January Puzzle Completion!

Missing piece aside, I completed the January puzzle!

Not sure why they're in this order, but it's nice knowing that last picture was only about 2-3 days ago.

I know it probably seems dumb to want to complete a puzzle a month. Why do people even do puzzles? I like the quiet. I like the challenge. I like that I'm an 80 year old woman inside. I like that now that I did it, I get to destroy it. I like that it'll go back in the box and nobody but me will know there's a missing piece. I hope my brain gets stronger this year.

Cheers to resolutions.

Last few months/weeks have been extremely social for me here, comparatively speaking. I'm pushing myself because I know it's unhealthy to spend so much time alone. And I love everyone! But there's something that sounds so good to me at the end of the day about sitting in my bedroom alone with Ryan Adams playing, putting together a puzzle or burning through pages of my current read. Tonight was really fun! I'm just sleepy.

As always, though, there is a balance. That's the key. Remember, Miss Kate.

Help! I'm a rock.

To the untrained eye, there is a sameness in someone who is openly emotional and somebody who is able to talk about their emotions openly. I'm only the former. Terribly overwhelmingly afraid of letting people take care of me, outrageously anxious about "letting people in" (a phrase which I understand, but also can never understand), openly uncomfortable with sharing myself in a deep way.

I'm a joke, I think.

I feel the connection forming in my bones, under my skin, in the stars and I pull back, desperately. I worry about judgment and tears and unnecessary conversations about how somebody or something hurts me. "I don't belong to anyone, my heart's as heavy as an oil drum." I sing this to myself over and over again, even when I thought I was yours, even though I hope to become yours, someday. It's just the same old thing 1000 times though. Stupid and stubborn and self critical and I don't know how to make myself just be kind to myself. I don't know how to let somebody just love on me and I don't know how to let somebody know that this is something I need. I'm a mess, I guess. I'm a mess, definitely.

The truth is, I wish I could do something about it and feel all those things normal girls feel and be obsessed with the idea of togetherness and happiness but it just makes me feel anxious, makes me feel like I'm going to drown in discomfort and I'm going to disappoint everyone. Yes, you are different. You do something different. They always do. But I don't know what to do with it. I don't know what this is.

All of this being said, I don't know what it is that I'm supposed to be telling people. I don't ever know which moments are moments of opportunity to "let" somebody "in." I know that I wish I knew what it meant. I wish I knew why I still get that urge at 2 am when I'm all alone and I know it'd be months before anyone would find out and I'm crying while I write this because I don't know that anyone would know what I'm talking about. And that's my fault.

I'm not guilty, but this is my pleasure.

I've been severely disappointed in her last few singles, but Miss Kelly's come back swinging and I love this jam, shamelessly. I dig her sweetness and think there's something to be said about an artist in this time who consistently releases family friendly hits that don't suck.

Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm aloooone!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn676-fLq7I&ob=av2e

I've written more for myself in the last 27 days than I have in years.

I might have you to thank for that.

I can't explain it. I can only appreciate it. And hope I don't do something crazy before I have a chance to enjoy it.

I spent the last 3 days with Kristyn, and the immense and divine joy this brought me I can in no way begin to articulate. All I can say is that I love her. And that there's something she does for me that no other person really has... Kristyn just lets me be. She always invites but never pushes me, just kinda lets me do my thing. She questions me a lot and asks me questions that I know I should consider, but Kristyn's never told me not to do something. I think I've always needed this anchor, this stability, this comfort. If the rest of my life is continuously chaotic and insane, there has always been a certainty in our love that I am grateful for. I felt like because it was not sunny, I kind of couldn't show her all of the things I love here, and some of the things I love didn't look as beautiful. But really the experience I loved most during her visit was laying in the guest bed of Claudia's house just talking with her before falling asleep.

The truth is, I came here to write something pretty emo, express some serious negativity I've been feeling the last few days. But I remember that moment and dancing in the rain with her and I feel a completeness that reminds me how boring sadness is, how much it isn't what I want to focus on. There's something fantastic about how quickly a few good vibes can erase an entire mood.

Maybe I'll be emo later. For now, I'll take that you just want to be alone as a sign that I need to be. And I'll remember what it was like to feel cold feet on colder cement. And I'll be okay with that.

And then there's this cat painting...

Desperately trying not to be a huge baby.

But it's my party, I can cry if I want to.

lol

Part of my 500 words a day that I've been writing... some weird stuff! I don't even remember writing this?? No clue where this came from.

