Lines

I love him
and that never had anything
to do with anyone else.

Choking on hurt or embarrassment perhaps?
it weighs on my chest
in a way no amount of pressure
ever managed to cling to you
I envy you that
but I’ve never hated you for it
the way I’ve seen others;
sometimes even complete strangers
hate you immediately upon realizing
their hatefulness could never do you harm

four books in four days
I’m feeling dangerous–
skating on thin ice
listening to it creak
and knowing inside myself
I sometimes still long to fall in
and freeze again

the depth of my selfishness
is embarrassing when I see it reflected
so clearly in your eyes
how can you see it
and still love me?

But its the depth that draws you in
out of your own shallows
to where the fear of drowning
overwhelmed by currents
you can’t control
makes you feel alive

the girl I used to be looked into the mirror
keen eyes catching the line of my collar bones,
the angle of my jaw
it was a mocking stare
and I deserved it
along with the doubt
that he would love the new, thinner me
when he had been so reverent of the softness
and curving elegance of the girl I used to be
how will he feel about the daring and athletic
woman I have become since he knew me last?

When this feeling fades
I know I will feel the hollowness
of having my soul stretched out
within myself–
me from the ends of my hair to the tips of my toes
then slowly made smaller somehow
until I could fit all those I love
safely inside again

The Shack

I wish the shack had not ended where it ended. I wish it had gone just another chapter or so through the part where he goes to face and forgive his daughter’s murderer. That’s the part I don’t know how to do.

I know how to move forward, how to let go of bitterness and anger, I can even find faith in myself, after all my failures in various aspects life. But I don’t know how to let someone know that I forgive them and ask for their forgiveness of me. I don’t know how to show someone my feelings are genuine, particularly when the people I would have this conversation with would have no reason to believe me, nor I any reason to believe them. I don’t know what words to use to keep from making things worse and I don’t know how to open that kind of topic.

I have figured out how to forgive, but I haven’t the foggiest clue how to communicate that forgiveness.

Some Days

Some days I wonder if my smile is as painful to look at
as it is to create

Some days every human attempt to connect to me
makes me sick

Some days I am grim, pessimistic and overbearingly “wise”

Some days I want to disappear
but not into poetry
I’d rather just go
quickly
and preferably by way of horse

Some days Tristan is my only ticket
out of myself

sacrifice

layers of living
none of which fulfill
I am tired
but full of purpose

my shawl is in the bag
unfinished
my book unread
and my horse unridden

the worst part
of sacrifice
is watching what you are giving up
while you wait
for what you can only hope will be worth it

engagement

its a beautiful ring
they all say so
and they don’t even know
all the layers of beauty
he placed inside–
hidden meanings
secret symbols . . .
it will never be more beautiful to anyone
than it is to me

Protected: Brush With the Past

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Live

you can find the courage to show your scarred insides to someone
but that doesn’t make them beautiful
you can conquer your unreasonable fear of the darkness
but that doesn’t change the fact that darkness conceals
you can smile through the pain, the insecurity and the fear
but they’ll still be there, when you’re alone and your smile slips
you can silence your lips and your fingers
but the words will still be there
you can learn from every mistake
but you’ll never stop making them
you can believe
and still be wrong
you can have faith
and be disappointed
you can trust
and be let down
you can move forward
then slide right back
or you can do nothing
and die
without ever having lived

Things I wish I’d Said . . .

~”No, its not that I’ve changed or that I’m drunk, its just that I’m not in love with you anymore.”
That’s the part I actually did say, if he hadn’t hung up on me at that point and never spoken to me again, I wish I’d said . . .

You were never there for me. When we were together and I was attacked in TN you just yelled at me, then when I got home broke up with me and said I “didn’t feel the same.” When we were best friends and my Aunt passed away of lung cancer you avoided me in the halls at school and wouldn’t even look me in the eye. Every time I ever needed you, you disappeared and I need someone I can lean on when I’m feeling weak instead of just pretending I’m strong enough for everything all the time. I’m not. I’m not strong enough for everything, I don’t always understand and I’m not always happy, and that’s not new.

