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lost boys

The Graveyard of Almost

July 31, 2016

My ex-husband sent me to therapy. Told me I couldn’t come home until I saw someone to ‘tame my crazy’ and ‘manage my anger’.
He stayed home with sisterwife while I walked into strange women’s houses, sat on their couches and spilled my guts into their loving laps.

Oh honey. What did you think was going to happen?

Did you really believe they would tell me to stay in the toxic waste dump of our marriage?

Seriously?

I had been drinking the poison Kool-Aid for so long I didn’t even notice I was dying until they showed me what happy tastes like.
Freedom and unconditional love are far sweeter elixirs than a man who forced me to share him and called me crazy for not eating his shit with a smile.

Funny enough, my “crazy” became quirky and cute and my “anger” no longer existed at all, thereby negating the need to be managed. I completely stopped panicking when I wasn’t being attacked.

You don’t try to ‘manage’ a tumor, you cut the fucking thing out and let the body heal.

I healed.

I was speaking to the Lumberjack the other day, sitting in Sunshine’s truck, we had just hit the garden center and everything smelled like basil and bougainvillea.

I was that girl. No, not Team Compromise. The other one.

I was a whiny weak little bitch that clung onto a shams of relationships like I belonged there.

I didn’t belong there.

I am ashamed to say I have been back visiting the graveyard as of late.

Saw Giant and Gelfling, been peeking at the Poet’s page when I ought not to be. Had a lovely conversation with the Hulk recently. I wish them well, I truly do. But they do tend to make me question my worth.

Do I have a sign on me that says ‘hey let’s play a rousing game of come here/go away’?

I am tired of trying to figure out what is wrong with me and starting to see what is right with me.

I am a really good girl.

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadows of my exes…

I can’t even call them exes. All they are is ‘almosts’, as in we almost dated. I was poised and ready to put on my monogamy pants and be with them, and they bailed.

The Poet sent me to therapy right before he jumped ship.

Said he was done trying to love broken girls like me.

My therapist asks after him from time to time.

To which I reply “No word, still blocked, just posts photos of his words on my body.”

She has yet to ask me how that makes me feel.

(Comfortably numb for the record.)

She accused me of only being in her office For him.

I corrected her, quickly.

It was his idea, yes. But did I do it because I thought somehow it would make him love me back?

Nope.

During our 2 year on-again-mostly-off-again-whatever-it-is-we-have-been-doing/not doing, I’ve realized that although his delivery sucks, hes often right.
I tasted the idea of therapy that he handed me, and found it delicious. So I ate it. Every Tuesday and I wash it down with coffee.

Oh honey. What did you think was going to happen?

Did you think she was going to tell me to stick around for someone who can’t even pick up the phone yet passive-aggressively posts to Facebook?

That is some teenage drama queen bullshit, and I ought to know. I was one.

On our way back from the garden center/amazing lunch I found myself briefly contemplating Gelfling for a moment.
I looked up and saw a solitary raven outside of a cemetery.
Biggest one I have ever seen this far south.
One for sorrow. Two for joy.
I think I’m getting the message.
Unrequited love isn’t cute or romantic.
It’s ridiculous.
I’m not a ridiculous girl.

My Pixie girl Ciara said, “Sorrow is still a valid emotion. Feel it when it comes, let it pass.”
To which I replied…
Nope.
My brain is my brain, my life is my life. It’s as simple as deciding I don’t want to be somewhere anymore and walking away.

I must again reiterate the Matthew Hussey idea of unrequited love being ugly.

It’s truly a colossal waste of time.

Channel your inner Luda and tell them fence-sittin’ boys to “MOVE BITCH GET OUT THE WAY.”

Even better, realize they’re not listening anyways, and go around.

The important thing is to keep moving.

I was in my car and that Frank Turner song came on.

Because I know you are a cynic but I think I can convince you.
Yeah, cause broken people can get better if they really want to.
Or at least that’s what I have to tell myself if I am hoping to survive!

It’s a long road up to recovery from here, a long way back to the light.
A long road up to recovery from here, a long way to making it right.

So darling, sweet lover, won’t you help me to recover…

He isn’t going to help and the road is not long.

Besides, I know a shortcut.

It is called ‘I have a nice life and if you aren’t making it better you can’t come in’.

I don’t even like Kool-Aid.

Uncategorized

Enough Buddhas

July 28, 2016

Roommate (aka my Sunshine) says “We have enough Buddhas.”

Considering the size of our apartment, she is probably right. Considering who I am as a person, I have since bought one more Kuan Yin and will probably sneak another Buddha into my room.

We have one in the sanctuary we call ‘porch’ and he is the only one facing the right way. Funny if you think about it. Does Buddha really care? He might have a preference for early morning sunlight on his face, I do too. But he doesn’t actually give a shit where you put him. He is not an overly thin skinned prophet.

The emotional freedom I gained when I finally internalized the words “Everything is as it should be” was…all. I immediately stopped fighting. I couldn’t argue and I stopped wanting to.

I probably don’t have quite enough Buddhas. I still forget. I lose time thinking about what almost was.

