Hello Up There

I don't know if anyone is out there still, but I have so missed the community and I haven't been on for ages, let alone written anything creative.
I found a job that is both challenging and salaried.
I won't lie, I could stand to make about five hundred more a month to be safe but I like what I'm doing.
Being a therapist is harder than the person in the chair makes it look and I get tired of critical thinking all day every day or being chased out by teenagers, making my case to probation officers, etc.
Something else new happened...I got engaged!
Definitely couldn't be more happier.
Sooooo yeah. I know this isn't long but I would love to talk with everyone again, that is, if anyone is still around. :)

The Box

This community has been there for me before and I know I haven't written or read much lately, and I'm sorry, but I have to ask for support again.
I graduated and I ended up finding a fantastic job with a company that has a fantastic reputation in the community and fantastic benefits and time off.
I have my own office now, two in fact.
I should be so happy right?
My dream of being a therapist has come true and yet I've been two of the last four nights sobbing because I am depressed despite taking my low dose antidepressant and I'm beyond anxious.
I cry and cry and then an hour later I want to again.
Sleep is my only reprieve.
Sitting in various chairs looking at my two supervisors and my clinical director of my program as they go over the documentation system, secure email, mandatory reporting, the support group information I have to get together, the domestic violence male and female offender groups I'll be cofacilitating, the number of direct client hours I'll need...
so much information and I can't see clients until my provisional license comes back, whic I couldn't send in until now when I was able to find a job and supervisors.
On my lunch break I shut my office door and laid on my couch curled in a ball. Five comes around and I'm exhausted.
Gone is that promise of working out right after work.
I can't seem to clean.
I get tired , too tired to cook.
I just curl into my dog or boyfriend and cry and miss my job with low responsibility where I wasn't so scared and overwhelmed.
This feels like I'm trapped in a box of hurricane anxiety and empty sadness of depression and I'm pounding on the walls to let me out.
I'm begging my boyfriend to make it stop.
I'm burying my face in my dogs fur holding him tight.
And the next day I go to work with a fake smile on my face, the picture of a put together new therapist.
Coping skills, meds, self care routines that aren't working.
And it won't go away.
Looking around, I see I'm still in the box.

Is Anyone Out There

There thought that maybe I wasn't able to connect with people because I was in school and I had this idea that I needed to pursue my passion before anything.

Finally I succeeded and I graduated with my masters in counseling and then come the job hunt, which I'm still on. 

My days have been filled working at the treatment center giving everything I can (in a healthy way) to the substance abuse population. 

I look around a realize my life has become just that: giving. 

I go to work my eight hour shift with teens that don't care about consequences yet and adults who know all too well. 

Stories that could fill pages and interactions that have had me holding back teas. 

I come home to my loving boyfriend and dog and he reminds me of why I chose this path when I'm down and reminds me of how proud he is. 

Then I look around. 

I spent all my time giving and yet everyone I can be friends with has their own lives. 

Boyfriends.

Husbands.

Children.

I long for a girl's day and yet only see how people are through a facade of social media. 

I reach out when I'm struggling with my depression and lack of money hoping for encouragement and am told that they're busy hold on. 

Truth be told I play therapist to a lot of people who say they're my friends. 

And I'm an idiot because I want so badly to connect with people that I can have a two way relationship with and so I listen. 

I listen and listen and then they have to go or they can't talk because of work or this and that. 

I find myself empty. 

The people I do talk with and have a fulfilling relationship with are friends that live back in my home town four hours away and I wish that I could just see them. 

I wish that the people I know here would treat me as a human and not just as a therapist. 

When I draw the line they apologize and promise and yet it never changes, but I don't want to be alone with only my boyfriend.

He's my best friend but I want to just have a female friend I can rely on to put in that effort and come over. 

I know it's silly and I know I'm whining, but I look around and wonder how life got so empty.

I wonder how everything became instagram and Facebook.

How we didn't have to remember birthdays because Facebook says it and we don't have to ask about something because I think deep inside we crave someone caring so we post a photo or a status. 

We don't connect and we don't give our most valuable resource: time 

How did it all get so empty?

Is anybody out there?

Oh The Places You Will Go

It's been some time since I've written and I'm not sure if anyone is still out there, but I thought maybe I would look back and write about some of the things that have gone on in my absence.

At the end of last year I met the most amazing man and we decided to move in together after only two months together. Now, normally I would never be impulsive, although I am prone to impulsive decisions. We are coming up on a year together and it's still just as amazing. As soon as he can save up, he will be buying a ring and I can't imagine spending my life with anyone else. I wish you could see that content smile I get every time I think of or talk about him.

In the middle of March, I went to Colombia to see one of my friends, which, coincidentally I met on the internet when I needed a Spanish tutor about four and a half years ago. I'm sure that also seems like a sketchy decision, but he's become one of my best friends. I would like to say that from here on out I apologize for the volume of photos, but I want to share the experience with anyone still out there reading.

The first photo is from the top of a huge, 675 step to the top rock. The view is absolutely breath taking, as were the stairs, and we had a beer with mango in it from the top. To get to this town we had to take a bus and a truck and I was the only clearly white American around, but the people were really friendly. The weather was beautiful, there were little stands with arrepas (some sort of corn tortilla looking thing that varied in taste from each region) and everything was so cheap. 

