella couldn’t get to the ball.

The Hulk found his way out of the woods of his depression and now lives with his love in the mountains on the other side of the country.
(I like that happy ending)

The Poet debacle reads like the Sleeping Beauty trilogy but when Anne Rice tells it. The one where Sleeping Beauty is raped, kidnapped and gets Stockholm syndrome until she thinks the prince’s fucked up kinks are all fine and good.

And the Giant. I don’t have the time for magic beans, he doesn’t water his plants anyways. I’m seriously exhausted trying to talk him down out of the sky. He is gonna fall and it’s gonna hurt.

Sunshine reminded me of the fake tin soldier. I don’t even know what happened there, I don’t even know his real name. Rumpelstiltskin? That was just some next level psycho shit. Thankfully that was a short story. David Lynch wrote it.

I am sick of all the grand adventure in the middle with trials and ugly plot twists…

And no and then.

I hate having to end recollections by saying “I can’t make this shit up.”

Calm is the new novel romance.

I fucked myself writing this book ‘o’ mine, rookie mistake I put too much of my life in it and my 2 knights have proven themselves idiots dressed in tinfoil. I just want it to end.

I don’t want to write about the person I am with.
Sure I spin straw into gold, but I am tired.
All my girls are single now, let them tell me stories for once while I sit back in a comfy relationship full of actions and less empty words. Something pragmatic and simple.

Once upon a time Red Riding Hood saved herself and then a lumberjack showed up with his calloused fingers that knew how to text her and hold her hand. They went fishing, had lots of amazing sex and snuggles. They both smiled a lot. The end

unable to even

Pussy, Liquor and Boy Strippers

August 22, 2016

I bet you think strippers like you too. (Forgetting Sarah Marshall)

Last night was the night to pop my girls ‘never been to male strippers before’ cherry.

She’s just been through a break-up and is coming out the other side.
I had to be the one to take her.
Strippers do like me.
Way back in the day I may have dated one or two.

We were talking on the drive about working, clubs, stripper boys, she didn’t know what to expect and I wasn’t sure either.
I had a moment of Zen in NOLA in April with the sweetest stripper, we still check in from time to time. He is doing well and this pleases me. He is a good story. But the rules down there are different.
The boys I dated danced for men and I rarely went to see them at work and that was a decade ago or even longer.

Things change.

And they stay the same.

We were also talking about drinking. I’d stood in my dining room before we got in her truck and vowed to only have a drink or two.
“I don’t want to get drunk.” I said, and I meant it. I never want to get drunk. I like drunky better. Just that happy, bubbly, tipsy before you shed all reason and self-control. Half naked, half in the bag.

The best laid plans of mice and white girls.

I didn’t get white girl wasted.

In the sea of little black dresses on little white girls there were varying levels of ‘oh honey you shouldn’t be in public right now’.

I confessed to being a geographical alcoholic. I am.

I have 8 bottles of booze less than 8 feet away, half a bottle of wine in the fridge and a few beers brought home from work, untouched since Wednesday.

I’ll probably go another month or 3 and have a dozen drinks, maybe.

Unless I go back to a strip club.

I ended up getting drunk last night and am writing this with a righteous hangover. As I was saying ‘I don’t want to get drunk’ , I said “I can’t not drink at strip clubs”. I had a moment of clarity wherein my inner voice said ‘who do you think you’re fooling?’

Something about those places ignites my inner booze hound.

Every strip club I have ever worked at or walked into, I drank at. Sometimes to the point of blacking out.

Even when I was really just a waitress in said clubs I was adored by my co-workers for somehow being able to cajole multiple shots from customers for after work. 16-20 stacked shots waiting at 2:45 am wasn’t rare. Enough for me to get lit and share.
And even when I was really a waitress and drinking responsibly, there were a couple nights where I really should have been fired or videotaped or both.

The story of one night in particular came out.

Years ago I’d had beef with my bartender for a week. We were not playing nicely. It hadn’t come to blows but we were slamming things down on the bar and shit was ready to break. He brought a bottle of tequila and slammed that down on the bar after work one night, looked at me and said “we’re going to drink this and work it out.”

Half a bottle later I was on stage with 2 new strippers dancing away in my street clothes, doing the splits like I had never quit and making out with the tiny girl whose name I cannot recall. The bottle of really good tequila migrated over to the stage with us and the shots kept coming. It got a little heated and I ended up making her squirt on stage in front of half the staff and a few leftover dancers. There was more to the night but we’ll just leave it there.

The end of the story is I threw up outside my building, staggered up the stairs and collapsed, clothed, in bed next to my boyfriend at the time. I had ejaculate from my chin to my belly button and up to my elbow, I reeked of sex, puke and alcohol and I was a disheveled mess. He got out of bed an hour later, kissed my forehead and went off to work. Didn’t notice a thing or never mentioned it if he did.

Never underestimate the power of denial. (American Beauty)

Now before all y’all go thinking I am the worst girlfriend ever, there is a little more to the story. He had gotten black out drunk a few weeks prior and smashed me in the mouth for not fucking him.

I had mentally checked out of the relationship, my body had yet to follow.

I didn’t fuck her for revenge, but I got drunk to deal*.

I made it into work the next night and there were no consequences there either except a raging hangover and they had all placed bets on what time I would try to bail. I didn’t, I stayed. I am stubborn like that.