So I am talking to my other girl. My North Carolina Mawmawolf. It’s killing me in small increments. She is my mirror image from my sad days on the farm. I want her outta there. Trying to rig up a tough love catapult to launch her out of the past.

She said she wrote something and confessed to attempted murder.

A) It was 17 years ago
B) She wrote an article about an ‘almost’.
Ergo…
C) All it is now is a really riveting story.

Sucks that it happened, awesome that she wrote about it so well.

https://letspretendblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/21/if-i-had/

I can’t find the words to get her to let go.

Closest I got was “BUT DID YOU DIE?”

There is an alternate reality where I have a crippling opioid addiction and I am still sitting on the stinky farm couch with an equally addicted sisterwife.

But it ain’t this reality.

Currently I am sitting in a house full of Buddhas, music and sunshine. And it’s clean and it smells good. I am only here because I changed how I think about things.

I wrote an article, feels like forever ago, about the times I almost died. It’s been a lot. Enough to write an article about it. I also wrote in “Regeneration, After the Fire” about how imagining what could have been worse about something that was already bad enough was a misuse of time, energy and imagination. Because it fucking is.

But did you die?

Nope.

Carry on then.

Why are we so addicted to drama and worst case scenarios? I know I used to be that girl but I have no interest in digging her up to glean the why. She smells like desperation and monkey shit from running around circus tents that weren’t hers.

Time is too precious.

I lost 3 days fussing over a move that didn’t go my way. I lost nothing but 3 jars and 3 days. Can’t get it back so…moving on.

I could very well have been raped on a Tinder date. But I wasn’t. Not dwelling on what happened other than fine tuning my collection of red flags and adding a few.
The Poet posted some poem about loose women looking for trouble in bars and getting what they deserved right after I posted what happened. Little lemon juice in a wound that was barely closed, but whatever. Chased it with a shot of tequila, had a chuckle and got on with my day.
(Hi honey. I’m fine thanks, and you?)

I saw this lovely British man do a short excerpt/talk about unrequited love.

https://www.facebook.com/CoachMatthewHussey/videos

I watched it until my eyes bled and it became my marrow.

Been turning that grain of sand over in my head like an oyster and I came up with this little pearl…

If he wanted me he would be here.
If any of them were supposed to stay and love me, they would be, right here right now.
Jason has been trying to get me to accept this for a while now. And I always came back with a “But, but, I understand why he is doing what he is doing.” Which translates to a very meek “I’m not worthy.”

Um, ya, I am.

I am a kind, funny, sweet, loving, understanding, talented woman who loves sex and values men as men. Plus I make killer sammiches.
And I am wicked smart.
Me hanging onto a future I manufactured in my own head is not sexy, is not romantic.
I hate martyrs and I am not going to be one. I have shit to do.
I am a good girl, I’m human and I make mistakes and sometimes I have to play dead to get out of bad situations. So be it. No harm no foul, I washed it off.

Poet bailed on me shortly after my birthday citing that I embarrassed him, no explanation, just a block.
Some harm, some foul.
But I don’t have a time machine and if I did I wouldn’t use it to go back and edit a 20 minute conversation I had with a strange woman about coffee cups. Again, I have better shit to do.

Like write a book inspired by my fantasy life that I made up in my head and is going rather nicely actually. Someone once told me sex sells on the internet, and he wasn’t wrong.

Shoulda done this years ago…tee hee.

Everything is as it should be and everything went the way it went.
No amount of fussing or self-flagellation over imaginary sins is going to change that.

You made it, here, to this moment. Enjoy.

I can play the coulda woulda shoulda game like a gold medalist, but it gets me nowhere. I should never have dated that psycho-wannabe-soldja-boy. I had the Giant. But who says if I had done anything any differently that Giant wouldn’t have left me for his safe traveling waitress anyways?

I did what I did. I am what I am and I own it.

I don’t have time to figure out what other people want me to be, I’m way too busy enjoying being myself.

Here and now.

lost boys

Archives and Arenas

July 7, 2016

I am so understanding of others that I routinely fuck myself over to keep from inconveniencing anyone I care about. Or just anyone really.

I remember driving home from the vet with an emergency rescue pup. A recently fixed (hours earlier), very young /hyper husky singing the sad song of his people while my son and his buddy argued in the back seat. I was driving erratically due to the chaos contained within my SUV. I had a moment of clarity. Every car on the road is a microcosm. I have no idea what is happening to them at this moment, and I’ve been a more courteous driver ever since.

You cut me off in traffic? You must have had a reason, come on over, I will let you in.

This is both the truth and a metaphor.

I step out of myself often to try and see things from someone else’s perspective.
Sometimes I forget to come back.
Sometimes I forget I am someone too.

I rarely trespass, I can forgive those who trespass against us with grace and ease as long as I can wrap my head around the ‘why’.

Doesn’t mean it hurts any less. But I get it. I don’t value myself much either, why should anyone else.

I sent memoranda out onto the ocean of the internet or via text and my queries go unanswered.
I see that you have seen it, but you haven’t answered a message I sent you last night, last week, last year? I’m sure you’re just busy.

