Thank you, my love.

Endless words have been written on this…what we call love.

Many lives lost and reborn in the search for what I know to be true with you.

Great pains have been suffered before here so that where I stand now has indeed been fought for; and earned; and truthful.

I cannot help but bask in the notion that what we hold between us is the Genesis self-discovery, though I know others share my sentiment.

For when I stand within your reach, I feel such an overwhelming sense of true worth and honesty, which I know cannot be fake; cannot be mass produced; cannot be rehearsed.

You are every bit as naive as I and every bit as intolerable as I, for which I can both apologize for and forgive.

For we are merely souls, drowning in a sea of self-doubt, only to be saved by a hand to pull us through and pick us up and cleanse our damped hearts with the warm and glorious sun.

Recoiling into a state of self harming thoughts may have been part of our own arsenal of slings and arrows, but outrageous fortune has found a way to bring together two volatile souls…yours being mine to treasure.

Your hand in mine is washing away my fear, and my past transgressions are finally being laid to rest because for the first time in these weary days have I truly come to understand the meaning of real, honest love.

So often must we make our past our ever-present examples as to why. Why anything. Because everything. We see ourselves as we have lived, not as our potential to live greatly.

I have changed for me. I have changed because of you. I will thrive for us.

Thank you, my love.

This is a story about a girl

This is a story. This story is about a girl. This is a story about a girl who was overwhelmed by the world. Her story is all-consuming and cycles through both the good and bad, as many girl’s stories begin.

This girl was afraid to speak. She was afraid to open her mouth and utter the truth. She sobbed the first day of elementary school music class because she didn’t have her parents permission to play an instrument. This girl needed    to     be    loved.

This is the story about a girl who felt smaller and more fleeting that the wind in each shallow breathe she passed, waiting to be told how much she mattered. This is a story about a girl who locked herself in the closet because she was afraid of herself…and afraid of being attacked by words that stung and cut deep into her skull…and even more afraid of the men who might come to take something of hers she hadn’t given permission to take. This girl grew up misguided. Untrusting. Begrudging those who had made it near impossible to speak.

This little girl grew up and found things. This story is about the things she found and how she used them over and over again to cure her of her ever-present fear that one day, not too far in the future…someone would confirm her insignificance. This is the story about a girl who found boys and replaced her constant fear of incompetency with their affection….and when that didn’t work, she replaced their affection with a blade.

This girl was expected to succeed. Expected to excel. This girl was not inspired to, but expected to, be great…and that’s exactly what she did…or tried to be at least. Constant affection could not remove the dull pain of rejection or abuse or mental masochism…so she went on. Boy after boy turned into man after man and this girl wondered if it would ever end…a constant result shown through in each of her sojourns into liberation: She wasn’t pretty. She wasn’t talented. She wasn’t smart. She wasn’t “right”

This story about a girl turned into one about a girl and a boy. A boy so masterful at the art of storytelling, that ever utter of affection sent this girl to the moon…and made her believe that this time, the pain may subside. This boy made her feel special and important and taken-care of…which she had never truly felt before. This boy built lies around this girl like cards in the shape of a cage, blocking out all other light, but keeping her enthralled in his stories.

This boy had found another girl….and had been for some time. The cards that fell broke every illusion she had. Every feeling of trust, trust that she felt would never falter, instantly shattered. Weakness and self-deprecation took hold of this girl and blades weren’t the only thing she used to prove how worthless she was. Brick walls, sinks, forks, pencils….until she was taken and shaken and moved and isolated and finally…talked to.

Someone cared again…not a boy…not a friend. This girl found a listener who told her who she was living life for and how she had come to such a lonely and helpless state. This girl listened as the listener herself spoke of hidden power, unrequited love, relentless dedication to continued self-excellence…and the girl began to believe what she was being told.

This is the story about a girl who has since emerged from the shadows and into the light on her own accord. This is the story about a girl who is now labeled ‘cautious’ but brave. Being burned by a fire makes you more weary when you start to feel the heat come close and the girl knew that, one day she would extinguish that fire herself…and maybe find someone to show her it was real.

This girl saw her life change in the most beautiful ways….and though this cautious girl still struggled with her life and her self-doubt and occasional self-deprecation…she lived to the fullest and drank every moment of life as if its sweet taste (each moment) could never be replicated again.

In bouts of healing and growing this girl….met this boy. He was unabashedly excited for life and took her by the hand to prove a point and the point was this: you cannot wait for the slings of misfortune to misguide your life down an untraceable path. We make our destiny based upon the goodness we share with others…and this girl couldn’t agree more.

But.

Feelings of doubt surfaced, just as they always had….not about this boy….but because this, all of this, just seemed too close to her fantasy. Was this another house of cards? Was this the beginning of another end? Had she been lead to meet this boy for a reason?

How could he ever understand that her fear for the future, matched her excitement for it. This girl herself could not understand what exactly was different about this boy…only the fact that something was different. Something was very different about this boy.

This is the list she made in hopes that a small attempt at conveying her deepest emotions may prove to be useful:

1. Respect that I love you…..I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this list if I didn’t

2. Grow with me…just as I with you and however much longer we have to grow together will only teach me a better, more fulfilling way to live life.

3. Show me….patience and understanding. Though the fire is long gone, the embers burn as their slow descent to into non-existence cause me to forget how blessed I truly am to be with you.

4. Teach me…how you are as strong away from me as you are with me.

5. Understand that, I will never stop fighting for what I believe to be right. I will never stop dreaming 5 steps ahead because I have to believe that good is waiting for all of us. I will never stop loving you, in some form or another.

