Decoy Anger

I feel emptied, and not in the clean kind of a way.  I feel emptied like a pre-prohibition housewife, when rent is due, and her breadwinner has drank all their bread.  She knows they are going to get kicked out of their flat and the children are screaming, so she just does laundry.  I feel wrung dry, twisted and turned, roughly scraped and pulled, as if someone else is trying to take out their aggression on me, and then I remember the Buddha, and I want to wring him out like the laundry for reminding me that it's always, only me.  I am the wet towel, housewife, and the chore.  A wet towel, who sometimes picks fights because of my own insecurities.  I feel like you don't love me, and I'd like to fight about it.  I feel insecure, so I would like to speak with you about which house chores you don't do, and about which ones you don't do good enough.  Decoy anger is all the rage at Nordstroms this holiday season.
 

Aftermath of a fight/the drama of my thoughts

I hope you are happy alone.

Feelings swept under the rug as my words flow out of my mouth wrap around your ears and are met with silence.

I hope you are happy alone

On your phone and computer while I make dinner, do the dishes, and clean up; singing songs to myself, dancing by myself.

I hope you are happy alone.  

No one to respond to you when you are sad and depressed, head on my lap, my hand in your hair.  In these moments you need me, yet do not think about those times when I also need you.

I hope you are happy alone.

Mismanaging your finances without care or regard.  Negative bank account time and time again because of inattention, and ignorance.  

I hope you are happy alone. 

No longer kneeling on Himeros’s alter a broken man bringing the baggage of his youth lugging his mother’s attitude towards sex into the present moment, and coming up flaccid. 

I hope you are happy alone. 

As my prayers go unanswered, and my cries for attention are ignored; my eyes and voice asking for a morsel of you, and being denied time and time again.

I hope you are happy alone, as I am no longer happy with you.    

Co-worker

She sits in the corner absorbed in her task.  Her round bottom amply cushioning her body on a chair made of wooden slats that creaked with movement.  Her curly brown falls across her face as her nose wrinkles and rumples, as if aware that it fell, and she responded with nose movements, not willing to set her scissors down to deal with the nuisance.  I feel like I can see through her sometimes.  Out of the goodness of the heart people speak and it's too easy to read the subtext.  I see the battle you face with authenticity and the demons in your head.

She is one of those people who when you meet them first impressions are everything.  I thought she was funny and clever, but as the day turned into days, and the hours turned into a vortex of time that I stopped paying attention to, she began to annoy me.  In the beginning she was hilarious, full of impersonations and voices.  Oh man her New York Dad impressions complete with accent and body movements cracked me up, but her material eventually ran out.  Sometimes when she would repeat stories, or if a new person came to join the group I wondered if she also noticed how little she truly had to say.  No matter the content she seemed to feel the need to talk, all the time.  Silence seemed to scare her, and in the beginning we all participated in her conversations, but after a while I think we all became tired of our own voices, so we ended conversations, or were slow to respond, social niceties died and eventually we ignored her.  She still talked, she would bribe the dog with crackers and treats seemingly just to have a conversation buddy, a warm body that still responded to her.

3 ring circus

Being in a relationship is such a roller coaster for me.  My head can be crazy.  There are those moments when my partner is so perfect, so kind, so giving, so sweet to me, that I know beyond doubt that he has nothing but good intentions towards me.  In these moments I see the pureness, and vulnerability in his heart and I am blown away that I, of all humans, have been entrusted with his gift.  I try to remember these moments, because there are also moments where I get off from a fucking ten hour shift and the fucking sick is full of dishes a-mutha-fuckin-gain, and he is (adorably) watching a movie.  I know he also worked, but fuck if only I didn't care that the sink was full of dishes and I could just let it go, but I know if I don't do the fucking dishes then in the morning I will wake up to the offending sight and I will have to calm down again, so I do it, and it's a mental circus.  The trapeze artist says "he's just doing it to piss you off", the lion tamer comes up with angry retorts, manipulations to warp this wonderful man into my willing slave  Yes, I can make him think it's his idea and that it's a good idea if I just do or say this.  I have finally become the ringmaster in my head, so I work on staying present.  Right now I am breathing, my right arm is reaching to grab the plate and my left hand is scrubbing it, clockwise, now counterclockwise.  Can I feel a difference in the different directions?  The water feels nice.  I relax into the sound and feel of moving warm water.  Mmmm I bought myself dish soap that I liked for these moments; lavender, yes I do love this smell.  I have not "won" a battle here.  I have managed to focus on something else.  Because at the end of the day I know he's not trying to hurt me, and I am 100% responsible for myself, so if only the circus extravaganza in my head would get in line under new management.  It is a daily struggle for me, a daily battle.  I have been in relationships with men child.  I have wanted to control and mother said men child.  The demons from my past haunt me.  I still carry wisps of anger and fear from past relationships.  They show up in an over-reaction.  Like on a night before this one where I literally screeched at the man I love because the house was messy, and doesn't he know I work hard too, and like it's all my fucking responsibility...I just can't fucking do this again.  Old relationship wounds carved daily into my heart like Anna, this girl I went to middle school with who carved "punk rock" into her skin everyday with a safety pin.  Watching the scab open and bleed let me know lunch was over; time to get back to work.  Same with this.  When I find myself in these moments of insanity, of craziness I remind myself that it is time to get back to work, and sometimes I honestly miss being so unaware that it was all "his" (there were multiple "his") fault.  Because work is work, but in the end it has made me into the kind of woman who can have a relationship with this beautiful, vulnerable, wonderful, handsome man creature, who couldn't give less of a fuck if there are a few dishes in the sink.  