It takes herculean strength of will for me to reach out to anyone.

I am shy. I am scared of rejection and even more of imposing on someone. My greatest fear is realizing I wasn’t invited to, nor am I welcome at the proverbial party.

Triple that with whipped cream and a cherry on top when it comes to men I have a) slept with, b) I am currently sleeping with or c) want to sleep with.

I am too much Tate and not enough Violet.

I care about their feelings more than mine. I don’t know how to make demands without feeling bossy and selfish. Even the word ‘demands’ sounds too demanding. But I cannot even muster a ‘please sir, can I have some more’. I usually want more. I am pretty insatiable, but in a cute way.

I will have to check the cougar handbook but I think that might be the golden rule when you find a golden ticket in the form of a golden boy. Enjoy the candy, respect the process.

I have won gold at the cougar Olympics the last few years running. It’s not a competition though. Any time an older woman finds a younger man and they run off into the sunset to enjoy each other everyone wins.

I ‘sex-friend’ like a champion. I really do. It’s my wheelhouse. I built it that way and I know how it works. Been fine tuning the inner-workings, cogs and gears for years. If a friendship is established, I’m good. I got this. Put me into a situation where I start becoming emotionally attached and I go full retard. The wheels slip and I with them, usually ending up in a ditch somewhere wondering what the fuck I did wrong.

“Never go full retard. Just ask Sean Penn.” Tropic Thunder.

Me: I swear if I trip and fall into feelings for this one I am going to need a full frontal lobotomy.

(And a ticket to the Special Olympics, just make it a one way please.)

This is all tongue in cheek. They are not a sport and I am not a game. I am not even the colosseum. I am not worried about being forgotten and I have no desire to compete with anyone, I never have. It is my lot in life to learn and archive, I am the embodiment of the Nalanda University library in Ancient Rome. I like my nickname Dharmaganja Treasury of Truth. Suits me. I don’t know how to lie anymore.

That is how it goes. As a walking juxtaposition being both a sapiophile cougar one would think I would constantly be left hungry for intellectualism, good conversation, something to feed my mind as well as my body. But that hasn’t happened.

Somehow, as if by magic, the ones that gravitate to me are both beautiful and smart.

I can only assume it is because my body is a temple, an athenaeum. Not an arena. Worship and learn. No need to compete. Although playing is encouraged.

I was lying in bed with the new one last night. Enjoying how easy it was, the conversation I mean, everything else was hard, in that really good way. A little bit of downtime between round one and round two. But round two never came. We talked for the better part of an hour.

There is a scene in Lost Boys (the irony is not lost, especially when the boys are) wherein Sam says “They pulled a mind fuck on us and talked.”

It’s true. Were circumstances different and this one didn’t have a best before date in the form of a plane ticket home I could see wanting more than I have.

But for now, he is really good food and I am full.

Boys

Not Forgotten

July 4, 2016

So Gelfling, derived from “Ghel-lflainngk” roughly translates to “those who live without knowledge of the future.” (Grant Volker).

That was posted under an article from a year ago about a boy I called Gelfling, Ouf and Mind Fuck.

I always felt like ‘ouf’ was an onomatopoeia for the sound of getting punched in the gut.

He said ouf like it was a good thing. To him it meant guttural/literal sex noises.

He did knock the wind out of me, both coming and going.

That is fucked up.

Seriously.

Both the Muppet and the boy have no knowledge of the future, by choice.
And I cannot shake the past, not by choice.

He did make a choice, they both did. To wander out of the safety of their cave dwellings out into the world for some greater purpose that has yet to be revealed.

So be it.

Oh Gelfling, my Gelflng.

He cannot possibly be my Gelfling.

If he was he would be here. With me, right now. Or at least message on occasion.

Giant messaged me recently and said “My dearest Sarah”. I opened my mouth to protest, but he wasn’t wrong. Part of me still lives in his head, his heart and his bed. I wouldn’t know how to take that back if I wanted to. And I don’t. There are threads that bind and alternate timelines that I somehow remember even though they didn’t happen here.

The only way I run is at something, not away.
Wait.
That isn’t exactly it. No straight lines, I spiral out and back in again.

That thing we had for the most fleeting of moments that defied logic and words and could only be described as a magical convergence of entangled particles.
Both of them.
“You tie my tongue. You make my fingers into these clumsy things on the keyboard, like trying to articulate the aurora borealis in a foreign language and the only word I know is ‘yes’.” (I wrote that)

Tangled in timelines that went awry and I still can’t figure out why.

I saw this and things started to make more sense. Think I might get this tattooed on me. My best girl calls me a vampire, she is wrong. I just see time moving in spirals instead of in a straight line and I spiral with it.

At this very moment, as I am writing this there is the clear and present danger that I may run into Gelfling tomorrow.

I kinda want to. Cosmic finger crossing for a cosmic path crossing.

(^that was Thursday)

I saw him.

Truth be told I was terrified. The butterflies in my stomach were worked into a frenzy and their wings felt like sharp cutting things, leaving me slightly shredded inside.