~”I never cheated on you and this isn’t about good enough or smart enough or rich enough. I have always loved you exactly as you are and I’m not a princess who needs a castle and fancy things. You keep saying that if I loved you, none of this would matter, well if you loved me then it would matter to you. It would matter that I’m not happy sitting at home night after night playing cards; it would matter that my friends invite me out every weekend and I never go; it would matter that my best friend in the world was in town for forty five minutes and I wanted you to meet her. But those things don’t matter to you at all. You don’t love me either.”

~I stopped being your friend because I hate everything we do. I hate sitting around while you smoke weed, I hate feeling like I’m always doing something I could get in trouble for and I hate lying to my parents. And you date everyone I tell you I have a crush on, friendly? I think not.

~I’m sorry I didn’t accept your friend request. Part of me always wondered if you would come around, find another way to handle your anger and be the person I could see in you when you were at your happiest. Now you’ve died and because I didn’t accept that friend request, I’ll never know if were able to change or not. Regardless of that, I know you had it in you, I always knew.

~Stop breaking others down for your own pleasure; finding your happiness at another’s expense is always going to leave you with that empty feeling; you are a good person and want to help others, but in order to do that, let your paradigm shift to match what you feel inside yourself instead of basing it on what others find funny or will accept you for; you are strong enough to do this.

~I love you, but I don’t want to have sex and I honestly don’t know when I’ll feel ready. Right now I feel so pressured sometimes I don’t even look forward to seeing you and feeling like a disappointment. I want to break up when you go to college because I feel like I can’t compete with college girls; you’re so handsome and fun I know that some beautiful, thinner than me college girl will be happy to sleep with you and it would break my heart for us to end that way. I don’t know what the future holds, but I love you and I can see myself with you forever, but we need to talk about our problems with jealousy and our insecurities if we’re going to make it. And, just so you know, that night we went camping with Kristy and Henry, all I wanted in the world was for you to wrap your arms around me in the back seat of the Val, but instead I just stayed there silent and awake wishing because I was afraid you would stay mad and I would be humiliated if you turned away from me when I tried to touch you.

~Don’t ever touch me again. Ever. And when I have children, don’t make it awkward when I won’t let them stay the night at your house.

~

Sad

it is gray
and I’m as rainy inside
as it is outside

instinctively clinging to tears
I know I should just let fall

it still bothers me to cry
for no reason
I want to justify
the sadness that passes through me
heavy and slow
pulling me down down to where all the great poetry is

I don’t always want to go.

Tonight’s Thoughts

~It was important for me to let myself grieve for what I lost. It was also important that I eventually let go of what I’d lost.

~Life is not fair and that’s no one’s fault. Some days I get the sunshine, other days the rain.

~Anger is not real, its only the clothing we wear to cover our fear, shame, insecurity and hurt.

~Happiness is a moment, not a constant. Contentment can be constant, but its not the same thing.

~Writing makes it all make sense. Even if I have to write awhile to write myself into order again and wrong words fall freely on the way to the right.

~I still wonder.

Still True

Fried okra, daffodils, horses, books, the south, oceans, rivers, poetry, secrets, sunrises, puddle-jumping, wrap around porches, kids, sun-bathing, dogs, singing, clarinets, oboes, trucks, hard work, dancing, love, Carl, understanding, smiles, curly, messy, tree-climbing, rag-muffin, mud, family, barefoot, undomesticated, passion, lightning bugs, poppy seed muffins, writing, sage brush, good times. : )

These words are the very first thing I put in my About Me section of my myspace page back in 2005 when Carl made one for me and demanded that I use it to keep in touch with him better (at the time, I didn’t have a cell phone either). I was re-reading it today and realized that not one word of that list has changed. I suppose I have always been a little more myself than I realized. : )

Morning Lines

~We are curled into one furry, warm, love ball in my bed; one boy, one girl and two dogs–my family.

~Still, in the face of possible perfection, I occasionally choke on my own insecurities.