This is just one of the street art murals in Bogota, the town that my friend lives. He gives a tour where he tells you about the artist and cultural inspirations for the art work. If you're ever in Bogota, I highly recommend anyone going on this tour, which is donations only. He is extremely knowledgable and passionate about culture. Also, graffiti art is not a crime there as it is in the US and so there are some absolutely beautiful paintings and sculpture pieces around town. 

This is the view atop of the metro cable in Medellin, a huge city where we stayed with his aunt, uncle, and two cousins. I must say, I was overwhelmed by the kindness of his family. My speaking Spanish was almost non existent due to lack of use from being in grad school, but he relayed everything we hoped to say to each other. I think one of my favorite parts of this ten day trip was staying with his family and observing some of the cultural differences, like the woman taking care of everyone first. I tried to help because as most American kids know, if you aren't helping your mom to clean up, you're probably going to get a disapproving look and maybe a snarky comment. Another interesting fact was that the poor and rich lived intermingled in this city, unlike many of the cities that we are all from where there's a clear difference of who lives where. I would also recommend going here because the streets are beautiful. There's an unkemptness to the grass, but the streets and medians are covered in these lush, vibrant plants, flowers, and trees. Dream streets everywhere. 

This is the rock I climbed to the top of in Guatape, where the first picture was taken from. I'm sorry that they are out of order. :)

We went to Cartagena, which was actually my least favorite part of the trip. It's more of a Caribbean town and extremely hot and humid. The architecture was beautiful, but this is the place where I think I contracted something like E coli and returned home to be stuck in the bathroom for ten days. The arrepas were spot on though and the fish served at dinner had teeth still. 

Since Cartagena was not good to my digestive tract, my friend went to the fruit market on his own and brought back a plethora of fruits for me to try. His wonderful mother was there for Easter weekend and she cut up the fruit and showed me how to eat or break into each kind. Love his mom. She gave me the coolest, scariest key chain with a giant ant from Colombia in it and a really neat woven bag from the indigenous people. 

We climbed to the top of a castle in Cartagena, which was extremely hot and where I continued to find that Vans were not good walk wear. 

More street art. 

I put this picture up because while I am extremely sun burnt, I am drinking alcohol by the beach in a freaking pineapple. A real pineapple drink. We also went jet skiing and we found out that when thrown off into the ocean, I'm the better swimmer and would probably last at sea longer. 

I returned home with some crazy stomach anger, but I truly fell in love with the Colombian people. Seriously the kindest, friendliest people. They are also extremely politically minded and while in other places it's not appropriate table talk, it IS there. Also, they're not happy about the cocaine stereotype and they want you to go see for yourself how awesome it is. The showers are weird and when you use hot water you have to have the pressure low, the fruits and juices are out of this world, and if you go, go to Crepes y Waffles for a scoop of blackberry ice cream and then a scoop of guanabana. Seriously. I'm in love with guanabana, which you can't get in the US. Also, I saw an avocado the size of my forearm, which I don't like, but it was still cool. I really learned the importance of language and communication as well and how alone you can feel when a culture is so vastly different. 

I finished out my semester of grad school and I went to an internship interview for a treatment center and then in May I went to Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic for a Holocaust history trip. How am I affording these trips you ask yourself? Colombia is super cheap in every way and I saved for an entire year to go to Europe. Now I'm broke. We'll say I'm rich in experience. :) 

We went to Auschwitz and I can't fully rely how amazing that experience was. You felt such a heaviness and at times wanted to cry or were overcome with anxiety. It was a beautiful, peaceful day, and it almost didn't seem right in that place, and yet it was perfect. This experience will be forever etched in my heart. 

These are actual nail scratches in the gas chambers... :'(

The astronomical clock in Prague! Another check off my bucket list. It was amazing. The people in the Czech Republic were not actually that nice or friendly, which is disappointing as I'm Czech, but the architecture was breath taking. 

More beautiful Prague architecture. 

Krakow at night. We went to a Jazz bar and ate fantastic dumplings and had huge glasses of beer. The Czech Republic and Poland were extremely cheap compared to the dollar and we had amazing food and drink for cheap. 

Me in Prague, just looking at the city and taking obligatory selfies. Sorry these are out of country order. My computer made it too tedious to reorganize. :)

Faces of Warsaw.

Here is just a really cool picture in Berlin. What a cool city. Seriously. Go. 

The Brandenburg Gate!

This was a castle I had homemade peach schnaps at. This place was like the set of a movie. I also walked thirteen miles that day. 

I had too many photos to put here of course, but I rode a train and found out I get really motion sick on trains-shout out to Dramamine-and I've seen the Berlin Wall. I had wonderful candy and food, I saw the Reichstag building and the house the Wannasee conference took place in. I have seen such beautiful and amazing places this year and I'm really blessed. I always wanted to travel not just because of the beauty and culture or the history, but also because I think it's good to be uncomfortable. You throw yourself into a new environment and then you find out how strong and resourceful you can really be. I met some cool people and it makes me appreciate my slower paced Midwest city, free water at restaurants, and free bathrooms all over America. 

