At this time last year

I wasn't here.

There's this sense of purpose I'm feeling start to slowly slip away from me. I'm not prompted to write very much. I just end up looking at pictures of beautiful people and going running and then coming back home, to end up eventually looking at more pictures and then going running again.
Maybe the running gives me a sense of purpose and that's why I'm leaning on it so much.

I like making my days productive.
And so far, they have been.

But I guess I miss feeling somewhat of use. Needed. And all that, you know?
This whole working backwards is a whole lot harder than I thought.

At this time last year, I knew exactly where I was.

Flutterby, she butterflies

I don't know how else to say it,
but,
I'm still here.

Always been a sucker for little silver things

Like this-

http://www.etsy.com/listing/61813730/ukulele-ring-made-in-hawaii-by-cabin-no7

But mostly, I need help saving up for my next tattoo. Because it feels like it's going to cost a whoooole lot. Like losing the weight for it isn't hard enough work. Pah.

Crutch

Want to go running.
Right now.

Gravity

But you touch me for a little while,
And all my fragile strength is gone.

Skip, skips a beat

Everytime I get a new email on my blackberry. Oh my word. This is not in the least bit good for my soul!
I'm so scared, and I don't think I'll make the cut.

But more than anything, I want that letter, rejection or otherwise, to come now so that I can pick myself up and think about what happens next.

Hit the ground, hit the ground and run

So why don't we go,
Somewhere only we know?

Good Saturday starts

Bird just bbm-ed me and made my dayyyyyy(((:

This heart, it's spent its time missing

You hold my world,

in the palm of Your hand

And I am Yours, forever

I'll fly in a bit.

It's not that I need to be in a different country to be in touch with God. It's just that, it's always been refreshing. Endlessly so at that.

And for that, I am impossibly excited.

I can't wait.

just enough to keep me up another night

I miss you.

I really, really do. You have no idea.

__________________________

and,

I miss you.

__________________________

waiting for another day

Rabbit Hole

Howie: ...and after that we'll come home (beat)
Becca: and then what? (Beat.)
Howie: I don't know. Something though. We'll figure it out.
Becca: will we?
Howie: I think so. I think we will.
Lights fade.

-- David Lindsay-Abaire, Rabbit Hole. An excerpt

Dégueulasse

Be stronger

atelophobia

Socially constructed ideas of beauty

I'd say the same thing to everyone else, you know.

No, I don't.

I'm going to go run now.

I like running.

When Autumn leaves

Brown eyes, like his father's

And a laugh that the wind carries,

will carry, for miles and miles.

start to fall

Walking tightropes

"Yes." My eyes searching his, trying to read him.

"No."

"Yes"

"No." He's starting to get angry, his eyes are just a little bit red. And me, I find myself pleading. Pleading. Why does it always feel like I'm doing that?

"Yes. Yes." I'm insistent, I'm begging now, I know it. And I'm asking, posing all these non-verbal questions to myself, to him.

"NO!" He yells at me, his eyes angry, his brow furrowed. He shakes his head at me, lowers his voice. It is firm.

"No." Firm and demanding.

I watch him. And I want to ask why. My breath, it's catching, and I'm all choked up and I'm so close to tears. "Why?" I want to say, "Why not?" But I don't. I lose myself to the space between us, to the anger that I don't understand that's seeping from his pores, to the desperation I find etched in my voice.

"Yes," I say, "Yes." Hating, detesting that desperate, desperate need I find clawing at my insides, reaching out to him.

"No," He says, his voice a harsh whisper. Except, I'm hearing him say "Please" now.

"No." And he's breaking then, he's breaking in front of me. He's breaking and then he breaks.

"Yes" I say, pulling him to me, all but physically, "Yes." I can be insistent too. I can work this for me, I can.

"No," he says again. He's so worn out now, tears filling his eyes and running in streams.

"No." It's barely above a whisper. I want to back away, I want to let him be. I want to tell him that I can't make him, I can't.

Except a voice, inches from my ear tells me I can't do that. Tells me to do otherwise. So.

"Yes," I say, "Yes."

But he's so broken and still holding on, holding on to something I can't see, fighting for something I know nothing about.

"No." And I take it in. I need to after all, take it in. Because I can't make him, I can't.

I can want to, so very much.

But I can't make him want too.

Breathe.

Scene.

there aren't fairytales about fat princesses

run.

run, run, keep running.

until your chest burns and your feet are blistered and your nose is sore and your fingers are numb.

and then run some more.

run.

run and run and run and keep on running.

the ground,

it feels a lot more solid, a lot more heavenly, a lot more steady,

when the rest of the world is spinning.

Still a little bit of your taste, in my mouth

It's still a little hard to say,

what's going on.

