gypsy travels

My Lake

September 6, 2016

Driving home I could still hear the waves crashing in my head. I still can now actually. My lake was in fine, angry exhibition this time home. I felt proud, oddly. Standing in front of her, introducing my girls. Have you met the undertow? Do you know what to do if she catches you?

I call Lake Huron my lake, but really I am hers. She soothes me, soaks my sins away, batters me with waves until my soul comes out clean. And I don’t know what she does to my hair, but damn. I didn’t want to/have to wash it for days after I’ve been in.

I don’t have a God per say. I have a moral compass of my own. I do what feels good and light and right.

We 4 girls spoke on the way home about religion and its purpose. Sacrificing virgins came up. I said “well this one time somebody killed a girl and it rained the next day, so they kept doing it for 1000’s of years.” And sometimes the rains came shortly after, because of weather patterns, not virgins.

That’s what it felt like in the lake that night. God’s marionettes. Tossed and tumbled. Thrown out, knocked over all the while blissed out beyond words. With moments of fear.

She deserves respect.

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.” Ezekiel 25:17

The line I was going for when I looked that up was ‘you will know my name is the Lord’ spoken in Samuel L Jackson’s specific cadence.

Lake isn’t evil, she might be God, or the closest thing I have to it. I crave her when I am lost, think of her often, bring home rocks, set up little altars, palm them when I am stressed out. I hear her echoes in my ears when I am homesick. I love her on the days I am up to my ribs and it’s so clear I can see my toes and I revere her on the days that she rages and churns.

I think she is just trying to wash us clean. Like when 6 of us went in naked, played and fought waves, riptide and undertow and laughed with delight. We all made it out, but there were a few waves, ocean sized, that had me sucked under talking myself out of that panic that will kill you. Ass over teakettle into the dark oblivion, no air, no idea which way was up. Then finding my feet, standing in awe and humbled as I coughed, sputtered and spit water back where it came from.

I am grateful for the reminder that she can get in anywhere she pleases. That water is relentless, changes shape, form, and eventually washes everything away.

I am water, I am her daughter, I can do the same.

the poet

Harley and the Joker

September 5, 2016

I wrote this whole article and I was looking for a pic to go with it, found this.

Sucker punch of truth right to the throat.

He did this to me. And I did that thing that I do where I tried to understand it, tried to be a better girl for him.

I watched Suicide Squad and saw myself in there. Just a ‘lil bit. But even a little of that is too much.

Apparently in a parallel Marvel universe Joker and Harley fell in love before he was damaged.

But not in this one.

I don’t want a life that resembles movies or comic books. I don’t want to jump into vats of acid to prove my love for someone. I don’t want my brain shocked and rewired to fit someone else’s ideal of what a woman should be. I have been a woman for 42 years and seriously, I got this.

There are spoilers in here.

You have been warned.

My dad’s middle name is Harley. Always thought that was so cool.

My dad is awesome.

The bar should be sofa king high for the men I date. And it ain’t. Couldn’t tell you why that is, probably best to ask my therapist. See if we can work that out before I date again.

I shouldn’t stand here and say that none of the men I have dated have cleared the bar. A few of them have, raised it a bit, right before they left. So, does that even count?

I don’t know what counts anymore. 1+1 should equal 2 but somehow it keeps coming out to 3 or more or negative one. There are variables and percentages and none of them add up to much of anything all things considered.

I saw Suicide Squad 1.5 times.

The first time didn’t really count as we went to the drive-in, pulled up at the wrong screen waited way to long in line for popcorn that wasn’t there and missed the first 10 minutes, and the screen was way too dark. Went back again to a small theater with reclining seats and took kiddo 1 and 2 with me this time. Saw the whole thing.

I braced myself the second time around.

I worried myself with my reactions to the relationship between Joker and Harley Quinn. I was secretly rooting for them somewhere down in my damaged little heart, and I didn’t like it.

When he tried to pass her off to someone else, I felt ridiculously ill. It wasn’t the concession stand hot dog neither. It was flashbacks, I had someone claim to love me and still try to do that very thing. Didn’t set my mind at any kind of ease when Joker shot the guy after. It felt like he killed the other guy for refusing her. Nope, nuh-uh. Not okay.

I have, in the past, fairly recent actually, fooled myself into thinking that was an expression of love. I was shocked and damaged into believing it was the ultimate in trust and choosing one another. It ain’t. Honestly…I don’t even think the joker in question was buying what he was selling either. Add him to the list of those who left.

I have balked at the idea of monogamy and marriage for years. I was tortured, manipulated and brainwashed into thinking that wasn’t the way.

Been out of captivity for almost 4 years now and starting to get used to it, comfortable in all this space to move around in, explore, try this or that. Red pills, blue pills, drink me, eat me, see if I learn, grow or shrink.

Back in my mid-twenties, high school sweetheart was on the phone, and the subject of my ex-girlfriend came up. “So I know you like women” he said. During the long pause while he gathered his thoughts and balls I braced for impact, waiting for him to ask for a threesome.

Maybe it’s my period, or the memory or both, but I am tearing up at his 15-20 year old response.