After my adventures I started interning, which went from hopeful to not what I thought it was going to be at all. It's now October and I finally have a client I work with with another therapist. I'm nervous that I won't be a good therapist when I get out and I'm still afraid to do solo sessions and everything a therapist has to do in general, but if there's one thing I've taken from this experience, it's learning more about having stronger boundaries and confrontations in group and individual sessions. I can actually confront something and not feel bad or like it will affect them liking me. I still fear that I'm not good for this job and that I don't have what it takes. It's scary to think that I graduate in December and how much I still have to learn, but I really really hope that someday I get there, which everyone says I will after getting more experience. Actually, many professionals I've asked say that it took them at least a year to feel fully confident so at least people I really admire and respect were where I am. 

Thursday I take my licensure exam, which has made me extremely anxious. I'm studying like crazy, I got on depression medicine to get out of the seasonal slump, and while I'm still prone to bouts of sadness and general life anxiety, things are manageable. 

So, there's an update on my life. If anyone took the time to read this thanks. :) Life has been changing and 2016 has been a ride, but I hope that when it slows down I can start to do more creative work. 

Monsters

Monsters meet below the summer's eve
Eat, breath, writhe, scream
Cordial hellos sliced through steel teeth
Walk among, never bring
Fog to the peripherals
For a short while pretend to be meek.
Slink in the wake
Casting dark shadows
Tease the mind
When vulnerability leaves them mellow

Cut it, break it mortal skin
Tantalize with earthly sin
Hoping they don't notice simple thigh lace hemlines
Sewed together with hemlock trees and wintery pine
The breeze floats echos of sympathy
Will you notice platonic rag bones
In shades of harsh tones
And girls making their way on bended knees?

Ashes,  Ashes,  we all fall down
Down to the bottom of bottle and pipe until we all drown.
Hone your skills of tongue and lips
Come one, come all
For it is well known that worthiness is in your hips
Crack the vase to water the flowers
Slow knife pendulum counting out your final hours
Good intentions slipping away
Only to turn up sour and vague

Run little girl
As fast as you can
Be a good pet
And play hide and seek
Dry your eyes, I can see in the dark where they leak

Now my breath is hot and close
Creeps from your neck
Down to your toes
I'll take you away into the forest
Prune insecurities like a silent florist
Pry at the locks where your soul you keep
Feel the soft soil,  make it your home
I'll keep you safe, my dear, empty and warm
Among the redwoods
Where your monsters are
The place you hide where your darkness was born.

Fourth Step

I missed home tonight
Laying in my apartment deck straining to see tiny pin pricks of stars
Competing with restless city lights.
Longing for the vast ocean of fields and pastures waving like proverbial prairie waves.
I always thought how soft the grasses looked
Until I laid down and felt the scratching against my bare arms and legs.
"Remember us when you are grown.
Remember us when you are gone."
The crisp stillness pillowed on humid summer air.
Calves murmur bedtime protests to their mothers
While locusts hum midnight lullabies.
And the hardwood underneath me tugs my heart strings back down,
Down to urban loneliness.
I looked to find myself in a new place, a new country, aspirations attained
But I still feel like a child when my father texted me to say that he went to AA last night.
That he has renewed his commitment to the Lord and that his pastor believes God will use his testimony.
That God will restore his marriage with my stepmother
Besides the fourteen months of probation and domestic violence classes.
I wanted to ask him how the fourth step would go,
When he must inventory the hurts and make amends.
His daughter, at the other end of the state,
Going to graduate school, traveling the world, jn a good relationship and working.
I wonder if he thinks I'm fine in true denial fashion.
Because it hurts me when I think about how I want to tell him that God wants him to make amends with his daughter
And that sobriety, not his estranged second wife should be the focus.
Someone I think I know that he'll never truly tell me he's sorry, holding a list in his hands with tears streaming down his face.
It could have been worse but it hurt enough
Enough to make my heart twinge a bit when we talk.
Enough to make me sad in my hotel in Berlin that he doesn't know I'm there because we haven't talked in a month and a half.
Enough that I wish he'd ask me about my boyfriend and how well it's going
Or my internship and the things that I hear that make me wonder at the depth of human suffering and resiliency.
I want him to do the fourth step.
I want him to know it hurt.
But when I tell him I have some unresolved feelings he tells me that he's sorry and he hasn't been perfect but he did his best
And I can't hate him because it's true,
But it can still hurt
And I can still feel alone in my hurt
And lay on my deck wishing I could just rest in the serenity of a night at home.

Breath Deep

Let us stop now
Breath deep, breath deep
Warm winds of muggy change
Breath full,  breath full
Cups of alabaster dreams
Wake up, wake up
Lulled to sleep by morning sun

Eyes shaken,  waken
Noonday song, Noonday song
Come hither, wither
You bask in wrongs, bask in wrongs
Hold your chest now
Feel it throb, feel it throb
Take the light, ignore the plight
Before it's lost, before it's lost

Stepping on cracks to break the bough
Hush,  hush
Settle in easy to your cotton covered place
So safe,  so safe
Knit regrets amongst lies justified
Mend inside, mend inside
Whisper softly
The day has come to fly, come to fly

...

