karma Archives - Page 5 of 6 - Our Lady of Lust and GraceOur Lady of Lust and Grace

regular lust

The First and Third Law (plus 4%)

June 19, 2016

I still can recall without much effort the fear that clutched at my throat and twisted in my gut simultaneously when he said it.

“I have something to tell you…”

I was terrified. We had been messaging about sex and he paused the conversation and said “I want to say this out loud.”

The phone rang and I answered it.

I understand the courage it takes to bare your soul with that much abandon, had I not done it first the phone would have been back on its charger beside my bed and I would have had a good night sleep.

I am tired of sleeping anyways. Spent a rather substantial portion of my life sleepwalking.

And that was not the way it went.

It rang and I heard his voice for the first time on the other end.

His sharp deep inhale of breath echoing my own. The way the ocean pulls WAY back just before a tidal wave, gathering strength and momentum.

I braced, like I would in the ocean, feet slightly apart, torso twisted just a bit to the left…

“I am one of the 4% of men who…”

I didn’t drown, it didn’t hurt or knock me over. I just kinda floated.

He laid it all out. And it was nothing to be afraid of, and nothing I couldn’t handle.

I can handle a lot.

I got out of the shower one hot afternoon, walked into the bedroom, that I shared with my boyfriend at the time, to find him dressed in women’s clothes.

My response?

“Well that explains the bra and panties in your bottom drawer”. Followed quickly by “is this a new thing for you, how does it work and what do you need me to do?”

I have long been treated like one of those priests in a box. People just tell me things. Maybe it’s my face, or my small town demeanor in the large city I transplanted myself into. I am always being approached for directions, time, advice and confessions.

How many Hail Mary’s for the other boyfriend who pulled out a dildo and asked me to use it, on him.
None. I don’t hand out guilt. I play along. My sexual comfort zone is a rather large place and no one, so far has asked me to step out of it.

When I’m asked about what I like? I always watered it down, afraid of reactions and rejection. It is only the last few years I have started to realize I am not as strange as it think I am.

I think I always thought that a part of you dies every time you make yourself vulnerable and someone says ‘ew’. So I never say it.
Those parts of you are only mostly dead, and with a small miracle can be resurrected.

Funny how I always let everyone own their wishes wants and kinks and I set mine aside.

I willingly handed over a knife every time I got in a relationship and allowed them (asked them really) to carve off bits of me so they could fit. I wasn’t comfortable being me. I was scared of my potential, of being myself and having to choose between what I Really want and being lovable. No one could possibly love me the way I am. Too much, too wordy, too strange, too sexual, too quiet, too loud etc.

This is not the way. I have been wandering through my past for the last few years, safely alone, picking up pieces of the girl I was and lost trying to put me back together. Finding things I didn’t know were mine. Way more ‘me too’s!’ than ‘ew’s’. And even then, doesn’t matter, I am alright with who and what I have become.

I had a dream that I was wandering in the woods and I found a cottage, everything I had ever loved and lost was inside and I was so happy.

That was how I felt when we talked on the phone that night.

Desires lining up like puzzle pieces. Not the same exactly, but a perfect fit and part of a bigger picture.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

A man like him and a woman like me. Equal and opposite. Symbiotic.

Newton’s third law and the 4%.

Compatibility of that magnitude is rare.

Since finding him and realizing this exists, I have met another…hidden right under my nose. He, his views and relationship with his wife making me feel more comfortable in my skin.

I have my suspicions about a third.

There are more I’m sure.

But him…fuck

He is irreplaceable. The change he caused, or the awakening of what was already there, irrevocable.

I hesitate to use the word soulmate. It’s losing meaning with how often it gets thrown around. But he is something bigger than I have experienced before.

Sexual compatibility is amazing, spectacular and necessary. But there is more. There has to be more.

How did Ludacris put it… ah yes “a lady in the street but a freak in the bed”.

I have the freak part down, and I let my flag fly. Sometimes when it ought not to be, often when it ought not to be.

Some things have to be sacred.

