I used to want company on this dusty hardwood floor,
Surrounded by bottles of whiskey,
Lights turned low.
Now I fantasize of twirling
In the lonesome presence of Death,
And remembering.
Because dancing with his ghost
Is better than the company of
A million strangers of flesh and blood.
He remembers the steps,
I remember his heartbeat.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Lost
I write letters, and in all honesty, I think that they're where I do my best writing. Because they are meant for someone, I am speaking with a purpose. I need to learn how to speak with a purpose no matter what.
I lost my temper yesterday. I discovered a few things. One, that there are certain things that can never be forgiven, no matter how much you want to. Two, I can be really ugly to people when I cross a certain line. Three, that it is infinitely better to be kind and speak your truth than be cruel and speak your truth. This last one I know, I just seem to have difficulty mastering it when I am angry and frustrated. I'm only human.
I feel far away from where I've been, from who I used to be. When my father was alive, I knew so much of what he admired about me, my wonder at the world, my love of all things happy and good. With him gone, I feel like that part of me that he loved to dearly and that I felt good about died with him. I feel so old. So tired and weary of petty drama and inconsiderate bullshit. I've become jaded and it shows. I'm angry and I lash out randomly and most of the time, the real reason for my anger and outbursts is lost amidst a bunch of surface bullshit, making me look small and stupid...so much so that I begin to believe it myself.
I just want to be happy.
I'm not sure I know how to be that anymore.
I lost my temper yesterday. I discovered a few things. One, that there are certain things that can never be forgiven, no matter how much you want to. Two, I can be really ugly to people when I cross a certain line. Three, that it is infinitely better to be kind and speak your truth than be cruel and speak your truth. This last one I know, I just seem to have difficulty mastering it when I am angry and frustrated. I'm only human.
I feel far away from where I've been, from who I used to be. When my father was alive, I knew so much of what he admired about me, my wonder at the world, my love of all things happy and good. With him gone, I feel like that part of me that he loved to dearly and that I felt good about died with him. I feel so old. So tired and weary of petty drama and inconsiderate bullshit. I've become jaded and it shows. I'm angry and I lash out randomly and most of the time, the real reason for my anger and outbursts is lost amidst a bunch of surface bullshit, making me look small and stupid...so much so that I begin to believe it myself.
I just want to be happy.
I'm not sure I know how to be that anymore.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
The Wisdom of Pigeons
Ever felt alone? I guess thats a silly question, I guess everyone has at one point or another. Ever felt out of sorts in every situation, wanting nothing more than to be understood, only to continuoulsy feel misplaced and outcast? There are few things more horrifying than wanting desperately to find the words to say to be acknowledged and accepted but coming up short, mouth full of silence. It's nightmarish to feel so different, so isolated and forgotten. Unreachable.
It's that sad sorry little thought, "I can't wait for this to be over."
Alone, it comes in waves doesn't it? Sometimes its a relief. Sometimes its the only thing we have that helps us cling to our sanity, other times its the very thing that threatens to undo us.
Last night I dreamed my father was still alive. I ran all the way home to find him leaning against the kitchen counter, just like he would have been if this dream were truth. Arms crossed, easy smile, and forever that silent warm embrace. I burst into hysterical tears of joy. Then I woke up. Sometimes it's not nightmares that are the worst, sometimes, its far worse to be shaken out of an impossible dream born from the burning place in your heart. It's wanting to shut your eyes and crawl back into your own mind, willing yourself to forget that you know it's not real. Sometimes it's the tears you cry from waking up that are the cruelest of all.
I think grief tends to be something that makes the whole world a big empty lonely space. It knocks the wind out of you, leaves you wordless and unable to function normally. It makes you forget who you are without it.
But get this:
So there I was, awake. My dream broken into a thousand shards of reality, and I realized everything was the same. It was 5 am and I was in the state of half-awake, half dream.And all of a sudden my sub-conscious was telling me stories.