~It is my river ring, my superhero ring, my bolt of blue-green love lightning, his sparkling promise, his message to the world.

~So many holes in closure; its only as real as you want it to be and unlike a smile, to stop wanting is impossible to fabricate.

~There were things I wanted to be, to have, made impossible by rape and all that follows; even still, I shouldn’t have waited so long to grieve for my dead dreams.

~Not one ounce of animosity in me, just curiosity I have never been able to curb, what am I doing for you, I wonder?

~No future could ever live up to the promises in that perfectly white porcelain pedestal sink beside the clawfoot tub in our bathroom.

The Most Amazing Break Up Ever.

So a very close friend of mine gotten broken up with this morning. Now, in most cases, the person doing the breaking up walks away on top while the person who is broken up with is left with the short end of the pride stick. Not in this case, my friends. The broken up with, for the sake of anonymity I shall call her Sally, had one of those amazing moments of clarity where everything you want to say is right there at the forefront of your mind in the very moment you need it most.

He, I’ll call him Dave, flew off the handle for no reason at all. He has a history of doing this and we have wondered if he would be able to stop or if it was going to cause their eventual demise as a couple. And this morning he was in fine form. Sadly, they’d had a great night and great conversation the night before when we all went downtown to celebrate Sally’s birthday so who knows where it came from, but regardless he started in;

He told her she was using him.
He told her that she was a selfish little bitch.
He told her that he couldn’t trust her.
He told her everything had to be about her and she didn’t do anything for him.

At this point she stopped him and said . . .

I’m not using you. I’ve never used you. I don’t need anything you have. I have always just loved you for the man you are.

I’m not selfish. If I were such a horrible, selfish person, then I wouldn’t have had so many close friends come out to celebrate my life with me last night. They love me because I’m a good person and a good friend.

You can trust me. I have never done anything to cause you to lose trust in me. I have always been faithful in every way, I have never left you and I have always been there for you when you needed me. I’m one of the most trustworthy people in your life.

You have always said you want someone to cook for you, to love you and take care of you and I have done everything that you ever asked me to do. I have given you everything you said you wanted and more.

At this point, he repeated himself a couple of times, then said, Well, I’m just done with you. I don’t want a relationship with you anymore!

Now you might, as i did, expect that she would cry or tell him she loved him again or tell him they should talk about it or something like that, but no, her reply to him was;

Then why are you still standing in my living room?

BOOYA GRANDMA!

I’m sorry I’m just so impressed with my friend and her ability to state for him in no uncertain terms that all his reasons are incorrect. And when he couldn’t come up with any more and simply said he didn’t want to be with her, she told him to leave! If only we could all do that in break ups! Especially when Sally was and is still in love with him. She recognized that he was never going to stop treating her this way and let him go, but on her own terms and without taking his bait and yelling or being unreasonable. She is my break up shero. : )

dah

~My man got down on his knees and put my boots on for me while I was getting ready to go downtown tonight. I’d only asked him to grab them from the closet, never in a million years imagining that he would actually help me into them. I’m going to marry him. : )

~I love this time of year, inside wants out and I’m going to let it.

~I’m a little drunk.

~Okay, tonight was Tobo’s b-day dinner and I’ma lil more than a lil drunk.

~I love this blog and watching the words pour onto the screen. And maybe its wrong to love your own poetry, but I love each of my poems like family. I’m proud of them, even.

~I won’t keep anything in, not ever again, but I won’t just let it fly out of my fingers like fire balls wreaking destruction and chaos either. There’s a balance, I’m going to find it.

~I feel optimistic pizza tonight.

~and th e quote of the day is “Hey Elena, how come women have boobs?” “I don’t know, Bobby, how come?” “Because you can’t motorboat with personality!” Yeah, Karaoke night is awesome.!

I Was

I was never going to get married.

I was never going to ask a doctor about orthotics for my leg or what my kidney needs.

I was never going to have children.

I was never going to love anyone as much as I love my dog and horse.

I was never going to need someone else to be content.

I was never going to give up my pride for anything . . .

but that was only because back then,

my pride was all I had.