I knew he would be where I was going, because I asked. I needed and heeded the warning. I thought he had wandered off to Tibet, or maybe Sedona, called home by the ley lines and returned to the cave of mystics that he came from.

I was warned that he got exponentially hotter in the last year.

Good god damn. Somethings cannot be prepared for even when you think you know what is coming.

He came to mind every time the sky went red or there were fireworks, literal and sometimes proverbial. I dream about him often, sometimes when I’m awake.

I have the ability to compartmentalize almost everything and everyone.
He never fit into a box, kept slipping out.
Everyone else becomes, after enough time, a page or three in a scrapbook.
Mental photographs, scraps of paper, bits of music and candy wrappers pressed between pages in pretty little vignettes of the good stuff.

When triggered my mind flips to their page I sigh and smile because I have cut out the bad bits, the part where they left. Instead my mind sees a slideshow of their more redeeming moments.

I read an article about our brains having a delete button and I recoiled a bit.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3059634/your-most-productive-self/your-brain-has-a-delete-button-heres-how-to-use-it

I have yet to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I am scared of Jedi mind tricks, the red flashy thing and the glamouring by vampires in True Blood. When Lena tried to save Ethan by wiping herself from his memory my heart hurt and when he remembered anyways it soared.

I am more afraid of forgetting than being forgotten.

I suffered severe memory loss due to a concussion/brain injury from a car wreck that stole the month of December 2008. I also misplaced 35% of my vocabulary which came back with great effort, a giant red dictionary and about a thousand games of scrabble. The word ‘enough’ was the last to return. Still looks funny to me and cause a slight skip in my synapses. Gone also was my ability to make new memories for approximately 90 days (I can’t exactly remember). That was a blessing I believe my temporal lobe and prefrontal cortex were in cahoots, making it so I don’t have to recall that level of suffering.

You see dear readers, my life was shit before the car wreck. Being immobilized with physical pain matching my mental anguish just made it more vivid, or so I can only imagine and blissfully not recall.

I hold onto the memories I have left and the ones I make now pretty tightly, almost compulsively.
Hoarding them like a fat kid and Halloween candy MINE MINE MINE.
You can look but you can’t touch.

I was getting tattooed by Gelfling’s best friend who said something about ‘forgetting’ (meaning what happened between he and I) which, ironically I have forgotten the exact wording of.
But ‘oh honey no’, I said, ‘not remotely, not one tiny bit, not an iota‘. Nothing is forgotten.

I saw him.
I saw him and nothing happened except a few flashed smiles and a little banter. But that want that I had tried to quash or tame came rushing back.

If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are. (Zen koan)

regular lust

Plastic Pussy

June 30, 2016

Four score and seven years ago, I got laid for the second last time.

[Author’s note: I wrote this article, or half of it, on pizza flyers on my way to work, way back when I was just getting back from vacation. April/May? I got a little lost around then, time got slippery and slid. Also, I lost the third flyer so some of this is now from memory.]

Back before my pilgrimage to New Orleans, Giant was both the second last and the last time I’d had sex, for quite a while. I kept going to ground and I was crying a lot. Not exactly sexy.

There was Football, but that game got rained out. The stripper in NOLA, just enough attention and snuggles to get my mojo rising, made even sweeter by my insistent insisting that it was Friday night and he should be off making money, but every time I turned around, there he was. And then I met Jason at the airport and there were sparks everywhere. I wanted to crawl inside him like a Taun Taun, but there was a table in the way and I had a plane to catch. So no sex.

Truth be told, heart was on lockdown and she took all of me with her.
Sequestered in an oubliette with nothing but my toy box and memories of lightning sex.

It’s no secret that if I am home alone I am probably playing with myself, less when I am sad but still. Less than a-fucking-lot is still some. I write porn, it’s a good gauge. If my princess parts ain’t a-tingling by 3pm, I probably need a rewrite on that chapter. If I get worked up while working on it, it’s good.

I equate masturbating with fast food. Tastes hella good when you are starving, fills you up. But there is no real sustenance there, and leaves a funny aftertaste.

Herein lies the title.

My one toy is a little plasticky. Because it’s plastic. Silicone to be specific. Hella ugly to look at but damn it felt good.

Giant and I had not-a-date planned for a Wednesday afternoon (see also Afternoon Delight).
I missed an opportunity Saturday and had vowed that next time I would walk out the door and knock on his.

Tuesday. I’d been writing all day before work, worked myself right up. Whipped out my toys and went off like a rocket. Jumped in the shower and went to work, just like any other Tuesday.

Now, once upon a time when I was a stripper I felt it polite and part of my job to show up clean.
Sadly, some of the clientele did not feel that way and I avoided them like the plague they smelled like. Eau de Bubonic and B.O. Bleck.
I however, was almost always freshly showered, mostly shaved, with my geisha/game face on.
I like playing dress-up, it worked. Playing the odds, my 4% versus everyone else, I wasn’t about to bet it all on black 19. I had bills to pay.