“I don’t want to share you” he said. “Is that okay? Would you feel like you were missing something?”

That sigh of relief came straight from my soul.

It was more than okay.

My whole life up ‘til then and since then has always been guys finding out I had a girlfriend (or 6) and deciding I owed them a threesome.
Because? I slept with women once upon a time?

YA, UM…I DON’T DO THAT ANYMORE.

Bisexual never meant promiscuous regardless.

I love who I love. I want who I want, and if I want you, you don’t have to worry about who wants me. My body has ways of shutting that down, so does my mouth.

Once upon a time I had a Joker & Harley Quinn kinda love. A couple of times if I am being totally honest.

Intellectually I know better, but my heart gets so confused and easily swayed. Fucking movie love, has us believing, sadists, psychos and stalkers are capable of love.

When I took my son to see it we had a rousing conversation about how Harley had Stockholm Syndrome, had been driven mad by torture and captivity and it wasn’t love, it was madness and psychopathy. What good is being the Queen of anything if the King of the kingdom passes you around to his friends? That isn’t royalty, loyalty or love.

Then I saw something.

Joker’s right hand man comes into the room to tell Joker where his girl is. Joker is laying on the floor in a pattern of weapons, knives and roses. Top right there is a set of baby clothes.

In Harley’s ideal delusion, “he married me.” Heart sighed again. Stupid heart.
For a minute there I thought ‘maybe he did love her’, in his own twisted way. But that does not negate the fact that he first had to lock her away and drive her insane to force compatibility. I have been there, locked away for months at a time, drips of Chinese water torture wearing away at my self-esteem and my own morals until I was a bleached out crazy version of my former self.

“Will you live for me?” right before he had her swan dive into a vat of industrial chemical waste.

What I almost did. What I am writing a book about.

Logically I know this is not okay.

And yet I sat in the theater and cheered them on in spite of myself.

My eyes welled up with tears when she said “I lost my puddin’.”

I’ve lost my puddin’ a few times, lost my mind too…but that’s okay, I’m finding myself.

Something loving, mutual, sane and easy, hold the puddin’.

Uncategorized

Imaginary Friends and Enemies

August 27, 2016

…26 If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27 And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 28 But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Matthew 12:26-28

Stop dividing yourself between what you did and who you are.

Did a bad thing? Okay.

Still doing it? No. Good job darlin’.

He said: I was afraid to see you after 22 years. I know the things that I have done in that time apart and I somehow assumed you did too, but you don’t, do you?

I replied: Nope, I don’t, but it doesn’t matter, I’d love you anyways. You are what I remember. We’ve all done some sketchy stupid shit, myself included. There is no judgement here.

Funny enough he brought me handmade scrabble tiles that spell out L.O.V.E.

We only let love in this house.

We’ve both changed exponentially, but the things that made us friends stayed the same.

“Never apologize for how you had to survive.”

But everyone does. Just makes you human and humble. That’s okay.

We’re all trying to navigate the 4 lane highway between do no harm and take no shit.
But then emotions get in the way and we covet things/people we ought not to. Life happens and we get hungry.
Or we run into the selfish soul suckers and we find ourselves fighting them on their turf and terms and then the shame sets in.

What did I just do?

Doesn’t matter, the question is ‘what do you do now.’

Just get back on the highway, or climb in and let me drive for a while.

I’ll pick you up gladly, but leave the past in the rear view. Don’t tow it behind.

I have music, cigarettes and enough gas to get us far away from here.

People love to tell me the things they have done, their deep dark dirtiest of secrets.
And I listen.
I don’t ask why.
Why is a useless question.
You did what you had to do/wanted to do and no amount of worry/guilt or shame is going to change that.

If someone starts drowning in the past I throw a life preserver labeled…“But did you die?”

Yes? Cool, I am communing with the dead, how can I help you?

No? Let it fucking go.

I scrolled back through my Instagram and I was struck by how much things have changed.
I know I’ll do it again in a year and think the same thing. I chuckled at myself. I remember being sad because I didn’t get what I wanted.

Then I pulled myself out of the muck and mire of ‘what was supposed to be’ and setting my feet down on the firm ground of ‘what is’.

I was stuck in detours and rest stops that were actually really dirty and dangerous in retrospect.

Get back in the car.

As I look for stories to tell here I find myself falling back on Facebook/Instagram memories.
There is no drama presently, nothing to dazzle y’all with.
Just a girl who likes a boy, her job, her house, her friends, her life, in this moment, right now, as is.

The past is just a story we tell ourselves. Chuck Palahniuk

And those Gods and demons we thank and blame?

Just imaginary friends of our own making.

I do envy those who blindly believe in god. How easy it must be to give your every action over to an omnipotent puppet master in the sky.
Personally? I gotta call bullshit.
You did the thing and god doesn’t approve or disapprove, own it and move on.
If it made you feel bad, don’t do it again.

I am my own moral compass. If my gut flutters with butterflies, I go that way.

If my stomach twists and turns and hurts. I run. Or I hang out for a good long while, cry a lot and then I leave.

