The Fetish

She bleeds on the page
it pours in red rivers
spiraling down the whiteness
a stark contrast of solid and wet
but it is just a page
what makes it exceptional is
the red,red blood

It's the heart that does it
Pumping the life juice into the palms of her hands
the same heart that makes love seem so
attainable
and yet not

The same heart that connects
foolish syntax
from heart to head
back and forth
in and out of balance

Each day the veins crack open anew
tears and jagged edges
burn and rip
until the veins are open enough
so that she will write

She will write and bleed
a cadence of ups and downs
a means of remaking paper and pen
computer and keys
blank, white screen
endless possibilities

It is her fetish
Her strange kink of pleasure and pain
Endless yes and thus
so full
so very full of hope

Thinking too much

There is this stale bitterness in the back of my throat.
A vivid, intensely heavy feeling in my chest.
The sense of longing doesn't ever seem to go away.
Maybe that is an aspect of humanity, the need, the desire to have connections.
Yet we are meant to be confident, independent, not needing these things. So I am doing my best to ignore it.
I thought I have grieved enough, but apparently there is more...

In other news I am getting back into a new college regimen. This one will be different. I'll be working and I"l be working out. I also did a few online.
I am so sure I should be reading by now, but I have this ache inside of me, and I figured I'd just write it out.

Can you feel the little pieces?
They are scattered in the wind
Tiny purple, pink, and blue hearts..

They float away and as you try to reach for them you realize
they cannot, will not stay

the pieces break down again
now little ripped shreds glitter in the sun

the last of their time

but we are humans and this is life
so it's time to move past
always going forward
always driving toward the end

we live for living
what else is there?

I wanna be Ms. Frizzle

Picture this... 

 

You're standing in front of a crowd of people, and you were assigned to give a speech. This is your first time. Your hands are sweaty, your chest heavy, and you're wondering if you practiced the speech you wrote enough times to memorize everything right. 

You begin, fumbling along the speech, but you get through it, until your closing words, which you get completely backwards!

It's too late though because you messed up and now you're mentally calculating the quickest exit out. 

Then, surprise of surprises the crowd roars in applause. "Congrats on the misstake! You'll do better next time! Great job messing up!" No judgement, only encouragement. 

It's beautiful isn't it? Unfortunately, you're not likely to see it happen. 

  I think about the many times I've cried over the sorry state of my world. People don't understand each other, and few truly make the effort to do so. There is constant fighting over ego. Everyone wants to be on top, when I always thought that the world was round. Everything in a circle so that no one is on top, some may be closer to one side of the circle than others, and so they are wiser more capable. Yet essentially we're all the same. All on even playing grounds. We're all here to learn!

Understanding Regret

  I have solemnly sworn to have no regrets. It's a goal I am working on. To let go of the past and step into the future. Yet it is a tricky endeavor if I keep pounding into myself. Thats why I joined the 31 day self love challenge, so I can learn how to reprogram the way I think. It's got me thinking though on what I want to teach and why.

  I want to teach people how to not regret. To recognize mistakes as an opportunity to learn instead of a punch to the ego. Only if we let go of ego can we find happiness. I truly believe we are all meant to find it. If only we believe. 

  Celebrate mistakes! Throw a friggin party, enjoy that you messed up and now you know how NOT to approach a situation. Doesn't it make sense that we are born without instructions so we can't get everything right at first? Once upon a time we were toddlers. We said words incorrectly until we were corrected and finally understood the correction, or we listened to the words enough time to make the corrections ourselves. We learned to crawl and to walk under the same principle and that is this. Keep going, keep moving forward, learn from the mistake and you wont have to repeat it!  If you look at it this way there are no regrets.