When it came to my actual sex life, the getting ready process for work and the getting ready process for a date with a boy I like? Two totally different things.

I had work bras and panties and I have sets I wear for the men I’m actually with. Something has to be sacred and different. Everything work-related was disposable, as was work.

The second involved a proper shaving of the legs, less make-up and a little extra prep work on my princess parts. I.e., I cannae be smelling/tasting like coconut oil and plastic. No one at work ever got close enough to notice, I was rather protective of my pussy. It’s MINE, don’t touch it.

Lamia: You shall not see the star, touch it, smell or hear it. You will not perceive her even if she stands before you.
Kinda exactly that.

That’s another thing. When will the makers of Summers Eve and other such French showers (google it I dare ya) realize men don’t go sticking their tongues in bouquets of peonies looking for a taste. They aren’t hummingbirds. Nor do they wrap their mouths around cups overflowing with baby powder looking for a drink.

I propose a new line of douches. Apple Pie, French Vanilla Ice Cream, Papaya or for the more adventurous souls, I feel like Maple Bacon Cupcake would go over rather well.

Again, for the millionth time, I digress.

The night in question, I walked out one door and into another.

Victoria: It’s not the star that I want. [She puts her arms around him]
[Seductively] You know what I want.

Except I was a little tipsy, seduction wasn’t necessary or possible. I was giggling and clumsy and fell into him and eventually into his bed.

First time we didn’t even pretend to watch a movie.

I have mentioned to him a few times that I admire this switch in him, where he goes from mild mannered mortician into full angel of death with wings. It is magnificent to behold and be on the receiving end of.

It gets even better with bellies full of scotchy-scotch-scotch.

We were messaging the other day about, well none of your business really. But the last thing I said was “I never really let go with you.”

I didn’t finish that thought. The closest I got was after he started dating she-who-skis and she happened to be away and I happened to be there, lost in him enough to forget that my pussy tasted of fucking plastic until his tongue was just south of my belly button. Then I squealed a “NO”, with an explanation.

We tousled and he won. I called him the Giant for a reason. Actually I won. He ate my pussy with conviction and vigor, I squirmed and squealed with delight and a bit of horror. And when he came up for air and a kiss, I realized it wasn’t so bad.

Then my own switch flipped. I let go of trying to control anything, especially myself.

He liked hearing about what I had done to myself, he liked tasting it too.

I liked being coveted/appreciated/consumed in my less-than-perfect form.

Me and my plastic pussy, my not-so-shaved legs wrapped around this godlike creature. Explosions. Thunder, lightning and storm swells making soaking everything. The lingering scent in the room after it was over and I fell asleep on his chest? Petrichor. The smell of the earth after it rains.

I almost attained Ataraxia. (The tranquility attained from not fearing gods.)

And I love the smell of napalm in the morning. (Apocalypse Now)

(All italics from Stardust, Neil Gaiman)

men

Exes not Oh’s

June 28, 2016

I am friends with a substantial portion of my exes. Not all mind you, I am not going for sainthood here.

Seriously. Why is this a bad thing?

I am 50/50 with decent break ups.

I am 80/20 with salvaged friendships.

I go to their weddings and kid’s birthdays. Talk them off ledges, I have men from my past who care about me that I can ask for advice when the men in my present do things that make me feel uncared for. We celebrate each other’s victories and mourn losses together. This is what friends do.
I was with them for a reason, and I left them for a reason, those reasons still stand, there is no threat here.

Some of them have even met each other and been kind, and with a little gentle joking aside, kind to me as well. The bar has been set.

Just as I can glean a little of my future with you by how you speak of and treat your mama, you can tell a lot about how I will behave towards you by how I speak of and treat my exes. I am patient, kind, forgiving, honest, friendly and generous…
No not with that, that is yours, I gave it to you, now come play with it. Ahhhh, better.

I even managed to stay friends with the biggest and the baddest of the exes, until he read all of this and realized I was not the girl he tried to make me into.
And Not the rapist, he’s a fucking rapist.

No, the one who cheated, and on whom I cheated, a lot. We spent 6 years torturing each other, two years apart, and I realized I am a better person for knowing him. A lot of my life skills came from living, with him on that farm. I realized also, in retrospect most of the things I learned were because I had to, I was left alone to fix things and hold everything together on my own. I was angry for a while, now I am grateful.

But I digress.

There are some girls who line their exes up like Barbies in a dollhouse to be taken out played with on a whim and thrown back when she gets bored. I am not that girl.

You know what other girl I am not? Any of Your exes. Especially that one who did a number on you, now stop punishing me for what she did and just let me be me. I am good, I know this, and so do you. Or you wouldn’t be here.

The red flags in me honor the red flags in you. But I need you to set aside your crimson rage against your exes and see that the flag I fly is actually white. I come bearing peace and compromise. I have learned a lot from my past and if I forget, I have reminders, cliff notes or I can just call them and ask them.

If I wanted to be with any of the ones from before, I would be. My life, my choices.