I get excited and I forget this. I babble, I dig my heels in. I over think and under react. I underachieve too. Not sure if I am more terrified of failing or succeeding. The thing is I love being challenged and I rarely am, so why do I sabotage it. Things to ponder.

I regressed after meeting him, tried handing him the knife so he could cut out what he didn’t like. But he didn’t take it. He dared me to build myself up, be more, do more.

He became the first law of inertia.

An object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

I needed thrown off balance and set on a new trajectory.

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.

men

Cyranos

May 16, 2016

I had one of the more fucked up conversations of my life today.

If my sister heard me say that she’d undoubtedly quip…”Well that must be pretty fucking weird coming from you Sarah.” I don’t think she reads this, probably best all things considered.

It was sister. It truly was.

It wasn’t the words so much as the source. All things in good time and in context.

I read a thing a while ago that I shall now paraphrase out of sheer exhaustion and laziness. I have been writing for 13 hours, I can’t seem to turn my brain off nor stop. I haven’t eaten save a few handfuls of M&M’s. I am running on caffeine alone. 4000 words of good copy.

Maybe it’s time for the fighter to be fought for, for the lover to be loved something something blah blah blah.

I read it a while ago and for a brief moment I allowed myself the luxury of hope.

Hope is a four letter word. I try not to indulge.

I posted today, something called Still Is. I tried to hide it over on my page.

Didn’t really work so good. And hour later…the ding in my inbox.

“It’s about him isn’t it.” Statement, not really a question.

I paused before answering, sometimes the truth needs a deep breath and a whiskey chaser.

“Yes.” Another statement, no question. Everything seems to be about him even when I don’t want it to be.

“So fucking call him already and stop torturing yourself. Or give me the number and I’ll do it.”

Ever get that feeling that hovers between awe and dread. Ya, I had that.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and all, but no. Bad idea.

The awe turned quickly to AWWWW.

Seriously? You would do that for me?

It’s not that far of a stretch for me. I do this shit all the time.

And it’s funny, I can easily set my ego and wants aside to help those I have coveted and fucked, no problem…never expected to have that happen to me. I always get the polar opposite. If they don’t have me, they hate me. For a while anyways.

And here is this man that by all rights I hurt rather badly and rather recently telling me “If he has any fucking ounce of a clue how valuable you are….he will swallow his pride and finally come get you…..if he’s half the man he claims he will hold on to you like it’s life or death….because it will be.”

It is such a strange sensation to be treated the way I treat others.

Case and point.

Young Un messaged me last week out of the pale blue.

We talk once a month sometimes more, rarely less, hence the paleness of the blue.

Been doing this for a while. Tripping in feelings and using the other as an opposite sex touch stone of sorts. Ego strokes and advice from someone who thinks differently enough to break the loops/bad mantras we both get stuck in.

Said he needed advice.

I love that he trusts me. I love him.

It’s been 2 years and 2 days since we met.

We had a rough go for a bit in the middle there.

But in my candy coated way of glossing things over, he was, and remains sweet as fuck.
Because he always was.

I credit him with my first steps of becoming. He was the first boy who was my choice. The first one in a long time that was of my tribe. In the brief time we had together he treated me like gold.
He made the transition from mundane to magic a lovely one and raised the bar.

He laid out his dilemma.

Said “the overthinking part of my Scorpio brain is having a meltdown”.

Oh baby, I know those.

His sounded like “what if what if what if”…

He is smitten you see, been talking to this girl since Christmas, but she had a boyfriend.

Now she doesn’t.

So the ‘what if’ was clearly labeled “what if I don’t say anything and I lose her?”
Followed closely by “what if I say something and I lose her?”

Conundrum.

I am Queen of the land known as SAY IT SAY IT SAY IT. It’s actually pretty hard to shut me up unless you put something fun in my mouth.

Young Un is fully aware of this. I practiced on him one time in late July and again in March.

I also have some shining examples of phrases that make girls swoon…

So I Cyrano’ed.

