Once my mom and I were watching a documentary on the Hindenburg crash. The story was at the end and telling how people survived 38 second plummet of the flaming aircraft and the narrator was telling about a mother of three. She had successfully thrown her two boys to safety but could not lift her daughter to throw her the 50 feet from the burning craft. She then left her daughter and jumped to ground breaking her pelvic bone. When the ship hit the ground and someone came to rescue her, she told them to go and get her daughter. Her daughter was rushed to the hospital but her lungs were so badly burned that she didn't even survive the night.




I was shocked. I couldn't imagine jumping from a burning anything knowing that I had left my child on board. I would continue to try to rescue her and we would die together if I couldn't. I said this to my mom who told me I was insane. She said I had no idea what that woman had been through and at least she had tried to get her daughter help. She told me she understood what I was saying but it didn't make any sense. I told her she didn't understand or she wouldn't even be arguing it with me.



That's the difference in the kind of mother I am and the kind of mother I had. What she said to me without saying it is that her life was more important than mine, that she would leave me to die if it meant saving herself. I think that defeats the purpose of even being a mother, no?

     I've got too much in my head again so I'll leave it here. One of my therapist told me that at the age of 3 your brain is starting to form concepts that decide how you will think for the rest of your life. She said since I was "traumatized" we needed to reprogram my brain. Why do people always find so many words to mask the truth? Raped is a better word. Molested sounds mild. It's true though. I don't think right. I don't think anyone will ever be patient enough to truly love me. I don't think I will ever truly trust a man and as long as my son is so small that he can't take care of himself I will not sleep. I try. He slept in his bed for two weeks and I would wake up having an anxiety attack. My dreams would be so real. Someone would be in our house and I couldn't get to him. When I woke up I would go and get him from his bed and lock us in my room, as always. I don't want to be any of this. I just don't know how to not be. I always quit therapy because I can't look at another person and talk about it. Writing is different. I assume no one really reads this so it's kind of safe. I still can't say everything.
     It shouldn't be called post traumatic stress syndrome. It should be called Self Destruction of the Brain. It's like you try so hard to do the right things, to change yourself, and your brain refuses and reminds you why it's doing the things it does. It's somewhat cannibalistic. Eating at yourself and not knowing how to stop. I wish I could just wake up and decide not to think these things or worry about night. Even if I consciously make the decision, my subconscious has a back up plan. It flips out and the anxiety attacks start. I just don't know what to do. Maybe I'm too old to be fixed just like I was too young to be broken.

i'm losing by minutes. i can not and will not ever be whatever you say i am.

i have thoughts and feelings provoked by the ghosts of experiences past
haunting in our corners. dancing in the reflection of my face in your eyes.

by minutes...
i fall and slip and claw for a freedom i can't comprehend.


i won't win ya know. i'm fighting the only person who can take me, myself.
and all i have is my experience to go on.
i won't win

I made an assumption... Three dark-skinned girls that had on hoodrat outfits that instantly got silent and whispered as I walked up. To me this usually means loud whispered comments about me, rolled eyes, and stink face stares. I am racist. I didn't mean to be. I thought I was right. They kept whispering and giggling and staring at me. So, I turned around and addressed it.
....I was wrong.
I offended them.
I offended myself
I apologized she explained. I could tell I had hurt her feelings and I wanna take it all back. I have no idea why in the shit I am so emotional today but that slightly killed me. I didn't mean to be THAT person and I can't use past experience as an excuse for how I wronged them. They probably don't care about it anymore but I can still see the look on their faces. The look I used to have when I was younger and dark skinned ghetto girls used to call me little white girl as they bullied me. That's what I did today. I bullied them. I was racist.

I'm breakin again. 

Peelin ever so slightly at my edges. 

Runnin full speed at thorny bushes that would evaporate 

If I whispered it. 

Seein all the people go by that don't stop and check 

Check that I'm still here. 

I've left anyway. 

Drifted 
Moved into the space I always wait for lightnin in a bottle.

The place where it's always sunny and rainin.

I wait pullin myself one petal at a time 

"He loves me. He loves me not." 

There's nothin left to love.

A stem swayin in wind 

That threatens to uproot but I stay not thinkin it away. 

No one came to check. 

No one ever knew I was there slightly peelin 

Breakin away in the rain 

Boilin with the sun 

Singin his name cause 

He was the only one who ever saw me but 

He loves me not. 

What is a monument without bein revered. 

What is a altar without tongues in prayer.

It is mournin. 

Lonely sweet slow mournin 

Undoin itself to break its name and 

Prayin that it will be rebuilt again. 

It is defeat 

And the rubble of battles waged in its long forgotten purpose. 

