Happy old year

The mosey continues 

And I just want to end it right

This night not like last night

Nope

I'm outside and I can see the stars

Final count down

I bite my lip, someone steps on my toes, I may dance. This, these final moments, find me longing for long white lines and their abyss.

Not in an addict way, rather in the one earned my stripes and this is my fucking holiday. 

Looking grim as the sound circles around me, waves of emotion percolate just there. I feel nothing. I remember back to 1999, that New Year's Eve, when I had just found out I was two months pregnant and solitary amongst the press of strangers. 

It is time to dance. 

Ten Buckets

The hands that lighted the flame when I was in the dark, thank you. 

The hands that lifted me after I had fallen, thank you. 

The hands that held me while I cried, thank you. 

The hands that opened, thank you. 

The hands that closed tightly, I thank you. 

The hands that surprise me, thank you.

The hands that make, that do, that feed my soul thank you.

It's the time of year when people look back and forward. It's Janus. I have done so much backward forward that I've ended here, right where I belong. I am not surprisingly under blankets drinking coffee. I am alone for the first time in dad and the silence is nourishing.

There must come a place in healing when we really want the same thing we wanted during the entirety of our dysfunction: to explain fully and clearly how we were impacted, why it was traumatic, what we are doing to grow into the shadow. I use we here because I am not alone. I am not alone on the receiving end of abuse. I also know that I believe in the ultimate power of forgiveness and it is hard to forgive someone who is intangible, a ghost, a fragment of memories.

I also know there is accountability. How important it is. I know that. I understand why he thought he had the right to treat me and all of my belongings as things to be used, tossed out, worn thin. I understand why he thought he had to control me, my days, my time, and my mind. I understand how he doesn't understand that is not love or acceptance. I understand pain. 

There is also the undeniable reaction to trauma when a sensitive and intelligent human reaches their threshold. I am not angry. I am blessed. I am blessed to know that I am a sum of many parts, that I am strength incarnate, that my heart is tool, not a weapon. 

I love and am timid of the fierce nature of my passion. I embrace the flame that cleanses.

My heart always belongs,

CSL <3ingly

Light returns, Life Blows On

The The winter holiday pulls into its final days. I am long against shadows, full of sleep and caffeine. It's almost time for me to roll out of bed and into some jeans, a sweater, boots. It's blue and freezing outside.

I am wondering about eyebrows and lipstick, debating buying a table saw, considering the benefits of an air compressor. Recently I have found a single pair of arms unequal to none. I feel safe and not spun out.

There is this part of me that doesn't know if I should avoid going into the past, if I should avoid going into the future. I stay really close to today, while grasping the implications of both. 

Trigger alerts are useless. Life is full of surprise and unexpected events. Each day is full, is empty, is a dull series of forgettable events, is a mouth whispering shivers across my spine.

****

The thing about the ex is that I understand more now how all of that went down. I get how making choices for myself just became overwhelming, how I was spinning out and for a moment his hand was a stable point. I remember his words about what a real woman is, how women cannot be trusted, how violence was his perpetual shadow; and I know: I learned from him; he was a teacher for me.  I may not have wanted the lessons but now I know. 

When we are changed in ways that we never asked to be changed it takes time to accept the new pieces of our selves. 

To all of the beautiful shadows,

CSL <3ingly

 

I am under ten blankets

The kettle is on, it will whistle soon

I will make tea and pile more blankets on top

It may snow today, but it is unlikely

Instead of staying under cover all day, I will see my mother and go to the movies. 

I am waiting only for the water to heat

 

Seasonal Affective Dissorder

Doesn't really seem to hit me. I just sleep late and don't feel super productive during the daylight hours. I am also on one of those late night benders where I like to stay awake until I collapse into blankets and sheets and wrap myself in layers of down.

I have keys to the studio but this week has been a nightmare of working late and family stuff and physical exhaustion. I can't wait to go back to school because I know that I will be more or less left alone to earn As and study. I haven't bought my books yet which is stressful for me as I want to have everything ready for the first day of class.

My body feels like its been slammed with rocks. I think it has, emotional rocks at least. Rocks of expectations and disappointments, boulders of guilt and shame. The thing is that the more I say NO, GO FUCK YOURSELF, the easier it gets to not be affected by the expectations or disappointments of others. I am learning.

I am going to a spa, soon, to have this term massaged out of my flesh. I am going to a sauna to sweat this year into steam. I am going to a shaman to dance the shadow dance.

Light reflects across every surface invisibly refracting and gathering momentum,
CSL <3ingly p="">

Thin Lines and Hard Voices

It's late after Christmas, finally. This year, this year, begins its final days. I have this breath that I've been holding that begins to loose its hold and the blood in my veins thaws.

In all of this upheaval I have come to know a few things. Light casts shadows and dancing is like screaming into the wind. I begin to feel parts of me that want no light, parts that long I remain in shadow. These parts feed the animal in me.

Inhale the crisp air the smell of snow the cold, and I smell the stars. 

Courage Little Bird

I shake open and back toward my body. I believe in the power of love. 

This or Something Better

I am slammed against my veins. The cold rush of adrenaline closes my throat, my body is in a state of shock. 

I got out of the shower and put on my favorite album. Then I lost my shit. Tears and water mingle over my naked body. I am exposed. I am naked. Sickness wells up in my throat. My mouth opens and loud noises come out. I am very very alone.

I am not really up for talking and yet I really really do not want to be alone. I look at sharp objects. I long for release. There is a guarantee in physical pain.

I leave my house as quickly as I can. It's raining and gray. I am crying and wearing gray: we match. I go to a salon and have my toenails painted metallic superman blue black cherries at the bottoms of my legs.

I wanted to pay someone to touch me. It's safe, secure, simple. It's also not alone. And alone is violent.

Shadow dance,

CSL <3ingly

I ate soup

Washed two Advil down this morning with coffee, I am a little hungover. I drank three or seven beers last night, early this morning, after work and smoked weed at 05:30. More I am so mad that I didn't confront my situation head on last night. I dropped. If there would have been a sound it would have been that of a ballon, a red ballon in the sun.

That is a sound. In my world, visual pictures can do that. My brain works. I am lucky to be able to feel pictures in my blood.

On my mind so much: we don't think in sentences; we think pictures which are then translated to words when we speak. Language, by definition, is a construct of acceptable inaccuracies.

The tenacity to be bold is born from bravery. This is the marrow within the bone.