Ms. Frizzle

  Depending what generation you're coming from you might understand my analogy. However, for those that don't know about my idol teacher, I'll explain.  Ms. Frizzle is a fictional character in a series called "The Magic School Bus" which was a television series and also a series of childrens books. Ms. Frizzle was a classroom teacher who also happened to have her own magic. Whenever there was a problem needing solving or a concept needing to be learned she'd call for a field trip on her magical bus. The class went to prehistoric times, inside the body, into the ocean etc. What I absolutely love about Ms. Frizzle was that whenever someone did something incorrectly she would chime "Thats it! Take chances and make mistakes".  Ms. Frizzle was a sage of the classroom. She understood that through error can we make connections and learn what works. There is never only one correct way to do something. 

  I want to be Ms. Frizzle. I want to teach the value of a mistake and encourage retrying. I sincerely hope the rest of the world follows suit. In the coming times of mass communication and global education it is high time to approach education in a way that promotes the diverse population of students. We are all students in life and when you stop learning you stop living. Lets stop beating up ourselves and each other for screw ups. Can't we? 

Take chances! Make mistakes! By all means, live. 

Love Prohibited

As of the first, I have committed myself to a thirty one day love challenge.
The information for the challenge can be found here, any time of the year.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1532973040295644/?ref_notif_type=event_mall_reply&source=29

Today is day three, in which I am asked to look into the mirror and telling myself these things:

You are loveable.
Your worth is not measured in the size of your body.
You have purpose.

Now to write about my experience!
I sat in front of the mirror timidly. Looking at myself, really looking has always been a problem to me. I don't like how I am so quick to zero in on the flaws and make mental remarks about them. However, I was prompted not to look at my face, to focus on my eyes.
So I hunched over the sink. Tilted my head just so...
The first thing I noticed is that my eyes are allot warmer colored than I realized. They're like melted chocolate, deep brown, with a hint of caramel undertones. My pupils dilate, and I see myself.
I really see.
Anger
I see how angry I am. Angry that I have to do this in order to help myself. Angry that I can't just already love myself, I couldn't just already be okay. Anger that I feel shame.
I push past the anger and I say "You are loveable."
My eyes water... so I say it again, feeling that familiar ache in my chest. "You are loveable" I repeat. "I am loveable."
"You're worth is not measured with the size of your body... " I repeat it.
What was that last bit? I check on my phone at the prompt, then I look in the mirror again, noticing my shaggy brows, the freckles on my cheeks, then commanding myself to look past the tired rings under my eyes. I look deeper. I look into my eyes, which are hungry for this. Hungry for what I am about to say next. Needing to at least hear the words, if they cannot yet believe.
"You have purpose" I say.
I know... my eyes return back at me. I know....Where have you been?
And suddenly I remember myself as a skinny little wide eyed girl. I used to stand in the mirror for hours modeling. Selling myself my own toothbrush or soap in my own make believe commercials. I was made fun of for it, but I didn't care then, I was just having fun.
"momma" I say to myself
But I push those memories away. Or I try to, but in the back of my head I say Momma.. why?
Why can't you help me? Why was I hurt and no one did anything to stop it? 
Tears roll down my cheeks.
There isn't an answer.
Yet, I sit here, typing this to you and feeling accomplished. For the first time in a long time, I looked in the mirror, and instead of telling myself I'm too fat, my nose is too big, I'm too yellow, my hair is too wild and crazy.. I shut that nasty part of me, that nasty mentality that only seeks to render me into pieces. I shut it down and for a moment, I lifted myself up.

What whiteness means to me

  Let me just first start off with this little explanation. First, and foremost, I make every effort to consciously remain objective in regards to race. However, my feelings behind it are often subjective. I have been a victim of bigotry and as a result, my mind takes it's opinions based off experience. This is just natural.***