I said…

Here’s what you do.
Go look in the mirror.
Use my eyes so you can see what I see.
Realize how incredibly handsome and wonderful you are.
Then tell her what you just told me.
That you value her friendship but you are smitten as fuck and you don’t want to lose her.
Tell her she is worth waiting for if that is what she needs.
You used the term ‘head over heels’, tell her that, because honestly it is sweet as fuck coming out of your mouth.
And one more thing…tell her talking to her is the best part of your day…if that is the truth.

He told me it was the truth and he did SAY IT SAY IT SAY IT.

10 minutes later…

She said the same thing back to him. I could feel him glowing through my phone. And I glowed along with him.

That is what love is.
I’m not IN love with him, I don’t need him with me, his mess is mine and so is his joy.

He told me he is glad we stayed friends, I am too.

I forgive and have been forgiven.

And listen here all ye who are actually listening…if she/he is important, don’t let them go.

“And he had better grab onto you and hold you like you’re the fucking Holy Grail.”

I am beginning to believe I just might be.

It’s time to say what needs to be said, in my own words.

men

Wide Open & Held Together

May 3, 2016

I told another man I loved him yesterday…not my boyfriend… (I think I hear a gasp from the audience)…so why is he not freaking out? My boyfriend I mean.*

Because he knew. It’s how he found me, loving that other man who had a penchant for leaving me, in a crying puddle on the floor.

My (now) boyfriend showed up in my inbox unannounced, simply said “you okay there puddle?”

I was exactly broken enough to answer, “No, no I am not.” With an implied ‘help me’.

So he did.

I needed him.

He didn’t pry or force, he just let me ramble. Asked a few poignant questions.
“2 years huh? That’s a long time Sarah.” And I realized he was right.
Never once said ‘fuck that guy’.
And he didn’t let go.

As it happens when I am treated with enough patience and given enough time, I got sick of my own shit. I knew I had done all I could do with the Poet short of getting on a plane and showing up at his house, which I knew wouldn’t have gone over well.

So Jason and I started talking about other things, there was some tentative flirting sparked by a pair of kitten crotch panties. I read his writing, he read mine and we realized we had a lot of common philosophies.

He then drove 5.5 hours to see me for one. Held my hand through the bustle of an airport when I was close to flying apart and didn’t let go.

He sat across from me and encouraged me to tell stories in the brief time we were given. His eyes lit up when mine did and basically, that was it. I was smitten as fuck.

Like any of those teen romance movies from the 80’s where our heroine sees that the one she really loves has been standing in front of her the whole time disguised as a friend.

Like the Princess Bride, where she realized every time he said “as you wish”, what he was really saying was “I love you.” And I love him back.

He is my farm boy, poor and perfect.

I had a psychic tell me I would have to make a choice in the spring, between a rich man and a poor man. Huh. Just remembered that now.

The other reason he is not freaking out is that he saw the article I posted before anyone else did.

I sent it to him.

His initial reaction?

“That was beautiful”.

Me: You understand?

Jason: Do I understand as in?

Me: What I said. Why I had to say it. And that it takes nothing away from how I feel about you?

Jason: Yes baby I understand that….You’re making peace.

Me: I believe that you are the kind of man who can extrapolate that if I can love the wrong person this much…then I can love you even more.

Jason: Peace with what was….what could’ve been….who and where you are now. I know exactly how that feels.

Me: It should be enough to know I tried. But…Ima writer.

So is Jason. We feel things, see them touch, them taste, them and then write about it.

It’s how I noticed him in the first place. How we first began to explore and show each other how we felt. And how we continue to do so. I paraphrased an article he wrote about me as the opener for this one.

https://thelithiumchronicles.org/2016/04/28/make-it-count-jason-king/ *

We joked yesterday about misplaced jealousy over our past.

“Do you really think I got this amazing by reading about sex and love in books while cloistered in a nunnery?”

I didn’t. I have fucked and loved a lot.

Nor did he. I know he loved his last one and she almost destroyed him, and baby I know exactly how that feels.

Rumi said, you must keep breaking your heart until it opens.

I am open.

Jason showed me how good it feels to be wide open and held together at the same time.