Light casts shadows,

CSL <3ingly

There are no words for what I know       CSL <3ingly

It's sexy like a window at dawn

Three wings to the left                   CSL <3ingly td="">

I don't know and I really stopped caring about all the talk about the town
My reputation, you know, it precedes me
A fate that I have left alone
Oh longing like a birdsong
Feeling like nail on a chalkboard, oh these days
Let the clamor roll
Oh my feet, oh, now, oh my feet
Take the dark and narrow
Against a neverending tomorrow

***

One, nine,
Oh if I could only tell you all that has transpired across these last few moments. I am without a doubt at a loss. The one, the One showed up at my gig tonight. I know you know who I am talking about; I know you know I am writing for you, always. I pull my eyes out of my query to the four tall cisdudes standing over the leathered granite bar and see, in profile: him. Yes, that, it happened. And, everything that I'd imagined that I'd do went the fuck out the window and I fucking turned cold in my blood. Like the ice in my well. I was fucking at work. Behind the fucking bar. And I saw him.

****

In other news I pick up the keys for the studio on monday. I was able to procure a two year commercial lease on a split property: Lady Boss that's me.

* **** Most likely, my heart is beyond breaking and overflowingly  yours, #
CSL <3ingly p="">

Time Zones and Flight Delays

GI've been a lot of things over the years. I was almost a wife, I was a reminessicent imp, a particle reflection of the lost piece of childhood. Sometimes I've been busy being things for other people. Now, I am really busy being a fucking ruthless bitch.

What I mean by that is Lady Boss. I mean I have my allies and not enough enemies to worry about. Almost as if a hose with a kink has suddenly opened and all of that pressure is free.

Don't act surprised. I am a simple creature with a complex set of drives. It is not enough to tuck me into bed after fucking me. I may not even like or want to fuck, I just do, because it is easier than arguing no, it's easier than saying, I think we're not comparable , it's easy enough to get fucked. 

What's not easy is finding safe passage across the mine laddened terrain of my heart.

Some people are born with a compass and carry a lamp to light the darkness. 

People whom I love who have seen the shit and blood flow from my veins have been expecting this transition. 

I am flying over the Western United States. There is turbulence. I am not afraid.

The Ex has been on my mind. I am wondering if I should save our Christmas story for another post.

****

Violence circled him. He would come home from a bar and tell me about it hat had happened, how out of nowhere this person just went all haywire and how it was only self defense.

It was a small town and word got around that he was a wild one. A loose canon. He was my boyfriend.

Two nights before Christmas we'd gone out for some drinks and in his typical style he had intervened in some brawl. This time no one got hurt.

I drove us home. When we got there he to me he had just slammed a line of speed in the bathroom with Marco. I thought it was blow, he said as if that justified the action. 

We had talked about how drugs made him horny. Somehow this led to him eating a handful of Viagra. 

I don't need to go in to detail about the rest of the night. 

Walking was uncomfortable at work the next day. I stopped at Ralph's and bought some oranges and soup.

Christmas came. Christmas went.

I recovered my sense of balance and my body stopped hurting before the new year.

Unforgettable

I'm all legs long from walking and my friend is snoring next to me. I mean breathing rhythmically. On my mind: what, when everything melts away at the bottom of an empty half pint of Haagandaz, Grail? Wandering streets awestruck- mesmerized and entranced. 

exhausted in all of the right ways. The ways of unwavering yes are a new exploration. 

Walls need structure

Terminal C

Laguardia is a quiet hum of machines and voices. I am wrapped in the love of friends old and new. Having taken almost a week to decompress I felt human this morning.

I have this friend who is like an annoying brother. He farts, we talk about poop, and eat pints of ice cream. Having been friends for more than a decade we can fall into silent companionship our minds comforted by proximity of acceptance.

I am going home to a new lover and a new business. My flexibility around physical intimacy is a swath a gray, the eleventh color.

New York has been transcendent. I met a few artists and have been inspired to push even harder against the status quo's expectations.

Years ago I was at church and told he pastor: I think it's better to have low expectations, that way I have more room for joy. 

In this vein when I feel unmet expectations placed upon me, I start to rage. I am dedicated unwaveringly to the discipline of yes.

The conundrum is maintaining momentum and that I don't feel like apologizing for having add. People are entropic or spastic, myself included. 

Squire not Manspeak

Yes, my lovely talented and well written friend and accomplice, there is no excuse for wallowing. The truth is that I let things slide out of my hands.

I also recognize that this engagement was a very necessary and final step in my progression in my personal development.

This last I have seen myself grow and shift into and out of other's expectations of what I am and into this, who I am.

It is the simple trajectory precipitated by reflection within reflection.

For the last time I let myself

***

I've been making As. I did, however, get an A- which is my fault and still sucks. More, I have also managed to keep a job. apartment, take 16 credit hours, maintain a semblance of a diet, and self-moderate: I have taken the bull by the horns.

I am no one's fool and know that the hands that have fingers beyond number have been there once more than again

There is a moment in this woman's life that the stopped all the other moments
and now, again, once more

the flecks of nail polish that I leave like resin as I peal back nervously
are not calling cards

I cross my toes
and count my bros

the ones who stand
listen as I speak

hear more than the words
felt between us

***

I am an entrepreneur
here I find that I would like to add, emotional yet fear that may be interpreted incorrectly. I find that my mother tongue is failing me. I see around all the casted metropolis and it is vast.

Laundry List

One more final and this term will be behind me. I am pushed to the breaking point. Psychically more than anything else. My limits become very clear when I reach this point. My empathy also diminishes. I am not sorry that I don't like the guy with the big truck and a kid. I don't care if he likes me. He makes me feel like I can't breath. So I just drop off the face of the earth. I know I should say something like you're super but have you considered cilantro.

I am in the laundromat studying for my psych final. Blue Thursday. I need to drink water, I am so thirsty I can hardly tell you. Tomorrow I go to New York to see a friend that shall remain unnamed. Let's just say they're of extreme interest physically, mentally, physically. It should be fascinating and delightful.

I am nervous. 

Over and Out

Right now, drinking coffee eating cupcakes in New York, I am having a huge amount of stress about home, people, commitments.

I am digging myself in and out of holes. As a student I have learned a few things: ask for what you want, expect yes in reply. I am about to become a business owner more updates to follow.

So now for juice. Recently spent a few dates with this guy who has an eight year old. He's okay, the guy. But he started with this: come over to my house, let me make you dinner, stay the night. These were more or less demands stated via text. These were not requests. There was also the occasional: I like you; when can I see you?

