The offshore sure thing - Your hook, unhooked.

4 years. 

I've been angry with you.

You rolled me under.

Shifted my tide....

spit me out into the mountains...

salted,

dehydrated,

unforgiven;

I return.

I anticipate your altered shoreline...

you've raged 

I can smell your rush...coming in, coming out

The last time you pulled at me

I begged for you to take me, pleaded...

you refused. 

Stopped short. 

Leaving me the lone survivor of your shipwreck. 

4 years.

I haven't seen the sights of you. 

The distance of your swell

The offshore sure thing

Your hook,

unhooked. 

Tossed back, washed up 

seaweed tangled

secondary drowning; drowned. 

We're about to settle up

O' Captain! My Captain.

I've completely avoided doing anything to help me deal with my Dad's death.

I haven't written much lately.
In fact...I haven't done much of anything lately except work.
..and drink.
I've completely avoided doing anything to help me deal with my Dad's death.
This I know.
I know I've been doing everything BUT try to deal with it. Despite the nightmares that constantly remind me of what happened. I don't talk about it.
I don't even really have anyone to talk about it to so I just go about my days pretending like
it didn't. Or, idk - that if it did happen...it didn't happen to me.

That other girl. The one sobbing in the corner. It happened to her; she's a fucking mess.

I do keep trying to find things to occupy my inability to deal with ANYTHING in my life.
The smallest things, any even remote attempt at slowly readjusting into society in ANY way get's completely thwarted by my inability to find it in me to actually do it.

I hide behind Pinterest quotes that make me look like I'm inspiring and positive but the reality of it is that; yup...
I'm sobbing in the corner raging like a completely insane person.

No I'm not. I'm inundating myself with work. I say YES to everything other than myself. I've been trying to meditate but all I seem to really do is lament in my own anger.

Why have I designed for myself this cage where the bars are easy enough to slip out of...but still; I am trapped.

I do try to get away from patterns of negativity only to see the same fucking repetitive behavior I have been engaging in for years.

I've been really hung up on the fact that my ex didn't message me and tell me he was sorry that my Dad had died. It has been enough of an anger crutch for me to not have to deal with my Dad actually having died.

Until today, and a book. It ALWAYS shows up in a book and as I write this, my face still stained with tears. I'm still in disbelief that the universe works this way. A fucking book.

I don't really read that much. I love to read and I am constantly distracting myself with Goodreads quotes until I have convinced myself that I at least LOOK like the smartest person I know on Facebook. (*still in the corner sobbing).

The Mermaid Chair. Those of you that know me are laughing. You know the satire I have played myself into. I hate paintings mermaids. There I said it. Why do I hate painting mermaids? Because half of my life has been spent in the water and since my divorce I can barely look at the ocean without losing my shit. There...I said that out loud too.
Here I am hiding in the mountains. *Cage.

So, I start reading the book. I'll try to describe it as briefly as possible as to why this is relevant.
The main character is a woman from South Carolina. She makes art boxes(assemblage). Her Mom cuts off her finger (amputation). Woman now goes home to help her mom (beach next to Monastery that houses said Mermaid Chair). Falls in love with a Monk (unavailable man). Separates from her husband because she needs to be alone (has lots of sex with Monk). In the meantime is asked by a local shop owner to start painting MERMAIDS for her shop.

She doesn't really want to paint mermaids because she really loves making ART BOXES.

While on the island she revisits her Fathers death and how it is somehow connected with her mom's desire to cut off her own fingers.

The Monk and her are in love he suggests that they move to ASHEVILLE. (As I was reading this I kept looking around like someone was watching me. (Anyone who knows my movie director boyfriend story doesn't find this part of this that unrealistic either). *Thanks Chusy for the permanent installation of paranoia. Muah.)

The plot unfolds and the woman realizes that she came back to the island to try to come to terms with her Father's death. REALLY??? Now? right now? *loses shit.

That all these years she has been putting herself inside of a box because of her inability to deal with it. Thus her art.

Fuck you stupid fucking mermaid book. Fuck you.
I'm taking the weekend off. I'm really sad about my Dad and I'm tired of pretending and hiding under this pile of work.

I should have known when I started reading it...but what I didn't know was how hard this was all going to be. How would I?

The Glory Hole Sunday

I wanted to take the violin apart.

I couldn't play it. I just sat there looking at me in it's mockery.

...but I could take it apart and make it something that I understood.
Then I could play it.

I wasn't given the same list of rules. I wish I was.

I was given the short skirt blow job list...
do this.
do that.

I got finger banged on the bus in my catholic school girl skirt in 7th grade.
It stopped after I put his head thru the window.


Shattered.

Yeah. I got the fuck it bucket list.

The Glory Hole Sunday.

Funday. ha.

I took a chance.
These fucking days all blend together anymore.

It's a Sex Wax Sunday without the surf.
Blown out.