“Baby you have a good heart….and you love….it’s part of you being you…..but….I know you love me….and you know I love you….it’s that simple.”

Me: it really is. I swear to god we just leveled up, or I leveled up and caught up to you…and you know Ima blog about this too right?

Jason: Haha I would expect nothing less from my girl….I love our level ups

Me: Did I catch up or did you come with me? Either way I feel brave and happy and good

Jason: Honestly….I don’t think it matters….we are here….holding hands. And feeling brave and happy and good…..is what matters….

It is.

the poet

Open Letter to The Poet

May 2, 2016

I had plans to write just this one line.

~~I stayed, I tried and~~ I fucking love you…god knows I do.

The end.

But, there is always a ‘but’.
When she sent me over to your page to read ‘pretty damned sure this is about you Sarah’ and I found myself blocked, for the first time in 2 years, I knew beyond doubt and question that you loved me.
Not because of what you wrote, because you blocked me.

And honey, that is really fucking fucked up.

“If you love me, then love me.” Stephen King

Why is this hard?

What you wrote was glorious, and all of the things most women dream of hearing.

I am not most women. Nothing compared to hearing you whisper “you fucker” in my ear, that I gave you an ‘emotional boner’ or sighing when I said something that pleased you. That was the real you talking to the real me, that was us. That laugh when you’d call me a clever girl, like diamonds, but more precious.

I asked you out for coffee, 2 years ago tomorrow.

I remember the dancing dots, my hopes soaring that you might actually say yes.

You spent 20 minutes hunting through my profile pictures and found exactly what you were looking for, a reason to say no, a nipple.

You decided in that moment I was exactly like all the rest, an attention whore/exhibitionist who would do anything for social media likes.

You told me to fuck off.

You never asked me why I put it up. For the record, it was a show of solidarity for a female friend who had been put in Facebook jail over a nipple. Nothing more.

There was nothing to forgive. You were protecting yourself, I saw it. I understand. I feel protective over you too, viciously so, even in absentia I would allow no one to speak badly of you.
Even now, I still defend you. I always will. It’s my way.

The exact same amount of time you spent looking for reasons this would never work and making assumptions about me, I spent learning you. Gleaning why you are the way you are and trying to figure out ways to prove I loved you with the parameters given.
And lordy-fucking-lord there were a lot of parameters. I could barely move an inch without hitting a wall.

I think I realized, the third or fourth time you came back, that if you stayed, life as I knew it would be over. And I didn’t mind. I called you my life’s work and I meant it.

“…my love for you is so overpowering I’m afraid I will disappear.” Paul Simon

I wasn’t afraid.

I knew that once I laid eyes on you the rest of the world would fall away. And once you saw into mine you would trust me. My face would forever reflect that fact that I belonged to you alone. My body and mouth would back that up in their respective languages. I am yours, nothing more.

And I wasn’t afraid.

I started out being afraid of you. In awe. I chuckle to myself when I think back to my first idea of what and how you were. Some of it astute and the rest so far off.

I imagined you in a small apartment above a bodega. A desk overflowing with poetry and balled up pieces of paper, a few whiskey bottles and full ashtrays. A small iron balcony on which you would sit, smoke and drink your morning coffee or afternoon whiskey and just observe.
Pounding at the keyboard, trying to diffuse some love back into the world, one drop of your heart’s blood at a time.

Every time I bought a book or a piece of your work I thought I was helping you in some small way. Funny in retrospect, but it is the thought that counts.

Poor and lost and lovely to me. And I loved you, as is, or as I imagined. I still do.

When I realized how wrong I was, I just chuckled to myself and gleaned an even further understanding as to why those walls of yours are so damned high.

I wish I could remember the exact moment that I realized you were human. Flesh, blood and marrow. Fallible and fumbling, just like me. It was a good moment. I fell harder for you and became braver than I have ever been.

When you told me about your life I absorbed every word, every tone in your voice that said ‘this is what made me’. I learned you, even when you left, I kept studying our conversations. I wanted to be better at loving you. You were worth it.

You taught me I wasn’t worth it, to you.

