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I don't know why he began talking to me, but I try not to question perfect coincidences.
It began with a simple, "Do you save and invest?"
Sheepishly I conceded that I did not but that I was interested in learning.
From there he went on to talk about how he wanted his kids to learn that and then began to chastise those that gave 10% to the church.
Something I had been raised to do.
Though now I made a promise to help anyone in need generously.
He recounted owning three homes, creating a hefty retirement, all to be lost to alcoholism.
His ex wife had allowed him to no longer pay back child support payments
And then he moved on to his childhood, growing up poor and in the country.
I asked him what had attracted him to his wife, what the special "thing" was.
He said something to me that I'll never forget.
He said, "I wanted someone to control me. I could do all the other things and I was successful, but looking back now, I wanted someone to control me. She was like a parent."

I want to tell you that it's not me.
I wish it was that simple.
So much of my time was spent wishing I was "normal", whatever that is.
The therapist in training will tell you normal is the place you're at in your life where you're happy and healthy, in most or all respects.
It just seems like we're all brought up to be strong, not show our emotions with others or at the very least in public, and there's a recipe of what's correct to share in a relationship and what you need to handle yourself.
There are just all these people in the world and some are like me and some aren't.
I was eight when the principal asked my parents to come into the office to ask if I was being sexually abused at home.
They saw signs they said.
At eight years old we just know that we must hide our emotions.
All day long I deal with emotions.
With families, with veterans, with friends and family and my so called significant other.
I tried to be more sensitive and empathetic to the needs of others but do you realize how hard that is?
People are always putting you into the place that they inhabit mentally and emotionally, always.
They show pieces of themselves in the way they hold their glass, the look in their eyes when they aren't focused on someone or something, the way their body moves when no one inhabits their space and when someone does.
Look to the inflection of their voices both high and low, the wetting of the lips with the tongue, fingers brushing through hair, wrinkles of the face, the genuine quality of a smile.
We are a beautifully written book, perpetually filling pages.
Look closely, you're in the middle of watching a story being written and they yours.
We are spilling over at the seams, try as we might to keep it in.
We need desperately for others to get it, to see what we have created, to share.
Maybe some of us have egos and are too prideful to share, yet there the story is, seeping out in the dimly lit TV to a twenty-three year old girl.
I've never claimed to know or have seen it all.
In fact, I find myself wide-eyed at the magic and tragedy of all that is this life.
I'm grateful for this job and for him.
That's me.
I'm afraid and I like being controlled to a large extent.
Now what to do with this knowledge I don't know yet, but I'm ever grateful for the moments in which someone's story has the power to alter mine for the good.
So grateful for the lives people have lived and shared with me and others so that I might learn and be better and help others better, whether they're aware of the miracle they've created or not.

Something beautiful is happening.
Growing.
And I, I the broken, mending, young, naive, biased (at times), and searching young girl (woman) am able to catch glimpses of the sheer magnitude and beauty of what it is to be human.
Hard as it is.
We are so blessed if only we open our heart and eyes, even if we open them to the hard truths about ourselves and others that leave us bare and vulnerable.

If you can, embrace it. And if you would be so kind, share something someone said to you that has forever impacted you.
Can I see a few of your pages?
Because I love all of you and your stories.

Lessons

"Alcohol will take you to places you've never been and never want to be again.  I went to bed with two married women. I'll never know if I broke up marriages or if I have a child... I'll never know. It's a bad place to be in, doing anything you want just to make yourself happy, don't care who you hurt as long as you're happy."
The worn face of the recovered veteran looked at my young, naive one.
I felt something inside me draw in, further from the outside walls of my skin, where no one could see my guilt.