My friends that don’t believe in god still carry these heavy burdens of guilt about where they came from, the things they’ve done.

Baby did a bad, bad thing. (Chris Isaac)

Again, I have to ask…but did you die?

It just means you are better than those who hurt you. Start acting like it.

You survived. Enjoy.

If you tell me anything and the beginning of the story is ‘once upon a time’ I will remind you that there is no such thing, all we have is this moment now and you’re spending it in the past?

Stop doing that.

Tell me where you are going, not where you’ve been.

They label this darkness as ‘demons’.

Stop.

That makes less sense than god.

At least we give god credit for the big, beautiful, miraculous things we enjoy.

What do those demons do for you?

Not a damn thing.

Mama says “If they can’t play nice then they’re not your friends.”

If the cd keeps skipping, toss it out the window and make a new one.

You are writing the story of your own life with the memories and feelings you choose you hold onto.
Edit yourself a better life.
Sugar coat that shit all you want, remember the good things. Put the rest in a filing cabinet marked ‘what not to do’, yell ‘plot twist’ and get on with your life.

No one will know in a year.

Gods and demons are just fictional characters, time to invent some better ones, and make sure they love you even when you are acting the fool. If they don’t, they aren’t your friends.

Smile at your own ridiculousness, because in the end, it won’t matter.

How about this… I am your flesh and blood friend, I exist and I absolutely forgive your absolute worst.

I’m your goddess of mercy.

I don’t care how you got here, I am just glad you made it.

Uncategorized

What if her Name is Actually Becky?

August 24, 2016

Mama Susan (My Queen Bee) said to me when I posted this meme…

“The day is coming when you’ll realize that your pussy is humble and you are magic.”

“Soon” she said.

I already have. He’ll probably see it too. Pray he don’t call me when he notices.

So what are you gonna say at my funeral, now that you’ve killed me? Here lies the body of the love ~~of my life~~, whose heart I broke without a gun to my head. Here lies the mother ~~of my children~~, both living and dead. Rest in peace, my ~~true~~ love, who I took for granted. Most bomb pussy who, because of me, sleep evaded. Her god listening. Her heaven will be a love without betrayal. Ashes to ashes, dust to side chicks…

I’ll drink to that eulogy.

Pray I don’t die here.

I’m not dead yet.

Once upon a time Sunshine said she was going to finish her water and get into the wine.

I said “baby please, drink that Ménage a Trois the Giant left here, get it out of my life.”

Rolled my eyes.

Middle fingers up.

She said she wasn’t going to get turnt, and I laughed, “How can you baby girl? It ain’t even a full bottle”.

She said ‘say goodbye to boys that don’t pick you & show up half-drunk with half-drunk bottles of wine’.

The biggest grin pulled up the corners of my mouth and I spit ‘tell him boy bye.’

Gift me liquor, tell me to keep drinking, then dismiss me for what you coaxed me to do?

no no HELL NAH

And I don’t feel bad about it
It’s exactly what you get
Stop interrupting my grinding
(You’re interrupting my grinding)

Middle fingers up.

Leave unfinished business in my house?

Tell him boy bye

Make me apologize?

Tell him boy bye

Text me while you’re with her?

Tell him boy bye

I ain’t sorry

I’d only heard snippets of Sorry by the Queen B. flipping through radio stations.

“… Her shroud is loneliness. Her god was listening. Her heaven will be a love without betrayal. Ashes to ashes, dust to side chicks.”

Heard it full through the other night and everything came rushing back. Broke my heart and filled it up simultaneously.

I love it when women get strong.

She was then I was the fucking side chick. I was ashes. The fire went out.

He poured ¾ of a bottle of wine on it after I doused it with 3oz of vodka in a wine cooler.

I ain’t sorry

Let’s have a toast to the good life

My therapist told me I am allowed to have more than one emotion at a time. I laughed so hard I cried.

I told Giant I had run the gambit of feels and landed on shame.

But there was more, there is always more…until there isn’t.

I am shocked anyone found my off switch as I am forever turned up and on.
I am pissed.
I carry with me the tiniest bit of uncharacteristic hope that he will wake up one day and he’ll realize what I am* and what he’s lost.
Beyond Most Bomb Pussy…

He always got them fucking excuses
I pray to the lord you reveal what his truth is.

Yes Queen B, she said it better than me. And those Beyoncelogues, damn woman. Preach.

Intuition, I knew this was coming.

Denial, I pretended it wasn’t.

Anger, I was venomous.

Apathy, now I don’t care.

Loss, his.

Emptiness, I found room to move in this space.

Accountability, I own what I did.

Reformation, I don’t want to be loved by halves, I’m whole on my own.

Forgiveness, I forgive, until I can’t anymore, and then I forgive myself.

Resurrection, I deserve better.

Hope, I am better.

and I can do better.

Redemption makes him look small.

He only want me when I’m not there

You better Becky with the good hair.

Sorry, I ain’t sorry

No no hell nah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxsmWxxouIM

http://www.bustle.com/articles/156559-transcript-of-beyonces-lemonade-because-the-words-are-just-as-important-as-the-music

unable to even

Fortunate Cookie

August 21, 2016

Everyone this is Sally.