There was one about a girl whose eyes didn't match her smile, and no one ever noticed except this boy. She smiled, but her eyes were blank and none of it ever made much sense. Until one day this boy found the shadows that would have surrounded her eyes in a box on her nightstand. She was ashamed of them, she thought they marked her as weak, that people would avoid her if they saw them she she kept them locked in her little box beside her bed. The boy placed each shadow gently on each eye, and her sad little smile made sense. Her eyes were full of sorrow and struggle, but the shadows made them all the more beautiful. They were a testament of her strength not of her weaknesses. They helped people understand her pain, not drive them away.
My mind was really racing, and I don't know if I was awake or asleep or where these stories kept coming from, angels maybe, my restless muse, God, who knows, the next one was this:
There was a pigeon on a ledge, he was nestles in the softest looking nest made of golden curls. He told me how when people die, and come back in their next life, they remember but only when they are very young. Babies remember who they used to be. Have you ever seen that something in a newborn's eyes? It's because babies remember their previous lives, which is why we don't really remember our baby-hood. They forget as they get older, but not everything and not all the time. It makes it easier to let go of their previous life that way, easing into a new life where everyone loves you and everything is okay and you're taken care of. Thats what the pigeon told me anyways.
Then there were the extremes. There were these terribly sad, angry and wounded people, and then there were these happy optimists. The were always fighting each other, and they reminded me of the deck of cards in alice and wonderland that kept getting shuffled and scrambled around, the black cards and the red cards. Then I realized when you put them together you got the "regular" people. Turns out the regular people are just both halves put together. No one is all bad and no one is all good. Humanity, its like a deck of cards. Who knew? My subconsious is pretty great at cheering me up.
Anyways, I had a terrible lonesome day. I felt sad and outcast and surrounded in my grief. I had no words to connect with anyone. I read Bukowski and wrote. And when I think about everything, I mean all of it, in just the past 24 hours, I feel a little better. I still hate winter, and I still miss my dad. Night time is still terrible for me. I still feel unsure of who I am without the terrible parisite called grief leeching off of every other emotion I ever have, but life goes on I guess. And there is more to it than sadness. There is more to it than happiness. It's a one step at a time, day by day thing. People won't always understand, and sometimes, you'll have to rely on your 5 am revelations to make sense of anything at all.
But what I've come to is this: Life is extraordiary...I guess at the end of this long, bad day, thats all I've got. That's my conclusion. And I guess, if that's what I've got at the end of this long, bad day, that ain't half bad.
It's that sad sorry little thought, "I can't wait for this to be over."
Alone, it comes in waves doesn't it? Sometimes its a relief. Sometimes its the only thing we have that helps us cling to our sanity, other times its the very thing that threatens to undo us.
Last night I dreamed my father was still alive. I ran all the way home to find him leaning against the kitchen counter, just like he would have been if this dream were truth. Arms crossed, easy smile, and forever that silent warm embrace. I burst into hysterical tears of joy. Then I woke up. Sometimes it's not nightmares that are the worst, sometimes, its far worse to be shaken out of an impossible dream born from the burning place in your heart. It's wanting to shut your eyes and crawl back into your own mind, willing yourself to forget that you know it's not real. Sometimes it's the tears you cry from waking up that are the cruelest of all.
I think grief tends to be something that makes the whole world a big empty lonely space. It knocks the wind out of you, leaves you wordless and unable to function normally. It makes you forget who you are without it.
But get this:
So there I was, awake. My dream broken into a thousand shards of reality, and I realized everything was the same. It was 5 am and I was in the state of half-awake, half dream.And all of a sudden my sub-conscious was telling me stories.
There was one about a girl whose eyes didn't match her smile, and no one ever noticed except this boy. She smiled, but her eyes were blank and none of it ever made much sense. Until one day this boy found the shadows that would have surrounded her eyes in a box on her nightstand. She was ashamed of them, she thought they marked her as weak, that people would avoid her if they saw them she she kept them locked in her little box beside her bed. The boy placed each shadow gently on each eye, and her sad little smile made sense. Her eyes were full of sorrow and struggle, but the shadows made them all the more beautiful. They were a testament of her strength not of her weaknesses. They helped people understand her pain, not drive them away.