I am made increasingly aware of my own whiteness.
It has always been so. Growing up I was not allowed to forget that I am one of the palest among my siblings. I am still not.
  When I was in elementary school, I had a kindergarten teacher who automatically assumed I was white. Her name is lost to memory, though I would not use it if I remembered, but I do remember this. I remember her treating me just like the child I was at the time, a sweet little girl. She was kind to a fault and there were never any major issues. Except the one time a big red haired boy pulled my hair and I cried. I had no idea, or rather I wasn't aware that every time my mother came to pick me up, afore mentioned teacher called her the babysitter. I did not know that because of my whiteness, my teacher assumed that she couldn't possibly be my mother. It all came out later when my mother revealed to her the truth, and I was late for a Christmas pageant. Said teacher no longer treated me like a sweet little girl, and took great delight in making me uncomfortable when she switched my position in the pageant. I remember not understanding why things had to be different, but I do remember the reason why I had to switch classes and make friends all over again, with a black teacher was that my skin didn't match with what the world wanted to see.

  Later, when I entered middle school, I went to a school filled with mostly black and hispanic people. One would think that there at least I would be able to avoid discrimination. This was not so. Quiet, and afraid to draw attention to myself, I kept my head down and made few friends. I made straight As got perfect attendance, and I was perfectly miserable. Issues escalated when my mother came to pick me up one sunny day at lunch time, and a girl came up behind me, smearing hair gel over my face.
My mother was angry, and the principal said there was nothing she could do. So I was made to leave school. To me? It was because I was too white to be black.
It's funny, when I was riding the school bus to get to the same school, one lonely white girl came up to me and said "my parents don't agree with what your parents did".
  What did they do that was so wrong? Well, make me of course! A creature that is neither black nor truly white. A person that refuses to choose sides, because after all, the choices were made for me. I belong on the outside. That is where I was placed.

  I turned to the things that brought me comfort, making efforts to befriend people but not being able to really and truly, because I was poor and could not dress to fit in, because I had no idea how to fix my hair, because I didn't give a bloody dam about my hair or clothes and I thought that friendship was supposed to have more to do about personality than what I wore. Frequently asked questions were 'are you mixed? what are you mixed with? I didn't know you were black!" Blah blah blah...

I went to an all white school, where to me whiteness turned into a materialistic set of views that required thin bodies and straight hair, none of which I possessed after my middle years. Whiteness then became a standard of beauty to which all others were measured by.

I did not measure up.

I flipped through pages of teen magazines, there were seldom any black girls, and of those black girls none looked like me. The white girls, while as pale as myself, did not match my curvature, or hair type.  In summation the standard of beauty was far from my reach, and like any teenager I despaired.

  Today to me whiteness does not simply mean the color of one's skin. It means a set popular beauty standard. Like in between isn't pretty enough, like brown and gold tones are not quite right. It means that my kindergarten teacher was right. How dare I be so light when I am not white? When a person says "I prefer white people". I say "whatever makes you happy". Yet, I am made to understand that there is a certain cultural bias still lodged well within society. America, in it's race obsessed environment, has created a series of mental issues that have a ripple effect across all cultures represented in this country. A round nose is not sexy, light eyes are more attractive, pale skin is better. Yet, why is it, as light as I am, I have had issues with feeling my own self worth?
Simply put, I still do not fit the standard.

  I hope there is a resurgence of self worth found in people of color. I hope that brown  and black can be considered beautiful in popular culture. Such mentalities do not help myself one lick, but I understand the need, the desire to be represented.

  I am hoping that one day hearing people say "I prefer white people" or "I prefer black people" does not cause that familiar inflection of pain somewhere in the center of my chest.
  Popular culture be damned.
This stew pot has created... something else. Folks, there is no longer just white and black and brown. There is 'other'.

