i can be delusional if i want to

delusion 4

delusion 3

delusion 2

delusion 1

me and jojo

after him, i couldn't stand

after him, i couldn't speak

after him, i couldn't live my life the same way

after him, i couldn't stand to live

after this, i'll be stronger

after this, i'll understand more

after this, i'll cry but without abandon

after this, i'll still smile

* *

who knows, i might just take up hiking to spite him!

* * *

too many times i've been left with a heart-shaped hole, like a shotgun wound at close range, burnt and gaping. too many times i've dove in deep only to be pulled to depths and drowned alone. too many times i've fallen from heights of passion only to lay crushed and broken under foot.

too many times to count.

too many times to even remember.

yet not enough to make me stop trying. 'yes, talking about love is like dancing about architecture'. not just talking joan, not just talking.

* * * *

i'm returning to the blissful innocense of childhood, where everything was a mystery and every night ended in the comfort of a warm bed and a kiss on the cheek. where stories were full of 'new' and light. where i could smell the color around me and taste every precious sound. this is where i want to live my life. free from the 'necessities' of industrialization and capitalization. i want to drink in purity and love. i want to dance and laugh and play. skip ring-around-the-rosie hand in hand with the ocean and the sky. i want to find a like mind, but not too like that i can't find intrigue.

why do people play games?

the dating kind.

it's 5 am monday morning and i'm trying me best to figure this out for myself and for others.

if you've hung out, had fun. he/she leaves you a message a day or so later. why do you wait to call/write back? is this a control or upper hand thing? is it a battle of 'who can care less'? 'cause i just don't get it and would love a little input.

didn't you get a little rush, a little smile, from the message? didn't it feel good to know that someone was thinking of you? so why can't you return that? that isn't strategy to me, that's mean.

life is too hard without all the extra bullshit.

so, please, if you have an answer, let me know. i'm stumped.

a much more pleasant trip to eugene

very cute.

sweet brown eyes.

hippie to the core though he never saw a moment of the seventies.

young. 26. but a solid 26.

tall. i mean, he'd mentioned he was tall, but...

he hikes. he camps. he goes to the countryside for the day. and as far as i know it was not in search of buried treasure and no one was holding a gun to his head.

sexy as hell. great endurance. really. great.

he called me 'beautiful'.

we don't have much in common, aside from voracious sex drives.

huh.

is it wrong that most of my relationships with guys are based on sex or lack there of?

(please say no please say no please say no)

nah, fuck it. as long as everyone is on the same page, no greater expectations on any one side. it's all okay. right?

fine. i love cock. are you happy.

and, yes, e, i think i heard a goat at one point. for the first time since pie, i'm walking a little more slowly today. and don't even ask your other question.

10 things

10 things you don't know about me

1) there are 2 things i will never buy generic or swayed by sale: toilet paper and peanut butter.

2) i always wanted to be named joanna. that way i could go by 'jo' on my tougher days.

3) i have an awful habit of biting my hangnails till they bleed.

4) i hated the girl scouts

5) i miss playing piano

6) i bought my first plastic 'awareness' bracelet today (after several minutes of inner turmoil trying to reconcile how much i hate the trendy, glomming of the industry, and really wanting to support the cause. hey, breasts are my friends, and i don't really want cancer fucking them up. if my dollar can help the cause, take it.

7) i love going a day or two without saying a word. sometimes i wish i was a deaf mute.

8) yogurt eekes me out.

9) when we were little-little, my brother and i used to play a game of touching tongues to see who would get grossed out first. does that make my brother my first kiss?

10) body issues be damned, i want to go to a nude beach.

awaiting my rites

i can't discern if i've nothing to say, or simply lack the appropirate audience.

with the beginning of this new rite of spring and the festival of fertility and rebirth that goes along, i wonder how i will emerge. what new form i will take. how i will grow.

sure, i still want to be a mermaid when i grow up, the ocean when i die, and believe that a sacred seal watches over me in the ocean at the end of my street. but have i gotten any closer in my impending transformation into... what? who? i don't know.

i know that from time to time a miniscule part of my being takes center stage for far too long leaving the rest of me in the lowlight of an empty orchestra pit. frantically apologizing to new patrons for wasting thier time on the show.

i know i want to move beyond the limits of my degree, but i wonder whether my stamina will hold. ( a special thanks to v for putting that one in my head )

i know it's been weeks since i've talked to my parents and i don't miss them at all. i even limit replies to emails to the fewest words possible to state my case. i'm afriad to say i might not miss them if i never saw them again.