My mind was really racing, and I don't know if I was awake or asleep or where these stories kept coming from, angels maybe, my restless muse, God, who knows, the next one was this:
There was a pigeon on a ledge, he was nestles in the softest looking nest made of golden curls. He told me how when people die, and come back in their next life, they remember but only when they are very young. Babies remember who they used to be. Have you ever seen that something in a newborn's eyes? It's because babies remember their previous lives, which is why we don't really remember our baby-hood. They forget as they get older, but not everything and not all the time. It makes it easier to let go of their previous life that way, easing into a new life where everyone loves you and everything is okay and you're taken care of. Thats what the pigeon told me anyways.
Then there were the extremes. There were these terribly sad, angry and wounded people, and then there were these happy optimists. The were always fighting each other, and they reminded me of the deck of cards in alice and wonderland that kept getting shuffled and scrambled around, the black cards and the red cards. Then I realized when you put them together you got the "regular" people. Turns out the regular people are just both halves put together. No one is all bad and no one is all good. Humanity, its like a deck of cards. Who knew? My subconsious is pretty great at cheering me up.
Anyways, I had a terrible lonesome day. I felt sad and outcast and surrounded in my grief. I had no words to connect with anyone. I read Bukowski and wrote. And when I think about everything, I mean all of it, in just the past 24 hours, I feel a little better. I still hate winter, and I still miss my dad. Night time is still terrible for me. I still feel unsure of who I am without the terrible parisite called grief leeching off of every other emotion I ever have, but life goes on I guess. And there is more to it than sadness. There is more to it than happiness. It's a one step at a time, day by day thing. People won't always understand, and sometimes, you'll have to rely on your 5 am revelations to make sense of anything at all.
But what I've come to is this: Life is extraordiary...I guess at the end of this long, bad day, thats all I've got. That's my conclusion. And I guess, if that's what I've got at the end of this long, bad day, that ain't half bad.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Star-people
This started as a message to someone who I knew would understand. Now here it is. Out there! On the internet! For all eyes to see!
I woke up feeling like I was back in high school, my mother's heels clicking their way up the stairs to wake me. I hid under the covers like I used to, but instead of making me go to school, she took me to lunch.
Last night I was sad, for a lot of reasons. I circled the city more than once but I never worried about being lost, this city was my home for twelve years. Instead of being worried I was admiring the beauty of sky scrapers lit from the inside, towering over people walking on the streets, sleeping on church steps, spending money or begging for it. I thought about happiness and what it means and how to get it. It never seemed more difficult than it does now to be happy, for me anyways. But I think that has a lot to do with the fact that I'm a little lost, and a little forgetful.
So I bought the sequel to my favorite book, Stargirl. She always reminded me of myself. Weird and quirky and finding magic in everything. Accepted by few, rejected by many, understood by next to no one. But it didn't matter because she was happy, and was content to meditate in the desert and search for enchanted places and sing all day long.
I guess I was hoping that the sequel would remind me of how to get back to being that girl. It's helping more than I imagined, isn't that silly? It's very strange. Because in this book she's sad too, and trying to remember herself.
I don't know if happiness is a choice or not. I know it's different for everyone. I think I miss the world. Somewhere along the way I forgot it was my friend and it was magic and beautiful. Somewhere along the way I got jaded and didn't even realize it. But I think that I can remember what I loved so much.
I'm having lunch with the first boy I ever loved on Saturday. He has since become a very close friend and it will be good to see him. Maybe like stargirl he can remind me of who I used to be, and why I loved the world the way I used to.
I'm not looking for a time machine, just for reminders, porch lights of friendly neighbors helping light my way back to myself.
