Things I want to pretend to be for a day:

One of the guys playing chess in the park

~

Ace Frehley circa 1977

~

Cirque du Soleil silk wraps performer

~

Brimbubbly

The brim of your hat reminds me of the edges
I only got to with you
I thought this was out of me by now
But I guess it's bubbled up

The getting has been got
and the storm rages on
Last week it swirled into me
Now I'm rooted in the center of it all

I watch like it's a movie
The Spring is blooming all the flowers
Leaves blow in the hope of the wind
Outside my windows
The ones you've never seen

I'm still driving down streets
Going forward and wondering why
The negative space in my paintings
Remains just a bit of texture and desiring ink

I'm staring into the world, wondering
I'm driving the streets, wishing
I'm reading the lines, wanting
I'm digging deep, hoping
I'm gripping on tightly, searching

Faith, please come to me.

Friday Nights

Here it is again.
Why does it always feel the same?
I spend golden piles of minutes contemplating the dream of when it might finally happen.
I hate to kill my hope and bright optimism, but each Friday that passes like this...
Well, I don't know if possibility is my friend anymore.
The companionship that eludes me every week.
It is easier and softer this way.
I can walk around naked. I can leave dishes in the sink.
I can listen to music loudly, read my books without interruption.
I can dance around or just turn everything off and live in the quiet for a while.

Isn't it apropos that the last time I saw your face was a Friday night?
Remnants of relationships always come in strange forms.
With you, I carry them around by a nicely conditioned leather handle.
Tonight, I found another castaway.

Just when I was getting comfortable in my old coat of solitude again.

there
it
was

Your t-shirt.
Ray started singing "You are the best thing" to me from the other room as I folded his image into a neat, cotton square.

I'd gladly return it in exchange for you back.
Happy Friday Night.

You probably think this blog is about you....

Don't you?
Don't you?

Well, no. It isn't.
It is actually about someone else.
I know you and I knew him better.

I saw essences of familiarity.
But I was still the moth.
That's my butterfly's dark side.
The cocoon I'm still trying to shed.

Maybe I'm taking the wrong approach?
I think going back into that chrysalis state might be a better option.

So back to "him."
I remember feeling a vortex pulling me across the room toward him
It was exhilarating and wonderful, but I had just gotten out of another relationship and I wanted to take it easy. I couldn't shake the feeling though...it happened every time I saw him. I knew he felt it too. That look in his eyes said it all. The ring on his finger thankfully kept me at bay. Little did I know it was just a cheap silver ring from Tijuana one of his "clients" bought him on a drunken trip in between karaoke songs.

That story went something like this: "Well, we finished our work and she wanted a drink because it was Friday night. We got kind of drunk and ended up at a karaoke bar, she was pretty good and has a nice voice. We made out in the car, she gave me a blow job and then went home to pack - she is headed to Mexico tomorrow. I told her to pick me up a silver band for my ring finger."

The stories. I think I was somewhat addicted to them. There were always stories. I became the hard-boiled detective in his film noir life. Always trying to uncover the truth. There wasn't any to be found and that was one long, hard lesson I never fully learned.

Now I am telling you, I am a damn good listener, but I had to interject at that point so I asked, "Wasn't your girlfriend waiting for you at home - I mean, it was Friday night." I didn't know it then, but this question I asked would haunt me over the next eleven years. I lived those Friday nights like I was on lockdown in Chino. He answered without missing a beat. "Oh yeah, when I got home, Rebecca was in bed with the sheets up to her chin and wouldn't speak to me. She was sitting up with her back against the wall and quietly crying, but she has that Latin pride thing going on so she didn't want me to see the tears. She knew I had gone out with Sophia, she could smell it on me."

He finished the stories like these with a Cheshire smile. He always finished the stories this way. Even when I was the main character in the story as the girlfriend. Eventually, my tragic character would have to come upon the scene live. The sneaking around, the betrayals and the lies would converge and just happen right in front of my eyes. He was truly a master magician when it came down to it. I was eternally caught in a circle of destruction and then the rebuilding of his web.