Let’s put it this way. I was raped, by an ex that I had dumped. One ex. One man did this. I know hundreds of men. Only one of them hurt me that way. Ergo…Barbie was wrong yet again, math is not hard. What kind of life would I have if I judged all men on the actions of one? See what I am getting at here?

Imagine walking into McDonald’s, you order an iced coffee, the cashier says that will be $87.53.

You say “what the ever loving fuck?”

She says “that is for the soccer team that was here before you, see? They are over in the corner, just finishing up.”

This is the same logic. I don’t want to pay for those who came before me. All I have in common with her is you, and fun lady parts. Mine are better, because they are yours now.

Some people still think the word ‘divorce’ is a dirty word. Like jamming two people into a lifetime commitment has anymore likelihood of working out than winning the lottery.

Sure, people win the lottery all the time. I played the same free ticket for almost a year.

There should be no shame attached to two grown-ups looking at each other one morning and saying, ‘this is not working’. Those are the brave ones. I actually ended a 5 year relationship by using the words “I have not cheated on you yet, but I am about to. We have to break up now.” He punched me in the face until his brother pulled him off me, still felt better than cheating would have.

So many couples split and then turn on each other, on a dime, over a dime. Rammstein nailed it “du hast or du hasst.” YOU HAVE ME (or) YOU HATE ME.

I am ever evolving, I am not the girl I was 5, 10, 20 years ago. The fundamentals and foundations of who I was remain. I am still silly, nerdy and nurturing. But as I build myself up and get more comfortable in my skin I find the men that come around are better suited to this version of me. Challenging conversations, appreciation for how I am and the sex is exponentially better.

I was asked today where I see myself in 5 years.

I hope things change. I’ve had a taste of bravery and I’m hungry for more. I want to be living somewhere that the air doesn’t hurt my face for 2/3 of the year. I’d like to fall in love with someone who challenges me to do more, be better and work hard but I know I’m not ready yet. I want to keep living and writing and get paid for it.

People can come and go as they please, teach me what they can and I’ll keep refining my idea of what love is and who I am.

If I no longer have you I won’t hate you, that isn’t who I am.

dancing girls

Angels of Harlem (and elsewhere) a playlist

June 15, 2016

I should be writing.

I am not out of the sad zone just yet but I can see where the end is, timing depends on my momentum and traffic.

Instead I made 8 new playlists.

My fixation du jour?

Cleopatra by the Lumineers.

“I was late for this I was late for that I was late for the love of my life.” (I really was)

I heard it in a store and quickly scribbled down lyrics so I could look it up.

I am currently late, for an actual party.

The house is clean, the bed is made, the dishes are done, the dog has been walked. I am showered and adorned semi appropriately its 39 degrees, 102.2 F. I googled it. So I am wearing a sheer skirt, my ass is covered. The rest of my tattoos, just barely.

I am fighting going out.

I want to stay home with my music. I barely know anyone where I am going and my shyness is coming back in a way I don’t know how to deal with.
So I have gone back to high school and am hiding in my room with my albums to shield me from the world outside.

I was told therapy is making me into an open wound.

There it is. I feel raw and exposed right now. I don’t know how to people. The last few attempts have gone badly.

But I promised. And I love the birthday girl.

Just one more song…please.

I remember being blissed out when I realized you could find music on the internet. Just think of a song and there it is. Except I can’t seem to find a copy of Crash Vegas covering Down to the Wire by Buffalo Springfield.

Every once in a while I hear a song that was hidden in an album somewhere, and or never made it to the radio and I didn’t remember it until I heard it again by fluke.

My heart stops, then starts again a little too quickly. It hurts. I shake. Sometimes I cry.

Elvis Presley and America by U2, was like that, heard it pouring out of a van in a gas station parking lot and watched the sun go down with a stranger in total silence and awe of how perfect that moment was. Hadn’t heard it since 1990. 20 years had passed. Could have been to the day, I have no way of knowing.

I had a moment when I was waitressing, Curtis put on a Peter Gabriel album and I heard I Grieve for the first time in 10 years. I stood frozen in a sea of people, just lost in the music, he took the plates from my hands and served them for me so I could just be.

Yesterday…the Badger by the Tea Party came on and I was transported back to my early 20’s. It made it onto the instrumental playlist. I haven’t named that one yet.

The one with only women is Angels of Harlem, and elsewhere.

I like naming things.

On the Mend by Foo Fighters was on one drunken night in Giant’s kitchen. Hadn’t heard it in forever. We both just sat quietly until it was over and I sighed a lot. He was playing Matthew Good Band in the truck the first night he picked me up for our first real date. “I came back for you, so you wouldn’t be alone.”

I am alone now and avoiding that song.

Once upon a time in a strip club probably 7 years ago now, I sat with a table. Asked them what they did when they mentioned working together. They worked for a company that was engineering speakers that attached to the body and connected to the nervous system.

I got totally overwhelmed and excited. I took a card, they offered to let me try it.

I proceeded to get rather drunk and lost said card, never heard of it again. But it sounded like heaven.

I wonder how many once in a lifetime moments I have experienced and then lost in strip clubs, in the haze of drinking myself not shy.