I am trying to write everyday. but without a computer it seems to be difficult. Today I had a beautiful day. I love being by myself. I woke up early and went to get a cup of coffee and read poetry. Although I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a poet, I do think I live a beautifully poetic life, or maybe I just view my life poetically. Anyway sometimes I am struck by the differences in people in different locations. Traveling around the states different people in different areas of the United States have different ways of interacting with each other and the world. In Alabama they have Southern hospitality, they will feed you, say hello, and if they're going to insult you, they do it beautifully. Why bless her little heart, it's not her fault she's giving away the milk for free, don't we all remember what her mother was like? (Scandal) In Chicago everyone I met was friendly and inclusive. It was a city mainly of implants from elsewhere and people, remembering what it was like to be the new kid on the block, made an effort to include me. I didn't have to prove myself first to be someone's friend; they allowed me into their life tentatively and let me prove myself through involvement. In Colorado people were more outdoorsy and where I lived they were two extreme opposites of each other. People were either Gawd-fearin' right wing Republicans, or hippie anti right wing lefters. In New Mexico there is forever the manana attitude, don't do anything today or right now that you can do later ;) This drives my dad crazy as he was raised as a military brat and punctuality is next to....? Even within the cities I have lived in the neighborhoods house different groups of people who choose to portray themselves a certain way. Today, in a different neighborhood then my own my reverie was interrupted as this woman seemed insistent on greeting me with a hello. :)

I was reading Niki Giovanni.  The passion she feels in life and love touches my soul. "There are so many new mistakes for a lady of pleasure that can be made it shouldn't be necessary to repeat the old ones" "Show me someone not full of herself and i'll show you a hungry person" I love how she folds language around her ideas, simply, beautifully. So often I read her poetry and I know that I am not special, that I have felt what she has written, and so have so many others. I feel like I am living the life of poetry to feel these things and think these things that I am reading.

Reading her makes me want to write. I feel inspired, poetic, and beautiful...what a way to spend a Saturday.

How I love.

I am not one who loves linearly.

I love in the moment and I love fully, but my future does not exist yet, and therefore in my future I have no love. I still need to create it and feel it. In my present I project our love into my future, but it is as delicate as a spider's web; strong for its purpose but easily swept away by an unanticipated rain. I want to write this because I can not tell you this, so I write it to put it out into the universe. I will not break our hearts unless it becomes necessary, but I will not promise that it won't happen. I have broken my heart before. Ripped it atrophied, yet still beating out of someone else's chest and shoved it back into myself. It was in too much shock to love even me for a while. I hated myself for hurting him, I loved him, but my survival instinct is too deep for any romantic interest to over rule it. When my self was threatened I did what any animal would do. I sacrificed a part for my whole. I fought and gnashed my teeth and ripped it out of the lion that had hosted my heart. I was too much of a compliant lamb to look ahead to where I was being lead. Too young to know myself and the meanings of my gifts.

I love thoughtfully.

Before I could love you I thought about you. I thought about what kind of a man you are, and how you present yourself to the world, and how the world views you back. I thought about the sides of yourself you have only shown me. I develop a cohesive three dimensional view of people before I can decide if I love them, but in the end, with all that thought. I love animalistically with feeling. My intuition reacts to you and then as time goes on my reason understands it.

I love sensually and singularly.

When I love someone I love the five aspects of themselves. I could write pages full of my love of your ever changing scent, touch, taste, sight, sound. You are so three dimensionally in my life and memory that even when you are not there I can easily recall you, how you make me feel, and what we are together. That is why no one else will do. No one else can fulfill the multi-layered desire I have for you. My want for you consumes me, and I know anyone else would be a paltry shadow and could never satisfy the wants I have, as only you could satisfy that for me now.

I am not scared of breaking my own heart, but I am scared you might. I am also scared I might break yours, yet for this beautiful present we are in together I am willing to take the risk.