Sally this is…everyone.

Angel came down from heaven yesterday, she stayed just long enough to rescue me.
Jimi Hendrix

Sally isn’t an angel, but she has wings, close e-fucking-nuff.

We used to ride through the hayfields on the tractor. The mantises would whir up out of the grass dancing in the motes from the hay we were cutting. The golden glory when the sun was going down made it look like fairies and heaven to me.

She came in from the less than heavenly porch and landed on my desk lamp the next morning.

My son anointed her with the name Sally and the working title “Guardian of the House.”

I moved her to the golden glorious morning glory porch, lest she starve, and there she stays. Guarding my house.

Thanks Sally.

The book I am writing starts out with a girl, much like me, who is a writer, much like me, sitting outside and a mantis lands on her startling her out of a daydream.

The pic in the background was a gift from the man that inspired the book.

Now, I am not saying it’s a sign from god, but it’s a sign from god.

A few things happened that keep pushing me back to the book that I don’t want to write because my muses are treating me like dirt and leaving me in the lion’s den then pointing and laughing when I got bit.

There was this fortunate fortune cookie.

And then Rob Breszny said things. A lot of things.

And then the moon was full and I was left unsupervised.

The theme of this full moon?
Leave your comfort zone and go explore the dark, your magic is in there.

I did that.

and this…

The theme of every full moon ever?

Let it fucking go.

“The mantis comes to us when we need peace, quiet and calm in our lives. Usually making an appearance when we’ve flooded our lives with so much chaos that we can no longer hear the still small voice within us because of the external din we’ve created.”

I have to return to therapy next Tuesday and she is invariably going to ask me if I worked on the book and I am out of excuses as to why I haven’t.

For a while there I didn’t know what to write.

I get it now.

I have to finish the thing.

I have plans and the book being done and sold is part of my future.

I have encouragement from other published writers that it is good and I should keep going.

So what of my fortunate cookie?

Double entendre.

My favorite.

I am writing my literal financial fortune.

I can finish this thing any way I want.

I got stuck on the book during the part where our dear heroine gets assaulted in a parking lot
Life imitated art and I was scorned by the hero and anti-hero because of it.

“Well what did you think was going to happen?”

Um, not that and definitely not this.

They left me to my own devices, laughed when I got hurt. Made me feel dumb and small. An insignificant speck floating around in a huge sea of blue.

“Enlightenment is when a wave realizes it is the ocean.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

I’ve always been able to write the story of my life.
I just forgot for a bit and handed my pen to others.

The ending has always been up to me.

Now I know what I don’t want.

I love the ocean, god knows I do. But that doesn’t mean I want to go ass over teakettle off the side of a boat in the middle of nowhere breathing canned air with no idea where the land is.

I am content playing in the surf near the shore. I can go under, get wet and stand up when I am feeling overwhelmed and catch my breath.

I just want to play in the waves, I am done drowning and choking.

Neil Gaiman said his favorite stories were the ones where women saved themselves.

I am swimming to shore.

So now I know what I want because I know who makes me cry when I look at my phone and I know who makes me smile.

It ends like this…I get loved as is. By someone who doesn’t make me feel like I am gasping for air, grasping at straws or unworthy.

He isn’t a poet, but neither am I.

He calls me a ‘dork’.
I know it means that I am adored.
It’s not everyone’s happy ending, but it works for me.
I’d rather that than be someone’s sexual soulmate and never hear a word.
Or someone else’s Lady of Stars, but we have to end this gracefully.

Fuck that fuck this fuck them.

I want peace and quiet. I want a relationship that doesn’t have me posting to this blog every 5 minutes trying to work shit out because I am not getting any help and I can’t breathe.

I am a good girl, I just needed a good man to see it.

I’ve done my PhD. in Fuckboi Languages, Variations and Interpretations, I have the Scorpio decoder ring, learning how to speak pragmatic lumberjack is going to be a cakewalk.

Or a cookie walk.

lost boys

No Funeral Required

August 20, 2016

The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.
Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Sometimes that is the truth.
I have shit days, we all do.
The ones where we just want it to end, whatever mask ‘it’ is wearing that day.
Good news?
Masks don’t last, wounds heal and eventually things get better.

Hot Neighbor is always asking me if whatever is vexing me in that moment is going to bother me in a year. My answers vary from a ‘Probably not’ to a chuckling ‘nope’. Then he hugs me and I feel less busted than I did before I said the thing out loud. He is leveling up at lightning speed and keeps asking me to join him. With his gentle nudges and check-ins that all sound like “Sarah, evolve, its time now.”

I ask after his Russian nesting doll and he shows up when I need him.

So there is that then.

The hardest thing I ever had to do was forgive someone who wasn’t sorry.
Unknown

It’s actually not that bad. You should try it sometime.

Once you have done it, it gets really easy.

I’ve done it and I’ll do it again a few dozen times before my life ends.

Here’s how, in one easy step.

