About a Boy

At first I liked the idea of you and I can be honest enough with myself to admit that.
That night we were drawn to each other by some unknown force. And as cliché as this may sound your warmth pulled me in more than anything. You had the kind of smile that would make me have no choice but to smile back even on the shittiest of days. Trust me when I say that's saying a lot. Forget butterflies, I wanted to straight up vomit. Please take that as the highest of compliments because I despise vomiting. That probably didn't make any sense, so let's just say you rattled me in the best possible way.

It's unfair to say I had no expectations, I'll just leave it at I didn't necessarily have high expectations of where things would go. You were good looking and charismatic and really that's all that mattered to me at that particular point in time. I put on a pretty good show of this cool confident chick, but I'm not really her at all…at least not when it came to you. You made me all kinds of nervous. There was definitely a self pep talk before I asked you out. Oh and this would be the first of many to come.

You surprised me. You exceeded my expectations in every way. Maybe my expectations weren't so high to begin with, but a girl can hope can't she? It's hard for me to even remember the last time I had that good a time with someone. And each time was even better than the last. We laughed. We kissed. We began to open up a part of ourselves for the other one to get a sneak peak, a preview into what was yet to come.

And then the Mega Date happened. This was the day that would give insight into where this was all going. I walked away from it feeling this was a pretty great thing happening between us and things were definitely moving into a solid place. I liked you and I wasn't afraid to admit it and put it out there. I wanted more of you, more of us. Just more to see if there could be more. And there could have been more…

There were things that happened after that Mega Date. Things with you, things with me, just things. Not fantastically happy things either. I got spooked by how good and crappy things were all at the same time. We sat there afterwards on opposite ends of my living room couch. Both of us nervous. Both of us avoiding eye contact. I told you we were incompatible which wasn't completely truthful. We both know just how freakin compatible we are. I told you we should move forward as friends which wasn't 100% what I wanted either. You reluctantly agreed. How is it that in that moment I finally saw just how much you liked me? Just how much you were into this? All those doubts and insecurities that had been whispering in my ear since the beginning now silenced. I had once laughed when you told me you get "friend-zoned" all the time yet now I was doing that very thing.

Timing is everything and that is the honest truth. This was not our time, I completely get that, but it doesn't make it suck any less. What I should have told you was that we take a break and try again down the road…why completely close the door to the room I really want to be in? I still like you, take that for what you will. I'm still helplessly hopeful this will get another chance….but if it doesn't I would rather have you as a friend than as nothing at all.

Identity

Sometimes I wonder if she'll come to me when I least expect it. I'll fall asleep one night, then wake up the person I was supposed to be. For now the truth remains that I lay bundled up in my blanket of false security. Security laced with high doses of insecurity is the actuality of my reality. How can anyone really know me if I don't know myself? Filled deeply with a knowledge of wealth for all the things except the most important thing of all.

I know the facts. All the things you fill in on the top section of any application. Name, date of birth, place of residence are not the evidence of who you are. What am I? A girl wandering around lost looking for that cubby to crawl inside and stow away till the storm passes. Excuse me, can you tell me which way to go? Would you know the person underneath if I peeled all these labels away one by one leaving behind my naked self?

Exposed.

Vulnerable.

Alone.

This road seems endless and my feet are sore. I don't want to be here anymore. Or there. Or there. Or really anywhere. Dizzying with confusion within this mass illusion. There is really no solution to my problem, not yet anyways. Maybe all these years I've been running away from the fears of if I find her I won't like her at all. She won't live up to the hype and hopes of all my highest dreams. It seems she wasn't worthy of the pursuit, never should have started at all. Keeping the incomplete me confined within these walls.

Of course I believed the chorus when they sang to me all my failures. In all honestly it became a siren song that pulled me along making me unable to pull away day after day after day. There was a symphony chillingly reminding me that I could never be anything other than what I already was and what I was wasn't much of anything at all. You can fall even lower when you're already down. Trust me I know. Stilted wilted flower stuck in the dark refusing to grow. It's safe here. It's quiet here. Maybe just maybe I even belong here.