I woke up feeling like I was back in high school, my mother's heels clicking their way up the stairs to wake me. I hid under the covers like I used to, but instead of making me go to school, she took me to lunch.
Last night I was sad, for a lot of reasons. I circled the city more than once but I never worried about being lost, this city was my home for twelve years. Instead of being worried I was admiring the beauty of sky scrapers lit from the inside, towering over people walking on the streets, sleeping on church steps, spending money or begging for it. I thought about happiness and what it means and how to get it. It never seemed more difficult than it does now to be happy, for me anyways. But I think that has a lot to do with the fact that I'm a little lost, and a little forgetful.
So I bought the sequel to my favorite book, Stargirl. She always reminded me of myself. Weird and quirky and finding magic in everything. Accepted by few, rejected by many, understood by next to no one. But it didn't matter because she was happy, and was content to meditate in the desert and search for enchanted places and sing all day long.
I guess I was hoping that the sequel would remind me of how to get back to being that girl. It's helping more than I imagined, isn't that silly? It's very strange. Because in this book she's sad too, and trying to remember herself.
I don't know if happiness is a choice or not. I know it's different for everyone. I think I miss the world. Somewhere along the way I forgot it was my friend and it was magic and beautiful. Somewhere along the way I got jaded and didn't even realize it. But I think that I can remember what I loved so much.
I'm having lunch with the first boy I ever loved on Saturday. He has since become a very close friend and it will be good to see him. Maybe like stargirl he can remind me of who I used to be, and why I loved the world the way I used to.
I'm not looking for a time machine, just for reminders, porch lights of friendly neighbors helping light my way back to myself.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Give credit where credit is due...
I never give people enough credit.
I always try to protect them in some way or another. I feel like I need to soften the blow of reality or shelter them from the truth of something that might be all together too difficult for them to handle. In this way, I cheat them out of my own honesty. I lie to save them, without realizing that maybe they didn't need saving in the first place. Without even thinking that maybe the brutal truth is the only thing that could ever make any of it alright. Or not alright.
The most important thing is, well I guess there are two: Faith and Honesty.
I forget how durable people can be. That we are not made out of glass. Life is fragile, but very often people are not so breakable. Like I said, I need to give people more credit. I need to have faith in their strength.
I also need to be more honest. Even if lies come from a good place, they are still lies. And lies demand upkeep. And upkeep demands effort, and effort is usually better spent on things more worthwhile than dishonesty. And besides, the fastest way to isolation is through lies. They are unnatural and no one wants their life to be a sham.
I've been lost for a while now, and I'm not sure how it happened, but I know lies were involved. I'm trying very hard to remember who I am, who I was, and who I want to be. I remember I used to believe in magic, before I got caught up in how terribly unfair the world can be. But thats only one way to look at it. There is still magic to be found and miracles to witness, and sometimes they are events, places, sometimes your magic miracle is another human being. The important thing is to never let your eyes get so blind and your heart get so jaded that you can't see or feel magic anymore. It's important to keep seeking. Keep wide open, it's the only way to be honest and to find yourself.
I think anyways.
I always try to protect them in some way or another. I feel like I need to soften the blow of reality or shelter them from the truth of something that might be all together too difficult for them to handle. In this way, I cheat them out of my own honesty. I lie to save them, without realizing that maybe they didn't need saving in the first place. Without even thinking that maybe the brutal truth is the only thing that could ever make any of it alright. Or not alright.
The most important thing is, well I guess there are two: Faith and Honesty.
I forget how durable people can be. That we are not made out of glass. Life is fragile, but very often people are not so breakable. Like I said, I need to give people more credit. I need to have faith in their strength.
I also need to be more honest. Even if lies come from a good place, they are still lies. And lies demand upkeep. And upkeep demands effort, and effort is usually better spent on things more worthwhile than dishonesty. And besides, the fastest way to isolation is through lies. They are unnatural and no one wants their life to be a sham.