Anyhow. I pulled back, got silent, removed myself politely. More texts with more demands. I finally said: I'm busy have zero time, don't want to make any comittments that push me into lies. 

He texted back: I just want to have fun; Don't worry about the commitments; Maybe we can go out when you're home.

At which point I wanted to say: go fuck yourself. I tried polite and now all I have is how about ask. How about consider asking me what I want, if there is anything more or less that I am feeling. Inquire into my state of mind. Instead, I'm just looking for fun.

For the record: you're not fun nor are you entertaining. I want the goddamn moon and stars not fun

Tilt-a-Whirlo

A brackish haze rests like a film across the sharper pieces of the year, I have wrapped myself in a cocoon. I have been in the studios for nights in a row, working through the divide and refining my dedication. For years I have held the belief that a talented artist is a lazy artist, that they will not sink their teeth into the bone when time gets short; and, conversely, that a moderate artist with a bucket of perseverance will surpass the innate talent on every level as their developing technique lends itself  to personal style.

My body is sore and my joints are swollen. I think it's from working in the studio but there is a lingering possibility that I may still be reacting to the measles vaccine. If so, well,  would be wise to go to a doctor.

I had a few casual drinks with a dude, lets call him Frank. Frank seemed a little cowboy and in a town that is full of people who are so passively liberal my teeth hurt, it was refreshing to be around someone who hunts and knows how to fix a car. We had some good laughs, he told me how he was working on controlling his confrontation issues, we laughed a little more. Moving forward we went and drank coffee while my mom was in the hospital. His attention on me was complete, he seemed interested in what I had to say, and our ideas about personal responsibility lined up. We both agreed that the future is a little stark. He said he wears his scars like badges of honor and remembrance, that he would however never get a tattoo because his body is a temple.

Later over football and beer, I mention Ferguson and how it is a huge fucking problem. He says the kid was a thief and confronted the cop.

That really sat with me. How he started the conversation with I am not a racist but this is Oregon and there were sundown laws until 1963.

As if institutionalized racism makes it more palatable or acceptable. As if saying you had bro's on your sports team makes you less of an arrogant fuck.

I said that I had stopped dating white dudes about four years ago.

Who have you been dating then? he asked, confused.

****

 I dropped him off and spent the next few days thinking it over and then I realized that he is not for me. There is absolutely nothing in me that needs a moderate closeted homophobic racist white dude with confrontation issues and no particular passion in my life. I don't owe him a phone call to explain that; I don't owe him a friendly card. Nothing.

I chose to have lovely beautiful talented and inspired humans around me, so thank you all for being lovely and kind and full of hope.

How to want three things at once

I just woke up. I know it's after four. Don't judge me. I worked last night and it was so fantastic to take my mind off of the drone. 

Back of my mind the ropes of tight muscles in my back and body that ache against the dull pull of dedication. 

On the off chance that there maybe something more that I should be doing I sit quietly and don't move. 

Thinking back on the years, the time when I knew less and felt more, I had visions of a god and of streaming light. Now I just watch and feel my skin differently than before. I grow out of the pieces. 

One for the record

I spent one more night in the hospital. I've begun to think that maybe I like it here. The aound of the pumps and the diffuse voices checking vitals at three am. My head hurts.

She is impatient and demanding and pious. Why haven't they ..... yet? They broke routine, have forgotten me, didn't change my dressing, brings my meds, towels, warm blankets, warmth and warm blankets are a very big deal these days, the used to bring me warm blankets but they seem to have forgotten that too.

I watched a little football yesterday. The person I was with told me to look at the ceiling. I tried to take a picture of the glad that was a snake or dragon or beast on a Harley that said "brotherhood" across the bottom. I felt sick. I am in the wrong place. This hick town is full of bigots. I am afraid they will run me off or worse, turn me straight, afraid of difference, intolerant.

I think and hope we can go home today. I have a huge project due Monday and the clock stops for no one.

Come in my Dreams

This is my third morning waking up in a hospital room. I am exhausted and can only imagine how my mother is feeling. 

The cafeteria coffee is not bad. It's hot and I put three packets of brown sugar in it to mask the flavor.

After having spent a fair amount of time in hospitals this year I've learned a few things. There will always be that family eating in the cafeteria. You know the family I'm talking about. The silent spoon family.

I feel like furniture and I like that. There are chairs everywhere and I fall into them, disappear and am campflaged into the rigid foam.

I remember last thanksgiving.

And the one before that. 

Counting beans

Three magic beans to send me to heaven

It is supposed to be our final day in the hospital. I am thin on sleep. Everything has ground to a halt. That's what illness does. It demandstransitipming.  that everything around it stop and pay attention.

I've begun to recognize that I have a hard time transitioning. From being awake to asleep, from the air to the show from the shower to the air are all unpleasant but from asleep to awake is by far the most challenging. If I drink then many of those are solved: I don't have to fall asleep, it is unlikely that I will actually gain alert awareness the following day.

Sleep in a hospital is bizzare as I never really reach stage four. I feel the lack of REM in a definite decrease of creativity as well as a faultering verbal filter. 

I don't know about all of this. This care giving, yet I am in many ways the only person who is qualified to advocate and care for my mom. I understand her diet, how she thinks. I can communicate with her.

Drinking thin white coffee I lean my back against the window and listen to the pages go out over the intercom. I know it's time for me to pack the miso, keiffer, and dhal back into a box, but I am waking slowly and it's thanksgiving and I am transitioning awake for three more minutes. 

From the bottom

I spent the night in a hospital last night. Not me, I'm fine. My mother.

Under normal conditions she is challenging. Under the duress of age and pain and opiates she is fragile, confused, demanding.

Her piety shows itself in her ongoing desire to simply tolerate pain as a part of the human condition. This and her very specific request that her medications are not laced with eggs, gelatin,  animal byproducts. She will literally chose death over changing her diet.

Which leads me to the real point of suffering. Her spiritual path, provides her days a dogmatic structure of good works and repentance, speaks to the truth that this is a plane of suffering. That all humans are here to overcome the suffering that they created in past lives and in this life before setting out on The Path. Accordingly, this world is also a toilet in comparison to ascended realms.

I am somewhat bitter about all of this crap because I see the perpetual suffering that religion creates. The belief that pain is a punishment, that it's somehow deserved. It is also the most important thing in her life. More important than either my brother or I are or have been. And that's okay.

I watch how beautiful she is in all of this and am grateful that I am here. I speak her language which is huge because it helps me filter and buffer her interactions. 

I am not a terrible daughter. We may just have different values. 