　

Would I even recognize her if she walked right up to me and stared into me her deep brown eyes mirroring my own? Her touch my touch, her voice my voice, her thoughts the lighter shade of those that resonate in my own mind. Released from all the ugly that drowns me. Could it be? She would be free in an existence I always hoped I'd be. She would be enough, not enough for anyone else, enough for herself. Confidence infused with wisdom infused with clarity in complete mastery.

I am not her.

Not yet.

But maybe...

Things She Never Knew

History is written by the victors, Her Story was written by the survivor.

The first boy to ever say "I love you" covered her body in blacks and blues. This would set the pattern for all her relationships to come. Love meant pain, suffering, and heartache. It would build her up only to break her back down time and time again. And it would never matter what others told her for she believed it was her fault. If she had been more sexy, more intelligent, more of whatever he wanted her to be then it wouldn't have happened. But she couldn't be more, so she kept getting less than anyone deserved. This was a lesson she would take her entire lifetime to learn.

　

The next one chased her for years. Was she running from him or running from her fears? When caught he filled her head and heart with promises so beautiful she felt she had walked into a dream. But these dreams were nothing more than illusions. He decided the chase had tired him out. Anything that wasn't her became a more worthy pursuit. Forever and always really meant until she was no longer shiny and new. If she had been better than who she actually was then he would have stayed. This was a lesson she would carry with her until she was ready to learn from it.

　

The third she wanted to save because she felt she would never be able to save her own self. He latched onto her draining anything good and pure and true that had remained from previous devastations. He never used his fists, but often struck her with hateful words that tore her down until there was hardly anything left of the girl she had once been so long ago. She was merely his means to an end until he could step on her to reach something bigger and better. With what little strength she had left she crawled away vowing to never open her heart to another man again. This was a lesson she felt illiterate to.

　

She became an empty vessel allowing them to use her body for whatever they please truly believing she had nothing more to offer. Often she would stare into the mirror sickened by what she saw. Ugly, wasteful, used up. Happy endings belonged to others, she would never find hers. A woman torn down by those she only ever tried to build up. Not everything that is broken can be fixed, but then again was she ever a whole person to begin with?

 Things she never knew were maybe things she didn't want to know.
No one forced her to be with these men. She chose to be with them and now she needed to choose to be with herself. To stop seeking love and validation from the outside when it needs to come from within. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, this was no different. It was time to step out from the shadows of men and into the light of herself.

Woman Undefined

She stared at her naked self examining all of her that makes woman beautiful. The curves, the softness, the dark flowing hair cascading down her back. Her fingertips gently glide over her skin examining the parts of her she should know so well by now, but clearly did not know at all. How do you define the essence of a woman?

Child baring hips that will never bare a child

She felt hollowed out. Something taken from her so many others take for granted. Was she even a woman at all? And if not, how else could she identify herself? These were questions no one could fully answer, least of all herself. Her heart would never be as full as it could have been in another world where her fate had laid out a different path. In her own body's betrayal she lost a hope within a dream within a destiny that would never be.

Beautiful

To me this was always so much more than a word

It's a state of being

Craving something I hardly ever heard

Relentlessly grasping with all five senses

Inside of me afraid I will never be invited

Consistently told quite boldly thanks but no thanks

My father used to call me pretty girl, but I often wondered "what did he know that the rest of the world didn't?"

There are so many different depths yet I was stuck swimming in the most shallow pond

What was it about me that I had or didn't have? 

Was I put together wrong?

Not everything broken can be fixed

A fantasy destination I may never reach

Every time that I was passed over for someone else I hoped maybe next time it would be different

One day they might just realize they were wrong all along

Breath it in, believe it, see in, be it

To me this was always so much more than a word

Someone I used To Be

There was a time that I believed there was nothing to believe in. I was on the outside looking in. Happiness was an opportunity I could never grasp; moments of sanity fleeting. When I thought things couldn't get worse, they did. When I thought things couldn't get any better, I was right.