He came 

And so he went

My Dream Soul Mate

I always have the best dreams about my old roommate and good friend. I think of him as a brother but in my dreams he is always my soul mate. Last night was no different. I stayed up way later than I should have in fear that my nightmare would return. Instead, Alex and I were in a Spanish villa like palace with spit levels and huge windows. We stayed mostly near the terrace because guests kept arriving and I was in a panic because someone was missing, the more people that arrived the more of a party it became. Everyone was mingling and dancing and assuring me that he would be here any minute. I wasn't so sure. In fact, I was completely sure that this person I was waiting for was not going to show at all- that my dream would re-direct and I would be carried to some less vivid one where there was no party. I decided to stop thinking about it because sometimes when I think too hard about something my dreams blur and change then I have completely lost the moment. People at the other end of the terrace towards the drive started shouting as if a celebrity was pulling up and I ran to see what all the fuss was about. There was Kyle. He had on a suit and was carrying his luggage. He was surrounded by what looked like security guards or assistants and he had gotten out of a town car. He dropped everything and ran to pick me up. I knew I was happy but I didn't know what I should be happy about. Then he said, "Did you really think I was going to miss our engagement party?" And it was like I already knew that was where we were.

It is always that way when I dream about him. He's saving the day or we're struggling perfectly together. I just don't feel that way when I'm with him. It's like he's my older brother; we play fight, gossip about friends, and talk about our relationships. Other people claim that there is tension there but I never noticed it. Alex even calls him Uncle Kyle. So I guess I said all of that to say that I'm confused with the difference between the dream world and the real one. I don't see or feel any sparks here but there he is Mr. Perfect...seems like my subconscious is pushing me towards something that isn't really there.

My Story Pt5

     My mother's side of the family is hard to describe. She had 2 older sisters and one younger brother. They all had different fathers which in the fifties labeled my grandmother. Well honestly it still would label her and she would deserve it by the standards of any year. To tell about her I must explain that she had no idea who her parents were. She was shuffled from house to house until she turned 5. The people who were taking care of her died and left her land and money. Whoever got her received it all. My great grand parents Snoop and Bootsie were not in love. They married each other as some sort of deal, no one is clear on what the terms were. They were business partners and nothing else. They slept in separate rooms and on Thursday nights everyone knew that my great grand father's girlfriend would come and stay for the night.

     Snoop and Bootsie owned a few nightclubs and drive-in theatres spread out over town. The most notorious of establishments was their house. It used to be an old plantation, someone had bought this and turned it into a hotel. In the front yard sat a tall twisted tree that everyone in the predominantly black neighborhood called the lynching tree. This is where they would sometimes find the body of a young man who had committed some offense upon the white community. Their first act after buying the house was to chop this down. They then renovated the smaller houses on the back of the property into living areas for friends fallen on hard times. All of this paints a sunny happy picture of what type of people they were. Do not be fooled, they were criminals.
      The house itself was used for a number of things, gambling, illegal drinking, and prostitution. Many people have told stories of murders on the front steps and the back rooms. This is how she grew up, surrounded by people who gave in to temptation and celebrated the rougher side of life. In turn, she was self indulgent and unapologetic. She slept with whoever she wanted and often left her children with her parents even if they were one the verge of death. She didn't give hugs or even really care that they were there.
     She had my Aunt Stephanie first. Stephanie is quiet and deadly, literally. I always thought Aunt Fifi, the second oldest, was the toughest of all of them until one Thanksgiving while my grandmother was saying the prayer Fifi leaned over and pointed at Stephanie and said, "Look at that bitch gigglin'. She already pissed me off tonight but I'm not gonna mess with her 'cause I know if I fight her it'll be to do the death." I was shocked because I always thought Aunt Stephanie was the high silent one. I voiced this somehow and Aunt Fifi replied, "Hell naw! That bitch is crazy! She's the only one in this room I would think twice about goin' at." This gave me a new respect for Aunt Stephanie. I knew she carried a .45 everywhere she went I didn't know she didn't have to and that her reputation proceeded her and the bullets.

I still miss him the most on nights like tonight. He would be listening to me talk (his favorite pass time) and watching me hungrily. He would ask me questions and let me rant about a day I barely remember. We would be sitting on the couch in his man room, the bar. He would be chewing his nails and geninuinely interested in what I had to say. That was something I doubted at the start until months later he would referrence something I had said casually in our first interactions. His glass bong was always next to him like a baby bottle, his fingers running through my hair, before I cut it to erase his touch. I talked about me, which is rare because I wasn't used to people listening. I've spent my whole life as an ear. My glass of wine would never be empty nor would his pipe piece. When I was done spilling my emotions on our carpeted floor in my nonchalantness, he would turn on the XBox and we played and talked shit as if we were just friends. Shit talking always lead to play fighting and everyone knows where that leads. Or was that just us? For six years he was my clutch. He was my drug, my best friend. Now it's just me left with emotions spilled on floor for no one to see. I'm not coping or concealing my inability to cope well, at all. I need something I can't give myself and that I don't want from anyone else other than him, but I no longer want him.

Fakery!

                                 Who in the hell was I teaching how to fry chicken?!

                                                      An who's foot is that?!?!?!


That was actually my first thought when I realized a twitter "friend" was in fact some random person's alter ego and not real at all.

As it turned out he was not gay or multiracial. He was simply the black man below bored with his "straight" life and looking for fun. What he didn't realize was that his fun was our real lives and we are all bruised now for his entertainment.

     Having said all of that I will tell you what people who know me the most do not know. I'll spare you the juicy story about a guy I dated for six months who turned out to be using a fake identity and was a wanted felon. I will instead tell you my secrets as promised.