I'm always sorry that moment you get home
Because today I spent curled up in a ball
Watching the sun drift down the wall
And the other yesterdays.
Today I thought I'd watch the sun come up
Change of pace
Since I kept company with the moon
Dry quiet leaving my skin cold.
I haven't thought a unique thought in days,
The pauses leaving me bewildered,
Had I even been thinking at all?
Two days ago I cried into your pillow
Because the weight was too much
But my friend called me because she had a feeling she needed to call.
I haven't slept at the right time of the day in at least two weeks
I haven't worked out consistently in a little more than three.
I was sorry when you came home today because I've been so depressed that I've laid looking at the wall,
Filling space
And you ask me what's wrong so concerned but nothing is
It just hurts.
I want to run and run but can't find my motivation.
I want to read and research but I can't stay focused.
I want to do more than sleep, shower, take care of the dog, and sit quietly.
I want to not feel the self inflicted pressure of getting a lot done or appearing as though I did before you get home.
I want to sleep at midnight and get up at nine thirty
Instead of five in the morning until one in the afternoon.
I want someone to listen, but I don't ever know what I would say.
Just the feeling of someone near to ease it when it's most difficult.
I want to tell you I'm sorry,
Because you love me unconditionally
And I'm still illogically afraid everyone will think that I, the future therapist,
Am unable to fight off my own depression, therefore crazy.

New Beginnings

It's been a long time since I've felt the stirring to write, or the ability.
It's not poetic like usual, but I want to tell the story, in all it's grittiness.
Over the past few months I've felt my world change and illuminate in a way I never thought possible.
I spent the summer exploring myself, sitting outside on my front steps smoking and drinking with my neighbor,
Looking at the veiled stars above the city lights,
Drinking coffee under the tree at the park while my dog explored the area we'd seen a hundred times before.
My emotionally abusive (he'd disagree) boyfriend broke up with me for a beautiful girl he'd been friends with
And I slipped into a relationship with a close friend.
I look back and I feel guilty because I know now I ran to him because I needed someone that didn't have me parking my car two blocks away before I got home so that I could cry where he wouldn't see.
I needed to be myself and know it was okay.
It was easy to fall into talk of a future and it went too far.
My ex and I still had a lease and we still had chemistry and I found myself wrapped in his sheets between times his new girlfriend would fly in
And I would see mine
Feeling that torturous question of character.
You know what I hate most?
I loved him still.
I hate him and I love him and he was a virus inside of my heart.
Thanksgiving came and despite the way my family loved him, it didn't feel just right.
We were at dinner and my mom thought I said something in a way that implied I was ashamed of something she did and I clarified what I meant.
Immediately, in front of everyone, he told me I was selfish and mean.
It happened again.
Later that night we talked and he didn't ask me what had happened between my mom and I, why I felt it was difficult to show emotions with her,
The dynamics and the history of the messy coming of age I had.
We didn't see eye to eye.
Instead of asking me how I felt and listening, he shut down, said he wouldn't say anything at all.
The attraction was never there.
I hated that he was this intelligent person who let bad choices earlier in his life cause him to lose the fire and ambition.
And so, until my birthday I didn't talk to him much.
I couldn't even try anymore and I began to resent him.
On my birthday, my friends planned a going out to a bar and so I invited a guy friend of mine to come along.
I don't know why I did that, but it seemed like what I wanted in the moment, to flirt, to be free again I suppose.
My two friends and I went to meet him at the bar, he said he brought his friends.
It was an Irish pub style bar where the drinks were strong and the crowd was relaxed.
We walked up to the table and I saw him.
Not my friend.
His friend.
I only saw him the whole night and we talked and talked, but he held back.
When the bars closed down my friend was making out with one of his friends and I was going into my friend's room.
I don't know why we had sex...
I look back and I think, that was the moment I knew I couldn't keep up with this game where I was telling myself that I was this empowered woman who was attractive and smart and doing whatever I wanted was part of that process.
When I went home that day his friend and I messaged and a week later he was driving 45 minutes to my city to have dinner.
That moment.
I want to hold on to it forever.
We talked and talked and found that we had so much in common and soon we were back at my apartment.
There was this moment where we paused and suddenly leaned in and kissed and it was the most amazing moment, but it was amazing because that was all it was, a kiss.
He stayed over that night and it was so perfectly innocent.
We saw each other the next day and the next and then I went away for Christmas and my friend that I was dating and I fought and discussed the end.
I was honest with this new one, I told him I didn't know, but I needed out of this.
There was a struggle, I couldn't say the words I needed to say...
Finally, it came.
I was having this dual relationship and I had to end it.
That was the first shift, when I started doing the right thing for once.
And for once I was spending time with this amazing person who kissed me and told me he didn't want to sleep with me yet.
He said, "I want you, but I want YOU."
The first pieces of all the broken things I had tried to clean up began to slowly come together and then all at once.
I told my ex we couldn't sleep together anymore when it happened a few times when my new guy and I were seeing each other and he was upset.
He said that we had an agreement and I was manipulative and not a real friend but for once, doing the right thing, having boundaries, sloppy ones, but boundaries, was more empowering then anything else I had been doing since.
Things exploded with growth from there.
The moments are so beautiful and so pure, so infinitely perfect.
He touched the scars on my thighs and never said a word.
When I asked him he said what happened in the past doesn't define who I am in the future.
When I cried after a sad movie he held me close and kissed my head.
When my ex moved out because he was mad at me he drove three nights a week to my city to watch my dog.
He took me on day dates, lounged with me and watched movies, spent all his free time and was so proud of me.
I can't tell you how fantastic it is to be with someone who you can trust completely and who nurtures your soul and heals your heart.
I didn't think that I was going to live this life, after everything that happened to me. I felt too damaged, though I had pieced myself together as best as I could.
Somehow I found this amazing human being that I thank God for because I know I did so many things that didn't warrant a deserving of this.
I got a counseling internship in his city.
I'm traveling to South America for spring break.
My dad went to jail for domestic abuse against my step mother and I still can't sort out how I feel about our estranged relationship, where we try and keep in contact by strings.
And at two months and a week, he and I signed a lease together.
It's crazy and I know it, but I think he's the one and life has never been so beautiful.
Nothing and everything makes sense and finally I'm making the real right choices.
I know this was a bit lengthy and not in my usual style, but I can't even do anything but feel it all so deeply.
I miss you all, say hi and let me know if you're still out there!
<3