Your safety is more important than the risk it was to just love me and see where it goes.

I understand, your safety is important to me too.

That is why 5 people know your name…and no one knows the secrets you told me in the dark.

I wouldn’t trade a minute of you.

Since last July I have had plane ticket money tucked away in a drawer, waiting for you to call me to you. But you never did.

You opened up a whole new world of possibilities as to how honest I can be with those around me about who and what I am, the things I want and the things I have done. You made me admit things out loud that I had hidden even from myself. You unlocked the cage society made for me and set me free. And I know you loved me for it.

So I will always love you. I had to flip the switch from active to passive. And now back again, there is nothing unlovable about you to me.

I am writing this to you, in blood red, dripping graffiti on one of the walls you threw up to block me with. And that is the best I can do, in the parameters given.

men

The Big Blue Thingee

April 29, 2016

I put out distress calls, god knows I do.

I spent a long time alone in my head believing myself to be strange and unworthy.

Spent that exact amount of time toning myself down and trying to figure out what everyone wanted me to be. Like wearing costumes that didn’t fit. They pinched, itched and hurt.

I think I am naked now.

I found my people and came home to them. We are naked often, stripped bare, just being us.

And sometimes, the me that I am, is a sad girl, a scared girl, I don’t understand the actions of others. Especially those who seek to hurt, maim and manipulate me and mine.

Still, I go out and I try to live my life. I bump into people with sharp edges, I try to love them anyway and I bleed.

If it’s bad enough, I cry out and always, without fail, someone from my village comes running with bandages.

Only makes sense that my heart and ear is also fine-tuned to hear others crying out in the wilderness.

A girl said upon the Facebook “I don’t think I should be allowed out in public today.”

Sounds exactly like me 6 weeks ago.

My first instinct? Go get her and take her home. Make a sushi roll outta her and take it from there.

Instead I messaged and said “I’m around if you need an ear and a coffee.”

You see, we’ve only met twice in person. Once at a photoshoot covered in fake blood and once at the launch party for the calendar that said photoshoot was for. https://www.facebook.com/deadglamourgirlz/?fref=ts

She was drunky and I got her car where it needed to be.

She is cute when she is drunky, and next level sex kitten when she is in front of a camera.

Good times. Not enough to form a lasting bond, but enough that I was intrigued by her.
And then there was the distress call I couldn’t ignore.

We agreed on tacos the next Tuesday.

I told her she is a juxtaposition to me. A chameleon, and I find her fascinating and wonderful. Because at her core she is sweet, kind, smart and a total dork. Kinda like me. Except she has the switch inside of her that turns her brave ALL the way up in a way I have not learned yet.

That day her switch was turned off. Or maybe it wasn’t. It took guts to sit across from a relative stranger and show the absolute shit hand of cards she has been dealt lately. Her bottom lip quivered and I saw tears that never made it out of her eyes, but they were there, hovering, waiting.

The things we talked about are no one’s business. This is my blog and my space. If I could out my friends and their shenanigans, I would have a million followers just for the Cara Show alone.
But one thing she said, I had an immediate counter for. I had real life proof that what she wanted wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.

I was a bit late for lunch, for 2 reasons.

A real estate agent and the big blue thingee.

I got stuck waiting for my apartment to be shown, they were late.

Aaaand…Jason and I were trying to make our relationship Facebook official and we couldn’t get the big blue thingee to work. This one.

One of the reasons the girl sitting across from me eating tacos was sad is because she had been with someone for several months and he wouldn’t claim her on social media.

I know right now that some of you are inclined to believe that it’s not a big deal. And if that is your opinion, more power to you. I am not here to judge. I have said before my relationship status was on mute for 5 years.

The only other long distance relationship I had with a semi public figure/writer…it was important to him to be anonymous, so I kept his name like a secret in my mouth. Even though I could bury him, I wouldn’t, I didn’t and I won’t. It’s important that he is safe, even after everything.

It’s no different than some people like holding hands in public, some don’t. Young Un hated it and I knew it. He knew I loved it so sometimes he would, for me. And that was enough, more than enough actually.