     When I was 14 my mother drank the heaviest or maybe I noticed it the most. Being my first year of high school I couldn't really deal with it so I would lock my room door and go into AOL chatrooms to find fun things to talk about. While in one I met a friend named, "creepo". He was hilarious and we would stay up all night telling each other stories about home and school friends. I didn't hold any punches, with "creepo" I was me. I could even laugh about how my mom was on wine bottle number three and would be hitting the floor soon. Off and on through life we talked for 12 years always on AIM or through emails. It was one of the best friendships I've ever had. We shared real thoughts and experiences. We never lost touch no matter where life took us. He was my secret pleasure! No one else knew that I confessed my worst sins and best pleasures to a complete stranger. A little while ago after going through a really bad breakup I kind of cocooned myself into the internet. I regularly checked my facebook and of course created a twitter account. There is always an option to search for people by email so I searched for a few people that I hadn't heard from in a while. "creepo" was one of these. The first account that came up was for a 19 year old bisexual female. I knew this couldn't be right because there was no way a 7 year old could have kept up with my 14 year old conversation. The next one was a picture of a girl my age that I had seen in a few of creepo's photos. This one disturbed me because when I clicked on her pictures I expected to see him. I didn't. I saw some guy who looked nothing like all of the pictures I had seen before. I sat there trying to justify it all by telling myself that this guy was no where near as attractive as creepo so obviously creepo was insecure about his looks and had used the cute guys pics. I am always straight forward so I sent an email and explained how I had seen these pictures. I told him I didn't understand why he thought that was necessary.
     When I got a reply to my email my mind literally couldn't compute it all. You probably guessed, creepo was the girl. She sent me this long emotional email about how she was sorry and needed to get help. I felt mentally molested. I felt like she stole my experiences that I would have gladly given her had she said she was a girl. For 12 years I had been telling my everything to a person who never existed.

i was telling my world to her :^/

bella

I'm such a genius...before I knew my sound board was warped I wrote a song. The entire song is out of tune but I still like it. I just don't know how to ever play it again.
Since she's dead I hung her up on the wall to be her own monument :D

My Story Pt4

     After that my mom never let me meet anyone else she was dating until they were official. She made exasperated faces at me when I said I didn't like him. I never really did. They always smiled at me with their mouths and never their eyes. Who really enjoys beeing mean mugged by a child with sad eyes, though? I get that often still, that my eyes are sad. I try to smile even when I don't feel like it to avoid "what's wrong?" I went to daycare for a week. I won't tell you that story or you'll really think I'm just complaining. In the end I was sent to the "Service Station" with MamDean and Puda. That was best. I learned my colors, numbers, how to pump gas, what a spark plug was, and that drunk people literally pee anywhere they feel they can. There I learned more than what I would have at any daycare.
     Some days I never went home. I would wake up and MamaDean would dress in me in the cutest clothes, I wasn't allowed to take these home. "Ya Mama just gone let you ruin em. Look at these rags she sent back last time. This aint fit for a begga." She always worked her jabs at my mother into conversation as if it were normal to hear people talk that way. After we were dressed and she had brushed my ears to the side of my had, "tryna get cha edges", we would head to McDonald's to get "James breakfass" and coffee. Once we had this we would go and open the gas station. If Charmell, my oldest sister, was in school then we would drop her. I loved that part the best because she would let me carry her bookbag inside with the big kids and she smiled at me and seemed proud that I was her little sister. Then I would spend the rest of my day watchin MamaDean gossip about the people in town, seeing the regulars come and go, and watch "stowries". I was always quiet. I don't remember playing with toys. I remember watching the people come in and out of the building. Back then I had no idea how gas in cars worked and I was confused as to why the same people came back so often for it. MamaDean always wore jeans and a button down shirt. She kept her hair tied and one hand on her hip. I always knew when she didn't like someone because she wouldn't even bother to ask them how they were doing and when they left she told me ALL about how they had pissed her off.
     I always wondered why her word was the last in every argument and why people rarely tested her until one day. I saw a drunk stumble up to the gas pump, unzip his pants, and start to pee right on the side of it. I jumped around pointing and yelling her name. She marched right out the front door "Now stay right dere yaheah?" I nodded but I crept up behind her. It was a long walk to the pumps, not like now where you take two steps and you're there. It was probably three times the distance. Attached to the right side of the gas station was the body shop. In front of it and to the left was laundry they also owned and ran. She marched with one hand on her hip and not a second of hesitation in her step. I heard Puda call out, " Now Geraldine!" She didn't even turn to look at him or slow her pace. She marched. The drunk man, having relieved himself slumped up against one of the pumps. She walked right up beside him, unhooked a nozzle, and pressed the trigger pouring gas all over him. She went in her pocket, grabbed a pack of matches, and struck one. She said this and I never forgot it or saw him again, "Now ya look heah. I'll light cho ass on fire and blow us both to hell if you don't tell me right nah I won't see ya no where neah my gas pump again." She didn't yell it. She didn't have any venom in her voice. She just stared at him. He stuttered, " Aww Mrs. Griffis why you gone do me like that? I aint mean nothing! I swear I won't come round here no mo." She blew out her match and said, " and don't you fuckin Mrs Griffis me...pissin on my damn pumps." I turned and ran because I could see her coming back to the station. That wasn't the last time I ever saw her get wreckless with someone else's life. It got to the point where none of the bums even crossed their property to get to the other side of the street.

