Fractured

I'm feeling very strange and disjointed.  Which is a nice way of saying I feel like a lunatic.  I burst into tears at odd moments, I laugh at depressing ones.  I scream at friends for nothing, I cry for an hour because I fucked up an order on Amazon.  I do not feel in control of my emotions, thoughts, or reactions.

I am concerned for my future children (Wolf and Anyanka) that between me and my future baby daddy Kiki, they will be raving fucking lunatics.  I was talking to a councilor the other day, a lady I just began seeing to try to cope with the whole rape thing, and I described it like a pot of water that is just about to boil.  That's how I feel at all times.  Like any little thing is just going to make me start acting crazy.  Er.  Crazier.  We talked about different ways to calm myself down when I get to the boiling point.  But there's no thoughts once I reach that place.  Just panic and terror and aggression and rage and blinding white.  I know I'll get better.  People always say that it has to get worse before it gets better, and I guess that makes sense.  Even talking about this at all is taking me from a numb kind of denial that I find so comforting into a realm of confusion and loss.  It's bringing up thoughts and feelings from my abuse and rape at age 16, that I never really dealt with due to my entrance into drugs, and my mind's ability to suppress and splinter.  I don't want to go crazy again, I didn't like it the first time.  My first reaction is to flee, so I can just get it over with in private, have a fucking birthday party for my swimming pool, lose all sense of reality, and then reemerge once I can conform to some sense of normality again.

I dislike this whole thing.  I like control, and logic, and neat little piles.  Easily explainable feelings, and rational thought.  Ledgers with perfect little columns of numbers.  Accounting makes sense, and very little of it is really subject to interpretation.  It calms me.

Anywhoodle, now that I've terrified every last one of my readers, let's delve into the silly little thing I wrote all this as an intro for.  Or, for which I wrote an intro, if you have a problem with dangling participles.  It is a collection of sorts.  Some of them are things I wrote in my car in the rain (thus the title), some of them were sheared from works that I started and then realized were never going to come together coherently.  Some of them were just little remnants of dreams that stayed on the tip of my tongue and needed a place to go.  All of them are not great, and none of them are ever going to go much further.  But I suppose that's a given.  Now before I start to get randomly depressed and have to flee, here's this thing.

Bits and Kibbles (Also titled: Thoughts while driving in the rain)
 
Nostalgia, you bitch.  She is a cruel and wicked mistress.

Our bodies slam together, and the resounding crash of thunder fills my backseat.

You are so beautiful when you cry.  So angelic, such color in your cheeks.  At least if you stay with him you'll always be pretty.

Let's make sweat angels in the sheets.

Are you ruined forever for everyone from our torrid entanglings, or I am the only one doomed?

"Guilt is a useless emotion," she tells me.  So I won't waste either of our time apologizing.

It was strange, after all these years of living here, she had never really looked at the ceiling of her front hallway in such depth.  The first time they had sex with each other it was like an explosion of flesh and sweat and noise and soft whispers afterwards that only ended when they had fallen blissfully into sleep.

I know you feel like you can never get any taller, do any better.  But if I let you stand on my shoulders, will you leave her?

Put that itchy finger on my trigger, and we'll shoot the sky.

The bright red eyes of the car before me stare at me through droplets on my glass.

We complete our backroom handshake, and the indiscretions can continue unopposed.

I can't tell you to stop, because that's the only way I know for certain that you never will.

My tender lovely mirage.  Will you be as wet as you look when I finally reach you?

Dirty thoughts squander behind the dark red velvet curtains in the whorehouse in my head.

Inhalation

Does love ever really go away?  The older and (debatably) wiser I get, the more I want to tell myself that it does.  That we grow up and that old soft tugging on the chestular innards will just dissipate until we no longer sit around mopey on occasion at the thought of those wretched ancient flames.  But I don't think it does.

There was a drug I used to do, and it's been years and years since I've even seen the stuff, but I still find myself craving it from time to time.  Which is a nice way of saying I crave it at least once a day.  Sometimes I'll get a taste in the back of my throat or my hair will stand up on end and I'll think about it, and I'll WANT it.  I spoke a while back to a friend of mine who has also been clean for many years, and I asked him if the cravings ever went away.  He said he had once asked an old man this, a man that hadn't gotten high in 30 or 40 years.  Apparently the old man said that he still had cravings, every single day.  I know I'll never do it again, but I still have the cravings, and when I'm in a period of high stress, I sometimes cling to the thought of it.  That if my life ever gets so bad I can't cope anymore, I can always just go find some.