Took me a year and another beating to leave that boyfriend too.

Same club, different time, I got drunk with the man who would become my farm husband. He was on a date of sorts, with a large group of cool kids, they got me smashed and I kissed him as he walked out the door, I didn’t know one of the girls was his not quite girlfriend. She became the mistress, our sisterwife and is now his common-law wife.

That time there were consequences.

But whatevs.

*It’s never a good idea for me to get drunk when I have something to deal with.

I posted once to Facebook “For the next few hours all statuses will be brought to you by whiskey, lots and lots of whiskey”. 100 likes. Seriously guys? Someone switch off the Wi-Fi and hold my hair back.

We need to introduce breathalyzers for phones. Blow over and you can only call for pizza, cab or 911.

I almost died one night fairly early in my marriage when I was waitressing at a strip club, did a day shift on a Friday and proceeded to slam 6 Jack’s in 20 minutes before leaving work followed by half a mickey at home. I hadn’t eaten since Monday. I did however break into his Facebook account and I wish I was drunk enough to forget what I found there…but that would have meant alcohol poisoning and possible death.

I stayed in the marriage a year for every shot of Jack I took to erase that one fight we had.

Stubborn and drunk on what I thought was love.

unable to even

Fortunate Cookie

August 21, 2016

Everyone this is Sally.

Sally this is…everyone.

Angel came down from heaven yesterday, she stayed just long enough to rescue me.
Jimi Hendrix

Sally isn’t an angel, but she has wings, close e-fucking-nuff.

We used to ride through the hayfields on the tractor. The mantises would whir up out of the grass dancing in the motes from the hay we were cutting. The golden glory when the sun was going down made it look like fairies and heaven to me.

She came in from the less than heavenly porch and landed on my desk lamp the next morning.

My son anointed her with the name Sally and the working title “Guardian of the House.”

I moved her to the golden glorious morning glory porch, lest she starve, and there she stays. Guarding my house.

Thanks Sally.

The book I am writing starts out with a girl, much like me, who is a writer, much like me, sitting outside and a mantis lands on her startling her out of a daydream.

The pic in the background was a gift from the man that inspired the book.

Now, I am not saying it’s a sign from god, but it’s a sign from god.

A few things happened that keep pushing me back to the book that I don’t want to write because my muses are treating me like dirt and leaving me in the lion’s den then pointing and laughing when I got bit.

There was this fortunate fortune cookie.

And then Rob Breszny said things. A lot of things.

And then the moon was full and I was left unsupervised.

The theme of this full moon?
Leave your comfort zone and go explore the dark, your magic is in there.

I did that.

and this…

The theme of every full moon ever?

Let it fucking go.

“The mantis comes to us when we need peace, quiet and calm in our lives. Usually making an appearance when we’ve flooded our lives with so much chaos that we can no longer hear the still small voice within us because of the external din we’ve created.”

I have to return to therapy next Tuesday and she is invariably going to ask me if I worked on the book and I am out of excuses as to why I haven’t.

For a while there I didn’t know what to write.

I get it now.

I have to finish the thing.

I have plans and the book being done and sold is part of my future.

I have encouragement from other published writers that it is good and I should keep going.

So what of my fortunate cookie?

Double entendre.

My favorite.

I am writing my literal financial fortune.

I can finish this thing any way I want.

I got stuck on the book during the part where our dear heroine gets assaulted in a parking lot
Life imitated art and I was scorned by the hero and anti-hero because of it.

“Well what did you think was going to happen?”

Um, not that and definitely not this.

They left me to my own devices, laughed when I got hurt. Made me feel dumb and small. An insignificant speck floating around in a huge sea of blue.

“Enlightenment is when a wave realizes it is the ocean.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

I’ve always been able to write the story of my life.
I just forgot for a bit and handed my pen to others.

The ending has always been up to me.

Now I know what I don’t want.

I love the ocean, god knows I do. But that doesn’t mean I want to go ass over teakettle off the side of a boat in the middle of nowhere breathing canned air with no idea where the land is.

I am content playing in the surf near the shore. I can go under, get wet and stand up when I am feeling overwhelmed and catch my breath.

I just want to play in the waves, I am done drowning and choking.

Neil Gaiman said his favorite stories were the ones where women saved themselves.

I am swimming to shore.

So now I know what I want because I know who makes me cry when I look at my phone and I know who makes me smile.

It ends like this…I get loved as is. By someone who doesn’t make me feel like I am gasping for air, grasping at straws or unworthy.

He isn’t a poet, but neither am I.

He calls me a ‘dork’.
I know it means that I am adored.
It’s not everyone’s happy ending, but it works for me.
I’d rather that than be someone’s sexual soulmate and never hear a word.
Or someone else’s Lady of Stars, but we have to end this gracefully.

Fuck that fuck this fuck them.

I want peace and quiet. I want a relationship that doesn’t have me posting to this blog every 5 minutes trying to work shit out because I am not getting any help and I can’t breathe.

I am a good girl, I just needed a good man to see it.

I’ve done my PhD. in Fuckboi Languages, Variations and Interpretations, I have the Scorpio decoder ring, learning how to speak pragmatic lumberjack is going to be a cakewalk.

Or a cookie walk.

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