     The things that happened changed me but I try not to make them who I am. I'm not very good with emotions. I don't pass them out like flyers. I save them for paper. I often get accused of being cold, distant, and not where people need me. It's not that I don't care it's more that I don't know how to show people that I care. I have all these wonderful things that I want to say to people daily. All these ways that I want to communicate but I'm afraid that they may take it wrong and I'll be put in an awkward situation. I'm afraid to hand myself to them to drop and break.
     I call my emotional ineptness, "my crazy". I work on my crazy little by little. I will not force myself past what I can take, if I feel myself breaking I stop. I will not break me to fix me. It took years for me to learn where the breaking point was and how to love my flaws. I spent so many years crying because I wasn't normal that I don't cry at all anymore. I think I overdrafted the tear bank. Adolescence was miserable. I would smile all day in school and everyone loved me. If there was a party I was invited. If there was anything that had to do with happiness they wanted me in on it. They had no idea I went home every afternoon and cried myself to sleep. My smile was my armor. If no one knew I hurt then no one would hurt me more. If they didn't think I was different they wouldn't leave me by myself to tear my head apart.
     Now that I'm older I see the flaw in wanting to be something other than who you are. I see the suicide in it. Denying yourself love will kill you faster than anything else Earth has to offer. I do know that my thought processes aren't healthy but instead of beating myself mentally I find ways to adjust the process. I learned that when I figuratively fall on my face it's easier to laugh and look back to see why I fell than to cry and call myself stupid for not seeing the obstacle.
     I will not be my murderer. I make small goals and I praise myself for the progress. I embrace the fact that I'm clumsy, goofy, and have a strange way of viewing situations. I don't know all of the symptons of abuse but I made myself aware of the ones that I have. With the knowledge of the behavior, I can identify it and try to work through it. Right now I'm working on allowing people to touch me. I don't mean sexually I mean in general. I can't describe in words how I feel when a random person walks up and puts their hand on my shoulder. I always thought I could describe everything in words. Maybe I can but it's a breaking point and I've conditioned myself to stop. Either way I hate it, not like it's irritating but like I want to punch them in the throat hate it. Some people I even dislike on sight. Usually men just because I feel like they violate me with their eyes. The worst is the touch though. My mother was never affectionate. She said "I love you" only when I was going away for a long period of time or when she had made me feel like I wasn't worth pushing out. So hugs and kisses are kind of foreign to me. I make myself give and receive them. I'm teaching myself that I share space with people who lived different lives and they shouldn't be punished for what someone else did. I teach myself. That's all I can do

Can I breathe in the wake of your absence
Can I please have the rest of me back since
You're no longer making my heart your home
And all the fruit we bore foamed
Bubbled and rotted at our feet
Where the truth of our love and your lies meet
All we were was a broken lullaby and raw heat
Unnecessarily cycling and tearing apart on repeat
Flawlessly flailing flinching fornicating in the name of love
And if she had walked past us we wouldnt have known who she was
You still tell me I'm everything you ever were
I guess you're nothing 'cause I died when I saw you and her
Insensate to your love now I'm only feeling you deeply
It's a sin that you felt righteous enough to even try to keep me
There has never been a man deep enough to hold me
Fold me
Mold me into his thoughts and make me his eyes
You're only borrowing what I give there is no reprise
Bottling me in your mixed confused emotions
Doesn't mean the same thing as true devotion
It feels like deity remixed chopped and split to mundane
I will not knowingly believe or concede to you ever again
And if it's love you want and as you say, we're still friends
You'd have to give back what you took to make ammends
It would be exactly where our conflicted anecdote ends