I know this is a strange way to say it, but I think love is the same way.  Sometimes I'll go for months without thinking of it, and then some nights I can't get it out of my head.  And in times of dire anxiety and high-pitched wailings of anger and stress, I find my thoughts turning back to it once again, like a safety net.  I can't stand the thought of clinging to a tumultuous past, but it IS like a drug, and those ancient fires still burn bright.  No, I don't spend my nights dreaming about those old lovers anymore, and I don't make elaborate plans in my head for ways of making it work again.  But it is always there, like a rat in a bucket clawing its way into my chest. (Too much Game of Thrones)

I've been avoiding posting this next piece, for many reasons.  I don't want to look/feel frail, and this makes me appear so.  It's exceedingly personal, and not in a cute or flattering way.  In a... glimpse into the mind of a madwoman kind of way.  But I'm nothing if not an honest person, and I try my damnedest to be an open book.  So in that spirit, here is a thingy I wrote long ago about a particular love that I fucked up, ran my car over, and backed up and did it again.

Scientific Findings of the Heart
 
Curled up in a ball at the bottom of the shower, the tears on my cheeks feel hotter than the water.

I was only a baby. I was such a child when I destroyed everything. But would you punish a child who broke a dish for the rest of her life? Forever ever?

No, I'm wrong. I was heart-broken before I even started dating. I was broken, I am not a whole woman. And the more I fuck up, the more pieces get chipped away.

My writings sound like 14 year old diary entries.

Stop it. Stop haunting me. It's been so long, go away. Stay away from my friends, stay away from my dreams, stay out of life. Or dear god, get in it. Burrow your little head into my life until all you see is the inside of me and all I see is that I am full of you.

Just say you forgive me. Just SAY it. I don't care if you mean it. (Yes I do. I care very much.) I want to be forgiven. I want to know that my reckless stupid dish-breaking child self didn't ruin your life. Like I ruined so much (all) of mine.

I feel pathetic for having feelings. Other people don't. They don't smile or frown, they talk about the traffic on the way home, what they had for dinner, their kid's first tooth. Their dish-breaking children. I want to be strong/robotic. I want to be cold and calculating. (STOP! Cold and calculating is what got you into this mess!) No. I was only a baby. I didn't know.

I wish I could still smoke away all my feelings. Puff puff pass those emotions to the next person, in a stream of beautiful clouds exhaling from my lips.

Instead I get to write 14 year old diary entries. A 14 year old with an advanced degree in English (You never went to college).

Science. Go back to the science. You titled this damn piece for a good reason. Science sez! I just had a dream about you. I haven't been a broken woman all these years, I just had a dream. And I'm hungry, which makes me a little emotional. And I watch/play/read/listen to beautiful things, and think that means that my life should be full of beautiful things and people that love me and romantic gestures and happiness, because I can't conceive of the difference between beautiful fiction and my life. Back up. Back to the facts. Tears are hotter than water. You were a child. You are hungry, and have bad (beautiful) dreams. Eat. Avoid sleep, where he haunts and smiles and pretends you never killed him.

Everything will be fine. Or it won't, and you'll die.

Guest Post #2

(Words are hard to come by these days.  Either they come out too gravitationally heavy, or light as a feather comments on the new DLC for Skyrim.  So while I work on healing, I'm passing the torch for this post over to Racy, a master chef, a dear friend, and a brilliant diamond of a person.  If I were ever going to become a serial killer, I would want her by my side.  -E)

All of us are lost until we are found, but most of us never find ourselves. Life is a, well, lifelong journey of expression and discovery, pain and despair, love, loss, anger, confusion. We all seem to be falling endlessly down (or up) this iconic rabbit hole and sometimes it feels like no matter which direction we reach in, we can’t seem to find a surface to grab on to. I’ve been finding lately that when you make a conscious decision to start digging- really digging- inside of yourself, sometimes you can be astonished, terrified, and liberated by what you might find. And sometimes you find a hidden person; maybe it is your child self, the self you wish to be, or even the self you have always been too scared of to let into the light.

Recently I’ve been coming to terms with the notion that if I ever want to really understand myself and why I am the way I am, I have to do the hard work to uncover my darkest memories, my deepest desires, and stare directly into the side of me I have always been too ashamed of to acknowledge. When you suddenly find yourself standing face to face with your greatest fears, part of you wants to run as far away and as fast as possible, but the other is paralyzed in fear and curiosity, and I’m beginning to believe that just because what you see might be broken, damaged, or torn, it is the withered part, the warped side of yourself, that can show you the most beautiful secrets in life. This little piece of writing kind of fell from my soul and onto the paper through my fingertips, and without intending to, gave me yet another little peek at the person hiding behind my eyes. Thanks to Emmy for letting me bogart her blog for an afternoon, I hope you enjoy!