Instincts and Survival

I am unqualified to be in a caregiving position. I am not patient with illness or my mother. The ill version is spectacular in her independent need to suffer. 

This morning she said she would like a juice smoothie. What kind, my brother and I asked her, berry or something else. No not those I just want a plain one with macca with a coconut milk base, I don't want all that sugar. Mom, I don't know if I'm going to be able to find that for you, I said. Well, I thought, that's what I get for asking. 

I went to the mess hall and bought her a green juice. Oh this is not bad she said, sipping it down.

Now we're arguing about her diet. That she doesn't eat and has osteoporosis and is a vegetarian and is unwilling to address reality outside of her perception. 

Three broken glasses

I will take you anywhere

Tonight is a slipstream, a progressive unfolding of events. I remain translucent, sneaky, hidden in shadows. The haunts are jammed, cluster fucks of ambient texture. People dancing swerving against the rhythms 

And all I can think is this is death

Renegade Heart

of mine longs

to linger over our perfection

***

Today the library was having a book sale. I bought five. I am thrilled. I am also now behind on my reading. All of the books and projects pile into folders and stacks. The words against the grain linger on my tongue.

Amiss, I feel that. Perhaps, again, as always these days, it is the annual circadian rhythm that takes me back to places of emotion. I have set a standard that is within reach yet I watch my eclipse. The cold has overtaken me, it is almost winter.

**

I have suitors: those who would presume to know me; an other whom I adore. It gets lost in language. I am, again, against the grain. I wonder if they would like me in deep disguise. More precisely I wonder if they could help outfit the disguise, help refine the longing.

*

It is now later than I would like; I have a stack of As to keep in line and the clock seems unwilling to wait for me. 

The Sleep in my Eyes

As I wake earlier than I tend to like

It's just passed six as I scratch my head and measure coffee into my stainless steal stove-top espresso maker. I am a mix of emotions these days, full of secrets that spend their momentum rattling around the empty cage in my chest.

Climbing a mountain yesterday talking about rape, how to stay safe while running alone, and the importance of bystander intervention. What is inspiring to me is that I am part of the conversation. I have started taking the risk of opening up the dialog and taking measures to say yes, I think about this everyday that I leave my home. I think about this while I am in my home because I live alone. I am by no means a victim. What I am is nails and furry; what I am is sadness and human.

As an artist this is the conversation that interests me. The conversation about rape and equality, the conversation about being human in this world, the conversations about gender and sexuality. I want to be certain and clear that it is understood that I know men have their balls in a vice over this. The beautiful men I adore who are thoughtful, creative, and speak up to be out and fully expressed, we know those are not the things that go bump in the night.

Hard freeze

It froze last night. Frost and sunshine and breathing out steam, this morning on my way to school I tried to remember what all I have to do today. Last night a big white man told me that women are ruled by nature and men are autonomous. Really. Because women get periods and therapy. Perplexed and unwilling to generate statements or generalities, I spoke only of personal experience. He continued trying to generalize all men black all women white. I realized at some point I was telling him politely he was an asshole because I create value on a person to person basis not on who or what they claim to be. I am much more than a gathering reduction of hormones. I said this after he and a friend wrestled in the mud.  He claimed, again, that men are self-governed and rational.

MMR'd

I got vaccinated this morning, if that plague outbreaks I will be safe from that particular disease. That and the bubble gum pink wearing girl germ which smells like target and shops at Macy's. I am safe from ever catching either of those diseases.

I have a car. It is gorgeous but not as pretty as my bike was or the smell of sun on wet warm earth is after a long night of rain.

Technology is winning me today. I am on a little sleep and my second coffee. My first instillation goes up this evening for 14 hours. It's very rapey.

a Few Days longer than intended

The haze of my memory against the night is staggered, which is never a good step. I am at best completely out of whack or on a vengeful hunt for oblivion. I sit here, now, socks under tights, toes crossed.

***

I take your challenge. I have been asking and I say yes.

*I'll let you know later, I say with eyes half spent"

***

My ears are a hum of refrigerators, the whirl of the drive, my momentum continues to lead me nowhere. I am again against the tick tick of my nails, I've had them painted Hollywood it's cardinal red with bitty gold flakes, on the keyboard. I am a hoax of a jester, left dancing the solitary blues like a minister in the dark of the moon,

***

I have not been well. Clearly. Not the best care to say the least. I have wretched habits: I smoke and collect dinosaurs. I have grown passed the acceptable age for one of those and I have to swear right now in this minute of time across forever, to really choose one over being one. It's not funny, fucking stop. I am beautiful. End,

T.I.I.

This is It

Tomorrow, here on ne-cede I break 100k page views
You may not know it from the comment section, but spammers in albania love my shit

***

The onset of the illness takes me aback; I am surprised that my immune system is as weak as it is. That is, until I think about how I have been living: off of booze and one night stands; caffeine and hand-rolled cigarettes. People call these vices immoral, a decent into the bacchanalian peccadillo that is nothing, if not presumptive, of, anything, but flesh and grind.

Nothing, actually, to report only the wish of my mind for a the aforementioned. I am in books to my ears, I am sick, I am without transportation outside of my ten speed bianchi, the single longest piece of transportation which I've owned. The bike has seen me through both Oregon as well as California. I have this distinct memory of the ex, driving his 2007 f350 diesel beside me as I rode my bike down the road in to town the week before I finally left. He had the passenger window down, yelling. just stop, I only want to talk to you. His truck had an extended bed as well as a crew cab; there was no bike lane.

Later that day he took me shopping and bought me a new dress.

Tick-Tock

On my mind very much this lovely new year's day is how much money do I want to spend on school now and how much do I want to spend on graduate school. If I am really a smart girl I would just focus on my psychology degree and scrap this whole double major BFA/BS plan. Simply put, it's a lot of time at a mediocre institution and it's not damn cheap. I need more scholarship money. In order to get more scholarship money I need to keep my GPA where it is and keep it climbing. In order to do this I would be best off taking fewer classes that require so much thinking and more classes that require rote memorization.

Art is hard and it takes a lot of work and planning and there is no faking either the time spent or the outcome.

My body is aching. I got home from work at almost six. I'm up now to do it all over again, only better and with bells this time.

I've stood on the abyss and when I leap it is the wind that holds the sails. My dreams are filled with flight, clear deep water, and sometimes even touch.

I wore a mustache yesterday and almost decked a kid dressed like a boyscout. I may be a little short fused these days.