My Story Pt3

      I gave you poetry again...I'm not sure how to face the facts because I usually let them fester somewhere near the back of my head, out of sight but always in my actions.
When I was born my mother was already terrified of my father. She said he started hitting her for the first time in her second trimester. Yes, I was "born in a pop." She said she took the beatings because she was scared to fight back while she was pregnant. My mother will lie about most things if asked directly except a wrong done her. I've heard the stories thousands of times and it explains so much of who I am. A fetus feels its mothers emotions, that is scientifically proven. I was beaten to life.
      As soon as she had me, they had an argument in the front yard and he hit her. She picked up a brick and told him his next blow to her would split his head so be sure to aim right. He never hit her again. One thing my mother is, amongst the flaws that complete her, is a vicious fighter. I've seen it and I wouldn't try her on my best day even though I outweigh her and I have her on the reach. They said I scared them when I was a baby because I rarely cried and I only laughed or smiled for one person, neither one of them. My mom says I just stared at people knowingly. When I was so small I could barely talk she came home from work one day and my father and his new girlfriend had packed her things and put them on the front porch. The new girlfriend went on to be his wife and my little sister's mother. My mom moved out with me and we house hopped until she found a small place to herself.
      My grandmother being the collector of children that she was convinced my mother that it was best that she take me away until my mom got on her feet. She didn't know the fight she would have to go through to get me back. By that time I was old enough to remember it myself, the courtroom and how intimidating it was, the fist fights between her and my stepmom, my father's distaste with my presence. She did get me back and I don't know if it was the better situation or if there even was such a thing for me as a child. She drank a lot. She also dated a lot then. One man in particular changed me forever. All I remember was that his name was Richard, that he had a beard and a goatee, he was usually shirtless, and the day I saw him and my mother naked asleep I cried all morning because I thought he had done to her what he had done to me. I was three years old and I didn't know that it was supposed to be pleasurable. I don't even remember much of it except how he taunted me in front of my mom and she just thought he was joking about birthday suits. She didn't know why I didn't like him and told me I was being selfish. She rarely listened to me so I remember thinking she wouldn't care what I said then. After all, she let him do it to her. I stood up for her not for myself. I yelled in my three year old voice and my mother talked to me in her irritated voice. She told me it was okay and explained things in her harsh "I can't deal with you right now voice." So I knew she would never take up for me.
     I remember the day he left and how he looked at me. I remember how many times he tried to come back and how many threats of death she issued him. I remember meeting him again when I was ten and the shame in his eyes and how I didn't understand it then. My therapists called it a surpressed memory. I forgot all about until a couple of years ago. I only remembered the morning I found them and the song that was playing on the radio as I cried my overgrown toddler tears "These Dreams" by Heart. I can't listen to it to this day without crying. When I had my son and he turned two I went insane. We couldn't sit in the living room after sundown. We had to be in my room with the door locked or I would have anxiety attacks. I've always been afraid of people seeing me naked and sleeping with my door open. After my son turned two I had to baracade us behind the door in order to sleep without nightmares. A few months later my mom visited and in one of her drunk confessionals she told me about a night. A night that she went walking around the neighborhood by herself like she did often. She said when she returned his pants were around his ankles and so were mine. She said he claimed he was taking me to the bathroom. She begged oh my God how she begged me to tell her he was taking me to the bathroom. She looked at me like her universe would implode if he wasn't taking me to a bathroom. So I didn't slay her. After all the years I've wanted her to hurt for how she made me feel as a child, I told her I thought he was probably just taking me to the bathroom.

Running art ingrained fingertips delicately over fresh bruises
Trying to create the pain away
His Judus kiss that sent jolts of pure pleasure down my spine has rotted the caramel essence to a burgandy
And all I long for is the gentle burn if his lips
Sanctifying my sex
That intoxicated feeling where all is real and slipping from memory as it occurs
His coal black eyes the only authority I ever bowed to
The only one I ever felt privileged to be under
Fingerprint scars on the insides of my thighs
Where he held me tingle with every missed touch or near brush
Purposeful contact makes my body vibrate to the rhythm of his heartbeat
When he absent mindedly puts his fingers on my hips
Guides me by the small of my backI slip awaySlip away to the time when I was his
He killed me lovingly each night

I want to say I don't believe in Love because I'm mad she abused my intentions
I want to slander her name but I know that it was mostly my misunderstanding
And that I chose the wrong one to read me her gospel
I want to deafen myself to her whispers because they came from lips that did not truyly speak her language
But Love consoled me through different arms as he betrayed me
Love grew around me as a sheild while I dealt with the turmolt he created inside in Her name
Love cascaded to a puddle at my feet and became stepping stones for my ascent from his crippling
Love held my hand and steadied me when I wobbled from his blows
On Love I rose
And bloomed into a flower he was too awed to pick

born from the blood, sweat, and tears of slaves
and you expect me to change
created in the path of dirt trickled to mud down shoulder blades
and you look at me strange
brought to life with sun rise on cracked fingers and aching bodies
what can i possibly rearrange?
that burn, deep haunting hollow, in the middle of my eye
speaks with words they could only whisper
and you don't understand my refusal to bend my back and my challenging stance
that survived hundreds of years, across oceans, in shanties and shacks, master's whip lashes, and a neuse
that's what you want to abuse?
dogs. barking dogs, swamp bottoms, mulatto babies bowing to siblings and being renounced by fathers, treated like cattle
and you call a misunderstood dance in the street a battle
being free institutionalized, working for white wives, scared when the sun goes down 'cause that's when they come out,
having to protest what we knew we were meant, sharp stares, and judgements
and you think I expect you to be able to say my name?

searching for an echo in the hollow of my belly
the place where life began and the decrepit monument to the heathens that bore me stands
shouting questions at clouds that answer with heavy tired snowflakes
waking harvesting the weight on my chest
and crying to kill the lump that lives festers in my throat
wondering how everyday accomplishments are ever given effort
my legs tree trunks that have disowned their rotted roots
praying that my being could curl itself into a ball and watch as my body lived life
listlessly singing, smiling, laughing while fresh showers drown me inside
feeling everyone knows the joke except me
proposterous the idea of the few bright spots i'm blessed with
vile, wretched, base, criminal, felonious to my insides
who hold fast to the memory of good deeds while surrounded by the flesh of a tragic heroin
living in a world where only the strong survive by walking on the backs of the righteous
lingering on that reward will be swift and merciful
clueless to why wrongs magnate themselves to my heart
a broken vessel floating on a sea of dignity awaiting the final plunge
a heart that just needs to be cuddled instead of beaten
falling on tiny spikes that i lay carefully strategically out for myself
crying for the deep dark blood that flows in miniscule streams that carry my fickle soul
ripping shredding tearing out hair psychotically laughing
medicating myself through a sexy stemmed glass with intoxicated pimento pitted olives
flinching in my sober moments awaiting the attack
pleading with myself for mercy and hell
sliding down a hill full of putrid mud clawing for safety
throwing mud in my own mouth
staring at a face angelically flawed eyes averted
wondering what fresh hell just walked in

