Visiting Boston Was Hard But I Refuse To Regress

"A feeling that didn't go away just did.
And I walked a thousand miles to prove it."

My Blood, Ellie Goulding

Breakthrough

The last year was horrible, but it was really nothing.

^
Look up there, at that sentence!!  I wrote that!

My Life Is Like A Linen Garment

My life is like a linen garment,
Not innocent or shy or new,
But I once grew young and green and vibrant,
Watered with the freshest dew.

I was uprooted, drowned in water,
Held there under current cold.
Something broke down deep within me.
I could not withstand the mold.

Retted, torn, and sodden deeply,
I was beaten black and blue
Til my shell was loosened from me.
Nothing left for clinging to.

I was done, I thought, quite truly,
As I bleached out in the sun,
But I was spun, then, woven newly.
Another life had just begun.

My life is like a linen garment;
Fibres made from rotted weed.
My first and second dreams of grandeur
Passed, but now I'm strong indeed.

"Cycle" by Louise Feneley

12/50 Reasons

I like my body.  I think it is quite beautiful.  It is athletic-looking without me having to do anything athletic.  It is thin enough without me having to worry about my diet.  It is fairly strong, reasonably tan-able, with defined lines and graceful features, and it cooperates with me in doing a lot of fun things like dancing, sewing, walking, sleeping, and stretching.  I used to be unhappy with my body, but I've grown into it since I was thirteen, and it fits me perfectly now.

11/15 Reasons

I laugh a lot.  That doesn't mean that I'm funny, it just means I find lots of things funny, whether they really are or not.  Babies can make me laugh just by looking at me.  Sunshine makes me laugh when it dances on my face.  Books make me laugh all the time.  Hanging out with my friends is practically one long laugh (unless it is one long sigh)!  This all probably means that I'm going to have a long and healthy life.  I'm sure it often makes me look silly or naive, and sometimes I laugh way too loudly.  But I have long had an ambition to be the girl whose laughter rings out sans inhibition, delighting all and annoying some (sic), and it feels good.  So I'll just keep at it. And when I have kids, my laugh will serve as a mom-locator, just like my mother's was before me.

Pressure

My head is clear and my fingertips feel heavy as I wrap these teacups one by one. 
The ground is right there, under my feet. 
The breeze just moves the air.
Nothing feels magical today. 
I don't believe in anything but the pressure on my skin.

Jane, Wishing, cover illustration by Trina Schart Hyman

10/50 Reasons

I try my hardest to follow promptings from God.  I don't just want to live a fun life or a beautiful life, I want to live the life that will make me into the person, the being, that is my potential.  Sometimes that means doing easy things, the things that I already want to do.  Sometimes it means doing the exact opposite of what I want to do or even the opposite of what makes sense.  And a lot of the time it means I do things without knowing why.  But so far He has never steered me wrong, and I will continue to trust in Him.

Joy in the Morning

Psalm 30:5

I was driving in the car when
I realized that
I wasn't thinking about my pain.
I further realized that
I hadn't thought about it in several days.

And then I thought about something else.

May I Heal You?

3 Nephi 9:13

Marvelous, indeed, is the pain.
Anguish as I have never known.
You felt it once before, felt in one night how it drags on and on.

I don't know why I've had to feel it too.

How is this supposed to work?
Each night I pray that when I wake I will be done.
And every morning I feel
Like I carry the burden alone.

You have healing in your wings.
Oh, will you pour it out on me,
Upon one who doesn't understand?

9/50 Reasons

I feel things deeply.  Sadness is really sad.  Happiness is very happy.  Loneliness is desolate, and Adventurousness is epic.  I "laugh out loud at just the thought of being alive," and I "show my pain like it really hurts" ("Could I Be You", Matchbox Twenty).  Sometimes, though, feelings can be debilitating.  I sit, steeped in emotion, unable to act.  I wish to rejoice, but I don't have a sufficiently glorious outlet.  I get trapped in downward spirals.  Fortunately, there are also upward spirals to be caught up in.  I am lucky, I think, to feel as I do.  Why would I ever settle for living half-way?