Realize that…

Everyone has their own perception and reality.
Matter changes when observed, so me being near you will alter your behavior to a degree, but the microcosm that is you, is still you. We have this immediate second that we live in and everything else is just stored data. As creatures with active imaginations and sometimes/often corrupt filing systems for memories, sometimes the data gets distorted and no amount of arguing or worry on my part is going to allow me to change your mind. Whatever you think happened is your hardwired reality. So be it.

So that isn’t it either.

I think the hardest part of the human condition is saying good bye to someone who is still alive.

I avoid it like the plague.

‘Cause when you’re done with this world
You know the next is up to you
John Mayer

shit.

It IS up to me, and for a long time I didn’t know what world I wanted to live in.

The fear of the great unknown keeping me tethered to the Walking Dead. Just like Michonne and her walkers on leashes, no arms to hold me, no teeth to bite me neither, but damn they smelled bad and held me back.

The severance becomes exponentially harder when there are invisible threads and entangled particles.

I went to a funeral once and a Buddhist monk came with a ball of string. I am not sure what the purpose was but when he cut it I felt a palpable release, like she was free.

I have been wrong this whole time, I don’t need an exorcism with an old priest and a young priest, I need a monk with scissors and a ball of string

I wrote a thing once and now it’s making me cringe. That happens a lot.

Something along the lines of ‘when given the choice between the devil you know and the devil you don’t stick with the familiar, he will probably hurt you like he has before, but at least you know how to tend to your wounds.’

That is a shitty philosophy. The girl who wrote that is dead to me now. I have no problem burying older outdated versions of me, I don’t even bother with flowers on their graves anymore, just smile wistfully now and again, thinking ‘you silly bitch, thanks for the lessons on what we ought not to do again ever.’

Catharsis is easier when there is a cataclysmic event to accompany it.

“Traitor child. I must despise you now”
Queen Bavmorda, Willow

But what happens when there is no blow out.

What if you just drift apart slowly?

What if you really like being near that person because your soul feels good but because of circumstances beyond your control (see above where their reality is different than yours) it ain’t working anymore.

What then?

That my friends, is the heaviest door to close.

There is no fanfare or funeral or closing ceremony.

It just is, becomes it just isn’t.

I think that’s why the easy way out is what everyone else seems to do which is flip the switch between I have you to I hate you.

I don’t hate anyone because a huge part of what I am is understanding. So it’s hard for me.

Damn near impossible.

Probably because I see walls where there are actually doors and vice versa. I have bloodied my knuckles knocking on doors that once were opened to me but have now been locked/bricked over.

Watching through my fingers, watching through my fingers
Caught off guard by your favorite song
Oh I’ll be dancing at a funeral, dancing at a funeral
Sleeping in the clothes you love
It’s such a shame we had to see them burn, shame we had to see them burn

What’s gonna be left of the world if you’re not in it?
What’s gonna be left of the world, oh

Every minute and every hour
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more
Every stumble and each misfire
I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more
Bastille

What is going to be left of this world without them in it?

Me.

I am all I ever had anyways.

All the things they left behind, all the things I became when my particles met theirs and my atoms changed and transformed from being tangled up with them.

This I get to keep.

I’m gonna go ahead and do what Joseph Campbell suggested and cleanse my doors of perception and wander out into the infinite.

They can stay in that graveyard where I buried all the previous versions of me. Keeping each other company.

No funeral required.

…and if the moon walks out, the sky will understand
Sanober Khan

lost boys

Tinder and the Really Big Fish

August 8, 2016

I shut that shit down 2-3 weeks ago now?
I don’t know exactly, just more time has passed that I have not been on it than I was actually on it.

The first guy I pulled out of the water is the one I want. He’s huge.

But the fuckbois just keep on coming. And I keep throwing them back.

My arm is tired.

Bad date messaged yesterday asking if I wanted to see him again. I did not engage.

‘He who bailed’ keeps checking in on that weird timeline I only associate with my lost boys who don’t have access to clocks or any concept of time.

I am totally out of get out jail free cards, must have lost them in the move.

I told him that I already have amassed a fuckboi army with those from my past and I wasn’t looking to add to it. They are enough trouble as is. I have already established patterns and relationships with them. They are not ideal but they are familiar, and as much as a fuckboi can belong to anyone, they are mine. And I have the anti-venom for when they bite me in the ass.

The problem with a fuckboi army? They don’t show up when I need them, they just show up, fully armed and ready to take over whenever it suits them. ‘I wonder what Sarah is doing, she was really nice.’

See also “when I am happy a bell gets rung in the graveyard of my heart and all my skeletons get up and ask me to dance.”

And the new ‘recruits’?

Ew, no.

I didn’t ask for this.

My tinder window is closed so they are finding me on instagram and messaging me there. Delete/block/repeat.

I had tentative plans with one or two, but that was July and you are just messaging me yesterday?

‘He who bailed’ said he was trying not to message me so he didn’t appear desperate. He’s a nice enough fellow so I gave him the following advice.

“If you are interested in women my age I will tell you a secret. Good morning texts are good, good night texts are good. Shoot a message out during the day and we might not answer because we are busy, so don’t double up. Don’t listen to your cock or your brain, go with your gut, your gut won’t lie.”