Love your guts,
CSL

Fresh Faced Wonder

This morning I woke at six. I was incredibly proud as I rode out on my bicycle shortly after seven to make my way to campus. My notebook open, pen in hand, glasses over my eyes I sit in the window of a cafe and sip hand roasted coffee and watch the damp dawn roll in. My mid-term exams are mostly finished. It should not come as a surprise to anyone that I am the top seated student in all of my courses. I had anxiety dream about getting a low A in art history. It didn't happen. I know my material.
What is bothering me more than anything these days is how I am going to be able to keep the momentum as time goes on. I think that I've got a decent, manageable schedule, but I am also unable to do basic things like laundry and go to the grocery store. I blame this on my lack of transportation. Still, it's worrisome that I am falling behind personally. Part of the slow down is recognizing that I cannot party like a twenty year old. I have personal struggles with addiction, loss association, and emotional fatigue. I slow down, I speed up, I search for delicious diversions and find them similar, known, basic.
I revert and increase my ability to accept the moment by moment changes presented to me. I grow comfortable in the ongoing success of scholastic achievement. I went to a goblin ball and the goblin king spanked me publicly. It was the best night of my life.

Top's Bottom

Forgive me I am at a melancholic low

The rain on windows wraps me low and deep into the throws of wool and accomplishment. Against every grain of my being I realize how many lies I yell out to the wind. The gruff hot chords of duplicity, saying things like suck eggs and lemons are sweeter than your dick.

I need touch. I feel the itch, yet, remain lip biting.

Distraction: I live for carrots

Wrapped in mid-terms and daily markers for success. I am at coffee for a few hours before work in order to finish a paper, read a bunch of words, and improve upon my spotify list. I have been moderately successful in that I just bought a ticket to New York for the week before christmas.

I have secrets that are wrapped into my core being. I remember the sound of laughter's sharp edge, ice in my veins, and the burden of proof. Always being wrong, the assumption of immorality, my personal inability to be a "woman." This brutal cycle will rip even the strongest person apart.

What has been on my mind is this one day a few months ago sitting in a car with a friend as rain dropped in huge drops. There is this warm comfort of hazed windows, tea, puddles. More we talked about this total jack hat of the girl-friend activation system. If you are not familiar with his amazing work you should goggle that. More recently my rage has become directed towards this particular cro magnum shit repository.

It's so fun to read. I hope you enjoy it.

I think my obsession with repression and male-culture is that I hear familiar echos in all of this and I need to know, I need to feel, I need to be aware of the underculture of fear. A lot of these articles and Game systems are about men being afraid of being alone. So they get lost in sex and fuck as many girls as possible all the while deriding the same girls they fuck as sluts.

This attitude is coming from a place of incompetence. What will happen when one of the four girls getting banged gets tired of the bull shit? doesn't matter! I've got game and will just find more to fill the void.

The bottom is if someone is unable to form lasting emotional bonds to other human beings they are emotional cripples.

Go fuck your heart stump.

Today is national domestic violence awareness day.

It will affect one in three women.

So don't ever imagine that any lady is a fucking princess in a goddamn ivory shell. She has seen more, felt more, lived more and has a strong core that is resilient beyond measure.

She is also crazy hot and in charge of the evolution of our species so behave

Rash of Rape

There has been a scourge here

Mind your drink

And trust love

It's all roses until sunday

First that particular thread is, for the time being and in this format, put to bed.

The attraction to a man who pays for pain remains a tangible recourse for inspiration. But, I will eek out the details on my own time and spare you the developmental subplot.

***

Exhaustion has taken hold of my daily life. I am pulling A's (of course) in all of my courses. I am taking 16 credit hours and working 22-24 hours each week. I have an almost 24 hour day on thursdays. I am losing the threads, it is thrilling.

I have patience and I know that there will come a moment of complete understanding. Instead, right now, I have transitive flashes of the past. I am back a year in my mind. I had so much hope, love, illusion enough to spare for everyone.

I just found a bus transfer from SF muni from October 13th 2013, it was a sunday.Strange, bizarre, haunting to have ghosts in mirrors, pockets, accept that shadows slip in and out of my consciousness.

A year. One. Less than one. I am pulling in comforts for winter, summer was both endless and extremely short. Wrapped in a haunted sweater, I sit an look over the valley as the sunrises. I have a coffee and my mind has a few webs of sleep. I have been dreaming of horses, women, and the forest.

Not looking, only watching

Let it be known: I see the cracks filled with burning fat

***

The man hadn't bargained for flies sticking their sharp proboscis into the soft edges where skin and membrane meet. Painfully maddening, more than his weakening legs or his distended shoulders, they got in his mind, an avoidable discomfort.

Place Me

Put me somewhere soft and dark
a pocket, a closet

give me a few hours of silence, darkness, solitude
before letting me go

****

There is wet sand between the concrete floor and Everette's toes. Pushing up off of the floor offers reprieve to the ache in the shoulder joints that are screaming but makes his legs shake in fatigue. He rotates inhale shoulders, exhale feet. There is piss down his leg, it pools around his feet. Silence, not silence, the buzz of flies crawling up his leg and the slow creak of his braces counter his methodical breathing.

High up above the scaffolding there's a window that has been cracked open. The summer's been hot, dry and the scorch of the late afternoon sun does little move the stagnant air. Shoulders, feet Everette is focused on his movements. He is focused on his pain.

The small red dot of the video camera winks at him. This is real, he thinks, live action theatre. He begins to sink into his ankles, his shoulders wrenching open. Tongue over his lips, throat on fire, flies flies. He hadn't bargained for flies.

***

The Deep End

I am in to my chin, have overscheduled myself, am wondering when I am going to stop playing around and kick-up to third.

School is amazing, it is where I belong. The campus is inviting, the library large, silent, comfortable. The studios well lit with decent work hours. I am lacking the pulse of a high intensity workout.

The natural incentive for reward is ever present. As a long-term procrastinator I have taken to mapping out my week day by day. The schedule covers more than 12 hours per day. Good bye non-existent social life.

Secrets and silks,
Chaya

These dreams may come

Across the backs of my sleeping eyes waking visions haunt my sleep:

The garden oasis was lush and barren, if that dichotomy were possible it existed there. Rocks covered in chrome lichen, stilted trees growing from arid soil; life persisted and flourished. The brook supported the glen and the flowering trees. A veranda overlooking the garden, red stones warm underfoot give way to the soft summer grass. The small white flowers buzzed active with the multitude of bees foraging pollen. I step onto the path and as it widens the walls to this palazo become evident. Towering granite glistening with calcite curving fifteen feet into the air. As I approach the gate swing toward me as the guards alerted of my approach open it from the outside. I stand before the arch of  my heart. Searing light bounces of the mica and silica the world is refracted in an instant.