The Looking Glass
 
I wonder, do you know who I really am? Can you see the darkness in my eyes like I can see in yours? Can you see how deep it goes? Because I see you; glorious, with wings black like the beetle. Under the peach of your skin I see the hot blood pumping, I can hear your heart beat too fast. I see you, Monster. Do you see me? Am I a mirror into the depths of your own well? I see each crease in your flesh like the rings in the trunk of a fallen tree, do you see my markings- the scars from touching too many flames? Are we equals or have we concocted this lie out of dried petals from the Autumns Crocus, spools of silver, the whispers of Cetus from beneath the waves...Again I ask- do you know how far this goes? Have you thrown the pebble and heard it's echo? I have danced with heavy feet naked against the cracked earth and watched my blood turn to mud as we became one with sacrifice. I find solace in the silence that fills the wake where breath should be, and in the dwindling of the spark in an eye. Are you afraid, Monster? Would you hide from my lips, teeth barred? Will you shrivel up in a grey cloud of smoke or will you turn to stone when I unleash? Are you afraid yet, Monster, he who is I? Do you see me now?

Support

We are about to get real up in this hizzy.  And by "real" I mean I'm gonna talk about a bunch of super serious stuff, and then pepper it with stupid words like hizzy to try to not be so fucking cliche and SUPER SERIAL all the time.

So, as I said in this post, something happened recently that has been a bit hard to talk about/deal with.  Last time I went back to my home town, I got raped.  And I spent the last two months trying to cope with it on my own, because I'm a strong lady and I've tackled shit this bad before on my own and been fine.  But after a few key instances of pushing people away that cared about me, and one fabulous man yelling at me that I was not coping as well as I was pretending, I decided to get some help.

I've been going to a support group for a few weeks now, and tonight was the first night I really let myself talk instead of sitting on the couch listening to everyone else and trying not to black out.  We didn't really delve into much, but we did scratch the surface of why I've been so hesitant to talk.  I told them that I was asleep during the assault, and because it wasn't a big violent incident I felt like an asshole complaining to these women who had had to be hospitalized, or could never have kids again.  I also mentioned that because it was so recent, I felt like MY problems could wait while we talked to someone who had been trying to cope for 20 years.  Everyone was super supportive (as you would expect in a support group), and the facilitator mentioned that this was very indicative of a deeper lying issue wherein I never thought my problems were big enough or bad enough, and that I tended to put other people's issues first.  She surmised that I often had trouble asking for help or things that I needed in my life.  It was then made abundantly clear to me that despite all my notions of healing and coping, I am still very much in shock over the entire event.

The facilitator was actually pretty wonderful and perceptive, like when she perceived that I had spoken enough and was completely frozen and vacant, she moved on to someone else.  I really feel like this group is helping me a lot, but every week I get these little panic attacks and don't think I can go.  And OH MAN, when I get out of group, normal everyday people start talking about problems, and I just want to scream "Your problems are stupid!".  Because really, the weather being shitty or your shoe being untied really strikes me as minor when these lovely ladies are trying to cope with sexual assault.  But like I kept telling myself tonight, this isn't a competition.  Everyone has problems.

Anywho, I might have lied about the peppering of funny things, because I guess I had a lot of super serial things to say.  And I'm sure I might talk about this more in the future, but I'm going to try to stick to dumb things like boys and world domination plans.  This is a dumb blog about dumb writing, and I'm going to try to stick to that.  So in that vein, here's this thing I wrote roughly two years ago, when I was feeling a bit introspective and mean, which is never a good combination.

I am
 
I am so tired, and can't sleep.
I am a loud angry obnoxious redneck with weird girl emotions and a penchant for cruelty.
I am not stable.
I am an exceptionally nerdy ex-drug using slut.
I am a literary genius, and a fucking slob.
I cuss too much, I smoke too much, I drink too much.
I cry too much.
I am loyal to a fault, but I flee from people who actually give a shit.
I am a fast driving woman with claws.

I am letting insomnia rot my brain.