No one understood, but I didn't want them to understand because the only way to understand it was to immerse yourself in it. How can you watch the ones you love drown alongside you?

The cycle of numbness verses being consumed by raw emotion. Not completely sure which was worse.

They couldn't save me, I had to save myself. All their love meant nothing if I couldn't love myself. I had to find a reason, something to hold onto to pull myself up. For a long time I really didn't give a shit. Most of the people in my life eventually gave up while a small few stood by me. I was grateful and at the same time felt sorry for them.

I was ugly.

I was useless.

I was lost.

Sometimes I would fantasize about a life where I hadn't been made defective. Wow, what would that have been like? To be just like everyone else every damn day living a life full of possibilities. Possibilities. The ability to break through this self inflicted prison I call home. My abnormal is the only normal I know.

Who am I?

What am I?

Why am I this way?

Living among the shadows isn't really living at all.

Wreckless

She leaps into the unknown

Faster than the speed of fear

Vast emptiness in her eyes

Dangerously wreckless


She ignites her own inferno

Pursuing instant gratification

Living without limitation

Purging the last breathe of light in her soul


She seeks pleasure in the pain

Breaking through the numbness

Blade to skin without a flinch

Reminding her she's alive

No title, some erotic poetry

Come to me my deepest temptation
Fill me, thrill me, instill me with your sin
Clawing my way down your back
Show me how naughty can be so damn nice
You are that favorite mistake I love to make time and time again
Bite me, fight me, ignite me
Bodies soaked in lust
Tie me up without tying me down
Turn me around and take it out on my hide
Deep, deeper, deepest
Keep it up, keep it in, keep it going
Fuck the rose, give me all your thorns

Forgiveness Does Not Equal Acceptance

Recently I came across my old DBT ( Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) binder to pass on to a friend. This is a therapy technique specific to people who have Borderline Personality Disorder or BPD. For more information on the condition:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001931/


Every one's story is different and I have gone into mine many times, so that's not what this post is about. It's about when I came across this very powerful phrase that reminded me of a theme in my journey to wellness..."Forgiveness Does Not Equal Acceptance".

I used to have this distorted filter which sifts out all the good stuff and holds onto all the bad stuff. Memories of horrible times in my life play over and over while overshadowing some really amazing things that have happened along the way. It works in so many other aspects of my life such as compliments verses insults; 9/10 people tell me I'm beautiful but I grasp onto that one person who called me ugly. It repeats itself like a theme song in my head to the point that I can't even hear I'm beautiful.

After a lifetime of living this way I needed to do some major renovations. The thing is you need to find the source of the problem in order to have a long lasting and successful fixture otherwise you're putting scotch tape on giant gaping hole in your foundation...it just won't hold up.

Anger, pain, resentment at all the people in my life who have hurt me. There comes a point where you need to just let go so you can move on. I've always been a bit of a stubborn person and it took nearly thirty years for me to be able to do this. I can forgive them, but it doesn't mean I'm okay with what happened. I am at peace with what happened.

The hardest part of all was forgiving myself for the pain, anger, and resentment I may have caused others but mostly myself. Out of all the people in my life who have hurt me, no one has caused a deeper cut than the one I did with my own hand. I didn't love myself. I didn't respect myself. I didn't know my own value. And to be completely honest sometimes there are days I still need a gentle reminder. These things take time and I get that.

Horrible people and horrible actions are not one in the same. I am not my past. What I am is a person full of possibilities, some good and some bad. I have no doubt I will fall down again, the difference is I am so much quicker to get right back up these days and keep going skinned knees and all.