A love letter to self

Dear me

Hi there, it's been a long time since we've had a real talk.
No no, I'm not talking about how I put you down and make you feel less than a person. I'm talking about a real talk. So here it goes.
I'm sorry...
No really, this time I am for real. I am really sorry.
When you looked in the mirror this morning, and I told you that your eyes had too much dark circles under them, I was just being an ass. I know it hurt, and you went on with your day concerned about it. Truth is you have dark circles because you don't get enough sleep. You don't get enough sleep because you are constantly worried about the ones you love.
Can I tell you something though? A hundred percent honesty here? You forgot about me.
You forgot about me and now you have dark circles, anxieties, and an over all broken heart.
That's why I am sorry. I know you've grown up with so many hurts, and it's wrong of me to keep kicking at you, especially when you are down.
You know, sometimes I am just a big bully.
I have to tell you. Life isn't easy. You're pudgy belly is a big sign of that. The stress and poor eating habits played a toll on you. Which leads me to this whole apology thing. I want to apologize for everything. So, I'm sorry about calling you fat too. Hey, I didn't do anything to help you! I didn't motivate you to work out, but in spite of me you kept pushing yourself. You're actually going back the right way. You're eating better, you're getting in a few workouts. So you might not lose fifty pounds in a month but you're at least doing something. So I'm sorry for not giving you kudos.
Kudos girl, you're working on it. Please don't give up!
For every time I called you stupid, I take that back. I'm really sorry. Just because you don't think like other people doesn't mean you're dumb, you just think differently, and anyway, you get great grades in college... COLLEGE. So I'm sorry for saying that all you have to do to get good grades in college is the work. You kicked your own ass to get that work done, you were smart enough to keep going, and you're nearly there. Good! Don't give up. You've got discipline, and we can make it.
I think no person is perfect. I cut everyone slack except you, but now it's time to cut you some slack. Now it's time to let by gones be by gones and tell you the truth.
It's fear that has made me say those awful things.
Like how I make fun of your freckly face, your frizzy hair, your large breasts, and I know it was a cheap shot attacking your nose. The truth is, there is no one in this world who looks quite like you. Trust me, this is not the worst thing. What other people think of you shouldn't mean squat. I made it too much of a priority. I'm sorry. Anyway, there is something familiar about your face. No one can reproduce it. So I am starting to really appreciate it. So, I'll do my best not to call you ugly anymore. I mean, what am I even comparing you too anyway?
That leads me to that whole misunderstanding about your ethnic heritage. Look, I was just repeating what people have told me. Since they don't know what it's like to be you they really can't say. So why beat yourself up over something you can't control? I know you. I know you want to belong, but if people can't accept you for all of who you are, well they can go fuck themselves.
I mean it.
Hey kid, you've been through allot. I wish it could have been better. I wish the hurt could be washed away, the bad memories flushed down the drain but that just ain't gonna happen. I'm sorry for bringing it up all the time, for making you feel like you can never be good enough. Others go through similar hurts too, and you know what? Some of those people do right for themselves.
I'm not going to make the mistake of comparing you to others, I'm just saying...
I think my biggest asshole move ever was to tell you that no one would ever love you for who you are. It was such a dick move, really. I'm sorry. There are not enough apologies in the world for that one. I'm not just sorry to you either. I'm sorry for those that may love you, but I've planted that seed of doubt so deep that you have a hard time. I've made you feel insecure, but I hope by really talking to you we can change that. Now I want you to look at me, and really look.
Are you looking?
I love you okay? No really, I love you. Hey it's okay to cry. I know this is hard. I mean I am you, so I know. It's hard to let me love you. Don't you see why that is so wrong? Don't you see why we need to fix that? Not because no one else will love you, they probably will; but the truth is, you can't sustain yourself on that love alone. Oh it's wonderful and great and it really helps.
But I am going to be completely honest with you.
It's not enough. You need me.
You need my love.
So take it. Take it, along with all my hopes and dreams for our future.
I love you.
I'm going to keep saying that until you believe it.
Then I'm going to say it some more.
You deserve it, and I love you.
Now go to sleep because you need to take care of yourself.