....seems to be the story around here.

It's time to reel it back in.
Hana Pa'a.

I'm often surprised at how far gone kindness is.
How self absorbed most people are.
How saying what you mean and meaning what you say seems like a lost language.

There's a walk that I frequently take my dog on in the woods near my house. It's a healthy loop so we both spend some time frolicking and kicking dirt. After a recent storm that downed a few trees I found and saved a pinned sapling.

Each time I would walk Lunar I would be sure to make the loop, check on the tree - give it some love and energy (trees are said to be able to absorb a lot of our problems if you touch them; years of experience dealing with us and our poor decisions I suppose).

Shortly after the storm, the park service came and cut up the fallen tree that had originally pinned the sapling; and for the second time I found the sapling stuck under a cut log. I picked it back up - realizing that twice down was a much harder recovery (having visited that metaphor many times in my life). Still I continued my due diligence to my woodland family member. The chosen one.

Today...I really needed help.
I asked for help and then shortly after I realized that it was time to stop asking for help.
I need to pick myself back up. Somethings been pinning me down lately too.
Not that I was asking for anything huge. I just needed a break and some time to work and
my time is not someone else's time. It is only my own.

Because of this I needed to run Lunar. He's still a puppy and although we had already been on a huge walk it just wasn't enough for him to relax or for me to be able to get any work done.

I did the loop angrily. I thought it would calm me down but each step was only upsetting me further since the only thing I really wanted to do/needed to do was work today. Here I was in the woods. You would think I would have been able to enjoy it. I stayed longer than usual just in hopes that Lunar would exhaust himself and not vibe off of my negative energy.

I do the same loop about 5 times a week. Today....
it just wasn't going to let me get out of there the same.

The sapling was dead. When I ran the last trail to where I normally stop and give love to this little tree that I so desperately tried to save. I realized I had failed.

I'm failing.

Needless to say I lost my shit, crying in the woods, hoping no one would come by and try to understand how fucked up my relationship with this situation was.

I just really wanted it to live. I really thought that I could save it.
I really think I can help people.

I try so hard to be selfless and help people and I just needed a break today.
I needed the tree not to be dead but it's dead.

...and I need to stop helping people and start helping myself because soon enough
the story's gonna be the same. I've been putting everyone and everything first and the only thing I keep seeing happen is that my art is suffering.

I'm suffering.
I'm no different then the pinned sapling. It never asked me to save it - I just really believed I could. Perhaps it was happier in the down.

Seems to be the story around here.
I'm just not interested in that ending.

Hana Pa'a.

Soon the waves and I found the rolling, soon the waves and I found the rip

Soon the waves and I found the rolling
Soon the waves and I found the rip

Tide

In the quiet comes the crashing
the pulling
pushing
choking
drowning

Empty arms
I wish I still had your soul to hold

...even though you pulled me under.

I think about someone every single day...our relationship hangs by a thread - literally

I think about someone every single day...our relationship hangs by a thread (in my head), literally.

The things we do. 

I try really hard to be transparent.

trans·par·ent
tranˈspe(ə)rənt,-ˈspar-/
adjective
-(of a material or article) allowing light to pass through so that objects behind can be distinctly seen.
-easy to perceive or detect 

-having thoughts, feelings, or motives that are easily perceived.


I have worn these two bracelets daily for over a year now. One represents my sister..the other represents someone I love and respect dearly. I made matching bracelets for both of these people. Friendship bracelets..I know I'm a dork but I was revisiting my youth and it really had a symbolic meaning for me.

One hangs on by a thread and has for the past three months. One is as solid as the day I made it. 

Two days ago I was out and I was at a outdoor bar that I love chatting with a guy that I like. We just talk when we run into each other - never exchanging numbers or social media. He's from Philly so I think maybe it's just that we feel like old friends. I won't say that I'm not interested though; because I am. 

As I'm talking to him I look down and the bracelet is gone. I panic..without trying to look like I'm panicking - and look around me for it realizing that was foolish; I sat with it for a moment. 

I've been gauging my hearts attachment to that relationship by this bracelet btw...and I let go.

I let him go. 

Yesterday morning I woke up - and the bracelet was back on my wrist; still hanging on by its thread. 

..and I wonder what part of this story I'm making up.

Without the vessel, there is no beat.

                                                                                             Boy with Horse
                                                                                             Picasso
"String Less"

I search for the pulse
the shudder, the thump, the faint
slow
push

In the moment of climax, crash, impact
disrepair..
I just want to feel

again

I remember the first time it happened -
it was a three sixty
a spin out, a thrust, a jolt, jagged edge and
a gasp of air; you would think -
not

nothing

Each time I reach for it
I scream for it
I rage for it

Apparently,
without the vessel
there is no beat.

                                                                                                           Boy with Banjo
                                                                                                           Donated