Speaking of. I have quit. My skin is happy with the lack of alcohol I have been imbibing. My body is doing fine as well, except…

I was putting together the playlists and stumbled on Rat Finks, Suicide Tanks and Cannibal Girls by White Zombie and muscle memory dictated and urge to run to work and jump on the pole. Good god I can move my body to that song. Mark that one as a trigger and pack it in a box until a later day. It isn’t safe yet.

Sitting in the Giants truck. He lured me in by saying “I have this really great playlist” and proceeded to play one of the CD’s I made him. I smiled then and I am smiling now. It was the same disc I had to replace because he wore it out.

He stopped for a second. Said he heard something that made him think of my trip to New Orleans. I smiled again and am smiling again now.

I listened for a minute. Went to peek at the display to double check before speaking, but I knew it was The Band and said so. He said yes. I replied “my sister’s dog is named Levon.”

Thought of another story tonight, wherein I remember one of the half a dozen times my dad ever yelled at us. He had gotten a VHS of the Last Waltz. Sat through all the opening of all the presents, had breakfast with us, cleaned up, did all his weekend/holiday dad things and finally sat down to watch it. We were all running and being loud like kids are prone to do.
He said “I have been waiting my whole life for this, let me watch it in peace.”
I swear I barely breathed for the next 4 hours.
I feel that way too now.

Having to skip back to the beginning of a song because I wasn’t listening with all of me.

I wish we could do that in real life. Just hit repeat, make lists and mixed tapes of our favorite bits.
Skip back. Make lists blend sweetly with perfect cadence.

Shazam experiences so we can see the details of what is actually happening.

Wishing I could go back and hear things again for the first time.

Sometimes, when I get really lucky, that last wish is granted. And it’s almost better with that buffer of time. I am a new girl hearing something old and precious with new ears and a new found respect for something once lost and found again.

men

Tripping Down Memory Lane without Skinning my Knees

May 18, 2016

For once. Actually, wait for it…I almost made it.

Normally I end up bloody, road-rashed and crying in a puddle of my own making.

This was better.

I saw a meme about bigger men cuddling better.

That shit drives me nuts. Real women do this and real men do that and skinny bitches are bad and men can’t do this and blah fucking blah. To each their own. If we all like the same thing there would be only Appleby’s, the Gap, Oprah’s recommended book list and top 40 music. I would die from banality within a week.

I am always after Young Un to borrow my eyes and see what I see. He fusses about having a ‘dad bod’. This negative body image shit isn’t limited to women.

I personally think he is sexy as fuck. More so when he opens his mouth to sing or speak, boy has substance. I don’t covet him anymore but I am not deaf/blind either.

But that’s me, I am a sapiophile. Attracted to intelligence over looks every damned time. That and compatibility.
I spent way too long with men who had no desire to know me on any level other than how well I cooked, cleaned and fucked.
I’m past that now. But even they had bellies, some of them.

There is an anthropological precedent that leans towards a natural attraction to a heftier man.

Cave men had to journey far and wide to bring home the proverbial bacon. Bigger belly, more fat stores, more successful of a hunter.

I messaged he who posted said meme and said ‘I like cuddly menfolk’. I do.

Hot Neighbor and Gelfling were exceptions. I outweighed both of them by 10 or twenty pounds (never could guess weight). Their hipbones and cheekbones sharp as knives. The pixie dust running through my veins loved the pixie dust running through theirs. And if my washing machine ever broke I coulda just scrubbed the dirt outta my clothes on their abs. I let them go.

Wolfling was tall and toned, but he was a fun gym-rat-sport-fuck, nothing more. Although he had moments of sweetness too, I will give him that. But that is all he gets. I let him go a long time ago.

I pulled up pics from the archives just to say ‘look, this is what my exes look like’.

Ex hubby and the Hulk in particular.

“Well, I figured the Hulk was big, you call him the Hulk.”

“Good god I loved walking next to him, feeling so safe and so small”. I said, “how I felt about him wasn’t conditional on him loving me back, mind you he finally said it the day before he moved far away.”

I said something to him about loving Memphis Lee, and he said “We love you too.”

My eyes lit up, so did his. I remember that moment clear as day, blue eyes shining in the sun, that squint he would get and just the slightest curl to his mouth when he saw that I heard him and understood. I do, I did, I always did.

I just love who I love for as long as I love them.

My love for the Hulk manifested in an hour drive every two weeks to knock on his door and give him candy and a hug. I called it reverse trick or treat. Sometimes he let me in the house, sometimes he didn’t. He had the sads worse than I had ever seen. He moved home the day after he said that and has been happy since. And I let him go.

I had a private photo album hidden up in my Facebook with photos of ex-hubby. I’d forgotten about it and briefly wondered if I had deleted it, but nope, there it was. Was being the operative word. I opened it looking for proof of his thickness to prove my point and braced myself for … something … anything.
And nothing happened. That was what shook me up a bit, the nothing. I took what I needed, just a moment from the past to show the present and deleted the damned thing. I let him go years ago.

I spoke yesterday about the distinction I make about ‘before’ and ‘after’. Sufficed to say, ex-hubby was from the time called before and there was no magic there.