Frozen (A place I used to be, but no longer am)

Frozen in a fortress of my own tears

The light shadowed by my fears

Mightiest of angels can't save a soul already damned

Beaten down by the force of my own hand

Traveled a road you will never know

As a war wages within the only place I call home

Pleading for a way no longer wanting to stay in this crippling day

Scars from the past opening wounds for tomorrow

A numbness so heavy, a shield to my sorrow

Pieces of me shattered on the floor

Silently screaming no more

The Scarlet D

Disclaimer: This will not be some sappy pity party where I cry myself a
river over how a failed marriage destroyed me...um seriously who even
thinks that anymore?


Filling out the forms at the doctors office and checking off that
magical box "divorced" is how I know I have really arrived in the
promised land. But if I still had some doubts the glamorous paper gown
and cold metal stirrups put my mind at ease. OBGYN lady looks up at me
with her minors' light strapped to her forehead which by the way if she
finds any gold I call dibs as I am now a bitch on a budget.

While digging around she questions me, such the multi-tasker! "Do you
always use protection?"

I shrug, "Not really necessary at this point with my partners, but thank
you."

"You are aware of the increased risks of contracting sexually
transmitted diseases when you have unprotected sex with multiple
partners?"

I bite my lip. "But I assure you my partners are 100% faithful to me and
when I am done they are scrubbed down and put away."

She nearly drops her nifty tools. "Excuse me?"

This is when I happily list off all my toys in my drawer full of goodies
back at home. She gives me a stern look not appreciating my sense of
humor. You know how they say you shouldn't fuck with the people who
handle your food? I guess the same should be said for those who handle
your cervix. Lesson learned. I passed my exam with flying colors which
was why I was a bit disappointed when my request for a sticker "I got my
pap smear today!" was denied. Can you believe such a thing doesn't even
exist? At least they could have given me a lollipop and a balloon. As a
consolation prize I snatched a hand full of free flavored condoms. You
never know the next time you'll be stuck in traffic and fresh out of
gum.

Okay okay okay, here it comes. I met the one we shall not name but if we
must let's call him Spoon because well, why not? Oh wait I digress and
so early on too. Well it's a story not incredibly uncommon really: we
met young, rushed into sex, rushed into a relationship, rushed into home
ownership, rushed into marriage....then decided it would be fun to make
each other miserable for a few years with lots of angry fights and
crying before dragging our feet to divorce court.

Here is my grievance with the whole divorce process. It's long and
boring...let's make it a series of gladiator tournaments. Each event
wins a prize we're disputing like the house or our sanity. In the end
there is a giant obstacle course with alligators because I firmly
believe alligators should be involved in the divorce process. Whoever
wins the final event has to explain while wearing a clown suit that they
are an impotent deusch bag on national television. Actually they should
sing all the reasons they are a failure as a husband errr spouse to the
tune of "Ice Ice Baby".

I AM NOT BITTER. I am better. Did I cry while stuffing my face with the
lava cake sundaes at Friendly's? Maybe a few dozen times just to get it
out of my system. Then I decided the best medicine is making other
people uncomfortable about my situation. There were a lot of people who
witnessed our courtship and marriage, so there were a lot of opinions
and offers of sympathy. Mainly what everyone wanted to know was what had
happened. So depending on the day, my mood, and if Mercury was in
retrograde I would reply with any of the following:

"I consider myself a pretty open minded woman but there are just some
things that should be done with farm animals and hot wax."

"He was a bit of a bleeder."

"Sex change. Now my ex-husband is my best girlfriend and we go
patrolling for under aged hotties together."

"They wouldn't allow me to get my gun permit, so I settled on divorce.
Did you still need someone to watch the kids next weekend?"

"I found Jesus and I'm not really into threesomes."

"Apparently some people seem to think cannibalism is NOT okay.
Whatever."

"He was holding me back from pursuing my life long dream of moving to
the Philippines and running my very own Nike sweatshop."


You be surprised to learn that I have been accused more than once of
masking my pain with my sarcasm, but I am quick to reply that's what the
drugs and meaningless sex with strangers are for. Everyone has their own
coping mechanisms, don't judge mine and I'll be sure not to judge
yours...to your face.

I guess the real question I want to know at this point is, what's next
for me?