Dear God
This mockery you're making of my love life...is playin my heart like bass strings. Sittin here thinkin of all the moments we have been through that are only embarassing for me, makes me wonder. Did I ever really have a love life or was it a fuck life. Maybe a like life. Maybe I'm-kinda-into-you-but-I'm-just-not-that-grown-yet life

i look at you like
how could you leave me behind like that
how could you push me from your mind like that
you didnt see me lookin 'cause she had your heart tooken
love all dazzlin in your eyes
and the shine in mine
forgotten
'cause she made what we had look rotten
and i've been spottin you peekin at me lately
i just try to keep myself from hatin you
makin you think it's cool you stomped my soul to the ground
i'm lost lookin for found
while you're found lookin for lost
i wonder the cost
because i can see the price
but my cold shoulder ice i dont give it to you
scared of freezin the reason i believe i know love
and you see doves floatin in an area you think is ours
but the hours i spent crying kill all things floatin in between us
i mean it 'cause my heart is torn
i've never known shit like this since i've been born
i am dyin inside
everytime i see you covet that broke down shit by your side
my pride wont let me say i love you
no matter how many chances you give me to shove you in my direction
your erections make me crazy
make my days seem trivial
like all the shit i been thru
is nothin compared to you
but i am born and bleedin
so i need to see the heathen in you
to get back to the breathin in me
and instead of tellin myself i'm better
i need to understand it to weather this hole you left
unwarrented theft

My Story Pt2

You wonder where my mother was? Working too many hours, drinking too much, crying, silently dying because none of this was what she wanted...I'm usually more than fair, close to lying, when I speak about her to strangers. She is honestly one of the most selfish and lazy people I have ever met. I'm thankful for this because without her shortcomings I would have never found my strengths.

She was second seat on the NCSU Tennis Team when she found out she was pregnant with me. A junior majoring  in computer science, her and my father had been together for around two years. She says she tried to leave and go back home to her mom, who sent her straight back to my dad. She has also said several times with a distant sad look in her eye, in the middle of one her drunk rants, that she wanted an abortion. She sings the same sad song about how she had made the appointment and my dad convinced her not to go. This is where their stories differ and where my childhood is lost. My mother says he started getting more and more evil and began to beat her, which I believe. I can't remember one of my father's girlfriends or wives who hasn't said the same. My father says my mother got lazier and lazier and didn't want to take care of me. However it all happened, it ended the same. My father left my mother for his future wife, my little sister's mom. My mother I'm sure hurt and broken came home to them taunting her with her things packed on the steps.

I don't know how long she had me before MamaDean convinced her it was best that my mom let her keep me until she got on her feet. No one will say or even acknowledge it. All of this is a collection of different stories I've heard from different family members and glued together by my speculation. I don't know how long I stayed with MamaDean, Puda and Charmell- she had been collected too. I remember the day she came to get me and they told me to hide and not make a sound. They told me a lot of things and I always heard adults talking because I rarely talked so they let me sit and listen. My little sister was always shooed away because she was busy and needy. I was left alone because I didn't know how to ask for things or that I could. I didn't know I had the right to same hugs. I assumed no one liked me because that's how they treated me. Should I actually be sad or hurt MamaDean would've fought the devil to get to me. She was there when I absolutely needed her. I would hear MamaDean say, "Yea that chile has to stay with us now 'cause her mama on them drugs and have men runnin in an out the house. Hardly even feed the girl." Same story for every child collected. The day she realized I wasn't a puppet was the day she brought the social worker to speak to me. I was asked if my mother fed me. I could see MamaDean giving me the gal-you-better-say-what-I-told-you look but I told the truth because she did feed me when I was there. I thought I was going to lose a quarter of my ass for it but I didn't lie. So back with my mother I went after a trial and few fist fights between her my new step-mom.

i am

tender
with practiced rough edges
hardened face
with guarded cries
smiles
smothering tears
nonchalantly caring
until the breaking point of the heart
self-depricatingly confident
on tides of depressive happiness
beautifully deformed
to society's eyes
happily lonely
loneliness cried
courageously wrought with fear
bent
to the point of splitting
yet stoically standing
i am whole
i am here

My Story Pt1

I have been cheating you. I promised I would open up about experiences in the hopes of helping another. Instead I gave you poetry. I have so many boylike tendancies...

I try. I do. I sit and think where to start and what story to tell but they all sound like complaining to me. Or maybe that's what someone said when I was little. Most of the way I perceive situations I learned before I was twelve. I grew up in a family of characters so full of novels me and my sisters rarely watched tv. I only knew two of my sisters then, Charmell who is nine years older than me and Crystal who is two years younger. We all have different mothers who all hate my father and each other for various reasons. My Grandma, who could wilt roses with a look if you called her that, was the only we saw each other. She was not related to me by blood. She was actually my father's adoptive aunt. She collected many things but her favorite was children.