Boil and Bubble

Lately I have been a woman filled with rage.  I had a big screaming fight the other day where I actually got all up in the other person's face and and yelled and cussed and threatened and made hitting motions with my hands.  That kind of thing makes me nauseous to even think about.  I've never really been a violent person.  I've only ever punched like... 3 dudes, ever.  One called me fat, one was rude to an ex of mine, and one threw a knife at me.  I know the feeling when the rage builds up inside of you and you feel like your skin is 100 degrees and the siren in your head starts to wail, and usually I force myself to step away from the situation before anything severe can happen.  I'm not really in control of myself in those situations, and I'm terrified to find out how far I'll go.

Back in high school (oh so long ago!) I got sent to an anger management class after a nasty little incident in which I might have mentioned a gun.  More on this story later.  I ended up getting kicked out of the class because the other people and the councilor were afraid for themselves.  It also ended up getting me kicked out of high school, but again, that is a long story for a later date.

My mom is the kind of person that will blow up easily, but just as easily forgive and forget.  Unfortunately, I inherited my father's rage, which is always right under the surface, ready to explode.  And the grudge-keeping, I got that too.  Which is something I've been trying to get over in the past few years.  When I moved away from the dark dank little chloroformed town of my upbringing, I really struggled to let it all go.  All of the pent-up hatred, all of the WAY too long kept infatuations, I really did strive to let it melt away.  And for the most part it did.  I'm now friends with a lot of the people I wanted dead because of decade old incidents.

And then something happened recently (again, I'll probably delve into it in a later post when I can talk about it) that made that old familiar rage come swimming back and made my eyes see red.  And I think I've forgotten how to cope with it.  I've been compulsively cleaning and organizing, making lists, scrubbing things clean that I've never even used.  I really just need to go to the gym and work off some of this frustration, but I'm terrified that I'll hit that exercise endorphin releasing moment and wail like a fucking banshee.

I wrote this next thing a few years ago when I was coming to terms with the stores of hate like blubber in my body.  It's pretty typical of every dumb thing I write, too much imagery, no content, sexual undertones, overuse of metaphor, and absurd references.  But it seemed to fit with my current mood, and this blog is nothing if not an excuse to log all of my failed writing attempts for the world to see, like public self-flagellation.  So here's my version of tying myself to a post and getting punched.

E can't write a novel, just a few good lines

Boasting, Bragging, Bravado.
But really just a timid girl afraid of what she might be, of the anger and violence she sees under the pale translucent skin of her chest. The pills numb, but never forget. And my cheekbones keep insisting that I'm fucking fine.

Just like Rivers with his butterfly, I destroyed the only beautiful thing to ever touch my life. I want to roll naked in the dirt, to cleanse my sins with earth as water never has. I want to consume you. I want your thighs to be my canvas. I dream of snakes and lizards and think of your body, your silent stare. I bite my thumb and pray the end is bloody and near.

Bucket of shells

It's summertime in Texas!  And yeah, it's only in the low 90s, so I can actually go outside and not die, but it still makes me super happy.  I LOVE the crazy hot weather.  Summertime makes me not want to do anything, except sit beside a pool I can't really swim in, and bake blackberry cobbler, and drink margaritas.  Obviously not all at the same time.  That would be DISASTROUS for the cobbler.

I guess the "not wanting to do anything" part might be why I failed all my classes last summer.  Whoopsie.  Anyhow, I'm feeling a bit depressed and a bit stressed out and a bit lonely, and betrayed and hurt and abandoned, and that is not conducive to good super-villain behavior.  I need to feel powerful and indestructible and motherfucking shiny.  Ironically, powerful me doesn't write well.  Not that I write well no matter what, but that's beside the point.

So here's this thing I wrote a few years ago in the wintertime, that's partly about my lust for summer, and partly (shockingly enough) about a boy.  I think.  Honestly at this point I don't even remember which boy it was about, so he must have not been as important as my love affair with Texas summer.  Or money.  Or fame.  Or power.  Or caffeine.

Filmed in amazing technicolor

The sharp frigid wind whistles through trees and softly whispers, "I love you."  But the sentiment is, like always, not shared.  I'd rather have the abuse of the sun, beating down on me, pounding away at my flesh until I'm a gooey pile of sweaty muck.  The scarf choking my neck and the heater in my car are my barriers, blocking the way for that old lover in the night, the one that sneaks in my window and grazes my back with his fingernails.  My heart like a migraine expands in my chest until it's pressing so hard against the walls that I feel like I might explode, if only he would take another step to me.  But it's not possible, the night is only to be alone.  No ripping off of clothes and dancing naked in the moonlight, no passionate glances between the fog of smoke that I exhale into the ever-growing space between us, no singing with the grass.  No little spaceheater lying beside me in bed and saying beautiful things to me.  No, the cold is for the loner.  The ones that have no shoulders and hips and thighs and soft little wristbones to kiss under blankets.  If only my brilliant sun would come back, abuse and all.  If only I could feel the heat of his love, the smell of chlorine and rapidly warming beer and hot pavement and cheap plastic pool toys to save me from this freezing lover that somehow only makes me feel lukewarm.