Most importantly ..this girl did not call upon the demons of her past to banish the stress of her present. She is happily living a life that has no script. That is a story about this girl.

“as (long as) you will have me” my personal adaptation

When I was around 16 years old, I was asked to transform my most treasured poem and fashion it into our my words and meaning. I took on “i carry your heart…” by ee. cummings and below is my adaptation, written 5 years ago:

my love is yours (as long as you will have me)forever is never long enough (to have my heart with

you always)for whatever distance away from my heart you travel,

my love, my love will carry along side you

no hesitance(for my love, my true, you are my heartbeat)

no despair(for love, your heart knows only bliss) for everything I ever was and everything

i ever will be(for never ceasing to keep constantly) surrounded by your embrace and my heart

knows no greater happiness and roses bloom with bold persistance even in winter) and i revel in the notion that your love is mine(’till stars cast shadows on my forever resting face)

my love is forever yours(as long as you will have me)

“anyone lived in a pretty how town”

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

ee cummings

Because of you (but mostly because of me)

The vast nothingness into which I’ve whispered many “I love you”s swallows my sentences whole and promises that they will never be heard by you

No text or call accompanies my long ride home and I wonder if you are sound a sleep, not a single thought of me entering your slumber

It’s twenty five miles on the fifty five freeway that I have to think about how you turn in your sleep. How the muscles in your arms twitch under my resting head as we both fall into a world of our own, as we have done many times before.

But today is different

Today I walked away, thinking that the choice I made was for the best. My world falls apart like a doll made of straw and you’re blaming me for this heartache.

Soon I will conquer the world in my cap and gown and move far away from this place but when I look at you, I see our worlds remain untouched and unsullied by expectations of conventional love.

I am me because you are you and nothing has changed…except for the fact that I am a mountain and I stand between you and a happiness which far exceeds one that you can even see now. I am bend in the river. I am a fallen tree within your path, one that simply needs to be crossed over and left behind.

I’m grasping for your touch but it’s absence is my doing.

I’m waiting for the exhalation of your breath on my neck but it never comes and I know it’s because I made that choice.

But it was all for you, my sweet and I wish you knew that. I wish you knew that every breath I take now carries with it a sliver of my pain. A hopeful messenger that wishes to share it’s worries and aches with you.

I am a song without lyrics.

I am a wind without the chill.

I am a bed without warmth.

And it’s all because of you….but mostly because of me.

Poison & Wine (Part I)

I wake up slowly to the aroma of coffee that wafts above my head and through the small gap in the open window. The sheets rustle as I turn to my side to look out the window, evaluating the time, of course. It’s mid-morning (about 8am judging by the heavy grey clouds that loom above my apartment) and the air is cool and crisp. Methodically, I stretch my legs and ballerina-point my toes to wake up my still-tired legs. Running my fingers though my hair, I lift my head from the pillow to see Katniss, my restless feline companion, fully awake and ready to pounce for her overdue affection. Curiosity is what caught my eye at the shelter when I first saw her and immediately (without any thought to what Randy, the landlord, might say) I swept her up in my arms and we’ve been pals ever since. I’ve jolted out of my sleepy fog and warm memories of that day back the shelter by Katniss, who is now audibly impatient. She circles the light-blue down comforter and wines…my cue that it’s time to for breakfast.

The automatic coffee pot is a blessing in so many ways. An alarm clock by osmosis, the day begins with an aroma that makes my nerves vibrate and foreshadows (what could be) another exhilarating day. And just like that I’m up, feet hitting the wood paneled floor and Katniss is already leaps and bounds ahead of me, cantering toward the small kitchenette in hopes of snagging some ‘people’ food before I serve up the Fancy Feast.

The metal panelling of the house has always made the place seem colder than it really is so I bundle up tighter in my soft ivory sweater. Though massively inconvenient as it was to be pulling sweaters out of the closet daily, I had insisted on an boho-chic motif for my new apartment in my new city…and thus, my new lifestyle.

The kitchenette is, again, small (the understatement of the century) but still has everything I need. I instinctively pull my hair out of my face and manage to put together the messy bun I’ve been perfecting over the past 25 years. I grab for more essentials: a pan, a kettle, a spatula, salt & pepper, eggs. It’s the first weekend after my new job in the city and I’m determined to make it my own…a brief moment in time I could really enjoy looking back on and thinking “I finally did it.” I turn to set the table as oil begins to sizzle in the pan. Table for…one apparently. Being new to a break up, I instinctively reach for two forks in the drawer and slowly put one back. I keep forgetting how to be a party of one.

Katniss, on the other hand, hasn’t forgotten her Fancy Feast that has yet to be prepped to her liking. Her soft purr turns turns back to a shrill cry for attention. Soft paws bat my feet and I remember my place: Fancy Feast first.

As soon as her food is spooned out onto a thrifted ceramic plate depicting a variety of colorful fish, I bring my record player to life, letting the sound of The Civil Wars fill the kitchen. I glide over to the eggs as Poison & Wine begins to play and I feel like humming. I couldn’t win a Grammy, but I do believe that my voice had the potential to soothe a fussy child in the right circumstances. I sway with the harmonies of the folk-singing duo and I am taken back to the time Kay and I used to dance together in our even-smaller L.A. apartment. He loved catching me off-guard with a swift dip and we would sway to the music together for what seemed like hours. His warm hands would reach for my neck, his stubble would brush against my warm cheek. He leaned in for a passionate kiss……when Katniss once again jolts me out of my hazy daydream. I had forgotten to refresh her water…thanks Katniss.

Daydreaming like this hasn’t lead to much good so I quickly draw a new bowl of water for her and get back to the task at hand: eggs-over-easy.