I want to write so bad but these days the words are few.
Starting, stopping, unfinished thoughts.
Some lesson I've been learning or mulling through only to realize it's more of a snapshot in my mind,
Then it's gone.
Or it's a piece of writing removed from myself, pushed back from the heart of how I really feel.
I enjoy my new job working with homeless veterans at a transitional house.
Their banter and teasing, words of wisdom, and kindness touch my heart.
Then the weekend comes and I do family support work.
And in between, school.
One morning I realized I didn't dread waking up to the day ahead.
One day I realized I stopped speaking to myself hatefully.
One night I realized that I could do anything if I just removed the mental blocks.
I have literally spent months, fucking MONTHS trying to become a better person, accept hard truths about myself and my past, reject urges to fall into negative behaviors, and tried to get better daily at empathy and selflessness.
You know what? It wasn't worth it. It was worth it in that he was helpful to my growth but trying for this relationship wasn't.
I've never been called what he has called me and I've never been treated so crappy but thank you.
You gave me a dose of my own medicine.
There was a time when I was cheating on all my boyfriends, making selfish choices and blowing my friends off, not calling my family, only stopping by to eat and sleep, just making a path of destruction and some of these people stuck with me.
They stuck with me through my relapse into anorexia, through my few months of drinking and partying, my few years of cheating, all of that and they loved me.
I'm so blessed.
Like I didn't even deserve that and that's the amazing thing isn't it?
We can sit around and complain and get upset that someone didn't do this or that or that we have to do something for someone when it's not necessarily convenient for us but at one point we weren't the convenient favor either.
His rudeness literally makes me want to stab my own eyes out.
I walk into the house where I find my best friend and she tells me about the parents that tell their children that they are stupid and yell at her, yell at the caseworker, yell yell yell.
Stop it.
I literally cannot stand people right now.
I cannot believe how heartless they can be and how selfish we can be.
Oh, and shallow.
So I'm not the prettiest or skinniest.
I'm also a sweetheart and I'll give you as much as my huge heart can.
I've been an awful person and I've been a decent person.
I've struggled and fell and gotten up again.
Here's the thing, no one is required to keep toxic people in their lives.
No one is required to allow themselves to be taken advantage of or hurt or any of that nonsense.
Today at work when he looked at me and told me that story, about his drinking and his recovery and then how kind to me and others he was I was once again reminded that there are good people in this world.

What I meant to say out of all that was:
I have held on to toxic people for too long and I let them cause me to question and hate myself and that is absolutely not necessary. You don't need them either.
Negative self-talk gets you nowhere. It's easier to see opportunities when you're optimistic, hopeful, and not such a jerk to yourself.
Someone in the world isn't going to think you're attractive or awesome. That doesn't mean you aren't.
There's a difference between giving and being taken advantage of. Give yourself some credit and realize your self-worth.
I don't have to be a lady all the time if I don't want to. I'm going to burp, I'm going to swear, and I'm not going to dress nice all the time. That's fine.
Find a hobby.
Learn something every day.
Be empathetic first.
Be thankful.
Be kind.
Above all, there's no reason to be apologetic for the person you are. Just don't be a dick.

<3

Dark Horse

His breath felt hot in my hand, 

Moist, reassuring.

I could see the beads of condensation form at the end of his whiskers

Velvet nose probing the creases of my hand for any token morsel.

Sun coming up, dew clinging desperately to the hazy morning grasses.

Slick, cooling blood swiped like a paint swatch down the center of his nose. 

Bright red, darkened to a sheen of purple by his black fur. 

He'd be covered in my sudden compulsion but I couldn't resist the romance of the sight.

"It's okay now." I calmly whispered, fingers running down the cascade of mane. 

.......................

We were your dark horses

Kept in the stable smelling of sweet hay and acerbic intentions. 

Daisies in our hair

Head resting on his neck by the withers in the warm summer sun. 

You loved us, you said, as you cracked my head against the peeling barn walls

But only beautiful things belonged in your stable. 

Fingernails pulling at the rust colored paint

As I laid at the feet of 2x4s and mercy. 

Your hands were hot ice on my neck

Vices of iron.

Blackness tainting the soft evening light poking through the rafters at the corners of my vision.

No one heard when I screamed for the hundreth time.

Plunging it deep.

Ruining my daisy chain.

But no one heard you either.

You never saw it coming

When the tables turned and sunk into you.

It's funny how we so quickly forget our betrayals when the delicate razor sharpness slides

Down

Down

Down

Through the layers of skin and lies. 

Shame on you. 

There wasn't much that I asked of you.

 And then I watched you die. 