On love

I'm currently a little hungover from watching people pretend to be Irish last night, so if this post is a little dumber than most of them, well... blame the green beer.

I've been thinking about love.  To be more precise, I've been thinking about the different kinds of love.  The love you feel for a friend, for an ex, for your (ADORABLE) 4-year old cousin.  I've been thinking about how powerful love is, and how it makes us do stupid things, and crazy things.  I've had a lot of conversations as of late about love, and how it's not all that matters, but it's like 90% of what we think about.

I'm having problems putting what I want to say into words, for two reasons.  One, I can't really get too detailed about the things I've been seeing and hearing and thinking, because this is the internet and I don't want to put people on the spot.  But mostly I'm having trouble because anything I could say about love sounds trite as shit.  I've typed out and deleted so many paragraphs, because I say something that was really heartfelt and honest and then I realize it's the lyrics to a fucking 80's song.  Love really DOES stink.

Here's my stance.  Everyone in your life, and I mean every single person, will fuck you over eventually.  It is an inevitability.  The only questions are when they will do it, and how badly they will do it.  Once you come to this realization, everything gets a lot easier.  You get less crushed when people you love hurt you, because it was bound to happen.  You remove the illusion of perfection that we as a culture have seemed to drape over every relationship due to romantic movies and Disney princesses.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you should never love, or never trust.  I'm just saying that loving and trusting are a lot easier to do when you come to terms with this simple fact.  Forgiveness becomes not a long painful process, but a reasonable logical evaluation.  And once you get past the betrayal, you can move on as closer friends/lovers, knowing that that part is over.  Unless they turn out to be one of those jackasses that continue to betray your trust and love and respect, and then you stab them in their sleep.

I wrote these next few short pieces as mini-love letters.  Granted, I think the first one I wrote was about my car, but a girl has certain priorities.  These were all just little dorky things I penned out on a napkin at 3 am, or a sticky note at work.  Re-reading them, it blows my mind that I never wrote one for an actual boyfriend.  I'm going to change the names to protect the innocent, but darlin, ain't none of my friends innocent.

Elementary

She sighs, and exhales a thin stream of gray-blue smoke while she clutches her gin and tonic to her breast; it is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.  Calm, cool, collected, she is my voice of sanity in an insane world.  Why she giggles, only I know, and why she hugs herself in times of need.  A warm red-purple gemstone is only a symbol, an icon of my deep intense love.  Her long legs peek out from under a short dress that flaps in the breeze of her joy of life.  I crave her company as I crave air.  My fiance, my confidant, my lady-in-waiting of a better life.  You make me breathe, in this smog of a new city.  You are my shining light.

Giles

I grip you tightly with my small hands as you drive me faster and faster until we are both flying. I run my fingers all over you, your smooth curves, your rough edges. I melt. It makes me unconsciously smile every time I see you shining under the hot summer sun. It was love at first sight, I wanted you. You are everything I've ever wanted and from the moment I first laid eyes on you, I knew you had to be mine. I know I've been in a dark place for a while and I've neglected your needs more than I should have, but you never failed to fulfill mine. When I am with you I am warm, comfortable, safe. You ARE my perfect drug.

Pickle

Your bubbly effervescence radiates out of you in clouds from your springy curls down to your perfectly painted toenails, and lifts my heart. The glow of your smile, the bounce in your step, the random songs that burst out of you, they all are precious to me. You are a warm blanket in a cold and desolate town, the cool breeze rolling across this lonely desert life. You are the Marian to my Lucivar, the Fred to my Wesley, the Jenn to my Abe. I would go to the ends of the earth for you, you make me happy to be alive. You are my sister, my mother, my daughter, my best friend, my other half.
Thank you.

5 by 5

Sitting in my lap, she giggles and leans over to whisper softly in my ear. As her chocolate brown waves fall over our faces I see through her drunken milky eyes that she loves me. My tiny hero. She finds me when I'm lost, and helps me dance until all the pain and sadness fall away like our clothing after a long night. She is four feet of power, and packs a punch that finds it's way directly to your soul. My normally adequate sense of language fails to describe the way she has her claws in my heart, the way her tinkling laughter makes me feel, the pull I feel when I'm away. I want to hold her until I die.