Ours

I want to be Free

I don't know what I'm doing

And I barely know who I am

But I'm tired of being censored

By every woman and man

I'm tired of hearing outcry

And alarm from "my clan"

I want to be praised

Want to be someone worthy.

The chastising scowl

Accompanied by a single oft repeated phrase

"That's no language for a lady".

But really who decided that's the goal?

Or that a "lady" has to speak a certain way?

Why is my voicing my opinions or cutting my hair, or saying damn

An act of rebellion? Of feminism? Of being on the lam?

I'm not running from the law of government but the law of the land

I'm fleeing the fences that surround me

Expectations that choke and bind

I'm running for salvation not knowing what I'll find

Hoping I find redemption and a clue into myself

That someone has a plan to take me off the shelf

I'm no porcelain doll, I'm strong I know at least I could be with time and a gentle hand

But maybe that hand is mine, maybe the plan is mine, maybe the time is mine

I've made a decision

I want to be free

I want to be healthy

I want to be me

A speech spoken over the body of an enemy

There are things they don't tell you when you are a young bright rebel,

With the taste of wrath in your mouth, a rally cry in your ears, and a mission in your heart.

They didn't warn you of how blood bounces on snow when you are chomping at the bit for action against inaction.

They're stories of glory, not of sweat evaporating before it leaves your skin, never of the smell of blood in a forest cooling on the damp ground. Or the look of an empty battlefield.

But there are good things.

The satisfaction of a job well done, the knowledge that you're saving lives and times, like now, when one finally beheads one of the true evils.

The rush of relief in knowing that the broken bloody mass at your feet will never again cause pain like he once had and that his last moments were ones of misery, misery that you meted out as recompense for his crimes.

They send you out with a sword and a promise that your anger can be used for good and it's moments like this that make good on that promise.

Our righteous anger bubbles like lava, biting at injustice and growling at inaction.

We, the young and restless vibrantly bash against the rocks of tradition. Slowly changing the world, an inevitable tide never coming in fast enough for our liking.

We longed for change, we would burn the world and remake it in our image.

We would kill

We would bite and scratch and tear to protect what we love and seek truth and justice for all.

I walked amongst these thorns along a dangerous road, but I do not walk alone.

We stood and will stand together against conformity, relentless and strange, enigma on a cliff waiting for wings.

we invented and perfected the idiosyncrasies of the odd art, we are odd and we are not 

but are the vibrant dread, a constant antithesis of all we should be, we are alive truly yet floaters in a world we did not design and we deign to love 

the universe of our creation we are forced out of by the necessities of those who have and always will persecute that which they know not of and all are naught to understand 

It's hot but it's not too hot it's hot in that summer, carnal, sweet sweat and hard work smelling strong of sawdust and body odor way

And you only get it from working in the sun, sweat doesnt smell the same if it's a hike or just sitting outside or a workout indoors in the winter

There's some . . . Visceral about hard work sweat in the summer

It's original sin

A wet hot American summer

Adam eating "the apple" under a blazing sun feeling the sweat bead under his curls at the back of his neck at the same moment that sticky savory juice graced his lips changing forever how he saw the world

It's what the pope fears more than anything

Raw

Humanity

Unfiltered

Un fettered

Animals running flat out across a grassland under golden rays

Laying in the shade of trees older than their speech

All their warts and beauty on display for anyone to see

Drops of it, stories encased in wet salt hit the ground and color it dark in a silent plea for rain

Self Medication

Caffeine, Sugar, Copious amounts of sleep, food etc. 

“I had a crappy day and all I want right now is a glass of wine”

“I can’t believe Brandon broke up with me, I need ice cream” 

Coffee, Bitter and black running down a throat while heels black as her coffee make threatening click clack on the tile of her office in anticipation of a stress filled day. 

An ADHD diagnosis accompanied by a denial of medication while leading to a dependence on Mountain Dew and Monster energy drinks that chew away at stomach linings just as surely as ritalin chews away at personality  

Trolling bars buzzed and horny looking for a one-night stand to forget powerlessness and rejection. Looking for release of negative emotions. Looking for an answer to the question “God, why are you so bitchy? when was the last time you got laid?” looking for something in others that they themselves lack 

Why do we feel the need to self-medicate? Is it that we really just can’t cope with the world around us is it that reality is so painful that we desire and require some form of escapism and change to the norm and harsh truths that fantasy shields us from. 