She couldn't have any of her own. They all died either during her pregnancy or at birth, so I forgive her for her steely resolve and bitter trespasses. She adopted my father from his alcoholic parents when he was small. My grandfather loved her enough to know that he was willing to sacrafice his morals for her, so he shut up and never got in her way. He was a large dark-skinned man with a broad nose and arms like cannons. I can count the number of times he smiled at her on one hand.

I have so many theories as to how he could love her like I would die for and never want to hold a conversation with her. Sometimes I think his heart broke too many times with the death of his own seed and her continuing to grow colder. Sometimes I think she was his ideal woman but not what he needed mentally. She was stunning. A yellowish red skin tone, tall, and thick like 1939. Her cheek bones sat high like they were holding court on her face judging all ugly women mercilessly. Her hair was silky and black layed perfectly around her shoulders. Full lips and catlike eyes finished a face that looked at me with the most mercy because I was quiet and already broken as a child.

This was my constant. Grandpa, who we called Puda, working silently in his body shop or around the house, only speaking to me out of the whole family and Grandma, who insisted on being MamaDean, ruthlessly ruling but sparing kindness for me.

I will let you in more...I promise...maybe...

pop the cork pour the champagne

i'm slipping from my grasp
i've lost touch with myself and i'm not sure i care that i'm dying inside
i'm not sure anyone notices
smiling popping pills smiling popping bottles smiling
eyes glazed glassy frosted fake and smiling
the core turning changing breaking down rotting slightly so my mood stinks
but my hair is still cute my outfit still turns heads
poshly drifting floating away
empty in the middle cause the space i want him to fill he can't see past her
smiling as he holds me in her absence
smiling as he sweetly climbs on me
planting kisses on my frosted cheeks
popping pills smiling
and maybe just maybe i'll stop caring
smiling pop the cork pour the champagne
smiling he whispers dirty lil nothings
smiling she walks in and evil eyes me and my glass flavored eye turns careless
and i'm smiling
what the fuck does it matter in the end anyway

love poem

i've been trying to write you a love poem for eight months now. i've written over a thousand pages on scraps of paper, toilet tissue, recycled paperbags, napkins, envelopes, bills, cigarette packs, dollar bills, in water spots, with ink, pencil, crayon, paint, lipstick, eye shadow, and anything else that leaves an impression. they all seem to come out wrong, full of rage and sadness. at times i wonder if i'm insane. i even tried buying pretty pink fuzzy notebooks, flowered ones. today i realized the problem. i've been writing about how you make me feel, not how much i loved you. so here. here is your love poem.

i've been dreaming my days away, thinking of you and when you would get here in random spots and all wrong times since i was tweleve.
i had you pictured wrong but i've always known you
i waited all of these years just to have you hold me one time because i knew it would be the catalyst to my relationship with love
i even knew when i saw you that i was already falling
i knew you would mean something and you weren't a constant in my life yet
my memories like a photo album, i have my favorites
and i flip through them to remember something so fleeting like watching sweat dripping from the top of your nose
the feeling of your arms pulling me closer in the bed
the top of your lip when it's shaved
and the small barely visible twinkle in your eyes on the days they paint me beautiful
the moments that make my heart rise and my temperature beat, i play like movies
always wondering how to go back in time to do it again
like the very first time you ever let me see you look me up and down as i was getting in your car
it was dark and you wore your scully like a crown to your manhood and a tank top your robe
i think about you every five minutes and i say your name every two minutes
trying to remold my tongue to only say your name perfectly and not giving a damn about any other word
i keep a special spot warm for you on your favorite side of the bed
i even turn to espn sometimes by accident
i slide away on the thought of how it feels to hold your head to my chest
the simple feeling of my palm resting on your curls and my fingertips on the back of your neck
when you made yourself vulnerable enough to let me love you in my unique way
i worship the times you would crawl to me broken
we never had to speak to understand
fitting perfectly into grooves made before the stars
neither of us having to change at all to make the fit
respecting the differences as distinguishing beauty marks
and hoping for a glance every once in a while
we have the sexiest sleep life ever
me tossing and turning
you outstrecthed like a lazy lion
one of us moving and waking the other
you grabbing me closer
me absent-mindedly kissing you
over and over until morning
sex on breezes with candles
turning our skin into a renaissance painting worthy of a wall in some art museum
i often get the feeling our eyes have conversations our mouths are unaware of
and that's where the glue to us lies
our eyes fell way before we ever did and coerced the body to follow
now they're smitten
so much we can't help but touch each other even grazingly at times
i always see you watching me loving me in my pure moments
as if you can't help your addiction
resting
resting with your head on my thigh stroking any exposed skin you can find
always adoring me to the point i almost feel worthy of you
drunk mornings play fighting and gently nibbling on one another
and knowing THIS is proof life isnt all shit
because your eyes can cure a hangover
i could fall apart and recreate myself in your arms
caring for you so much i give in on my silent treatments because they break your heart
wanting to kiss your ugliest of scars
and praying EVERYONE experiences something like this just once
because its funny
funny how i can write you a love poem
now that you're gone