It was important to her. So it is valid. She is valid. She is worthy of any gesture that adds comfort to her. Her partner, if he is to be called that, should have acknowledged this BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT A PARTNERSHIP IS. It’s not a failing on her part, it is something simple that she wanted and was within his power to give to her. But he chose not to and thereby didn’t chose her.

Now she is free to find someone who loves the way she loves.

I understand completely. I don’t want to be a secret either, nor does Jason.

In my relationship with him, it is important to US. Doesn’t matter what his/my/our reasons are. I want to be with a hand holder. I want to be held and claimed and celebrated. And it isn’t some bullshit girly fairy tale shit that doesn’t exist. It does. I am proud of my man and proud to be his, and the world knows it.

We are both writers, we both spill our guts. And I have a feeling that we will show the world what is possible when it comes to love via the vast ocean of the internet.

When we are out in public there is no doubt that I belong to him. My body language screams it.

We finally figured out the riddle of the big blue thingee.

Jason has claimed me, over and over. Written pieces and articles about me, in which he calls me Sarah. And my name spoken by him in his sweet southern drawl is about the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.

https://thelithiumchronicles.org/2016/04/28/make-it-count-jason-king/

lost boys

Looking Back and Fucking Thumbs

April 28, 2016

“…that’s a biiiiiiiig fuckin’ thumb you just sent me.”

That was the first time I heard his voice. InstaSploosh.

I am a sucker for a southern drawl, I won’t lie.

American accents sound like home and happiness. Some more than others. “Just shut up and let me say this” sounds bad regardless of the voice. I think even Morgan Freeman telling me to shut up would get my back up.

And that badly placed thumb on Facebook messenger. I hate it, seems dismissive. And yet I hit it by accident on the regular.

Meh.

Just gonna roll with it. And “big fucking thumb” has become part of our language with each other. I do so love it when he says ‘fuck’.

We talk, oh lord we talk for hours upon hours. I feel like I am in high school again, phone cord stretched to the limit out the back door so I can smoke and listen.

High school sweetheart went to juevie when we were god, like 17 maybe. I spent every night on the phone accepting collect calls and every day for the next month working to pay off the phone bill. He came home and dated someone that wasn’t me for the record. Why does my life get stuck on repeat? That was 25 years ago and I am still doing the same thing? And why do I have to have these moments mid-write?

And now that heaven is on fire, in the worst technicolor, oh and I’ve been chasing angels all my life. Amber Run, Heaven

There it is.

So now what us gonna do?

“This war won’t stand long, God won’t let it.”[1]

I am still fighting. I’m tired now.

“I am tellin’ all y’all it’s a sabotage.” [2]

Mercury is in retrograde, all phone lines to God are currently down, please try again later.

Day one. Shit is already slipping sideways.

My laptop decided to do an update shutdown and I lost 5 pieces I was working on. Microsoft Word had the audacity to dangle a carrot called “would you like to restore your previous documents” to which I replied YES. And no, not a thing. Just blank spaces where before there were words and feelings and thoughts and links.

“This is me breathing.” [3]

Jason had to tell me that yesterday. Breathe baby.

Somehow he knew. I was sitting in front of my laptop, mouth agape, tears rolling down my face.

I have a private album upon the Facebook called “holding area”. It’s where I put the things. Snippets, screenshots, inspirational shit. I was pulling screenshots off my phone looking for a conversation with Leah for an article. We fought, I was expecting a heartpunch. What I wasn’t expecting was uploading these tiny wee thumbnails that were not conversations with Leah.

Here come the Giant. Waltzing out of the past.

I wasn’t ready.

Sucker punch.

And this wasn’t the worst one. Not even close.

I have a self-defence mechanism, sharpened and honed over the last 3 years of dating ghosts.

More often I cut myself on the damned thing and baby do I bleed.

I decide I made them up in my head and he wasn’t that great, he didn’t really say those things and I am just a silly girl and look, everything is fine now.

And then time passes and I go looking for something else, innocently enough and I open their assigned oubliette.

And lo, he did say those things, and so much more.