Disease

I look for you among the willows
Hunt you on the breeze
Hold your hand tightly
Plant on your lips disease
I'll capture you every moment
Leave you on your knees
The hounds are there watching silently
As the withering completes
Listen for me as a siren
Catch your breath as I pass by
Hold in your scream
Honey I'll show you the best way to die
Confuse you with paradise.

Mortem Aestas

His hand wraps round her neck like a sultry, sharpened drape

Lycan fingers clasping and counting
Each delicate vertebrae

 Gently stroking the exposed ivory 

Lips close
Teasing
With breath frost aquamarine 

He has her little humming bird heart
On harlot knees

Emerald pines bare witness silently

To summer's setting in her opaline eyes

Ask for mercy
Pray

Diminishing shrouds of vibrant pride 

A darkening rush
Of snow flaked breeze 

And suddenly find
The forest lonely. 

Still Here

Hey guys, I wanted to make sure everyone knew that I hadn't dropped of the face of the earth. Grad school and my work schedule have made it really challenging to write but I've been working on a creative piece, so if anyone is left, I'll soon have something for reading and feedback.

<3

Peace and Other Things

"You'd think with as many as I already have that I wouldn't be nervous!"
"Hey, that's okay. I get nervous too."
My hands are clasping and unclasping on my chest, forced breathing in and out calmly.
"I'm just going to use the q-tips to feel around and then I'm going to mark it."
"Okay, is it going to hurt a lot?"
"Um, some people say it's the same as a nostril piercing."
Cringe.
"That one hurt, except my second one. I was drunk in Greece when I got it."
He chuckles and makes a mark on either side of my nose.
"Alright? Are you ready?"
Breathe out.
"Yes."
"Breathe innnnn, now out."
On the breath out I feel it go through the center of my nose so accutely, involuntary tears running down my cheeks.
The metal slipping through in place of the needle.
"Wow. I'm really happy with that." he says, smiling wide.
"You look like your'e trying to be like every other girl." he texted me.
I don't think so.
Because I'm smiling too, and it's been a while since I've done what I wanted without inhibition.

He is lying next to me, quietly now, leaving me to the gentle epiphanies of the night.
"I'll only be gone for the year. I'm serious about you. Where you go, I want to go."
The coquettish smile is what I know how to do best,
But in the night, when he is fast asleep, I push his arms and legs from their smothering embrace.
Cringe at the soft kisses on my hair and shoulders.
I was cautious, dragging my heels and promising I could only look out for myself right now.
Couldn't be in another relationship.
Then we were a rush of skin.
Loneliness dressed up as self-empowerment seeking refuge under the awning of my friend.
In the morning I look at him as I get up for work and turn away.
The warm feelings of watching his smile as the dog runs around the park abruptly fading.

I almost said your name in place of his.
Biting back the bitter poison before it left my lips.
Still etched on my heart.
They say you shouldn't carve your name into trees because it scars them.
But they say a lot of things
And the scar is still there, throbbing.
Somehow my thoughts always turn to you...

It was a double date with a coworker that she set up and ended with
His lips on mine,
breath infused with beer and courage.
Hands in my hair.
"I have to ask, what are you looking for?"
There it is.
Heaving the eternal internal sigh.
"I don't know, to be honest. I recently got out of a relationship so I'm not really looking for anything right now. What are you looking for?"
"A relationship. It's been about a year and a half since I've been in one."
I didn't text him back the next day.

"Sunshine. blue skies, please go away.
My girl has found another and gone away.
I know to you it might sound strange
But I wish it would rain."
I didn't cry when you said it was over, not much.
My arm hung lazily from the open car window,
Frankie Valli telling me that big girls don't cry
And the Temptations singing about their girl
All of us wishing it would rain.
To wash away those things that you say...
"I think she's the one."
"I still love you and you're both amazing women."
"I can't be in a monogamous relationship. It makes me lie and that's not who I am."
"I miss you."
"Love you hun."

You are the winter.
You are the fall.
The sunny days when the trees bend and sway,
Light reflecting a million beams and the clear blue sky a translucent array of veins.
The hope and promise of warmth and serenity only to feel the scathing death of cold.
Beautiful, misleading, lost.
I wouldn't call you a storm.
Those are majestic.
Honest.
They only promise the driving rains and rolling thunder.
All those pass through the destruction stripped and cleansed.
You are the season of death.
Conspiring.
You are death and I wither under your gaze.

