Today, fine.

There was a time I wasn't this analytical

I didn't need to know

why and how and where it was all going

If you told me it was all going to be okay

I'd believe you -

without question

But that stopped working

Because so much wasn't okay

I felt lied to

Where was truth?

I tried constructing my own

which was even worse

Disastrous, my mind is

at finding reality

Instead it dreamed of life as a circus

and I, the ring leader

orchestrating it all

But I wasn't.

Again, I felt lied to

this time by my own mind

So here I am

I don't trust you

I don't trust me

What then do I trust?

I sometimes find this little voice

inside my heart

It tells me to let it be

Let life show you what's real, it says

And it's powerful when it says that

Let it unfold

in its own time

like the flowers you so often admire

Their petals are at first so tightly packed

protecting the stamen from damage

until the stamen tells them it's okay to open

up to the world

up to the sun

allow light in

sometimes damage

but they're ready for this

They unfurl, extending

until they fall

Off their flower

To the floor

Some give themselves to the wind

Or to a child's hand

A dog's mouth even

They don't seem to fight it -

the truth of their existence

Perhaps they know that while they were opened, they were admired
loved even

They had a purpose

"Stop questioning!

Allow your petals to open, extend,
Allow admiration and love

Give what you can, when you can

until the end of your time."

This is what that voice tells me

This power inside that I've just begun to touch and listen to

Time is not mine

The voice is it
Truth, reality

And today, fine

Tomorrow I may begin questioning again
Where and how and why

But today, fine

I'll give the truth a chance

think about it...

"To find the balance you want you must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have 4 legs instead of 2. That way you stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head; you must look through your heart instead. That way you will know God."

~ Elizabeth Gilbert, "Eat Pray Love"

miniature keyboards make for half ass blog postings.

{ City Hall at dusk. I live here. I feel lucky }

Can I tell you something?

There's a few reasons I've neglected my blog over the past 2 months.

I am working. It was much easier to write like my life depended on it when I had nothing on my agenda for 7 months. Also, I moved. But more than that, I don't have cable or internet at my new digs. Because I don't need it. Unless, of course, I want to keep up with my blog. Then I begin to miss a full-sized keyboard. Right now, I'm typing on my cell phone and it really hurts my fingers and my biceps. My fingers hurt all the time anyway, because lately I've picked up my old habit of biting and picking at my cuticles and fingertips. This is awful mainly due to the season. During fall and winter, everyone suffers from dry skin, especially those who have already wrecked their skin due to anxiety ridden compulsions. My fingers look like a small animal has been gnawing on them. That animal is me. I wonder why I have no shame in admitting this disgusting habit to the few people who may check in on this blog of mine that is suffering from a slow and painful death.

I have every intention of trying to rescussitate this thing when I can buy internet or steal it. Until then, I will continue to post sparingly and vaguely. Because it hurts my hands to do much more. Its easier to write poetry on a cell phone because the lines are usually short and sweet. Perhaps I will begin writing daily haikus. I do not remember how to construct a haiku so I will first have to google it but maybe that's the next assignment.

I don't like that it gets dark at 6 and will continue to get dark sooner. It leaves me feeling like I wouldn't mind being run over by a bus and that's not a good sign.

Goodnight.

there will always be passions.

I'm a passionate person. More often than not, I am feeding one of my passions, as they're often hungry. Painting. Writing. The outdoors. Running. Connecting with someone. Nurturing my dog. Eating an entire quart of ice cream. Most of these passions fulfill me somehow and prove to be inherently good. However, I have caught myself, on more than ten occasions, feeling great zest and direction towards something, when maybe I should have laid down and taken a nap. Examples of these instances include shopping trips that should have been avoided, bones that did not need to be picked and crusades in the name of the betterment of all when really they were just egotistical power trips to have my voice be heard. I am human and can laugh off most of my manic mishaps.

But lately, just lately, I'm wondering where my passion to change the dynamic of my family and my mother fits in to all this. The poetry I posted a few weeks back was written on the heels of therapy sessions that I've begun to partake in. This therapy has been unlike any other that I've experienced in the way that there's no pretense. I'm going to be gut honest here. And in thinking about the words I'm about to write my eyes are beginning to well up. It has dawned on me lately that I am alive. And I've never thought about it like this: there's gotta be a purpose to this mysterious thing we call life. And I don't want to waste one more day dragging around the heavy bags that I've settled for carrying. I want to be the best version of myself someday.

This therapy has begun to help me chip away at the junk that helps my serenity hide from me. And it hurts but its good.

It also provokes unresolved feelings of whackness from my childhood. So I wrote a poem. And then it dawned on me that in 26 years of existence, not much has changed since the days I described. And that pissed me off.

I want change for her. And us. And for everyone I love to chip away at their junk together so we can have joint serenity. That's a tall order. I'm well aware. But don't knock me for trying.

I think about the times my roommate from college would say to me, "You have a drinking problem. You also have so much potential. If you would stop drinking, you could reach it." My response was at first warm. She was right! What was I doing? But that warmth was quickly engulfed by cold and darkness. The fast life had much too strong of a hold on me then.

But not one week goes by where she doesn't cross my mind. She somehow reached the depths of my -soul- that were crying out for help to change. She spoke the truth to them. And one day her words reached me, along with the words of many others and words of my innermost self that brought me to the place I needed the most.

So, perhaps my passion and dramatic obsession with helping my family falls on ears that pretend to be deaf. But I know deep down they hear me. And I'll die trying to inspire change. Because I am so thankful for those who were unafraid to tell me that I had so much more to me than what I was settling for.

the jewelry box

There's this pain
It hides in the four corners of my jewelry box
The box you gave me, using that great taste you have
It's smooth and shiny, beaded and full of color
Colors like gold and mauve and sand
Colors that make you feel home
But what is home to me?
Scratches and hiding and wanting to shrink
Shrink down to the size of an earring
An earring that fits in my jewelry box

And we all try in our own way
Allowing you to be the tornado
Waiting for those days when you're free
Free from the storm that lives inside you
Free from the resentment you feel because you birthed us

But when that resentment comes to life
It brings with it words
Words that tell us we should reverse our growth
Become a child, then an infant, a newborn
Until we are nothing more than a zygote, a seed
A seed given to you by our father

Speaking of father
Where was he?
While you wished us dead
Pushed us down
Stopped our breathing

Probably flying over Cleveland in an aisle seat
Secretly folding his hands in prayer
Asking that you let us be in his absence

Rarely did this happen

And today
Today while I check locked doors
And bathroom lights
And count my moves
I remember the nights I heard you
Heard you checking our doors repeatedly
Cleaning our kitchen in the darkness of 3 am
Suffering inside
Showing it through the bleeding wounds on your body
I wonder
How similar we are

Do you worry the way I do?
I would listen if you wanted me to
But what I won't, cannot and will not do
Is what my father asks
For me to let it go
Keep quiet
Appease you

I refuse
I see my own flesh and blood
In the form of a thirteen year old baby
With the fire in her eyes
That I recognize
That same fire that makes you kick down doors and pull out hair
If I can help it
I will stop it
Stop you

From giving her the pain
The pain that hides
In the four corners of my jewelry box