Shuddering and clawing at my arms. 

The streaks painting an elaborately simple contemporary piece. 

"Shhhh," I whispered, tracing my pointer finger over your lips

Just like you did when I cried. 

Holding hands at the hilt. 

It was nearly morning.

.......................

Nickering and nuzzling me, breath hitching, disconnected fingers at my side

Liquid consciousness spilling between dirtied nails.

Dark chocolate eyes and  

Head bowing to meet me as I sunk to the ground.

I made sure it was in our daisies.

Because beautiful things don't belong in stables. 

Pleasantries

I think I said it more for my benefit than yours.
You don't usually say it to me over text or respond to it.
But this time you did.
I don't think we love each other.
Is that really the sad piece of this story though?
There was this belief that I could transcend where he found me
That I could believe I was beautiful and confident and become that stoic woman on the outside he craved.
I've always had the uncanny ability to be with people who missed their exes and whom I could never measure up to though.
Never was able to stop comparing myself to the previous relationship even though I managed to become more confident and stop hating myself.
We all have our bad habits.
He's sleazy.
He talks to these girls with an intoxicating mix of confidence and empathy.
He sees their hurts and soothes them with an understanding no one had before him.
He's attractive and seductive.
I get it.
Unfortunately.
I know he believes she's perfect for him
And she believes he is too
But she's not coming back to his state and he's not moving there.
Yet he pulls my body close at night, sometimes kissing my shoulder or hair
"I love you" softly rolling into the dimly lit room we've shared since September.
I'm no longer undee the assumption that I was more than a vulnerable pretty face, quick to please and to help.
I drive to school.
I drive to work.
I fill my days with hopes and reminders of reality,  resume boosters, longing, and the knowledge that I don't have it all figured out.
I wake up with a sheet wrapped around my bare chest to keep away the chill from my exposed heart
Promising myself that I'll learn one new word a day, look into hobbies besides lifting, watch a documentary, and be more independent.
The shortness of his text messages on my screen and the length on hers amd others says enough.
And the joke about me not being that interesting.
And convenient.
But reassurance that he only wants to be with me.
"You're going to figure out what you like, dammit!"
I chastise myself as my knuckles turn white gripping my steering wheel tightly.
Ten and two.
I just need to find the things that keep me absorbed longer than a few weeks...
Or learn to accept ny personality
And stop thinking it's a sign of unintelligence.
Would you want to be with a man long term who didn't want to give you all he could and who found it okay to speak to others like that?
Sexual and complimentary.
"That makes it less special when you say it to me and it's someone else's job to say it to them anyway."
I talked myself into believing that saying that dripped with insecurity and wasn't worth me saying anyway.
That I demonstrated why I wasn't attractive.
I'm sure she IS perfect.
Positive.
But I'm not that bad either.
Wishing you were down on your knees begging me to stay
Making your case instead of me perpetually making mine.
That wasn't why I fell for you though
So I might as well give it up.
Maybe you do love me.
Maybe you just don't know how to do it right.
Maybe you don't think what you're doing points to the contrary.
Some days I wish I was that naive.
Or not.
I have two jobs now.
I'm in graduate school.
I've come a long way and push to go further.
I work out.
I try to be kind.
I try to be the best I can be
The desire to hurt you like you have been hurting me was so strong
But half hearted.
That's not me and why be on your level anyway.
I'm settling on making this a game,
The one you manipulated it to be.
We'll play ordinary couple
Complete with nicknames and I love yous.
I don't have the heart to embrace that I hate you for what you won't see in me.
Not yet anyway.
I'm working on not accepting less than I deserve
So for now we can keep the pleasantries.

Rampant

We are vain creatures

Looking for reflections of ourselves in others.

Do we love to spite the flaws we know so well?

Seeing them haggard and grey

On display in the purple circles under eyes peeled open all night

To the sound of rampant traipsing thoughts.

Exposed by soft light of morning light reflected in bathroom mirrors.

Who knows our secrets?

Those little pining and conniving seeds

Taking root in the cerebral hemispheres.

Tangible cleansing.

Able to save that which we cannot save ourselves from

By nagging and pulling

So that we might have one thing which we can call our own.