When you loved, you let her pull your fingers close and broken along some line or another we all speak the same language of boredom as grown ups. I remember watching you, fifteen and too much eyeliner, black gunk drenching already heavy eyelids, promises of revolution paired with the sweetness of depression. Do you remember my eyes? Glued to you, watching you, waiting for something and anyone other than you? I wanted to make myself matter by mattering to you, when really, all I needed was to make more money and do more shit. Get real, Clyde. My father was always afraid to be alone, even though he isn’t boring. I wonder what it would take to wake up everyone. A sleeping pill so big we call it the moon. When I count sheep, I could you first, just in case you can feel my fingers forming in air the swollen belly of the number five. Can you feel my pregnanted finger against the nape of that number? I know this doesn’t exist. I don’t need it to. All I need is to feel the sweetness inside you, the music above me. I have no answer for you because I don’t understand the question. She will tell me that it’s happening. And I will sigh, wonder, for the millionth time, we are all speaking backwards, in tongue.

When building a fairy tale, one must remember how to be a child: how to grow short limbs and a small nose. Here is a brief fairy tale about a munchkin and her friend, the hunter.


Break. But no brakes.

But we, we built a fort out of blankets and bad humor, overgrown marshmallows and a side of heartbreak. There is something in brown eyes and this is not, no, poetry, this is the mountains rebuilding in a different form, with someone new. This is deep red wine and cigarette smoke. This is a borrowed kiss in a bar on accident, but not a mistake. I don't know how to tell you without telling you, save repetition and slow kisses. It all sounds so much more. But you said to me, brushing burned hair behind small ears: "I'm an asshole." I could barely catch my breath, choking on laughter and irony. Do you know where we were? My answer: "I seek pain." My apologies, with you, brief. Nothing to explain, nowhere to go.

Too Much to Remember

Something random I wrote, maybe the beginning to a story. Maybe the end. I don't know what it is.

I watched her books disappear over weeks… the words bound shrinking just like those between us. I had done nothing wrong, she said. But I knew better. I knew that if I had done nothing wrong, she wouldn’t leave me, wouldn’t have already left me. Here we go.

Before I fall asleep, I can still feel her breathing down my neck, her softness bringing me to life when I least wanted it. I never took advantage of these kinds of things.

Is this not the greatest tragedy?

I didn’t mean to fall apart, of course. But it’s wedged between us, something like air but more beautiful, something like water but heavier. All I can feel is my heart breaking again and again and again and again and again here we go, I say instead: I still have our box. I can’t help it. I can’t throw her away. I can’t give her to goodwill or forget worn jeans or mermaid hair. I didn’t know how to keep her and so she was gone. If I believed in God, I would have prayed to Him. Who the hell knows, maybe I did. I can’t remember anything except trying not to cry, trying to hold myself away from her, when all I wanted was to feel the soft animal of her body falling against mine, make me somebody. She was the only one….

I know you want to say something.

Insanity and Conviction

The mattress's fall broke the tension as it snapped the ropes atop the purple van we wouldn't end up taking across the country. We left Carrollton without me saying goodbye- I couldn't do it. I don't understand the word. The only thing I understood was moving forward, flying mattresses, the music between us, and heavy boots. He didn't understand me. That was okay- that was the whole point. And I didn't cry when we left, though I know I should have. There are times where I hold it up in me so tight I'm afraid if I started letting the tears fall it would be a physical impossibility to ever stop- I'd cry a new ocean onto a map, cry a new world where everything is water and everyone is safe except for me. I can't stop crying. Fourteen days in California... all tears. No fear. I just had to let it go.

The mattress was just one thing. It all cracked. Over the year, so many things. So much has fallen off the metaphorical purple van that used to be literal. From him and me to my own certainties in general to my belief that I would never be safe- all of that is something else now. Liquid and morphing, these things I once "believed" in are now lost in that sea I cried. I stopped believing in anything but us and God. I don't know. I remember there is never bad- only darkness, only a temporary glow of shade on my light. Believing isn't real. There's something deeper. What have I experienced this year? Conviction. Knowing I am. Knowing there is more than just a slight certainty--- surviving the worst, being miserable. In the depths of hell, I found God waiting for me to share his hot chocolate and a newspaper. I'm sorry for everything I could not fix. I always am. If there was nothing else about me you understood, there will always be my blues. There will always be thousands of tears. You will always have them, flooding your pillow cases and making your dreams come true. I'm crazier than I look.

With you, there was melting and music, something I need to pull out of you, something I have to know. I always know, because I have to know. There's something budding between the lines, making meaning, making the fingers dance upon frets I don't understand. There are brown eyes and soft voices, whispers and couches and kisses nobody else is supposed to hear. I don't know about anything. I just know that writing doesn't have to make sense as long as you can feel it. Do you know what I mean?

And still, I miss long hair and cooking in that kitchen. I miss writing poetry and being sad. There are times where this is all too much joy to handle, so much I can feel it seeping out of me one radiance at a time and I worry that I can never contain it and then I'm alone again. For the first time, I am crying. Newness and broken hearts and new words and responsibility and being a grown up and bills and bills I don't know how to pay and things that matter more than all of this--- I will still tell you when you show up in my dreams. It's the least I can do.

day365.

Ignore that fear, for just one moment.

Now, what do you want?