I remember the first time he touched me. It was a gentle gesture where he just reached out and picked up my hand. We were filming a scene and he was moving me over into the frame. Everyone else watched and waited for his instruction, but he just stood there and continued talking with my hand in his. I wondered if he'd let it go, but I didn't want that because it felt otherworldly. I got embarrassed when people started raising eyebrows. The energy was undeniable. That's where it all started....Eleven Years Ago.

The Pretender got the best of me little by calculated little. Come here, go away. This is the truth, now it has changed. Don't you get it? You are beautiful and amazing, you are ugly and nothing but a piece of shit. The conductor of a master manipulator orchestra filled with instruments of pain.

I want to go there and scoop up what little innocence and good I had left for him to steal. Like a bandit, I would put it all in a black velvet bag and slink away into the night...back to the future where I could deliver it to me now.

I could have used that knowledge about three weeks ago. The Pretender reared his very ugly head disguised as a pathetic and sad man crying for sympathy. I'm amazed at my ability to get suckered by anyone seeming to need love and understanding. The sad human condition of loneliness gets me every time. When he reached out and told me of his loneliness, his sadness and despair....well, I bought it and felt a twinge of empathy. The great thing was that he wasn't as effective this time. This time, my heart had you (for the moment). He quickly saw that his typical warfare was not dropping bombs as it used to. I had a light in my eyes this time. I had you on my mind this time. Our demise would unfold - you and I - but I thank you for being with me in spirit that day. You helped me more than you will ever know.

The Pretender pulled out ALL the tricks that day. He cried and begged, he told me of love lost and sadness for our friendship and history and his tears soaked my shoulder as I looked blankly off into the distance. My eyes were fixed on the clock with anticipation of you finally coming over with a few ticks and tocks. The story goes that you never showed up, but that's okay because you did your work in my heart that morning. He morphed and wretched and grew the stories tall. He threw his body into mine and this time, my armor finally worked! All the years of chinks and bullet holes had been filled in by my mysterious, unrequited love for you. I know that's why you came into my path now and I thankyouson.

The house of cards and lies from this sniveling cad came crashing down last weekend. It was horrid and terrible. His girlfriend of the moment called me crying. My heart breaks for her because she is me from eleven years past. I remember the haunting sound in her voice and her sobs so well. I know that faraway echo of betrayal and denial like it is pulsing through my veins. She doesn't want to see what is in front of her eyes. To look at the smoke and see the painful reflection, well that takes the strength of a warrior. I stood tall and weathered the storm, but he still launched his missles and they landed here. They landed on you, on my family, on my voicemail, email and social networking hellfire.

He's good. He's mad. He's got poison pulsating so furiously through his syringes and into and out of his veins. This time it spilled all over my life and dripped down even to you. If you and I had not fallen apart, well I wished your arms were still there because I would have run right into them for protection. His gameplan was to destroy you too. Anything he can destroy around me is the goal. He wants me left alone in an empty field so I'm ready for the final blow. How I gravitated toward this devilchild all those years ago - wow, what a longlasting lesson to learn. He is so dense that he didn't realize you had already removed yourself so his attempts were lame.

I don't know what else is left now. He's done all he can and I still haven't replied. I will not join this dance anymore. The words on your arm don't fool me Pretender. The Fuerza Y Amor ink could be needled down to your bones, but you will never possess either one. You could never comprehend what either of them truly mean.

...to be continued.

Ahoy

Tonight I had chips ahoy for dinner.
Mostly because I'm depressed about you.
Ahoy matey.

Who created this name for a cookie? Why are they even called this? It is like a message that is actually a warning you will soon set sail to an island of self-hatred as you shuffle the bag off to your trashcan to rid yourself of the visual evidence.
That's how my night has gone. Charming, isn't it?

I'm sinking into my memory bed and it reminds me of yours. The memory foam is creating memories I don't want to have in my head right now.
I thought I was okay before The Pretender resurfaced, went postal and got everyone to dredge up drama last weekend. Funny thing is you somehow aligned yourself unknowingly and deleted me from your life. Just when I needed you most, poof. I got mad when I read the
n o t e w o r t h y w o r d s.

I didn't like my reaction. It wasn't calm or fair. I downshifted into reactionary lashing out. It isn't nice to realize that part of me I learned from The Pretender resurfaced. I thought the battle was won there, but apparently not yet. I'm sorry it got slippery late last Friday night. I reacted and you did likewise.