One source of pride in which we may set up as a beacon for all excuses.

Just to say we did one thing in our lives

That had nothing to do with what we should have been doing.  

Yet alone we twist in the sheets

Stricken by existential crisis.

....

I put my hand to your chest at night

Feeling for your heart

Lost over the roar of mine

(Or you don't have one)

Let me give you mine

Animate this lifeless

Catastrophe

Up,Trying to Grow

I felt so invasive, placing my feet
One
In front
Of the other
Following the woman I was shadowing
Down the stairs to the basement
Holding the urinalysis drug testing kit between my right fingers.

Eyes adjust.
Some clutter.
Some darkness.
I imagined her using by the washing machine.
Somehow I just knew.

She was compliant, understanding, up beat as though she held some sort of guilt.
"This is Eve. She's doing her first UA."
I gingerly pulled out the gloves, putting one on
Then the other.
Removing the cup and handing it to her.
I felt slow, out of place, and unused to being in this role.
I had to watch her, but my eyes would move back and forth from her
To the door
Back to her
To her feet.
I had never been bothered by nakedness in any form,
Never minded having to pee in front of people or where they could hear,
Never struggled to speak with strangers,
Yet in those moments I felt wrong being there.

I stuck the tester in for thirty seconds then recapped it.
The line was faint, and I showed the woman training me.
"Well, it's there, just faintly, but you admitted to using Friday or Saturday so it would be faint. We still have to take it to the lab. You get your visit."
She was so happy...
Dark circles under her eyes.
I sealed the bags and we left that dark basement.
That reminded me a lot of those long dark nights when my ex would use...

It was hard, getting used to life outside undergrad.
Four years built on comfort and convenience.
Writing that I had a bachelor's degree in Psychology with an in progress masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling brought a source of pride,
Until it was a week and a half and no call backs.
One on the spot interview,
One refreshed resume,
A budget sheet with expenses piling up.
And then, an answered prayer.
My best friend and I were both hired as family support workers
Thanks to her I had found a job and I felt so happy,
So grown up with a real job.

I don't know what it was...
It was the drug test.
It was observing the man so happy to hold his infant son,
Awkwardly cradling him,
Child like grin,
Trying so hard to learn to be a father after getting clean.
So many hurting people.
At first I felt angry that people could be here, be in this horrible spot
Do these horrible things to each other and to their children.
I questioned my desire to be a therapist,
Questioned my abilities.

Suddenly I didn't want to do the job anymore.
Consumed by such angry and frustrated thoughts.
I didn't want to use my car to drive to their home.
I didn't want to have to wake up early to check up on them and make sure their abusive husbands and boyfriends weren't home.
I didn't want to transport their kids because they couldn't do it themselves.
I didn't want to be here.
I felt so hesitant, so shaken by the fact that the woman I had tested had sunk so low in her life that she had to be observed by a stranger peeing into a cup so that she could see her son.
She had made an effort, relapsed, tried, lied, and succumbed to the cycle addicts turn round.
Why?
Why can't we stop when we know  what we're doing is killing us, killing the ones we love?
Why can't we do the right thing and treat ourselves with love and respect?
 I felt so small, so insignificant.
How would I ever manage to help another person?
How would I manage to promote healing when it had taken me years to even reach my own point of healing?

I'm not where I should be, or maybe I'm right where I'm supposed to be.
I'm shaky and unsure
Growing up, branching out, holding on, staying in.
I feel insecure then confident and wash it all down with half a Zoloft to combat the winter blues.
Pasty smile, cheeks red from time at the gym and cold mornings.
Check the bank account
Order a pizza.
Lack trust
Feel his arm wrap around me in his sleep.
Hold it in,
Let it out.
This is how we grow up, it seems.
With the push and pull of uncertainty and wonder,
Wild eyed, misty eyed, seeing red, lashes sweep.
We're all just trying.
I guess I see that every day.
Maybe we hope, maybe we don't.
Maybe we atrophy and decay or maybe we radiate, weaving up the awning to the sun.
I don't know. I'm just trying. Allowing school and my job to shake me.
Do we really know what we're doing anyway?