Thunk and clink go the weights on the Olympic platform.
Rhythmic vibrations
Taught muscles strain at their sinews.
Break me.
Make me anew.
I haven't passed through the fire.
Yet yielded ice.
A gentle glow melting from the inside.
Not yet.
Don't thaw yet.
Don't come back yet.
"I wish I had never met you."
"You don't really mean that, but if you do, that really hurts."
But I think,
I think I really do.

Or do I?

What would you say if I told you I was no different than anyone else?
I rip my stitches out early too,I
Feel the pulsating of my beating heart and the words uttered in haste.
The ones we should keep to ourselves
Drunk on sunshine and pain
And indifference.
"Just because he had to come back for school it doesn't minimize the summer or change what's happened. It's not like that. I don't think I have to tell you that, but it's important that I did."
I guess we are the insane as we ignore the mirror's truth
In Flames on the Itunes que and the sidewalk scorching my bare skin.
How long can you stand the flame and not be made ash?
Find the exit sign and disappear.
It doesn't take long, in case you were wondering.

I'm guarded and therefore I can endure
A little bit more 
Just a little bit more

Sinner or saint?
Does it really matter in the end?
How we all choose to live our lives,
Does it really matter?
This summer I learned that maybe it doesn't.
I think in the end it's only if we are happy and don't needlessly hurt
Or allow ourselves to stay caught in someone else's crossfires.
I smile for those that are in love
Genuinely mean the congratulations of good news for others.
No matter what, it always comes around.
Something like the ebb and flow of the tide
And other over used metaphors.
Know thyself
Wishing on the heads up penny I found.
Get up and try another day.
It's all going to be okay.
And that
That brings me peace.

Empty

There is a certain feeling that nestles down in your heart when you enter an abandoned house.

An unnatural emptiness that seeps through your scuffed twelve-year-old sneakers, 

Causing you to pull your jacket closer. 

Carefully touching the deep brown varnished hand rail. 

Wincing at the creek of old protesting stairs,  looking around to see if anyone heard. 

They hadn't. 

Touching the bubbled white with tiny pink flowered wallpaper at the door jam. 

The gravitation to the lit,  empty room is necessary, 

But the clouds are black and the trees bend and sway in the wind. 

The kind of wind that it takes only a glance from curious eyes out a window to chill. 

This time I pull both jacket sides close. 

Cornfield a dull tan with the poor shaving of the combine razor leaving scraggled roots of stalks. 

And the old tractor trying to quietly sleep under the protesting trees.

Its so still. 

So still compared to the picture displayed by the window that I must go to the next room, feeling dread prompted by the dark space to the left where you enter the attic. 

I can't pull my jacket any tighter around me. 

We had gone to my grandfather's house for Thanksgiving,

Now filled with us and my new grandma's married in family. 

It was so difficult to remember this additional cousin's name. 

Landon.

But everyone giggled as I loudly whispered,  "What's lingerie boy's name?" to my aunt. 

Not that I knew what that meant, 

Not that anyone knew how I had concluded the two sounded close. 

Kids sticking olives on their fingers and sucking  them off, all laughing. 

My new older cousin Cassie had said "shit" outside. 

And my mom looked tired. 

Then one day she couldn't take it, the meanness that didn't take leave when the alcoholism did. 

Grandma, now not my grandma,  promising to call. 

She didn't. 

And there I was, visiting the empty home. 

Except, it wasn't empty, just my grandfather downstairs. 

There are some cacophonous stirrings so loud that the heart screams until the prefrontal cortex vibrates with every beat.
It's there, subtle
Screaming
So loudly that my neck and shoulders hitch up into the base of my spinal column
Until I crumple into sleep.
"I have feelings for her. I'm breaking it off."
The phone is cradled in my hand, illuminated from being pulled away.
The ceiling is that damn popcorn texture.
"Are you there?"
Clearing my throat, "Yes."
"You abandoned me."
"I thought it was best to stay here for the summer and work on myself."
"Why couldn't you have done this last summer?"
"I did what I felt was right. What I thought would make me a better person and better girlfriend."
"You abandoned me. I gave you my whole heart for two years. She wants to be as committed as I do."
My head rolls to the side, I need to take the damn dishes to the sink.
A tear rolls onto my pillow.
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah, me too."

What made his house feel that way? I often pondered.
Absence of soul or self or love?
Order.
Chaos.
Rinse and repeat.
The choices of upheaval and bonding that turn endlessly.
Key turning in the lock,
A dog wagging himself side to side in greeting.
Darkened familiar doorways and a screech of sliding windows.
Summer air.
Rough concrete underneath and smoke curling to the sky.
"This place is kind of depressing, no offense."
I nod.
It is.
And I wonder, is this what empty feels like, from the other side?

It  was finally the day. 