my very first friend from high school, the girl who showed me the beauties of corruption and allowed me to be a god-mother to her first child, she turned thirty today. we haven't spoken in 2 or three years. she said terrible things. laid blames on me that i never imaged. took away my two 'nephews' in the process. and i miss her. i wonder if they ever bought the guns they were talking about. i wonder if she recovered from the prescription drug seeking she begged me to keep secret from her husband. the secret i kept and was in turn banished by her for keeping. telling me that my loyalty should have been to her life and not her friendship. seeing as how the both of us dabbled in the dark arts of suicide at the same times, i never once thought it was my place to be anything more than a friend and accept her. and my acceptance and love is what lost her, not to this world, but to me.

so far this spring is dark and grey. i wonder when the blooms will come. i wonder when i'll again thrive.

crawling slowly from the cradling arms of sleep and readjusting to life vertically, she scanned the room around her for the man she'd fallen asleep next to. not in the bed and the door surprisingly ajar she called his name, once, and not too loudly. met only with silence she fell back against the pillows in a strange and beautiful mixture of relief and puzzlement. pulling the pillows around her body as a mock womb, she tried to recall him saying anything about needing to leave early, about not being able to stay. but the thought slipped from her as seamlessly as he had and she closed her eyes to the sound of the pounding surf outside her window. all else soon became silence. silence within her and silence without. silence, save the surf.

in a couple hours she would truly wake. she would shower and dress and eat and all the other mundane duties of preparing for the world. but here, in this quiet cocoon of her room, she existed simply as skin on sheets. stray hairs clung to her face, sealed with the kiss of dried sweat from the night before. her bare leg tested the bed, moving from radiated warmth trapped in sheets, to the coolness of emptiness. he must have been gone for hours as the bed held no memory of his warmth. just as well, as she enjoyed the space, and the cool, and the quiet.

she let herself surrender to the softness around her, the silken sheets, the velvet duvet. she was entranced in the sensuous textures. she was amazed at how the same sheet felt so different on the back of her leg as it did the small of her back. inches of skin, unending different. she allowed herself to test the sensations over her arms, stomach, feet and breast. she slithered slightly, contacting as much of her as possible, becoming absorbed in the experience.

she traced thin lines of fingernail across her bare stomach, ticklish and tense. a wave of sensation took life of its own and traveled over her, in her. her nails grazed over her hips, following the gentle curve of bone from her hip to the fleshy hiding spot of her pubis. she remembered his hands here, his lips here, his kiss opening and warming her. she slipped her middle finger where his tongue had been and teased herself with the memory, the physical visioning of his fingers on her thighs. the covers seemed to play understudy in his absence, with the gentle teasing touch upon her skin.

she was still wet with him, from him, maybe for him and she smiled. the thought of how his hair had fallen over her thighs in a ticklish whisper sent her hips swaying slowly. her fingers searched and stroked, replicating his midnight movements just hours before. she warmed, and a thin veil of sweat soon came upon her. she traced and explored her every silken recess and fold, enticing waves of heat and pleasure. eyes closed, breathing quickened, she found a rhythm matching her racing heart. her back began to arch as she came closer to a rapturous release, a cool breeze startling her eyes open but never slowing her dedicated hands.

he was here, watching her from the doorway. flush with excitement, she saw his growing desire and returned her eyes to hold his gaze, almost daring him to stay or join. giving no indication of the right course. a curious combination of indifference and desire. with the reflex of a swimmer, two steps and he dove into her with flawless entry. he reached the depth of her and resurfaced only to plunge again and again. she gasped and allowed herself to drown in flooding sensation.

soaked and breathless form their passion play, she laid beneath him, synchonizing her slowing breaths with his, relishing the pulsing of her around him, him within her. there were no cool spots on the sheets now, every inch a testament to their tumult. the air was thick with their combined scent. and the room was silent, save his breathing in her ear and the sound of the surf outside her window.

acceptance

acceptance.

simple acceptance.

that's all. maybe i'm naive, but i still believe in it.

in fact, it's kinda my thing. you can do all kinds of shit, be a bastard to me, you can be someone i would never understand, but still, i'd accept you.

is that crazy?

approval is something different. i don't ask for approval from most people, just a select few on an even more select few things, and i certainly don't expect it. i might not necessarily approve of other's, what they do, how they live, any of that. but it isn't my place to have to approve of their lives. the only person who has to live your life is you, and as long as you aren't hurting anyone else, i may not approve, but i accept it.