So come on, courage

teach me to be shy

cos it's not hard to fall

when you float like a cannonball

Coming in late: Only girl in the world? Try the luckiest

This is the most bizarre thing- I wrote this in August. On the seventh of August actually, except for some reason, it stayed in my drafts and never got published.

I wonder if there'll come a time, when, through no fault of anyone's,

I grow used to you bringing in a cup of water before bed

and you start expecting me to pick up your toothpaste

and I figure you'll pick up the yoghurt when we're out

and you assume that I'd know better than to throw a dash of honey into something or other.

Honestly, I can't say for certain.

I can't say we won't tire of each other, that there won't be nights where I will curl up, just out of reach and that there won't be days that you don't feel like picking up my call.

But here's the funny thing, I want that with you. To hit speedbumps in the road with you; to get stuck in the middle of a highway that stretches on for ages, kick the tyre and go, "Couldn't this thing have given out AFTER we picked up the couple who was gonna be on this roadtrip with us?"

To crash into things, and throw hissy fits and make up or agree to disagree or text in the morning and say "I'm sorry".

To miss.

I wish I knew this earlier

And the thing is,

it always was supposed to have been about the trying and less about the romanticism.

shift.

Brb

Needed to go cry.

Green Pens

So then, if you do, love me.

Can't make you love me

'Cuz I can't make you love me
If you don't.
You can't make your heart feel
Something it won't.
Here in the dark
In these final hours,
I will lay down my heart
And I'll feel the power;
But you won't.
No, you won't.
'Cuz I can't make you love me
If you don't.




Morning will come,
And I'll do what's right;
Just give me till then
To give up this fight.

And I will give up this fight.

On your hook

Oh hey, remember that time when we sat in a quiet little room with carpeted floors and a cross with Jesus on the wall that faced empty pews and chairs that had held crying people together and you leaned against the back of the pew as you talked and I sat facing you, my back against the side and we knew we knew we knew there was no way that wood was going to give out beneath us and then you said that God must hate you because then you leaned forward and kissed me really quietly and my world spun and my breath caught and I thought you were magic as the heat hit my cheeks and I bit my lip while turning away.
That was a funny one, wasn't it?

And remember that time when you held me in a playground as my knees gave out while you made my skin tingle and my breath felt like it was singing and my fingers gripped old plastic and you pulled me tighter to you and remember, remember what you said?
"I've got you. Don't worry, I've got you." And your whispers felt like warm smoking promises curling themselves behind my ear and I, I loved you despite myself.
And you did have me that night, just like you've got me now and everyone knows this would be easier if you didn't but it's too late now isn't it? That's what we get for giving ourselves away and I can't say for sure that I'd have it any other way.
But remember, remember that time when-
Oh those promises, they were the funniest thing weren't they? How you've got me wrapped around your littlest finger, it's the funniest thing, isn't it?

Sink with the tide, rescue me, if you like

Maybe I'm doing this, I'm hanging on,

just for the day you might look at me the way you used to.

Like, like you want to know more.

Like, you're not tired.

Like, I might just keep your attention.

Like you look at me and you see the trainwreck but it's okay.

Actually,

that you'll look at me at all.

Think how we tried,

it's okay to be lied to

as long as it's only by you

Am I not pretty enough?

Is my heart too broken?

Do I cry too much,

am I too outspoken?

Don't I make you laugh,

should I try it harder?

Why do you see, right through me?

Empty Chairs

I've never needed an audience to speak, never needed readers to write. I've done whichever I feel like, when I feel like it. Honestly, I don't see why one should bother speaking if no one's listening (that is of course, not to say that you shouldn't speak just because no one's listening.) I think of recent, I've just found myself more inclined to sit outside an office that's holding a debrief I should be involved in. Or excusing myself to cuddle up with Wallaby Joe. Or even just sitting quietly behind the rows and rows of stables where no one can find me.

I feel like sitting by myself for a bit.

My point?
I've always felt most comfortable in empty dance studios, with the curtains drawn and empty theatres with the lights down.
I've always written, where I couldn't speak, and written, so that I could.
I was once told last year that it felt like I was exclusive- like I wrote so much that I didn't talk about these things that mattered.
But let's face it, people have lives to live and other things to talk about. Things they'd like opinions on, or a listening ear for. Things that matter.

"Are you going to be okay?" You asked. Well I wasn't really not okay. But to honestly answer your question, yes. Yes I'll be okay, and I wanted to say that.
Yes, I'll be okay, because when I'm not, I'll get over it or around it or sit in it until I am okay.
Yes, I'll be okay, because I can still hold on to my writings, and me.