The day that I hung my head and arm out the car window,
Dissolving into air, beauty, and infinity.
It was hour three of the trip,
The mushrooms leaving my neurons awake and a light of dry,  crackling existentialism.
"Can you see it? The worst is over."
We had driven to the ends of the city and back with a soft glowing cigarette between our fingers.
Music pumping and throbbing through blasted speakers.
"The monsters in my head are scared of love."
I'm so happy...
"Fallen people listen up! It's never too late to change our luck."
My friend grabbed my hand and squeezed and smiled at the power lines wizzing by.
My other hand softly moving my bangs from my face, also smiling softly.
I could see myself in my apartment, sad and chained to the expectations of someone that didn't love me.
Then casually closing turning a page with the scene displayed until I could no longer envision it.
No more use for it.
"So don't let them steal you light."
"Don't let them break your stride."
I pitied him then, for the cruel things he said, for the things he needed to do because he hurt inside and so hurt others.
"There's a light on the other side, raindrops falling behind."
Lighting another cigarette I sunk lower in the passenger seat, alive with the knowledge that I loved and was loved
Even if some of the other things hurt with a dull, invasive ache,
This was the most beautiful moment.
"It's a revolution."

...

It was a little brick building
With an overhanging tree that never had any leaves in my recollections.
Clouds overcast, windows projecting vacancy
By the stained glass fogginess.
I don't remember the evening they did an exorcism,
But I see myself in my dress and frilly white socks, coloring on the floor,
Sheltered between two pews.
"Mommy, why does Delores want to kill everybody?" I asked her.
I can see the spine  shivers she gets when I ask her about that story,
The otherworldly voice
And the six men it took to hold her down.

... 

My name in green marker,
The outside edges bleeding slightly,
Like the soft, fuzzing memories of childhood
My stretched hide tambourine clutched by tiny hands.
Tiny eyes looking up at the dim ceiling of the Sunday school room.
"The cabinets are so high." 
I thought as he asked me to do something my tiny understanding could not comprehend.
"No. "
This is wrong. 
I have to get away. 
"Where is mommy?"
Some memories are not that fuzzy
And the bathroom door hung open,
Pale window beckoning.
But it was so dark...

.......... 

"Sometimes I feel crazy."
"You keep saying that so I want you to write down what crazy means to you."
Her leg causually crossed under a tie dye skirt.
Mine hanging over the couch side.
Her office was softly lit, inviting
With stones you find at hippie stores
And lots of plants.
I felt like I was wasting  her time.

... 

"You haven't changed. It's been two years and you're not any more confident than you were when I met you."
"Yes I am! You just can't see it because my thinking is different! I don't worry about things as much as I used to."
"Are you still jealous?"
"Everyone gets jealous about things."
"You're deflecting. And you haven't changed."

.......... 

"Good morning! How are you three today?"
Looking up between them to see quickly pasted smiles on rigid frames.
"Fine! How are you?"
Handshakes and hugs.
"Mom and dad fought the whole way here."
I volunteered.
Looking away from laser glares.
Amused laughter following us as we walked back to the children's Sunday school room

The jello was a beautiful turquoise with gummy fish suspended in a Noah reenactment.
Mom bent over each of us to add the whip cream.
Sea foam,
Or something.
Mostly I think she knew what we liked.
"Do you have to be perfect for God to love you?" she questioned our little class.
"No!" we all shouted in unison,  giggling and diving into the tumultuous sea.
I think I turned to see her eyes brimming with tears,
But memories are fuzzy.

Dandelions

When you're a kid 

And the spring sun lays its gentle rays 

On your tensile strands

They always tell you to make a wish.

On stars

On a time

And dandelions.

I grabbed a whole handful tonight

Blowing hard

Anguish constricting my heart

Wishing desperately 

That you were mine again.

Turmoil

“I want to talk to you! I’m sorry I interrupted!”

Hand to the doorknob and twist without a budge.

Sigh and look at the soft light of the street lamps peer through the gaps in the living room blinds.

The knob twists under my fingers and the door opens suddenly, his figure emerging in a rush, arm sliding easily around my neck

Pushing me into the room, turn, let me down, then abruptly rough drop to the floor

Arms pushed above my head

His face is so close that I can see his facial hair, up to the glowing white skin, to his dark brows and brown hair falling over his eyes

“You stupid fucker!”

“Don’t call me names!” I try to firm my resolve, left leg shaking.

“Shut up you stupid fucking cunt!”

It was hard to hear what he said then because I was oddly aware of the way the carpet felt rough on my lower back where my shirt was pushed up

And the mist of saliva as more words ripped out.

My lips and eyes scrunched up as two fat tears ran down the sides of my face and I began to cry.

“Why are you crying!? Are you hurt? Did I hurt you?”

“No…It hurt my neck a little bit…I was just scared…”

More tears.

“You are so mentally weak!”

Continues on saying something that I vaguely know hurts.

“Did I hurt you?” he asks again.

His breath is warm; I don’t know why this surprises me.

Stern features looking down at my tear stained ones demand a technical answer.

Quiet inhale, face turning to stone.

“No.”

“What?”

“No. I’m not hurt.”

The hot sticky feeling and the throbbing in my nose makes me think that somewhere in all this my nose ring bumped into the bottom of my nose.

There was a end to the argument, which was forgotten the next day. 
Fingers that kept smudging black mascara tears as I recalled the things he said, that I hovered and was a burden, making him miserable, a coward, that I tried to change him and thought I was better than I was...
"Something wrong?" he asks when I get home.
Quick smile, "No, I'm just tired. Long day of school." 
Things smooth again, 
Thoughts bouncing in my head, "I'm so ashamed of how I've behaved..."
"I shouldn't have been such a child..."
"He gets it more than I do..."