What's funny about that? I start the sentence off with "funny thing is...." when it is the farthest thing from hilarity. I suppose the headache is helping me write and throw up this facade of anger right now. The core of it is really that I sobbed in the fetal position for a good hour before dozing off while my body fought off a legitimate fever. I'm hot and shaky and I have the shivers. I kept blinking and trying to figure out if anyone would miraculously come through the door to save me. Not rescue, but just maybe hold me and pat my back or my head like you did a couple times and it made me feel okay. I turned on my favorite new show In Treatment and the therapist asked his patient, "Do you have a place where you feel calm Sofie?"
I thought long and hard about that question, but I didn't want to face the answer.

So instead I got the Chips Ahoy. Gross.
I'd rather tell the answer and undo the disgusting cookie indiscretion.

I haven't felt calm in a million years. The Pretender eradicated my ability to know what calm is.
Until you, there was no relaxation. Funny thing is....there it is again....the dichotomy of complete edginess and complete calm. It kind of feels like a drug. Maybe that is why I'm having a hard time facing you deleting, blocking, erasing, rejecting and eradicating my existence.
I miss the calm.

I thought about you through my tears and my undeniably ludicrous fantasies of a savior coming home to just give me some affection tonight. I needed some arms around me or just a hand hold, just a quiet touch. You never even bothered to come here. You never cared enough to visit my world or know anything about me. On more than a couple of occasions, I put on music and cleaned the house with the best of intentions and an anticipatory smile. There was always a reason you didn't show up. Sometimes, there was no explanation at all and we both acted like it never happened.

So how could I have possibly felt any calm? We didn't even know each other.
I wanted to.
Oh boy did I want to.
Oh Chips Ahoy did I want to.

But you wouldn't let me in. You wouldn't let me love you. I still did a good job of it all by myself with hardly much to go on.

When you threw the keys down to me, they always landed in the dirt. I'd dust them off and take care to be gentle because they belonged to you and that meant something to me. I felt an odd calm there at your place. I romanticized that balcony, the sofa, your hands and the affection.
Oh, I miss it now...just thinking about it all.

But not the part where you called me creepy. I should have never looked back after that word. It makes me incredibly sad to think back on an insult like that. I was scared. I was feeling something. I was nervous. I wanted to let go and really let you see me, but I was worried about being hurt again. I was so vulnerable and these were all things that probably went through your head too, but you shamed me and called it "creepy" and "messy."

From the beginning, I couldn't get you off of my mind. I'm not doing a very good job of changing that right now either. Maybe it was all a joke anyway because the damn social networking portals and bullshit were a facade for relationship fakery anyway. Oh, I forgot, we didn't have a relationship, my apologies. Then why did I feel closer to you than anyone in over 5 years, maybe longer? Did you see it in my eyes and just urge me down the path while playing me like a brand new toy? Was it fun? Is this what you do with a multitude of them floating around your virtual ego and then picking and choosing who gets the next movie night invite? Do you go through the same routine each time or do you switch it up based on the specifics of the current "female company?"

I must be delusional or just unflinchingly hopeful. I'm not sure which is worse! I truly wanted to believe that I was somehow special to you.
I wanted to believe in your w o r d s.
Because I really believed in y o u.

I think that's why I reacted so abruptly and aggressively leaving the comment for you. It was Friday night and I could easily see another lonely weekend ahead of me. How quickly you erased the truth and erased me without even honoring our "friendship" or whatever you would allow me to title it.

You're probably laughing now at this assessment because to you, it was nothing right? I'm telling myself this perhaps because the alternative is more painful. If there was even a smidgen of something similar that you cared about, if any of your words to me were the truth and from your heart...

...then why couldn't we be real friends?
The kind that can get in the trenches and throw some hard clods at one another?
Why couldn't we weather the storm and break each other down and reveal the rawness and still be able to love all the faults and scars and ugliness? To me, you were beautiful like that. I already saw it all over you. I didn't care about your incessant, egomaniacal needs. That bullshit armor might work on most, but I knew what was underneath. I just wish you didn't have to look for a way to write me off. You were looking for it. I knew it. Couldn't you have been honest? What would have been the harm in that?