I didn’t want someone who was going to message me every day. Until He did. And I liked it. And then he stopped, and here I sit. Feeling like shit, wondering what happened.

A month, a full calendar month of checking in here and there daily. I didn’t feel overwhelmed and I didn’t feel neglected. Now I do.

I really did try to keep feelings out of it, just breathe and see where it goes. But that is the thing about being in the ocean. You are bound to get wet.

Sunshine and I noticed a strange category of men on tinder who had a profile pic of them holding a fish.
(See also men holding gators and goats, a bizarre sub-species)

“Is this fish for me? Am I supposed to be impressed with the size of the fish? Do you need me to cook it for you? Did you wash your hands? What do I do with this fish?”

I like fish and I like fishing, it just seemed odd, like a cat proudly yowling after the gift of a dead thing.

Then I looked on my guy’s Instagram and there he was, grinning and holding a huge pike.
And I thought it was adorable.

If you like someone, perceptions change.

Changing them back, now that is a bitch.

Establishing happy habits just to have them taken away?

Ain’t that the fucking truth.

This would be a good time to call in the army, but they don’t come when I call, they only come when I’m happy and I ain’t.

I don’t want to go fishing again.

Uncategorized

Safety Joe and other Prophecies

August 6, 2016

Oh forfucksakes, goddammit.

It actually is.

Now what?

Can I evict them? Do they have somewhere to go? Will someone else look after them? Do they know how to get back if I let them out into the world? I gave them sandwiches, perhaps they will think to leave a trail of breadcrumbs. Or more likely the will just get lost and stay there. Lost boys get lost. Its what they do.

Not hard to understand why they moved in huh? I am getting nothing from this and they still get my genuine concern, somewhat divided attention and some love.

It is as though they know my heart is a church and if they knock and cry Sanctuary, I gotta let em in, and they can stay, indefinitely.

I am not saying they are all cowards, these people I keep in my heart.

But if the running shoe fits…

Gelfling bolted saying he couldn’t give me what I wanted even though he never did ask me what that was (very little for the record).
Young Un the first didn’t want to be in a relationship until a month after he left me and then he tripped over untied shoelaces and fell into a relationship.
The Poet was so afraid he ran back to his castle too.

So if the meme fits…write an article about it.

Giant came over to hang a chandelier, it’s still not up. He got shocked twice and we were missing a piece. We were missing lots of proverbial pieces but he keeps leaving them here one by one. As well as other assorted odds and tangible ends. I giggled the other day when I found his volt meter. Said “it’s cute that we keep leaving bits of ourselves at the other’s house. I don’t think we can sever our invisible thread but it’s nice to have something to hold onto.” He agreed. The bigger picture is getting clearer and clearer. Knots in the thread not withstanding.

We also had a good giggle about him calling himself Safety Joe.

He’s not a coward, he is Safety Joe.

One more puzzle piece.

A stranger with your door key explaining that I am just visiting. And I am finally seeing. Why I was the one worth leaving.
~The District Sleeps Alone Tonight, Postal Service

We talk, it’s what we do. Over vodka tonics this time instead of beer. It’s usually me babbling a little more. Reiterating things that I’ve written or Eurekas from therapy or venting about dates gone wrong. But when he talks I listen.

I was rubbing the knots from his back and asked him if he had ever been in love before. He said yes. He met a girl at 13 and dated her from 17 to 22 and then they broke up.

Of course I asked why. I like to untangle things.

He said

“I didn’t want to be in love in my early 20’s.”

Mmm, what you say?
That you only meant well? Well, of course you did
What you say?
That it’s all for the best? Because it is
What you say?
That it’s just what we need? And you decided this?
What you say?

(WAIT …)
WHAT DID YOU SAY?

Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs
Speak no fear, no I don’t believe you…
(Imogen Heap, Hide & Seek) very funny.

You decided this? How in the ever-loving-fuck does one wake up one morning and just decide this?

Can you teach me?

I too fell in love at 13. I couldn’t find the breaker. Finally did.

He does speak in ransom notes and newspaper word cut outs. Pretends he doesn’t fear, but he does.

I asked him that too. If he was scared of me, he said yes.

“But you love me, don’t you.”

He said “yes, I do.”

And herein lies the epiphany/eureka that illuminated the room in place of the chandelier with the missing piece.

I sent him this the day before he came over.

I don’t think I am all that, but maybe that is what he sees. I am more like this…

He has no idea what I see in him. Tells me again and again how plain he is.
Average Joe, Safety Joe, “I’m just some guy”.
His reality is that I could see his truth at any moment and burn it all to the ground like the mystic he believes me to be.
So it is safer for him to hide from me behind her and her behind me.
I’ve done that, it’s called a rousing game of Human Shield.
He cannot possibly fall in love with either one of us if the other exists and takes up space in his life/heart/home.
But not too much space.
Hes too pragmatic for that.
He loves his cozy little life, as he should, he built it with his own two giant hands.

He IS a King dressed in rags who has amnesia. Of this I have no doubt.