left behind

nights blending into one long hour
i'm remembering being right here
in the same spot
rolling over and over
yes it is him again
comfortable familiar
yet i have fallen out of love
there's just the lingering remnants and my regard for him
i can't sever us from me
we have always been one
just now the love is gone
floating all around him in an aura
i want to pluck it from the air and cover myself
but that he would see through
i belittle myself to let him believe i love him
i can bear the pain better than he could
it's less than the look of his eyes, falling from their twinkling status, would give me
he is summer
i am winter
only a fall between us

daddy scarred me

daddy scarred me...
he left me with this need to cure everybody like him
and to covet a happiness that they cant see
he made me wanna take everything broken and fix it
all i wanna do is mend your broken eyes and heavy heart
but for some reason you cant see my purpose
i wanna shout it at you
and make the tears that dance down your face call for me in the darkness
so i can hear and lead you to the light
you see a broken girl all bitter and sad who only walks the same path
never realizing i'm better than the ones who got it all right
cuz i'm strong enough to know where you came from
and how you hurt
i could forget me and lead us both out
but i'm a chance you won't take
'cause i seem diminished in some way?
if only you knew
you're the only thing that could revive me
us.
i would do my all
to keep you lit with a light you shook off 'cause it made you a target
it made you too comfortable in a place where that shit's bought
i know your purpose
i know you're my reason
but you can never see
my heart
my poor beaten heart screams cuz you overlook me
what we could be...
now that mine has given up
what will yours do?
settle?

midnight garden

candles burning a gold tone into my skin
a melody softly playing itself to the rhythm of my ecstacy
his lips caressing my ankles
my mind betraying me ever inch he rises up my leg
thoughts of what's to come

addiction

the innocence seeping out of my eyes and into his skin,
sending tingles in tiny streams.
he's yearning to taste my fragile heart,
fighting himself.
he loves me.
he loves me not.
fingertips deriving whether or not i care.
yes is my eyes.
no floating off my lips.
having lingered he's slipping away on the rivers of my beauty.
it grows inside like a monster too strong to be caged,
escaping from my face.
he has gone melting into me, making an us.
the thing he tried not to do.
lost forever in my soul.
strung out on me.
forever coming back for more.

rise

i've been feelin like the stars spread bright twinkled, my eyes their only.
this is the place i was born and died.
the moment the universe conspired to hold me
and my splendor is unstoppable, never meant to be.
lamented are the tears for those who wrong me
and rightfully so, they only envy a flight so pure their lost souls can never find.
i will always be lovely, cuz thats what i'm made of.
i only hope on my upward jaunt i spread a little of me over everyone i pass
and that they too, for a moment, feel this intoxicating high momentum

lost myself

Lost myself for a minute.
In the way the sun hit the curls in his hair.
I lost myself...in what used to be.
In an old memory I was tryna make new again.
In the freedom we once had.
In the softness of his breath on my neck I lost myself.
I forgot we're not the same and that everything no matter how special or loved changes.
I lost myself knowing it wasn't right and it would end painful.
And when I found myself I loved him more.

lovers' dance

i hold on to my broken crazy and lace him only wth the angel he needs.
praying the fabric holds.
treading softly because we are tender. sore even.
we have broken the skin that holds us many many times.
leaving scar tissue on top of scare tissue on top of scar tissue until even brushing it reminds us of the pains.
i tread softly nourishing it.
trying to heal what will always be seen.
trying to make right our collective wrong.
 trying to make us right.
he follows.
and softly we dance around it.
remembering but not letting it ruin the happy now.
softly.
i take his hand.
now that i have shown him how he leads.
treading softly and softly i follow.

his

And I have fallen again in love with the meek boy he only shows me,
 the huge man that comes out in his anger,
 the nervously gnawed nails, chopped fingertips, dirty talking.
With his almost brotherly love.
With the feel of him on my mouth and the taste of him on my tongue.
That sweet fragrant natural smell that wafts off of his skin.
His insecurities and indiscretions.
 I am his....holding, saving, preserving myself for when he realizes I am all he needs.
Waiting for him to ask so I can pour it all over him and let him marinate in me.

To know me is to love me but who does?

So this blog is where I'll hold all the pieces of me that even family probably doesn't know. I guard myself and always have since I was a child. I'll let my friends know my favorite colors, movies, and shoes but my experiences, that made me everything that they love, I do not give. I'm bold, artistic, extroverted sprinkled with introverted, I take rules more as suggestions, and I'm crassly blunt- "if the shoe fits stfu and walk it off"-Mos Def.
Even this is hard, finding ways to start. I guess it's best to say that I am a product of neglect and perseverance. My mother was an alcoholic and my father had a new girl so it was hard for her to look at me and see him. I forgive her. I even applaud her because her weakness gave me all of my strength that got me to where I am today. There is still so much to tell but I'm not able to let it out just yet.
Everything I've ever had I fought fiercely for and secured for myself. I've rarely had a shoulder to lean on and never had really had much of a helping hand. If this sounds like complaining or whining the you're reading it wrong. Go back and try it again.
I'm proud of myself. I am every single negative statistic possible and I never thought I would live past 18, yet here I am. I hope this all will help someone else who was as hopeless as I was when I was younger. Maybe they will see that what breaks us isn't the end. It's what we fix that keeps the story going. Obstacles are only illusions that we convince ourselves are true.