I've been lost for a while now, and I'm not sure how it happened, but I know lies were involved. I'm trying very hard to remember who I am, who I was, and who I want to be. I remember I used to believe in magic, before I got caught up in how terribly unfair the world can be. But thats only one way to look at it. There is still magic to be found and miracles to witness, and sometimes they are events, places, sometimes your magic miracle is another human being. The important thing is to never let your eyes get so blind and your heart get so jaded that you can't see or feel magic anymore. It's important to keep seeking. Keep wide open, it's the only way to be honest and to find yourself.
I think anyways.
Friday, January 6, 2012
the cure for loneliness
I'm not good at letting people go. In fact, I'm pretty terrible at it. I can't even begin to explain, or even understand really, the pain I put myself through trying to hold onto people. I know I should let them go, put the past where it's meant to be, and move on. Be happy. Be happy alone.
I get so easily attached to people, and usually my relationships get really intense. I don't know why this is, and as hard as it might be in the end, I can't say I truly regret it. At all. I feel like this is a gift. I feel like I have shared the most beautiful moments in time with people who I have loved for years, for months, for weeks, for days, or maybe, merely in a moment.
Someone said to me the other day they didn't believe in love happening in a matter of months. I used to think that too...but what I've come to believe, or at least chosen to believe, is that love doesn't operate that way...and it comes in all forms. Long lasting, fleeting, whatever. Love is love. I think a person can walk into your life on the right day, in the right place, at the right time and you can fall in love with them a little bit right there. I really really believe that, because I've seen it too many times to not. Do I believe in one person for everyone? No. Maybe that's why I have a hard time letting go of people.
I think my views on this have all changed very recently actually. Oct. 9, 2011 if you want to be exact. I fell in love on a rock in a field with a bearded stranger. I'm not kidding. I truly fell in love in the span of an hour and a half. Maybe not forever love, but if anyone ever tries to tell my that in that moment I didn't love this scruffy poet, I will argue until I'm blue in the face.
Here I am, a hopeless romantic after all this time, who would have thought.
Maybe there isn't a point to this post other than thatI'm lonely and I once heard that writing letters is the cure for loneliness (reading is good too, so is music, so are movies...) so whoever, if ever, anyone reads this, forgive my ramblings. I'm a lonely girl with leftover love and nowhere to put it.
I get so easily attached to people, and usually my relationships get really intense. I don't know why this is, and as hard as it might be in the end, I can't say I truly regret it. At all. I feel like this is a gift. I feel like I have shared the most beautiful moments in time with people who I have loved for years, for months, for weeks, for days, or maybe, merely in a moment.
Someone said to me the other day they didn't believe in love happening in a matter of months. I used to think that too...but what I've come to believe, or at least chosen to believe, is that love doesn't operate that way...and it comes in all forms. Long lasting, fleeting, whatever. Love is love. I think a person can walk into your life on the right day, in the right place, at the right time and you can fall in love with them a little bit right there. I really really believe that, because I've seen it too many times to not. Do I believe in one person for everyone? No. Maybe that's why I have a hard time letting go of people.
I think my views on this have all changed very recently actually. Oct. 9, 2011 if you want to be exact. I fell in love on a rock in a field with a bearded stranger. I'm not kidding. I truly fell in love in the span of an hour and a half. Maybe not forever love, but if anyone ever tries to tell my that in that moment I didn't love this scruffy poet, I will argue until I'm blue in the face.
Here I am, a hopeless romantic after all this time, who would have thought.
Maybe there isn't a point to this post other than thatI'm lonely and I once heard that writing letters is the cure for loneliness (reading is good too, so is music, so are movies...) so whoever, if ever, anyone reads this, forgive my ramblings. I'm a lonely girl with leftover love and nowhere to put it.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Reality No. 1
Do you ever wonder
If the thing you fear
Becoming
Is the thing you
Already are?
How do you save
Your enemies?
How do you find a way
To want to?
If the thing you fear
Becoming
Is the thing you
Already are?
How do you save
Your enemies?
How do you find a way
To want to?
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