I have got to learn how to label things better.

I also need to learn to stop looking back over my shoulder lest I trip, or worse. What if God sees and I become Job. Nothing grows on salted ground. I need to grow.

I said to Jason that I thought he deserved better, that I wasn’t coming into this clean. And he just stayed. Made a hundred excuses as to why this WILL work.

He doesn’t punish me for my past or even ask me to hide it. He works through it with me and looks for the why.

He doesn’t tell me to shut up. Quite the opposite actually.

He simply says “okay baby”. Let it out baby, give it some air and let’s work through this.

We did. We are. We will.

“Maybe what you think is you being a hurricane just feels like a light sprinkle to me.” He said.

I think so maybe, yesh baby.

This.

[1] Cold Mountain, Ruby Thewes

[2] Beastie Boys, Sabotage

[3] Grosse Pointe Blank, Martin Blank

Uncategorized

Okay Baby

April 28, 2016

Oh you did a buttload of drugs and you feel shitty and you need me to come get you so you can sleep in my bed and cry on my couch?
Okay baby. Love you be there in 20. What’s the address again?

Oh, you want to ride a mechanical bull with no panties on?
Okay baby. I will hold your purse, and film it.

I want to go swimming, can we get a hotel with an indoor pool?
Okay baby. (What no foot stomp required? Thanks baby.)
(See also, can we go shopping at Target for shit I don’t need so I can be supportive and then can you fuck me in a blanket fort…okay baby. Yesh)

Oh, you think its okay to bring your drug dealer to brunch and spend 3 days text screaming at me because I didn’t just say ‘okay baby?’
Okay baby, we done. That one wasn’t okay.

Which is weird considering…lately everything okay baby.

It’s my new mantra, whatever life hits me with, its just okay baby.

Once upon a time my dad was a shutdown coordinator for a huge company.
He would tally the man hours and outside hires to get everything running on budget within the time given. He worked with another man to whom he would show his well calculated specs to.
This man would look them over and religiously say at first “Okay Jonny”. Then it would all slide downhill. “Okay Jonny, I thinks so…I think so maybe. Um no. No Jonny. Just no.”

In my household it became part of our vernacular. Those inside jokes, movie quotes and song lyrics that become a private language between those you love and spend time with. The original back and forth got shortened. And any time the answer to anything was ‘no’, it became, “I think so maybe no.”

I have since changed my outlook on life the universe and everything due to a random trip to New Orleans with Miss No Rules.
There are no rules.

If I love you, I just love you. As is.

You wanna do a thing? Okay baby.

You hurt me? Shrug, okay baby.

Plans for hotel rendezvous? Okay baby.

It works for everything, like tabasco, perspective, duct tape and WD-40. And should be applied liberally.
This is some next level, ‘just roll with it’ shit. And I love it.

What happened is while I was waiting for life to happen, it was already happening. I panned out whilst watching the movie that is my life and saw that with little or no direction, everything was great. We lay in the road and get up if a car comes. Dance to no music or all of it. Life isn’t scripted, and I love the people playing star roles with me right now. Exactly the way they are, messy, funny, honest, belly laughs and sometimes out of control.
We have all survived everything up until this point. Those nights laying in bed with my heart ripped out, I wanted to die, thought I might. But at some point I got back up and back on with the business of living.
And as scary as the new stuff was, it was also really amazing. And it continues to be so, exponentially better.

I always loved this poem…so much that i wanted to be it, somewhere I lost my way.

Found it again and found the one who makes me feel like he is yesh, and I may…

Planned a vacation with Jason, we must have reorganized things, added and subtracted 1000 times, if once. Now he has to work 3/8 days. No breakdown, no subtext, no foot stomps. We can snuggle and watch movies when you get home and I’ll make dinner. Okay baby.

My friends are all at different points in their lives, most of them younger than me, some of them making right messes out of things BUT THOSE ARE THEIR MESSES TO MAKE. In retrospect all my messes had lessons buried in the shit. Why deny them the same thing just because I actually know better. If it gets dangerous I will pull them out, and they will come with me because they know that I am the Queen of Okaybabyland and if I have to say, no baby, there is a reason for it.