I'm not hurt, but it still makes me alternate between tears and chastising myself.
Self-doubt.
Questions.
But I love him...
How?
Shame.

And then

I can't believe this happened to me....

Happy?

You ever get the idea that you're not living your life?
I mean, really living your life?
Get up, go to work, go to school, cook dinner, kiss your significant other, turn on the radio in your car and sing along like it's the best thing and you tell yourself that you're happy.
Why?
Because you're not in Somalia or homeless or anything else to give you the indication that you're not happy.
But.
But you're not.
The alarm rings to single the onset of a very important day, the things you do that matter and contribute and make you fell fulfilled.
Does it though?

This is me.
I get up every day, sometimes sleeping longer than I should.
I promise more of myself from my studies than I can follow through with,
I live in an apartment with my boyfriend.
I go to the gym and text/call my friends to see how they are and when the moments come, as they always do, when I am sitting quietly alone, I tell myself I'm happy.
Why?
Because I'm not in Somalia or homeless and there's no other indication that I'm not happy.

But there is....

You ever just watch people, really watch them, and see how noisy and fleeting and on the surface it all can be?
I clean my apartment and do the laundry and as I fold his clothes I think how I care about him and it's nice to search for the stupid missing socks and clean the kitchen and do all this stuff because I'm happy.
I move forward because that's the direction you're supposed to go.
I change the things I don't think I need to because I'm happy.
I talk about things that aren't what is really bothering me because I can't keep bothering my friends with these worries that play on repeat.
Because I'm happy.

At 8:42 on Sunday night I sat on the floor in front of the coffee table with my clay project I was finishing up with paint, a Netflix movie on and every light in the place on because I decided to stop what I was doing to paint.
I thought about all the stuff that creeps up when the world is quieter and it's just you there.
While I don't know for sure what  else I would be doing, I do know that my friend is right:
Life is too short to be so miserable. Especially at so young of an age.
I've been wasting time worrying if I'm good enough, interesting or smart enough and painfully comparing myself to everyone else.
But I'm happy.

No. I'm not happy.
I just want that on record.
I am not happy.

I am in a mediocre to shitty relationship that is handy for him and leaves me questioning daily if I'm worthy enough or not and if he truly cares or not.
I don't want to work so much while I'm in graduate school.
I can't see myself as a professional in training as part of my identity yet.
I don't like keeping up on the cleaning and the laundry.
I always have these grand ideas for a writing or painting/ceramics/drawing ideas and my skill doesn't align with that idea.
I want to just pick up and travel and now that I have the opportunity to go to Guatemala for eight weeks this summer, I stupidly question whether or not I should because maybe if I go home with him this summer like he talked about, while he goes to Japan for three weeks telling me he doesn't want me to go with, maybe he'll decide he loves me for real.
I doubt my professional skills at times.
I get upset when my brownies don't turn out just so.
I hate some of the things people do but I don't say anything because I'm pretending to be happy.
Void of feeling too much and playing cool just in case.

I'm sick of fucking walking around like nothing anyone does bothers me and I'm okay with it, that I'll just try a little harder or care a little less or turn a blind eye to things.
That's wrong!
That's all wrong and not how things should be!
I'm 24 in 4 days.
It can't be another year of just continuing on the cycle until eventually the people I put more effort into than they do me eventually decide it's not worth it.

Maybe it's almost the breakthrough point.
Like maybe this is the climax when I finally decide to live for myself and not other people.
Or maybe it's just some post that comes from left field that doesn't matter.
It matters to me though, getting all of it out of my head, hoping other people think about this stuff too.
We're all putting ourselves aside or putting ourselves too far ahead and it's not right.
There's probably not any wisdom in this but I think it matters because we've all got to live with ourselves forever, that's what she said to me.
When I'm sitting alone on my living room floor painting and thinking, in that moment that's it.
There's no show, no impressing to be done or sucking up or being the most aloof.
I'm just afraid that it's too easy for all of us as people to get so distanced from who we are trying to chase a collective idea of happy, excusing what our own definitions are, being hurt or hurting to have this idea, and then when we're alone at night we don't even know who we are.
I don't.
I have a general idea but I don't always feel confident enough to go with it.

So, I don't know, just a thought.
Are you happy, truly, when you're sitting alone at home and can you be that person all the time?
If so, you got there somehow and I think it's important to know.

Today

"Guilt is like a ton of  bricks: it's only heavy if you hold on to it." He told me.

"I'm going to dump her, I just don't know when." He told her.

"I'm ready, I really need to get in for an appointment." I told the therapist.

"You have to do better." I told myself. 

"I'm sorry." I told my friends.

"I don't know if we're just holding onto it. I still have feelings for you." He said.

"Pray for me." I asked my mom.

"Please.... Help me." I asked God.

....

Things were oddly peculiar,

Key in the lock-

Half turned to open or to trap the scream. 

She left nothing of the former life-

Only shoes and tattered bedspread things

Where her dreams tore their fingers

Searching the mended mother holes

Keep quiet. 

You'll wake the neighbors with the

Sound of your beat less hearts 

But it may get lost in the sonic 

Noise of bustling aspirations

The car has been warmed up 

For some time but

It was never easy to go

Ego.