PRIDE

Powerful and defiant, my hydra
Rears its ugly heads.  Sometimes
I feed it and scratch it behind its ears, and sometimes I
Dash about, sword in hand, slashing its necks with abandon.
Every time, I regret paying it any attention at all.

doodle by the author

8/50 Reasons

I mean it.  I don't do what I do just so people can see me and say good things.  I do what I do because I want to do it.  And I wouldn't do it if I didn't.  I try to do good things, yes.  I'm not about to do bad things just to avoid the accusation of insincerity.  I say what I mean, I mean what I feel.  Dig deeper and you'll find...me.  The same me that's on the outside.  Maybe just a little angrier, though, that you didn't believe me in the first place.

7/50 Reasons

I remind myself of a cat.   I admire cats because of their independent spirit, tender affection (when they feel like it), ability to land on their feet, conviction of their own royal blood, long-suffering when sacrificing for someone they truly love, fierceness in temperament, wisdom in both the seen and the unseen, lithe grace, etc.  Maybe I'm over-complimenting myself, here.  I suppose this is what I want to be.

6/50 Reasons

When the tragic heroine and the bold, strong heroine clash inside me, I may give in to the tragedy for a while, but the strong side always wins out.  I don't always see this as a plus, since I would love to be the damsel in deep distress who pines away and DIES for her sorrows, just once (I suppose just once is all it would take, huh?).  But I always end up landing on my feet.

5/50 Reasons

"I want adventure in the great, wide somewhere.  I want it more than I can tell!  And for once, it might be grand to have someone understand.  I want so much more than they've got planned..."  Yes, I stole that from Belle.  I don't really feel misunderstood as she clearly was, but I totally do want adventure.  And maybe I'm getting it.  After all, Belle's adventure led through heartache, too.  I just have fewer rabid wolves and no enchanted castles.  You win some, you lose some.

I Used To Have Green Shoes

I used to have green shoes and a cute boyfriend.
At lunch in the sun with friends and happy thoughts
My feet would dangle under the table
My toes flirting with my flats
While my eyes tried to send him my adoration.  
I thought we were able to think the same.  
I watched him and he watched me.
I thought those looks were so real, so penetrating, so full of feeling.
But then the sole broke.  
Of my shoe, I mean.  
I taped it and wore them anyway.
Green goes with everything.
Then I started getting blisters
On the bottom of my heels
Where you can’t avoid stepping on them
No matter how oddly you walk.
So one sunny day after lunch
I took them off, threw them away,
And walked home barefoot.  
The pavement was cold and my blisters hurt.
But they don’t anymore.

No Place by Chris-tel

4/50 Reasons

I have the coolest hobby ever:  recreating historic dress!  My fabric stash isn't too big (believe me, this is a plus) and I have an awesome list of projects that I daydream about and sketch in the margins of my notebooks:  a 19-teens corset, Titanic-era evening gown, 18th-century stays, Victorian bathing suit, French bliaut, fitted gothic gown, and a burgundy batiste regency day dress, for starters.  I also just finished a pair of RED wool hose to complement my as-of-yet-nonexistent medieval outfits.  I love them!

It has several times occurred

It has several times occurred that I was not what someone was looking for.
It stung.  I felt snubbed and slighted, sometimes led on,
But in the end, I understood.  
Sometimes it just doesn’t feel right.  
Sometimes you just don’t love someone.  
Actually, most of the time you just don’t love someone.
They are the few and far between times that you do.  
And it is a miracle moment when you both do.
So why did you have to make it so hard?
Why didn’t you figure it out months ago?
You could have saved me so much pain,
And I would have loved you better for it.

Chasing Violins by Michael Shapcott

3/50 Reasons

Speaking of dancing (because I was), I am amazing at it.  Not in the "get discovered by a secret agent and be the next dancing phenomenon" way, but in the "let down your guard and move and sweat and grin and get as close to exploding without actually exploding" way.  I love to waltz, I love ballet, I love the Virginia Reel, I love techno!  And I do think I'm good, though I'm sure I'll be better when I'm 50, since I can only get better with practice, and I plan to dance all my life.