They say things like ‘I love him.’ and I just say “okay baby”. I am not the expert on love, I have a really good idea what it feels like to be accepted and wanted as is. Like a solid friendship, with lust on top. Closer than I have ever been. Feels like love to me. For them? I just know how I love them and hope they find something similar. Someone who just lets them be themselves and says ‘okay, that’s my baby.’

men

The Claiming

April 25, 2016

My relationship status on Facebook has been non-existent for over 5 years now.

I haven’t been single for 5 years mind you, but I left it blank.

I dated Pimp Daddy for 2 years and never felt the need to claim him, gee I wonder why.
(See the 3^rd word in the previous sentence.)

He never called me his girlfriend even after we moved in together, even after I got pregnant and then fired, rendering us gypsies. Even after I got us out of that mess and every subsequent mess after that.

He wasn’t that important.

End of story.

There was a method to my madness, or a reason for it.

I remember one day when ex hubby and I were fighting. I’d run away from home and was sequestered in a Pepto Bismol pink room above a strip club surrounded by everything I could possibly jam into my Jeep, including my laptop thank fuck. I was using it for evil, posting passive aggressive shit. Obsessively checking my relationship status on Facebook to see if maybe this was the time it would actually be over. It wasn’t. I mean, he DID dump me on Facebook that week, but it didn’t last.
And so it went, different locales, always the same game.
Is it my turn or hers?
Where am I sleeping tonight, and watching my status obsessively to assess how bad things were this time.

If I left 7 times I left 20. If he dumped me 17 times he dumped me 57. The center didn’t hold. It was never my circus and they weren’t my monkeys.

My monkeys fly.

And you know what? Fuck it. Fuck this, fuck that, fuck them.

Every time I start shit talking my exes, I hear Sophia from the Color Purple.

“He ain’t worf it.”

“Don’t trade places with what I’ve been through. Sat in that jail, sat in that jail till I about done rot to death.”

I did. A few times. And I was always the key.

Hell can get pretty comfortable if you have been there long enough.

But I was the key, the key to leaving, the key to the locks in my life.

The secret is all inside your head she said to me. The answer is easy if you take it logically. I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free. There must be 50 ways to leave your lover. ~ Paul Simon

The leaving, I have that down. Being left? Got that too, don’t want it but I get it.

But what about the in between?

How in the good lord’s name do I deal with that?

Where is that fine line between belonging with/to someone and territorial pissings?

Once upon a time I posted a profile pic of me in a doorway, wearing The grey dress. My corner of the internet exploded, compliments flying everywhere. But the one I fixated on was from Young Un. We had an inside joke about ‘man pants’, jeans I owned that hung off me rather than hugging my curves. He posted under said grey dress pic that I was beautiful no matter what I wore, even in my man pants.

It was the first time I had been claimed publicly by someone I was with, in what felt like forever.

And it felt amazing.

The Poet did the same, a few times, and it always elevated me. I felt wanted, like he was announcing his presence in my life. And I liked it.

I realized, I had lived without it for so long that I no longer need it, but I kinda want it.

With the new one, good god I wanted to brag. But I would restrain myself, mull over the comments I was leaving out for the world to see, and if I felt they might offend someone…inbox or not at all.

We talked about it, he makes it easy to talk about everything.

“I’m scared.” I said.

“It’s okay baby.” He replied.

I wanted to climb the air traffic control tower at O’Hare and announce how smitten I am with this man.
I told him that too.

“Okay baby.” He said.

Shortly after we each got called out by mutual friends…”so you seem really happy, what’s his/her name?” They already knew. I am so transparent it’s like trying to hide elephants inside a greenhouse.

I don’t want to hide anything, I don’t keep secrets nor am I one.

So I said it, out loud. Posted upon the Facebook that “I am smitten as fuck with Jason King.”

Took him nanoseconds to comment underneath “and I am smitten right back.”

And in that moment I allowed myself to be happy. Still am.

Older Posts

Newer Posts