****

I have started reading Justine or the Misfortune of Virtue. Written by the infamously ignoble Marquis de Sade in a mere 15 days in 1787. The book is notorious for creating the world of sadism. I have not and will not spend time, at the moment, researching more details. So, please, forgive my forthcoming fallacies when they occur.

A passage strikes a particular resonance with me, reminding me fully, completely of Dorian Gray. This blast of insight has specific importance as I have recently been discussing how grateful I am to have the ability to make literary connections. The practicality of me covering new terrain in the scope of literature limits my ability to reread past selections. That being said, I am forever grateful that I can imagine Oscar Wilde reading this passage:

To these horrors Madame de Lorsange added two or three infanticides. The fear of spoiling her attractive figure, strengthened by the necessity of hiding a double intrigue, several times encouraged her to have abortions; and these crimes, as undiscovered as the others, in no way hindered this clever ambitious creature from daily finding new dupes and increasing, moment by moment, both her fortune and her crimes. It will thus be seen that it is, unfortunately, only to true that prosperity often accompanies crime, and that from the very bosom of the most deliberate corruption and debauchery men my gild the thread of life with that which they call happiness.

and receive the first glimpse of Dorian.

Of course I don't know if Wilde read a copy of this book, but it is hard to imagine that he did not. I am equally titillated with the purity ideal that is so decisively rebuffed.

And again I find myself grateful for having read Jane Eyre and Gulliver's Travels. Which for some reason this book seems to have also inspired.

Like Polaris these voices coax something inside of me into a sofa, under a blanket, and into sleep.

 (I have taken to marking my books with a pen or pencil. Making notes in the margins. This blasphemy is acceptable as they are my books and obsessions and I want to go back later and connect patterns.)

Feed the Fire

These coils
are the devil
I ignore

*update*
self-indulgent pity party has, for the time being, come to close. In advanced I am going to dance like a devil in a short blue dress, don't forget what you never knew not to miss. Love your guts.

The burn of hot in my throat as my legs pump the pedals of my bicycle up a hill, one down, two up, repeat ad nauseum.

The anger that I feel toward myself for allowing my heart to open just a sliver is unsurprising. The loss that I feel is strange, this amorphous feeling of rejection, that the tiny sliver of my heart that this person glimpsed made them not want to see any more. I need more complex people in my life, perhaps, people who are invested in pulling the shadows to the light.

I have shadows and am haunted. I see ghosts in the fragments of light catching the edge of a mirror. I, fuck, want to explain that I am not crazy just on edge.

In all of this the good is that I love you so much, all of you. I hope you know how much I rely on you from a distance. The worlds we create are invaluable.

Break

I just cried for half an hour curled into a chair. This is what I learned: I feel alone, scared, and fragile. People see the strength, the courage, the blah fucking blah of me being alive in this world, the defense mechanism of not needing anything from anyone; I expect people to be aware and recognize the foundation of this strength and courage are hard fucking won on a foundation of sensitivity that can at times be painful to inhabit.

Though, I was grateful to hear that I "really helped someone through a difficult time." I am threw myself into a spiral that is uncomfortable because I don't like admitting that I am feeling lost or in pain. It makes me want very much to dig into my chest with my hands and pull out my heart to see the rays of light I know are there, to show the world, look light streams out in out from our hearts.

More than anything I want someone to tell in lies I believe that it will all be okay, that I am alone in the cavern of my heart they are there with a light and that I am loved. I have an immense imagination and perhaps if the lies are told often enough the will become true.

Too much exposure

It's that moment when senses overwhelm categorization
What's left the incredible futility of anything that is any less than everything.

I am perceiving: the water rushing in the creek behind me, the muted voices of children; the sweet decay of leaves as they mulch their way back to soil; the chill of the stone wall I am sitting astride-
-break-

The noise of all of this comes waving over me, lifting me back, fantasy complete. I traverse the world of dots pixels dreams across the inside of my eyelids and see the tremulous remedial ghost of haunting past.

I let go of these
fears that there will be either no ground or too much.

In conclusion the worlds of overlapped candor and reprisal remains silent

*the muted voices of the wind and children on a Thursday in July*

A Mind of My Own

It's cool unless I am sitting directly in the sun. I have found a window in the library. It's my nook and it overlooks a cedar. I hear the bells toll on the hour. I love university and wish that I was able to take another two classes, unfortunately the university has a limit.

I am so angry with myself this week for being foolish, for being human. I have a terrible habit of blindness when it comes to my heart. I overlook more than I see and allow my sense of imagination to overpower my sense of self-protection. This is neither bad nor good, only a realistic assessment of my natural proclivity to insist on trusting hypothesis versus reality.

On this point I am thrilled to have the capacity for feeling. The ability to trust, feel, and imagine are precious qualities. I know that. I know too much and hope that this knowing does not interfere with my ability to imagine a world of my own making.

Fuck broken trust. It is not okay, It makes me not want to trust ever again and that's what bothers me, that's what hurts, not the fact of gone. I could give a shit about that. I care about the broken system of communication, the failure to be realistic and honest, I care more about the principal of action. The broken trust is in me, not in the other person. It tells me that I was wrong to trust or chose clearly the wrong person to trust.

I am not sold on this bias. I will continue but more wary. I will not stop loving you always.

It is now the moment of truth and that is mine that no matter what we all chose and in our choices we stand somewhat diffuse from our reflection. I am wrapping the silk around the chambers of my undiscovered heart.

I am listening Chopin's Nocturnes played by Elizabeth Leonskaja. Her sense of halt is impeccable.

Rocktober!

This month I am going to dance and fall in love with the feeling of a hand on the small of my back, a secret room in the library, the taste of wood smoke in the air.

School has officially started; I've had all of my classes once. I am so glad that I made the choice to study art and psychology and not psychology and art. The difference, though minor, makes all the difference to me in that starting next week there are open studio hours and I will be there. I have a friend who has a key so we can go hang out late and weld.

Starbright Firecracker BoomBoom is going to the great mechanic in the sky where the roads are always banked and the days are nothing but 70 degrees. I will really, really miss her.

On the bright side, I left my Levi's jacket in the library yesterday. I lost my shit when I realized it was gone. I am freakishly attached to certain belongings. I've had this jacket since 2003, I bought it used at a certain Value Village on Capitol Hill, it's going to be an heirloom. I called the circulation desk and it was there.

