Today....

So, today is really the first day back from camping. We were technically back at 11 am yesterday morning, but it takes an entire day to recover and feel human in my experience.
So, here I am, feeling mostly human again, and a million thoughts and ideas are floating around in my head. The truth of the matter is the quiet and being away did me a lot of good. It gave me a good chunk of time to not only catch up on the third book of a Song of Ice and Fire, but it also gave me a good chunk of time to evaluate what's important to me.
So, starting today, things are going to be a little different. I know I've said it before, but I'm starting to take the actions to reach a point where my heart and soul feel nurtured. I don't think this will always be easy. I'm a little terrified that I really only have three weeks left at a real job. Because I don't want to be stuck doing something I don't love anymore. I don't want to be living on the whims of people who only see me as a tiny piece in a big corporate puzzle.
The changes will be good. I know it. It will just take time to get to the point where it doesn't feel like I'm jumping off a cliff every time I turn around.

Untitled.

(Written May 27, 2001, I don't remember what about, but probably some relationship gone bad or not gone anywhere at all.)

Sever my ties with the emotional consequences of my actions.  Sever myself from any emotion.  This hurts so much.  Breathing in my bleeding words, cut up and fucked up by my broken promises.  And I never meant to be the derelict I am now.  I never meant to tell you all those lies.  I would have rather lived with the jagged edges of my soul then to have numbed the pain and hurt you more.  So many addictions and afflictions they haven't found a cure for yet.  So many addictions and afflictions that keep haunting me.  I want a bottle of mercy and a syringe of it doesn't matter that much.  Been dying since I was 13.  I'll be dying until the world decides I can give up and quit.  I don't want to care anymore.  Not about anything.  Not about you.  Then it wouldn't matter that I lied.

A Bullet and a Cup of Coffee

[Older short short story. Originally posted 9/11/08]

June took a sip of her coffee, a drag of her cigarette and looked down at the kitchen table. She set the cup down, exactly triangulated from the other two items on the table. After taking another drag, she set the cigarette down in the ashtray, the second point in the triangle. Looking down at her bulging stomach, June knew how much disapproval would be rained down on her at this point if anyone else were home. Thinking about the look on her mom’s and her fiancée’s face made her smile a tiny little smile. It was the first smile she’d had in a very long time.

Even before she had found out about the pregnancy, she hadn’t smiled much. Things were always too much. The scars on her arms were testimony to that. June wondered how her mom would feel if she knew they weren’t all self-inflicted. Some of them were, but just as many were the work of David. Every time he thought she had messed up and not remembered one of his rules, there was a circular burn scar from his cigars. June remembered when she had thought it was sexy that he smoked cigars like a man. These days she shuddered to think of him leaning back in his chair with that glint in his eyes. These days she was afraid of everything.

June looked down at the item that finished the triangle. She didn’t want to be afraid anymore. She didn’t want to wake up and wonder in what way she would misstep and anger someone. She didn’t want to be so worried that the child in her stomach was going to have the same life she did. June knew she wasn’t the prettiest girl in the world. The scars only amplified her plainness and turned it into something grotesque. There weren’t only scars on her arms, but on her face, her legs, her stomach and her chest. Some were burns and some were from blades. They were all either for having forgotten her rules or someone else’s.

As much as she wanted to, June couldn’t blame her mom. Times had always been hard and her mom had tried. She had given everything she could give. She had thought that June would be a new beginning and hoped that she could give her better then she had ever had. She had once told June that she had named her like she did, because her favorite thing had been the flowers that bloomed in the month of June. She had thought she would never see anything more beautiful than those flowers. Then she laid eyes on her precious baby girl. Alone she had given birth to her and alone she was going to raise her. It was better this way. June’s father hadn’t been any good to begin with and had disappeared three days after finding out about her conception.

June thought she could have only been so lucky if that had been David’s response. Instead he had been so proud that he had made something. As far as he was concerned, it was his accomplishment. She was just there as an accessory to it. Being the holder of his seed, new rules had been implemented. She took a sip of coffee and anther drag of her cigarette. Two of the rules had been no more nicotine and no more caffeine. More rules to remember meant more rules forgotten meant more scars and open wounds. June wiped a tear from the corner of her eye as she looked at the third item, the item that could make it all stop.

She had never held a gun before today. She had found this one in her mom’s closet when she had been cleaning it out for her. It was small and seemed heavy in her hands, much like the fetus in her stomach. Two things were so small, yet so heavy. June knew the second she picked it up this was the answer to all her problems. June knew that this would be the escape that she had so desperately needed. She had cradled it in her hands. She had figured out how to open the cartridge and found only one bullet. She had sat looking at the gun trying to determine if it would be better to kill David or her.

Sitting at the table now with her coffee, cigarette and pilfered gun, June still wasn’t sure. The thoughts raged in her head that this was the answer. One bullet would be her salvation either way. June was unsure what salvation it was she was looking for. She had been thinking about it for two weeks now and hadn’t come to a conclusion. She knew she would know today. Something in her gut told her that today was the day for her liberty. June lifted the gun to her temple.

The door creaked open. June looked up at David as he came in.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, you stupid fucking whore?”

June smiled a big smile for the first time in years. She knew what the right choice was.

A Letter

Dear World,
I have spent too many years trying to live up to your expectations. I have cried too many tears, because I have felt like I have not measured up to you.
I am done. I officially feel that if I am ever going to fly, I need to say fuck your expectations and just let go. I may falter and I may fall, but it will be on my terms, not yours.
Sincerely,
Me

Frustration. [A Minirant]

These words we say and these promises we make.
They all mean nothing in the end and the world wins.

I'm feeling punished for having my shit together once again. It's not a good place to be. It makes me question what I have faith in, be it the goodness of God or the beauty of the universe.
I try to tell myself that the world doesn't give us more than we can handle, but I also feel like everything is falling apart. It makes it hard to believe that somehow the universe and what rules it thinks that I am that much stronger than others to take all of it.
I wonder why it is I'm supposed to take it all with a smile and a good attitude though.

This comes from a place of great frustation and feeling like no one is willing to fight with me for the things that matter anymore. At the end of everything we all stand alone, but I do not want to stand alone for all the days leading up to that.