I doubted everything else, but I always somehow knew that he loved me, he made it very plain that he wanted me, that was not hard to decipher, that wasn’t a secret.

What I didn’t understand is how he could love me/want me and not be with me.

Easy…

He made a choice. Not to fall in love.

Interesting use of a superpower. To plan your life out to the point that you can put a leash on your heart and tell it where to go.

15 days he leaves his early twenties.

I wonder what he has planned for himself then?

I could just ask him, I know he would tell me the truth, he is good like that. I think I already know.

Every prophet in her house, and he in his.

He has said many times that I will wander. I won’t stay.

He has made it near impossible for me to do so, maybe he is a prophet.
A self-fulfilling prophet.

I’ve done that. They’re going to leave so I am going to make sure of it.

I have memorized the lessons for loving a prophet* as well, someone has to, poor dears.
He speaks like one, like me. Creates reality with his thoughts and words.

The last prophecy I foretold was that one day soon I am going to figure him out and I am going to feel markedly better. That was 10 days ago.

Now if I can just get that chandelier up so I can have some actual/tangible illumination…but of course the missing piece is in a drawer in his house, he has been hanging onto it for a year, waiting to see where it fit.

Uncategorized

Who is this Masked Man?

August 4, 2016

Who is he really? I have no idea.

There exists a meme that makes the rounds about forgiving someone who isn’t sorry and how that’s strength.

It is.

I should know, I just did the thing.

It’s going to take longer for me to forgive myself. But only by a lil bit.

2 years it took me to come to the realization that I fell in love with a masked man.

And only the mask.

He’s kinda an asshole without it.

He is not the Batman, beyond the rich/hermit thing. He can’t even save himself.

The lightbulb that went off burned my retinas.

Sitting in therapist’s office, she was questioning why I even come to her at all.

“Sarah, you seem to be able to figure things out rather well on your own, why are you here…am I actually doing anything for you?”

She is, but I have to stop with the day-to-day and resurrect my past. I am afraid I did that thing that I warned her I would do which was twist the conversation into a new direction to get away from what I don’t want to deal with.

Recent past? I got this.

The time called ‘before’ like when I was married? I am actually alright with all of that too. I learned a lot, mostly what not to do. I shed skin that didn’t fit and itched something awful. I have already danced naked on that grave enough. I can’t even remember where I buried them.

Way back when I was a little girl with glasses, a huge vocabulary and skinned knees?
She needs some love and attention and then I think we are going to be okay.

Someday soon I will reach back and pull her out and tell her everything is going to be better than fine. It is going to be spectacular.

I hold onto ghosts, lawd knows I do. I feed them, water them and give them a place to manifest. My bedroom is a Ouija board and I commune with the dead on soft sheets, my hands are wandering planchettes that move with psychic, spiritual guidance and spell out sweet things on their skin or trace the constellations in their freckles trying to decipher maps to home or both.

At least when they appear I can recognize them, they remain true to the men I knew, and their newfound transparency is pretty sweet.

The golden rule with the dead is ask them what they want.

I said to the Giant “When I start to develop genuine feelings for someone it’s like a bell gets rung in my heart’s graveyard and all my skeletons get up and ask me to dance.” Via text the morning after we slow danced in my dining room.

Happened when I loved him, Jason too and the Hulk. Young Un the first was the first so he got immunity and I recovered alone.

I am doing that thing again. Talking (non)sensical nonsense in avoidance.

What of this masked man…

Well shit.

I can see it with abundant clarity now.

Flowed off my tongue as the truth tends to do.

I said

“The first night, the night we talked for 12 hours he was this attentive, excited, vulnerable man with this unyielding strength. I fell in love. I did. I fell in it and stayed there, wet up to my waist and waiting for his return.

But the man that called me the next day and every subsequent day or night after that, wasn’t him.”

Maybe the stars were aligned a certain way that first night, or it was the Fireball, blame it on the alcohol. Or maybe the doors of perception were either cleansed or filthy…filthy sounds more astute.

Or it could have been prima nocta. I was taken away and mindfucked by a man that wasn’t mine.

There it is.

Whatever happened, he never came back. Except to lord over me a bit.

I wanted that back so badly I couldn’t see the truth. I just wanted My Poet back. But My Poet didn’t actually exist outside of that time and place.

It was a well-constructed mask that fell away over the next two weeks and then he fell away too.

I did the same thing in my marriage. Fell for him in the first 3 months when it was summertime and we were new and life wasn’t hard. Then he turned into a video game playing couch-potato and I became a Fallout widow. But dammit I hung on to those 90 days for dear life and wasted my dear life for the next 2556.69539 days.

Until I landed in therapy.

I’ve worn masks too.

I wasn’t exactly myself when I’d go to work, but that veil was a fake name and more make up than I wear on a day to day basis. Geisha-face with stilettos basically. Salome in her war paint. Call it what you will but I was only selling the skin my soul came in, not my soul itself.

I’ve spent a lot of time teaching and training myself not to lie, I can happily say ‘what you see is what you get.’ I’m mutable and I have my moods, but I am always myself.

I wandered off again.