I am rambling and have no specific focus this morning. Have you heard of abe books it is a wonderful and cheap place to buy used books in non-specific condition. I have been wanting to expand my collection of early erotica so I went on a binge and bought a bunch of classics including The Story of O, Fanny Hill, Justine, Lady Chatterly's Lovers. I found a photographic companion to Anais Nin's Journals at the library yesterday and am now able to give faces to all of her comrades.

I am losing myself in pages and the still empty halls of the library. Between the studio and the stacks, I have found my place on campus.

Fists First: on bruises, scrapes, and collateral damage

Riding my bike, my mind on the disappearance of my lover, the first day of school, the perfect feeling of air on my bare skin, I am distracted. My tire catches an edge where concrete and sod meet, I fall, my calf abraded; I stand a young man ask if I am all right. I am.

Is there such a thing as a perfect moment in time. There is; it lasts until time realizes that you've been cheating them and rushes all of your stolen moments out of you in an instant. Time always wins. I know this, I've dealt with it in the past. I am not one to stand mourning, time tick-tock moves at an unbelievably rapid pace until I find someone who is capable of slowing everything down for an hour, a day. This quality, this ability to stand outside of time is relative to a person's experience of life. I have been blessed that I am able to move so calmly through the minefields. Not that I am unemotional, rather I know that emotions are relative and that time ultimately wins.

I am being pursued by a fellow student artist and do not know how to tell them that when I am with them there is no slowing of time, no magic, he doesn't know the difference between commonalities and connection. I am frustrated because I appreciate that we have so much in common, yet that alone does not implicate connection.

I am gaining access to my creative core and will have virtually unlimited access to the studios on campus. I avoiding taking painting classes. I don't want to pollute my heart.

Life is fragile, people are fragile. I fall all over myself this week. When this happens it is typically a sign of awakening, the slow return to my body after having been somewhat distant. As I re-incorporate the challenge of unification takes it's toll. Additionally, distraction and the effects of being human.

Lovingly, Chaya

Taped Ankles, New Nails

It's the first day of school first day of school school

I am still pigeon toed
My toes kiss,
They share secrets,
I am stronger
Than the history
of our making

Yesterday I went out with a girl yesterday; it was a pre-date, a get to know you, let's talk about everything from music and art to medicine and being queer.

She sat in the salon drinking mimosas, reading a cheap fashion magazine while I had my nails painted. I marvel at her self-possession. The woman taking care of my claws is young, from the coast, has white blonde hair. As she nods over my hands I see her scalp, it's pink. I am oddly mesmerized by the translucence of her hair.

We talk quietly trade gossip; there has been a rash of people being ruffied and it makes all of us uncomfortable.

Her left forearm is covered in crosshatched scars.  She is beautiful. Her eyes are the color of the sea at sunrise, deep grey green blue, iridescent gems. I am awed by her bravery, her eyes, her white hair. 

***

I have taken to wearing a corset under my blouse. It is this secret that I have something binding me tight, an absent lover's embrace. 

Simmer in the Sun

It's mornings like this, now, half six and just home, that make me wonder about my ability to continue to hop to like a bunny.

I hobbled to all night and made the cheddar
I raced the machine
Human me one, machine less than one

I am tired and suppose that I have an almost happy attitude all things considering

there are more motorbikes in the world

and I am one of billions, I am fairly certain I have a damn good life

***

concerns:

A's and how to maintain my near perfect GPA
Bravery in the face of
Comfort
Direction
Evolution of the mind
Fallacies, their
General relationship with
Hypothesis and the never ending lack of
Illusions which
Jumble my ability to express my
Kink

Lions, Tigers, and Bears: silver linings are not always easy to find

911 is not always enough

Today has been rough. I found out that my motorcycle is officially totaled. More information to follow on how the insurance is going to handle all of that. Most likely I just walk away even.

Thank you bear.

Sometimes walking away even is all we can aspire to.

Thank you Tiger

***

Awhile back I had a fair amount of my identity tied up in that bike. Not so much now, but it sure was nice knowing that I could leave, go out for a ride, chase a little sunset whenever the fancy struck me. I also feel like I didn't have a final goodbye, a final ride, any of that.

I was upset so I went for a long run. One third of the way through I fell and twisted the shit out of my left ankle. I lay on the ground staring at the sun for a moment. I stood shaky but stable; I have a fairly normal level of pain tolerance so I knew nothing to serious had happened. I continued. I started to cry, why the fuck today.

I am vulnerable and realize how alone I am, become thankful for my ability to see clearly, continue my run another five miles.

I never said anything about common sense.

***

In the past these are moments when I would heat metal to molten and press it into a sensitive area on my body. I can still remember the sound of skin pulling back from the edge of a horseshoe nail, the blister, a scar that never bleeds.

Today, I run, I fall, I scrape my leg and twist my ankle. The damage is somehow par for the co
urse for an athlete, yet the damage is most likely more lasting, permanent, likely to bother me in the future. Yet, you tell people you ate shit running and you get a high five. You tell people you have and attraction to pain and they give you concerned looks and comment on your mental instability.

Yet, I run and run and feel more alive. Perhaps this is the divide between good and evil. In failing to recognize self-inflicted harm as anything expect a strong urge to live is a mistake.

Where have all the monkey bars gone: an ode to skinned knees

Styptic, sterile playgrounds haunt the parks. Plastic wrapped joy shoots for slides,  pulverized rubber turf, the lonely fat kid trying to smash their unused body through the maze. We are raising a generation of children afraid to bleed. As if fear has ever stopped blood.

I have sweat condensing in the small of my back from riding my bicycle. Two moms,  distracted by their children's needs almost drove me off the road today. See, children and the fear of blood.

Warm to my bones

Coming slowly to my senses, no, more the gradual return of feeling to the places with in side of me which had grown numb.

Supposing that all of the time I spent not feeling has any conditioning affect on me in the long run?

There has been a fair amount of water and a large number of bridges in the last year. A lot of that is on me. I am a fire person. I like to burn things. I like to watch metal turn from a solid state, breakdown, become molten. I know that a well tempered weld is stronger than the original steal steel.

Years ago in, high school, my mother told me that the people I thought were my friends were not actually friends. I argued that we would be friends for ever. I was wrong.

I dreamed of walking through a diffuse Seattle with a man approaching silver fox status. We wandered a deserted pikes market and drank an espresso from a woman who eyed my candy. We bought coffee and since the Italian roast was to my lovers liking we bought dark roasted beans and a colorful counter-top espresso maker in a teal or red.