I don't need to talk out loud about mindless things like how my nightmare stayed inside my bones even after I woke up, rattling about inside me as I walked about from place to place. And how it hurt as it rattled about, come to think of it. How I was scared, and am still scared to fall asleep again and find myself back there. How I cried so much in that nightmare that I'm sure I woke up to find my eyes brimming, but that despite having been bawling, my pillow wasn't soaked yet.
Or how I woke up dreaming I was falling into space and how I was sure it was a ride, but it wasn't, but maybe it was. And what I was most concerned about was if I'd left anything behind in the seats.

Or how today, something happened with one of the boys that stilled my insides and made me draw in a huge breath. That made me cry at dinner as I talked about it. That's left me thinking about it all day, making me more frustrated at the environment around it- because no one caught that or could hold onto that, in that moment. And I am wrapping myself around it, keeping it here and trying to hold on to it with the weight of me.
How I thought it was one of the most beautiful moments I'd ever found myself in. And how it rang with such truth that it felt like silver falling to sand and still making a sound.

Because here I am, with my words. And all my sappy little feelings. And my soul, here. And it's okay that I am here, with my words. In this space and/or spaces of the like- physical and non-physical pages.

I used to be quite silly. I used to go on and on and on about the most weightless things that my significant others cared nought for. And then I stopped and wrote more.
And then, there was you.
And often times I am confused- because, to be quite frank, there's hardly time these days to talk about, well, all these little things that like to find themselves fluttering about in my head. There's a lot of other things that are going on.
It's not that I wouldn't like to talk to you love, on the contrary, I'd very much love to, on days you felt like listening to my incessant ramblings.
I love talking with you. I'd love to talk with you.

But those days that I get to, until they come back, yes ma chérie, yes I'll be okay.
Because I've got pen and paper.
And I've got these empty chairs.

Carrots, sticks and the grey bits in between.

You can't lie to a horse. In that same respect, a horse doesn't lie to you.
Children don't lie either. They don't start off lying. Babies don't cry for the sake of crying, they cry because they need something. Somewhere along the way though, they do start. They find words that can or might mean other things, they pick up from whatever is around them, and they learn. They learn to lie.
And they learn to lie, from adults.

That's why people like good theatre. Because it's easier to watch someone else be honest in a "controlled environment" than be honest yourself, back in the real world. And we all know good actors don't lie. They aren't lying, they're being. They're letting things affect them as it happens, moment to moment. Also, you can't lie to your audience. You don't have to be in the industry to be able to see whether or not the person on stage/on film is really doing or thinking something.

I'm annoyed today. I am annoyed and drained out and empty. That's what I am, empty. Or bordering on.
Because I feel like I am suffocating, choking on everybody's empty words. Watching sticks being dangled in front of children like carrots. Except they're not. They're sticks. They are fucking sticks, okay?

And it feels like everywhere I turn, full grown adults are lying and blatantly teaching children to do the same. They're coaxing, baiting- instead of embedding seeds of thought, what they're doing is planting key words pulled straight from a textbook. Hoping, hoping, hoping, that these key words will come up, will resurface, will be used so that they can say, "Ah ha! Look at the work I've done."
I wish these people would see, that there are so many who are ready to learn. Who are sitting there, open to you, trusting you to bring them to a different place. And no, it might not be all of them; it might be the bare minimum out of the group. But those who do, want to so badly. They want to so much that they look into themselves, and they're searching and they're trying to find their words when all you want to do is give them multiple choice and cloze passages.

I turn around, and the ones who are fronting are the adults. The ones who don't trust themselves are the adults. The ones who don't trust each other are the adults. And you, you are allowed to guide these children?!
And I'm not even talking about any one person in particular here, I'm talking about an entire team. I'm talking about us.
You, we, can keep lying, but the only one buying it is ourselves.

Christ, everywhere I fucking turn, it's wave after wave of half-lies, economical truths, empty promises, meaningless words. Shut up for two seconds. Just shut the fuck up, and stop saying things if you feel like you need to say something other than what you mean.
I'm not saying I don't lie, deliberately or otherwise. I'm not saying I don't front sometimes. We all do because we're conditioned like that. And really, honestly, we're scared.
So then, we find an environment where we can break ourselves open. And in this same space, because we can, we can bring people to that same sanctuary.
So that for just a little while, there is escape from the masquerade of everyday life.
So that for just a while, you can be honest and not be wrong.
So that, for just a while, you are allowed to be no one else, other than yourself.
Here's the catch-
You can't bring someone somewhere you've never been. You can discover it together, but you can't lead and guide someone to truth that you have never known.
In other words, you need to be honest with yourself and where you've been and therefore, where you can take people.

There's a difference between a carrot and a stick. And oh, believe me, I have been fifteen and had sticks dangled in front of me. And at fifteen I was fully capable of telling the difference between a carrot and a stick.
But I'm not about to play fetch with you because honey,
I am not your bitch.