Video Games, Harlequin Novels, Lord the Rings, Marvel Movies all forms of escapsim and self-medication. 

Humanity requires distraction, but why and what would happen if someone rejected distractions in all her beauteous forms?

I miss the rain

Or better, i guess i miss the way it rained there

Fat heavy drops

Not like delicate tears on your skin but so full of water you could feel the individual impacts like your grandmother's hand patting you on the head

But just like grandmother's, not all rain was soft and kind, it also raged and thundered

Loud screaming into the night and the sound of those heavy blows on the roof like rocks from the heavens

To go out, to experience the storm was to feel whole and yet also wholly small

The rain is

Quiet, here

Tamed and angry in it's taming

Anger of futility

Anger of frustration

Maybe some others would call it gentle or kind or soft

But there just isn't enough of it to be those things

Not to me

To me it's just a drizzle, never more than a pattern of calm and too still even in it's movement

The last remnants of a still dying god killed long before it's time

The rain here is dead

And so

I miss the rain

The Soulless

Those who do not see and care even less. 

The soulless aren’t those without an eternal soul but those whose souls are born asleep. 

They annoy me 

I am awake, ALIVE 

I was born that way, I don’t know why 

I’ve been awake since I opened my eyes 

I pity those who never awaken but I weep for those who awaken later in life because then they realize what they have missed. 

You don’t have to be awake to be saved but sometimes that change in your heart can awaken you 

That should shock to your soul acts as a defibrillator 

or you have a choice 

and the Psychosis will Worsen 

The Red Backpack

What do you do when it hurts this much?

I don’t even know where the pain comes from. It’s a combination of loneliness and longing I think. But why? I thought I was perfectly happy, I have nothing to be this upset over! 

I am blessed, so why do I feel cursed?

Why do I feel like every person on the planet is mocking me? Why do I feel so alone? What’s wrong with me? am I really lying to myself that badly? will I end up like the man at the library talking to someone no longer there I imagine his story 

Where I'm From

I am from packed out bleachers and cheering teammates, momma's delicate hands covered in popcorn butter as she cheers me on from the concession stand but before the spikes and serves ....

I am from a quiet gym occupied solely with paternal affection, a father teaching his most precious treasure the game he loved all through life, small hands being held by callused ones showing how to dribble and shoot when attentive intention turns to giggles and those calluses seek to tickle forsaking the familiarity of the sport

I am from weary shoulders a woman running for her life from a madman, taking her gypsy brood from the bloodbath that her home became, her clutching hands desperately grasping those of her daughter and sons an sons running as far and as fast as she can away from all she knows

all she knew

to a new life,

to save her life

and mine

Control

My emotions are like currents under the waves, deep and powerful and yet on the surface I can seem completely calm. 

I am tired of having to seem calm 

I want to rage and gnash my teeth against the light, 

I want to scream and bellow my anger and sorrow to the winds 

I want to use this power I feel, this passion to wound and break and bend the world into my image, into what I see fit, into what would suit my whims 

But I don’t 

I muzzle my rage, I suppress my howls of pain and tether my biting indignation to other calmer outlets, like logic, like patience, like fore thought and premeditation 

I direct my anger inwards, I point my passion at myself and shape it into a desire to cut out injustice and create better lives and healthier places for those I love. I turn it into a drive to do better, to be better, to accomplish more. I seek to improve, to inspire, to incite others to also be better and do better and yet. . . 

I am still left angry, my self hatred battering the walls I so carefully construct to keep others from being harmed by my emotion. And when the walls crack I am reminded of why they are needed. 

I hurt other, I twist and my face contorts into venom and malice and reveals an inner core of ice caps broken over a volcano. The hot and cold fighting for control causing the winds to whip ever louder, ever stronger, ever wilder. And I wound. I take offense to words that should not hurt, I bite back viciously at perceived attacks and stab using words meant to wound in such a way that I can twist them later to soothe the pain I have so caused. 

and so I must maintain my control even as I weep from the pain of being caged