Some words are hiding places for truth

Some words are hiding places for truth, 
Keeping out the uninitiated before
They hurt themselves on the sharp edge of meaning.
Keyless, they sweetly dance outside the door,
Not guessing that they are blind to height and depth,
Content to worship the cliche before them.  
And then.  One day a sly wind steals your breath
And drops the key at your feet.  You explore
What you once thought you knew; you finally hear
The secret song, see the under-painting.
You know too much to tell. The truth is so clear,
But the word is so small, and just saying
It out loud isn’t enough to make them
Feel the exhausting world contained within.

Pandora Opens Box by Sue Blackwell

I loved

'You are my ghost', he whispered in my ear, his breath warm against my chilled wet skin.  'I love you', I replied, and I did.  Those words, released from their silent prison, grew and expanded to fill the night and the universe, to reach all the stars and saturate my soul.  I love you.

I hope I haunt him now.
He is in my heart, shriveled like a raisin with cowardice and playing games.  But I still know the glory of the stars, the essence of the night.  Not because I loved him, but because I loved.

2/50 Reasons

I smile.  I smile to make other people happy.  I smile to make myself happy.  I smile to make little kids smile back and feel safe.  I smile because I can't help it; because I am alive and the sun shines and the world is round.  I smile because I like the way my lips curve up and into my dimples.  I smile when I dance or when I sing, when if I didn't smile I would probably just explode.  And sometimes I smile because it seems to charm some people, and I end up getting what I want :)

You

The question “why” can suck you in, down and down.

Of course, the positive options don’t strike

You until the saddest ones drag you around

Through the darkest alleys of your mind like

A witch to the stake, a traitor to the noose,

To be your own hangman.  Because you know

Your secrets—he must’ve seen them, guessed the truth,

That you are jealous, vengeful, petty, slow.

Your own dreams didn’t come true because of you.

You are unhappy because you are ugly,

Because you’re pushy, because you didn’t view

Him in the right light, because not only

            You are wrong, but your dreams are wrong also.

            You should not hope so high, for you are low.

"Introspection" by Elena Kalis

What would I do for love?

What would I do for love?
The question leaves me pondering. 
Anything!  I’ve said before,

With breathless heart and hopeful tone,
Just to be

With you. 
But faced with a demand for more

That unnerves and unbalances my idea

Of identity, of the basic core

That shouldn’t need to change,
My idealism hesitates,
Sputters to a stop,
And for a moment I don’t know what I would do

For love.
For love should embrace all of me.

If it won’t, if he won’t, is it even true?

Then my initial question seems to be
Moot.

"Girl in Static" by Audrey Kawasaki

1/50 Reasons

Taylor Swift sings "Hey Steven, I could give you 50 reasons why I should be the one you choose".  I liked the idea and decided to write a list of 50 reasons why someone should choose me.  It was a fun thing to do, enlightening, it went faster than I thought it would, and I actually came up with 57!  Made me feel good.  But since then, that particular "someone" left my life, and I started feeling like I had written my list too quickly and frivolously.  I wanted to really explore why I am valuable.  So, I decided to rewrite my list.  50 Reasons why I choose myself.  I'll start with number 1:

I have traveled around the world, learning languages, mingling with people, and I have fit in everywhere.  Well, ok, so I haven't been EVERYWHERE.  Mainly Europe.  But I would like to argue that the fitting-in, loving-people skill-set applies all over the world.  So there.  The world is my home.

"Up in the Clouds" by cartoongirl7

All over again

Each time, when I force myself to accept that

He will not, shall not, could not love me still,

My heart and thoughts rebel and rage against it,

Leaving me sore and trembling through it all.

But when I say I cannot doubt but that he

Will realize soon his great mistake and come

Running to my door with pleading heart, take me

In his arms and kiss me sweet, I am numb.

It feels softly good to think it, simply warm

To hope, but it seems all too real, and then

I realize we would have to work at it

All over again.

"Topaz" by Alphonse Mucha

Ode to Psychological Indigestion

When I am sad I do not eat;

My stomach twists and twirls.

I feel as though the smallest bite will make me want to hurl.

My friends were worried for my health,

They saw me getting thinner,

They fed me, watched me choke it down; breakfast, lunch and dinner.