now, herein lies the problem. i seem to be hard to accept as i am. i mean, i'm not a bad person, i try to do good things, i help people when i can, and i don't take advantage. i pitch in on the check, i over tip. i feed my dog the good food. i pick up dying birds and carry them to safe places to die. i don't club seals or babies. i don't have an extra head, i don't claim to be christ. what i have are scars. my scars. not yours. scars from bad times gone past. scars that come from open wounds, both physical and emotional. scars that are new and old. scars that I have to live with, not you. scars that are a map of my life, a totem. scars that might be unpleasant to look at, but are even more unpleasant when they are the root of losing acceptance. and guess what? i don't regret them. i don't regret anything. these allow me insights into and empathy for people who walk around misunderstood and straining for compassion. these scars allow me access that others will never have. for example, I am the ONLY person at work (aside from my boss) who the clients trust. I am the one they are comfortable coming to with their secret concerns and pained thoughts. I am the one they know who won't judge them. maybe they have seen the scars, maybe a hint of them, or maybe not. but it's the shared experience of horrific pain that these women can sense. and that shared experience makes me safe for them. i wouldn't trade that for all the free cosmetic surgery in the world.

i feel like i dwell on this more often than i should have to. i mean, every first date is an exercise in cautious dressing, risked exposure, determining how much information to give and the possibility of rejection. every first sexual encounter i worry not only about my size, my level of bloat, whether or not i shaved, but also about the look of abject horror or revulsion that slips into their eyes and won't leave. and not for who i am, but for lines on my body. every interview is the same. in fact, i have been passed over on jobs because of them, can't risk the exposure. they don't think i'm weak, they know i'm not. but they know "how it might look". i've been judged, and not on the basis of me as a person, but how my skin looks. i'm the victim of a new racism, but i don't have the support of a common racial group.

do they bother you because they force you to examine your own mortality? is that it? some call me selfish or foolish. they say that i don't realize how much it pains others to see them. honey, that pain and disappointment i see in other's faces... that's what leads to the second cut.

i'm beginning to get tired of having to explain myself. of having to cover myself. of having to take care of everyone else. i don't judge you for why you drink to unconsciousness, why you cover your body in tattoos, why you spend more hours high than sober, why you speed and take turns too fast, why you indiscriminately engage in unprotected sex, why you base your life and decisions on beliefs in unseen heavenly powers of damnation and reward. i may ask if you're okay, if there's anything i can do, anything you need, and if you want to talk about it, but your explanations are secondary to who you are.

and guess what?

i accept you.

baby let your hair down
the guests are all gone
the kitchen's in shambles
and there's bottles on the lawn

baby let your hair down
you've got a little fire left
don't you dare share that warmth
with any of the rest

baby let your hair down
your eyes fall to my breast
it thrill me to a fever
your beauty steals my breath

baby let your hair down
let your inhibitions fall
take my hand and lead me
to that palace down the hall

baby let your hair down
let it loose, wild and free
tonight i'll be your thoroughbred
if you promise to break me


(this is what comes from listening to the new isobel campbell album. i highly recommend it. the listening, not the inspiration from. "baby" was originally "jenny", but i wanted it to be gender neutral. did i miss?)

i am the black, winged rose in your garden,
ready to uproot my strange beauty and fly away

BAD NEWS

i was told today by someone who studied the sociology of marriage and family, that the top four characteristics/traits of unmarried and uncoupled women are that they are:

1) self-sufficienct/independent

2) educated

3) beautiful

4) intelligent

the more of the traits you have, the lesser the likelihood! others include:

being non-hispanic, white
being employed
having better physical and mental health than single men or married women
and a greater openess to new experiences

so, while i never really dreamed of getting married, i guess my chances are low of coupling too. and it would seem that the characteristics that are often most attractive, are also the characteristics of those who don't partner. this is a distressing little irony, don't you think?

passion artist

i feel you still,
fine tuned fingertips
trace the lines of my body
painting me with passion's blush
creating movement within--
stirring, stroking, teasing
my flesh to your vision.

i hear you still
the lull of your voice
harmonizes my sensation,
all at once and orchestrated supremely
leaving me deaf to
my indecision, my self-c0nsciousness--
my skin surrenders to your song.

i beg to be
the strings you play
with equal lust and precision,
arching in your arms
cradled in your strength
resonating with your will--
you the composer of my passions.

i will be your Helen,
your David,your Eternal Idol
molded by you, for you,
your stone fantasy turned flesh--
the promise of your sculpting hands
shape me, smooth me,
scuplt me from your desire.


~for my artist who inspires me to breathe fully and deep
~for my artist who divines me regardless of my cover
~for my artist of sexual exploration and loving words
~for my artist who now slipped to silence
~for all my artists and the creations you allow me,
thank you.

(E & D: i'm okay. don't worry
not new, just enhanced)

this job is going to kill me.

too many hours. but i love it.