He claimed to be one of 4% of men who derive pleasure from sharing his woman with other men. We talked about it at great length, I sent stories and started a book about it.

I had yet another moment of clarity. They have been coming down from heaven like lightning strikes in the heat of July.

He’s never had what he wanted. What if the reality of it is actually more than he could bear?

That too feels like truth as it rolls off my tongue. It’s my truth as well. I am not sure I could be that girl/his girl, but I was willing to try.

I am all the things all these men ever wanted until they are confronted with the reality of it.

Be careful what you wish for.

This is my one true face.

unable to even

Medusa’s Other Curse

August 1, 2016

On a long enough timeline everyone settles into the boxes I put them in.
He’ll stop blowing the lid off eventually or so help me I will get out the duct tape.

Or the coconut oil.

Once I’ve compartmentalized them and figured out the lessons they were sent to teach me I still get nostalgic twinges from time to time. I cared for them, still do when they let me. I saw different versions of different futures with them.

As of late, it has become abundantly clear that when I feel like I could actually end up in a viable relationship with someone new, them old ghosts all come a knockin’. Like I have to run the gauntlet of temptation and answer the Sphinx’s riddles to come out the other side clean.

It has happened before, it will probably happen again. It is history repeating on repeat, just with a few new players.

I also have to remember everything they taught me, pop quiz tomorrow or the next day. Every day.

I see your patterns and raise you a ‘if you wanted me you would be here’.

The gargantuan moral in all of this is no matter what I saw happening, or the promises they made…none of them are here with me now.
I went to bed alone last night and for as many nights as I can rightly remember in the recent past. Unsustainable. The center does not hold (Yeats)

Viable.

That’s the million dollar word.

Spoke to Jason last night. At least he acknowledges what a big deal it is for me to use that term to describe a man.

Basically translates to ‘I haven’t fucked this up yet’. Don’t plan on it neither. There is no angst here. Just so far, so fun. And due to circumstances beyond my control I haven’t slept with him yet, but we keep talking. It’s like accidentally dating. Probably a good chance to get it right all things considered.

The last few times I tried to date someone it went bad. I stumbled and fumbled, said things when I ought not to have, kept my mouth shut when I ought to have been saying something. The usual.

But I learned.

Hulk taught me that I didn’t have to settle to settle down with someone. That all the qualities I admire in a man can be found in one body. Just not his or with him. He had his dream life waiting and I stepped aside gladly.

Young Un taught me that 20somethings are plausible, possible options. And that friendships can grow from the bones of old not-quite relationships…on that long enough timeline I speak of with fondness and regularity.

And now the Giant.

He said he was riding his bike over, I knew it meant he was planning on drinking. I had no plans to stop him. A few beers tends to flush his cheeks and loosen his lips a bit. Look, don’t touch was my mantra, might as well feed my eyes if that is all that can be fed. Ears too. He says nice things. Enigmatic things, prophetic things. I swear he is the only exception to my rule of men where the words they say are the words they mean. He speaks in riddles and rhymes sometimes. Not sure if I like when he does it as I have grown so accustomed to the other and found peace there.

Working on peace. Draping myself in white flags trying to keep both the sexier and more vulnerable pieces of me covered, but he is a snake charmer and sometime I cannot help but wiggle and dance this way or that, then the music stops and I am not sure how I ended up tucked into the space we should have left for the Lord.

I forgot myself after 2 beers myself and bent over in front of him trying to find a song. I know what I must have looked like in that moment. Blissed out, swaying a little to this random piece of music I found with baroque guitar and Uilleann pipes. Smiling, eyes half closed. Hot Neighbor was here too (oh ya, that happened) and him being near me is akin to being in water (I float), Sunshine was in fine drunk form too and we had all been belly laughing. I am pretty when I am happy and I was.

Or maybe I just moved in that mythical way he has accused me of, the one that flips his switch. He hasn’t explained it to me, just acknowledged it. He has explained nothing. Or quite possibly everything, who knows at this point.

It was probably just the Coronas.

And the mood lighting, and the good moods, and the food and the whole night.

He kissed me on the porch in the fairy lights. And there may have been some territorial pissings in the dining room prior, as I said Hot Neighbor came by.

I told Jason this and he asked if that was when the orgy started. No habibi. No orgy, and not stress either oddly. Everything just flowed, as it should be.

Giant thanked me profusely for not letting things get out of hand. As if I had a choice. As if any of them give me choices. “Jumping takes strength of will”* and I don’t want him by halves.

I think he sees me as Medusa, too scared to look right at me so he just sees my reflection.

And therein lies the lesson. The Giant, the Poet and Gelfling. All left because of preconceived notions about what I am and what I want.

None of them thought to ask me. None of them took the time to learn me.

Giant says he will one day finish the book of me.

Jokes on you darling.

For one, you never looked past the cover.

I am an open book. Rare and valuable.

And two…

I plan on dying with a pen in my hand.

Rewriting until I get my happy ending just right.

(*Dead Like Me)

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…and if the moon walks out, the sky will understand Sanober Khan

…and if the moon walks out, the sky will understand
Sanober Khan