So now I’m eating every meal,

And still my stomach’s groaning.

I’m starting to think that it is not for sustenance it’s moaning.

Yes, I am starved, but not for food.

The thing that I most crave

Is one boy’s love to fill me up, my lonely heart to save.

I woke up today

I woke up today and my very first thought

Was of sunshiny freedom.  I laughed aloud

And in that pleasant glow my happy mind sought

Further rays of light, but my smile was cowed

As my mood snagged on a jagged piece of hate.

Some idiot girl.  How did she catch him?

And he, he lied through his teeth, laid out the bait,

Watched me lunge for it once more.  Just a whim

Of his, it seems.  He didn’t want to keep me.

He just threw me back with the hook caught deep.

He knows where to find me if he wants to be

Amused by a silly girl who will keep

            Trying until she is broken and bruised,

            Her heart unaware that it’s being used.

Pan and Psyche by Edward Burne Jones

When I was small

When I was small, I used to think that sadness
Was a silly, senseless feeling. To be
Sighing and crying, wasting tears, was madness.
Fears were brief and fate’s forgiveness easy.
I grew and learned that I could fall much harder
When reaching for the higher joys of life.
The pain could last for days, and gloom might linger,
But pride said I could always outlast strife.
Now that pride is just a word, and hope the boy
Who left my life in pieces on the ground.
I’ve forgotten how it feels to wake with joy;
Feelings are not so silly, I have found.
           Turns out sadness is a nightmare of the
           Type you cannot wake from, heart hell-bound

"The World Above" by Brooke Shaden

You never said that you were sorry

You never said that you were sorry even

    When I told you, tried to tell you, my hurt.

    You didn’t understand, couldn’t believe in

What I said were my emotions.  The curt

Way you asked me, “Why does that make you feel mad?”

    Left no room for my answer, and your smile

    Patronized me when I expressed how I had

Daydreamed lonely and often.  Well then, I’ll

Take my daydreams elsewhere, proclaim them loudly.

    I won’t apologize for being real.

    You may chuckle all you like and then proudly

Stand aloof, but I, I will truly feel.

"Uplifted" by Shira Sela

The wind

For some time, now, I’ve sat becalmed at sea,

Rocked by tiny ripples from who-knows-where.

No matter; tiny ripples are naught to me.

The sea might as well be glass.  Unmoved, I stare

Out straight ahead at the pale-washed line of blue

That signifies a place to be, hints of

A destination, somewhere a harbor new.  

But the storm is over; the winds thereof

Have blown themselves out and left me floating here.

I just read a book today.  The hero,

Who faces demons and evil and death and near

Dies himself, gets his peace in the end.  Though

            Who’s to say he doesn’t now and then feel

            He’s lost his wind and, with it, something real.

Empty Boat Color Study IX by N Poucher

Let me have my sweet imaginings today

Let me have my sweet imaginings today.
Yesterday did leave me with such a store
Of dear looks and whispers, things he used to say,
I cannot help but hope there will be more.
It is no use, my mind rails upon my heart,
Such foolish dreamings cannot hold up love.
If you build upon the wreckage of that start,
You build alone; but I, alone, won’t move.
I have not strength to bear another passage
Through that gate which lately closed behind me,
The dark is warm, the dark is full of whispers
Sweet and soothing, so, though I cannot see,
            I stay, wrapped in the foolish hope of night:
            Tomorrow he’ll be here to prove me right.

Picasso

Imagine for a moment

Imagine for a moment the blackest dark;
A deep gulf of cloying noxious liquid
In a space the size of China in my heart.
Imagine the darkness burns like acid,
Oily goo clings to the walls of that vast pit
And lays in heavy stillness all around.
This is my own vat of pain.  I can feel it
Sticking between my ribs; a swelling mound,
A sinking swamp daring me to try a taste
Of its putrid emotions, hot as hate.
Mornings I wake sunk to my waist in the waste.
I go for swims, dangle my toes, tempt fate.
            But always by bedtime I’m perched up high,
            One eye on the pit, one eye on the sky.

"Stars" by Maxfield Parrish