Now I'm missing a friend.
Again.
Or a non-friend- a creepy, messy non-friend.
Whatever you are or were or weren't, I'm missing you madly.
Fuck it. I miss the sex. I wish I could bypass all this bullshit and be in your bed again.
On your face. Doing that thing with your thing and then the other thing after the first thing that you did and wrapping my arm around and then some. Fuck that too, I really just want to look at your face. No fuck that, I want to look at your eyes and laugh with you. I want to play silly games and lay there and stare at each other and laugh all night. And listen to your voice and touch your skin and laugh and laugh and hug you and the laughter. Oh shit. I miss your hands.
Why is the laughter always so dangerously close to the tears?
Oh shit...now I have to go away, this is too painful.
Goodbye my lovely lost almost-something.

Mutiny and other good stuff

I am taxed and over-charged
Beyond my limits
Under the radar
Solidarity is not mentioned here
The wolf shows me her beautiful sheepskin
I'm a sucker for it every time

Your bubbles and guffaws don't fool me
Your party mentality and whatever attitude
You're merely a dolt
I went with it while holding hands with my resistance
My heart tried it out with damn good intentions
"What's wrong with a little fun?" ...it said
My head battled the whole way screaming "Mutiny!"
And kicking dents in anything it could find, mainly my skull

You will not even get the meaning of any of this
Because my words don't register in the Fuckipedia.com that exists in your head

Late Night

If only I could make a house out of unopened bills.
Better yet, a spaceship that could take me home.
Away from here.

This is an homage

This is an homage to someone I'll never see again.
Someone who changed my life. Someone who left me as easily as we found one another.
This is an homage to someone who might never know how I cried for a good 30 minutes yesterday on the side of a road. I parked in front of a white picket fence with ivy painted on the front in some attempt to make it more welcoming.

This is all I could think of through my tears on the side of that road. I was all alone with my delayed reactions to how we said goodbye forever. How obvious it was. That picket fence keeping me outside of everything I have always wanted. Those crudely painted green leaves did not fool me.

It kept playing over in my mind. How I asked for a hug as I stumbled over the word with my feeble attempt to avoid the tears. I knew they were coming up from deep inside, from the crevices of my soul. It took two years to fold myself inside out before suddenly realizing I was exposed to these elements.

This is an homage to someone.
Who gave me strength.
Who told me something no one ever says to me.

"I'm proud of you."

I miss you already, but I must gather my Queen and reign on my own now.
Goodbye.

falling in

I should cherish it, they say
if only that it was a possibility
that went astray, yes
but that it existed at all
to show me where I can go
where I will go
when it is right
so they say

and I remind myself this as I lay down at night
and I drift off with my hands clasped
together
hoping
sending out an S.O.S.
my pillow soaks and sees-thru me
the words not taking hold of my brain
even when they are repeated every night since then

since when
I
knew
I was
falling

in ....


and
the saddest part is
my heart hasn't yet figured out
that you
aren't here.

cherish the day

You're ruling the way that I move
And I breathe your air
You only can rescue me
This is my prayer

If you were mine
If you were mine
I wouldn't want to go to heaven

I cherish the day
I won't go astray
I won't be afraid
You won't catch me running
You're ruling the way that I move
You take my air

You show me how deep love can be

(sade)

3am and no one

Felt my feet movin toward the pathway
there was a moment I knew the possibility
I could just turn around and go back
go to sleep
try to dream
but the footsteps kept going and my mind
would catch up by the time I realized
I was driving down the barren streets
of
3am
last
night

and

it was fun
free
abandoned
no one
was
there

just me and my car and my music and
just me

and my thoughts of you

mixing with the comfort
the crunchy confinement
the place I know the best
that itchy coat of quiet
as the car moves forward
but my will stands still
my eyes searching
for what
for naught
for something
for a sign

I turned right
I went straight
I went fast
I put the windows down
I felt like the only one left

as I circled back
finding my way home
I wished this would never end
things would be so much easier
this
way

always
3am
and
no one

direct

..............