The time called after has been a sort of fairy tale. My bliss coming in metered doses, chapters if you will.
No happily ever after…yet.
Glass slippers and valiant knights, wolves in men’s clothing, Giants and other assorted beasts and fae.
And now this…
“You’re the King and I’m your lionheart.” Of Monsters and Men.

I found my king and I am his lionheart. I just had to figure out what that meant.

I started the whole body type conversation trying to explain that I don’t have a type, but I do.

It’s just not physical.

I love someone.

“He loves me and is terrified of it, I am not over him. I blink and he is there, so I try not to blink.”

“…you’re not over him….It’s never fun it hurts.”

(over him is not an option)

“Especially since I know he is just being a chickenshit.

(oh lord)

Maybe I do have a type.

FUCK.”

That was when I started to cry. Not from the memories but because of the reality of this mess.

I love someone who is afraid, because I am afraid too.

I wasn’t running, I was standing still. Which, as it turns out, is just as bad.

I likened my heart to a revolving door. I don’t know how to deny entry without risking broken glass and no door at all.
Time to tear it all down and start over.

He comes and goes and until now I just let him because I too was coming and going.

Not anymore.

Maybe I should move out of this building and build a castle with a moat around the empire in his chest.
Keep us both safe from the world and broken glass.

Uncategorized

Still Is

May 15, 2016

“Who knows” I said, “you and me…the idea of us might have been the knife that cut him out for good. I have no way of knowing.”

I don’t. I look and wonder, hope and faith fighting it out. But I know nothing.

And the moment I did know, was bittersweet. In the way of those horrid romance novels, I had to leave to see the truth.

And now I wait, and I work. Can we just skip to the end now, the happily ever after or something like it. A sort of fairy tale. Shaking sleeping beauty, wake the fuck up.

I saw and re-posted that Bukowski quote today and broke my own heart, hard. I did that and I’m bleeding out at the thought of it.

I am so fucking sorry.

As a teenager, I fancied myself a writer, dropping bad acid and dripping bad poetry on bad trips. Reading Bukowski made me realize I am not a poet. That sometimes less is more (but I can’t shut up) there is beauty in simplicity and I wasn’t the only one who thought the world was seven layers of fucked up. He made me fall even more in love with words. I saw that words are power, the can kill or heal depending. Like knives.

Silence does that too, kills or heals depending.

Limbo is a bitch.

I said before that my heart went away a year ago and never came back. It’s true. She bounced off a satellite or three, slipped away from me in middle of the night. Traveling through time zones and space, landed softly. She’s currently locked out of the house. This is me, helping her scratch at the door.

Every time he breaks me, and he does, I put myself back a little different. I like the person I am becoming, the one that heals and forgives, gets stronger and braver. Like a mosaic, or a stained glass window. But this time I broke him and I don’t know how he heals, I never did. To the naked eye it seems like something he cannot do, or maybe just not alone.

The only thing I know is he needs time, which I have and will gladly give. The other ingredients of his forgiveness elude me. I know he values loyalty and I fucked that one up, royally. Openness and honesty I can do. I have told him a few times that I fucked up, apologized with sincerity and then make a point of not making the same mistakes twice. He forgave me once.

It doesn’t help that I find new creative ways to fuck up or that he finds new things to look for and assume.

I’m tired of this dance, my feet hurt and I am a little dizzy, please can we just go to bed already, I’d rather dance with him there.

Accepting all I’ve done and said,
I want to stand and stare again,
til there’s nothing left out…

Peter Gabriel radio edit In Your Eyes.

lost boys

Holding onto a Ghost

May 13, 2016

https://www.facebook.com/KingsPoetry1/photos/a.1723946661175572.1073741829.1723932144510357/1772039469699624/?type=3&theater

Fucking hell, dammit Jason.

Here I am, 9.5 hours and a time zone away and he is picking through my brain again/still, looking for what I need to hear before I know I need to hear it.

He’s good like that. And it’s this weird juxtaposition between comforting and maddening.

At least he wipes his feet and cleans up in there a little when he comes.

When we split (correction I did this) when I said ‘I can’t’ he said, ‘I know’. He fucking Solo’ed me.

Fucker.

I wrote twice during our brief time together about other men.
More if you count my notes scribbled on the back of pizza flyers in a cab on my way to work, the bones of a post called “Plastic Pussy” that will probably end up in the pay-per-view section.
I discussed it with him first. Said “Baby I gotta get this out.”
Writer’s write, that’s what we do. Write what you know, okay got that down, a little too well.
And if a writer falls in love with you, you just don’t die.

Mine ghost, but death never comes.

It was supposed to be past tense, passive. It wasn’t.

My ghosts haunt. Active, present tense.

Herein is the problem. It’s okay to have ghosts, skeletons in the closet (mine boogie out and down on the regular) and monsters under the bed.

But…

I invite mine into my head, bed, laptop and life always.

I can still feel you there, are we tangled in time somewhere? Armistice.
(We will get back to that, I think I have an explanation)