Earlier I dreamed dreams of despair and again back to the feeling of losing things that I didn’t realize I could lose. The feeling that trust misplaced is dangerous.

Again, California, what a disastrous mess. I had so much pride that I was unable to call the farm, tell them what was going on, express the simple basics of the situation, ask from help from the people qualified to provide it. Instead, fingers tight around my throat the walls shaking, the rage of a man struggling to put my face on his demons.

I see things now that I haven’t ever seen before. I am whole in a way that means I have been taken apart, examined, left dusty pieces abandoned, retired the junk, removed the treasures: fractured; divided; made into pieces.

Pieces once removed are able to be refit, welded back to the whole after careful examination, cleaning. With considered precision I re-knit the fabric of my being I am often at a loss. I find I make poor choices and hear a voice telling me that no man will want me, that I am not a real woman, that I don’t have anything to offer.

I find I make positive choices and I hear no voice in my head. I find I make a choice to stop listening to that voice and accept very much that to each day the struggles are sufficient.

I have been exercising. My lungs hurt. I need to do laundry.

Fuck Art, Let's Dance

 He brings roses and leaves them on my bicycle while I work.
I ride home with them in my teeth
the thorns are sharp
I taste blood
and am grateful for the
reminder of flesh on skin.

I woke from dreams of california, the farm, the food. It pushed me back to blog posts of november and december of 2012.  Reading these takes me back to the house on Dry Creek, to the time when shit there started to get more and more out of balance. It also reminded me so clearly of what I was doing there. The life I left, the life I thought I was stepping toward.

More, it was beautiful and I am grateful to have this record of my heart.

***

School starts in the tick-tock number of not too many days. I can hardly breath in anticipation. I get to go to school. I get to learn new things. I get to meet new people.

I met someone from the department yesterday. A fellow artist, a ceramic sculptor, a runner, a father, a formerly enlisted marine. I am not technically interested.

My drives these days are too complex for merely having art, fitness, adventure in common. I need the intangible fluid spark of desire.

I am also somewhat disinterested in pursuing or being pursued by gender specific bio-boys.

***

I take the bike into the shop today. What a blessing to be responsible enough to have full coverage insurance and know how to use it.

I had wanted to spend the last few days out camping alone, this event led me to quickly change my plans. I went running instead. I climbed a mountain with my legs and sweat. As my heart grows more firmly rooted in my heart, I am as thankful for my strength as I am for my vulnerability.

Positive Spin Doctor

I wish I made a photo of Starbright Firecracker BoomBoom this morning. She was attacked by a bear, pushed over and left for dead.
No one likes hospital photos. The impact of the fall caused the fuel pump assembly to break and gasoline to pour onto the gravel. Boo-fucking-hoo. A few phone calls later I have a plan in motion and will be up rolling within the week.
***
My hands smell like fuel. It's one of those scents that makes me tighten my inner thighs in anticipation.
I feel misplaced within this woman body inhabiting man world built by for suited to man.
The skin is soft and covers the long sloping curves where her back and thighs join.
****
I recover my poise quickly am laughing and joking about the bear within minutes. Information is king. It will take one week. Until then there's nothing I can do but bite my lip and smell the fuel only fingers.
*****
How much more I appreciate scents that have mingled. Fuel, morning sun on wet grass; the secret aromas my body holds post coitus when the sweat of two bodies dries in the tangle of my hair; charring meat, freshly cut grass, sprinklers on dry  concrete.

Worlds Collide, Light Rush In

I am back a dozen years
 reading diaries, eating fruit in the nude
my inspiration remains
worlds colliding
 (Anias Nin: What I most want in the world,
the only thing that counts,
my deepest need, my obsession,
is the dream of love
and that I cannot possess but intermittently.
I want it all, continual, frenzied, full of orgy,
even if I must pay for it with my death.)

The smell of rain on dry soil and forest fires, mingles with our sweat. Overlooking the valley my eyes sting as the salt of my perspiration leaks over the lids.

The soil is thirsty, the plants are dry, we all need moisture; the human body without touch becomes aged and stiff. A raven spies on us as we reach groping for our pleasure, not alone, animals a part of nature.

Will the Real Cast Please Stand

I eclipse myself

smoke and mirrors

My apartment is clean. I pulled apart the pieces of my life and cleaned. I opened my father's box. His book to me, his first card, his father's watch waited for me. I am tears, I have feelings, which makes me anxious. I move across the scope of my being, I drop things and am disassociated from my flesh. In former times this would be a moment when I look to external stimulation to emulate my internal sense of growing restlessness.

Break

I continue seeing the same person. A few days ago they slept next to me: I woke up with feelings.

Feelings do things like make me check my phone, smile to myself, have anxiety that perhaps there was no bottle and there is no genie.

They come into my apartment we are arms, legs, shirts pulling over head, sweat and lips over flesh. I listen to the beating of his heart, my head pulled, held against his chest. I hear a rhythm all its own and I exhale a breath I didn't even know I was holding.

 

A long hello stops short of goodbye

I take a long cold look at myself and am radio loud, shirt off

Legs long, wave hello to the sky

This is not a moment but a long hello

*conversations last night*

I turn to the man beside me
Dallas? I met you in Seattle

He was ready to be anything anywhere for me, since I have a thing for Native Cowboys, I was ready to let him.

Sitting near him as he rolled a cigarette he pulled his eyes down my legs. We shared the cigarette. Hot smoke burned the air between us. Come with me, he says, anywhere you want to go.

He pulls me for a moment close to him. I feel the heat of his body push through the denim of his pants. There is no reciprocal heat. I want nothing more than to run. But, I don't. I still have that fucked up thing. I walk back to his van. I sit inside for one second before I realize that this is the almost absolute last place on earth that I want to be. So I grab the handle to open the door.

Child locks prevent me from opening the door.

*I slide over the front seat and out the passenger door.*

Released into the night, into the company of C.

I have a few problems in life. Putting myself in fucked up situations by being willing to smoke a cigarette with a stranger is not something that I am proud of. It happened. I was there.

The moralist in me is judgemental: stop smoking; don't talk to strangers; don't play with fire; start being more of a grown ass lady and buy groceries.

I couldn't agree more.

So much so that I agree less. I am one day at a time the happiest, most self-expressed, darling.

I have been growing alfalfa sprouts and have a tendency to push myself to explore every aspect before my curious mind is sated. It is time to explore an entirely new world.

All my love always to you