..my scream is so loud inside me

it has fallen in on itself

like I'm in a vacuum

Walking against time down the hall

as it stretches out, gets longer and wider

I grab onto the walls and try to inch my way



onward



the absence of audio screams in my ears

the pressure beats on my skull, trying to get in

I have become the stars

my own solar system

shooting small pieces of me into the darkness



me and my sadness

we sit on the balcony

looking at the rest of the stars up there

disconnected

utterly alone



I want to go home
..
..

knit and purl

knit and purl

................

I was walking around cold.

My spinning yarn unable to hold the knots

Necessary to complete the row.

My skin craved a cloak, not knowing it was already coated

Saturated and dripping through the pores from the toxins

Deep underneath implanted and growing roots

and sprouting up through the flesh and circumstances

The carotid innocence and cast away hopes

Under the guise of sparkling eyes and faith

What everyone tells you will surely come....someday.

The endless years of freezing and hiding underneath

The soil was dry with no room to move

My ankles cemented by the wispy tendrils holding me down

Head above the murk, I could still dream through clouds

Of despair and supreme solitary - borne of anger

Mostly toward my scars and the ability to keep cutting them open

How I tripped into your lap I am curious to know

The chasm of want I thought to be carefully disguised

Blew wide open and skinned me alive

My aching and wanting rattled through my bones

Shocking me back into possibilities

One light stroke of my hair sent off billions of dormant mines

Still I stood like a soldier, waiting for it to come, bracing

Blasts from up above, or perhaps down below this time?

My heart hoping for peace and final calm

A white flag coming to comfort me and birth

Passions or resurrect lost hopes and dare I say


love.


Only when I was enthralled, even hypnotized by that mirage

They came.

First one, then more.


Into the storm of bullets I still didn't want to believe

I had nearly talked myself out of expecting them

They taunted me and proclaimed their falsehoods

While tricking me into enough doubt, just enough to keep me waiting

So they arrive with special gifts

Just like my fear told me they would

Wrapped in a facade so beautiful

So glimmering, shiny and bright

The textile I had unknowingly crafted in the interim

Took shape and just when I realized


How warm

How soft

How smooth and promising

How comfortable it was


The bullets tore through it

Each knit blowing wide apart

My fingers reaching out aimlessly to grab it, protect it

but

One purl loosened enough to

Unravel all of it in a second

So fast even faster than it was built


My blood pouring through my chest and down

Into the feet sinking back to the bitter dryness

The ugly dank soil and the slimy roots

Wrapping their way higher this time

All the way to my knees

Pulling me back

Crushing my determination

To find some light again


While my dreaming eyes looked skyward

Triumphantly

Demanding to gaze through blinding waters

Simply trying to focus on what was once there

Even if it never was.

V e r t i g o

................

Spinning and twirling and
not finding roots and wanting them, but not knowing if they really exist.
Because how do you know if you never knew and it was all just a dream or a
fantasy or something you read in a book or saw on tv or in the movies up on the
big screen? You're supposed to identify and be the girl, the dame, the
bombshell and then what? Then you're stuck with that and it is a lonely place.
Because you want to connect and you want to be loved like the bombshell, but
you think too much.



Then you wonder to yourself, if that bombshell even ever gets love or has roots
or if she's just a prop. She's told what to do and put in her place and never
valued for too long because she's just wallpaper, she's just a prop, she's just
entertainment.



Even she doesn't know what roots are because she's fighting the longing and the
disappointment of never being something, never being real, never being valid or
taken seriously. Never seriously special in that fall through the floor,
hand-in-hand, don't ever let go of me and I got you too and we're together
against the world kind of way. The one time she found it and the one time she
let go and the one time she tried, no every time she tried, it was a tsunami of
confusion and disappointment.



She's still on the big screen and she's still beautiful and that is what she
has and that is really nothing, but she'll keep on going and trying in her
little comfort box and let them define it, let them make her and mold her and
be entertained by her.



She's still got the box when she goes home, she's still got the box and maybe
it is filled with the answers and they are small answers to larger problems and
temporary love and temporary relief. She holds on to the box because it worked
for someone else didn't it? It is all just a fantasy but she keeps hoping and
tries not to pray too much for fear of disappointment, but there's only one
thing she can count on being consistent.



It can't be held inside that box, but she still holds onto it and she slowly
walks to the parlor and gets dressed and puts on her face just to face another
day up on the big screen.....