Kind regards,

Me

life is not cupcakes

 I think I am understanding more and more the true nature of my dilema.
This is my delima.
At times I feel so deeply, so much that the feelings are swollen to the point that they effect my actions, my choices, my life.
Other times I am numb.
When I say numb I mean I retreat inside and become isolated from all forms of human contact. If you've ever met me. You've seen me shut down like this.
It looks like I have decided all I want is to be alone. It LOOKS like I have effectively pushed at the fabric of my aura and silently but powerfully put up a big sign that says "GO AWAY".
Yet, I have to tell you the truth here. It is a mechanism. It is a natural product of fear. The truth is, I am lonely!
I have said before that I write for people who can't write. People whose stories would otherwise, not be told, but it takes a kind of bravery I am not sure I have. I mean, how do I explain what it is like to live in constant uncertainty? How do I convey the irrational fear in a way that gives people who don't have this problem a sense of clear understanding?
I know what I have been told. Here is a list of things from many well wishers who I feel just don't understand.

- Just get over it.
-Oh just find something you like to do and do it.
- You're not trying hard enough.
- You have nothing to be afraid of.
-It's because you don't love yourself enough.
- You just need to make more friends.
- You just need to get out more.
- You're beautiful, its your fault you don't see that.
etc....

Ah.. people people! I've heard these things before! Many others as well. Don't think for one minute that I do not hear this advise and digest it. Don't think that I do not, every day, try loving self. I've talked about that. I think it is very important to foster love in one's self. So I spend much time trying to rewire my  brain to think more positively.
Yet, by nature I am restless. You say, I should try harder. To which I answer. Do you not see how emotionally draining this stuff is? Getting over phobias, getting over the types of anxieties that most people find so easy because they do not have them.
Let me say this. Do you know what it's like to be so critical of yourself that every action you take is a carefully calculated one? I do... I do. That is what happens to me when I get around people.
Here, I will give you a scenario.

I enter a restaurant.
Immediately, I look around the room, I decide right away how many different ethnicities, how are they dressed and if they look at me, what expressions are in their faces. Most people have an autopilot that is relatively disinterested.
My next phase, I walk to wherever I need to so that I can order, or get shown to a seat.
This is the moment where I  will grip my wallet, or I will think about how much money is in my account, how much I am likely going to spend, and do I have cash to leave a tip?
There is an irrational fear here, in which I think I am being watched, but not only that I think people can smell the poverty from me. The poverty I come from, the unusualness of my features, and I start to wonder about my choice of clothes... Is this appropriate for where I am? I also note the families I see, the couples, and I can't help but to feel a pang of longing. The closeness I have always wanted for myself seems so elusive...
Then I tell myself, I need to just have fun.
I puff up my chest, I  look at the menu. I make every effort to look normal while a pile of jitters course through my veins. I tell myself I should have done my hair different. I order my meal, do my best to smile...
glance surreptitiously around the room... note available exits...
You don't notice, you never notice. I have mastered the art of seeming calm. I have a special ability that allows me to do this... it is called the shut down mechanism, which I mentioned earlier.
Then I have my meal, pay and go do something else.
I ask myself, why do I do it?
Maybe because I want to feel some sense of normalcy. Maybe it's because I had been deprived of such luxuries for so long.. I don't know.

There is one thing I do know though.  That is, that it is not about me.

I repeat... it is not about me.
I am consciously aware that people don't give a damn
Yet, I am powerless to my reactions. I can try telling myself over and over that I am worthy, I am fit to be where anyone else is.. I belong.
Yet.. there is still that little perverted voice inside my head that says You are different, you are lying, you don't belong.

And folks, when my offers of friendship are not taken seriously, when I am ignored, when I am not approached,  when people buddy up at events effectively isolating individuals, you just confirm the pervert voice's edict. I am different, oh sin of sins!
I am different...

But it's not about you either.

It is about us.
Our interactions to each other. Our humanity, our ability to find and create connections on this dust bowl, because whether we like it or not we all have a share in this world. It is about how we respond to each other, how we help each other.
Like creating stepping stones to something higher, some better level of existence... that is the goal.
At least.. I always thought so.