oneword: evidence

I find these truths to be self-evident:

Death is not the end; it is just the beginning.

It is useless to squabble over spilled milk. Or hurt feelings.

It is even more useless to place the blame somewhere else and try to convince yourself that you are a victim.

Love is all you need.

Amongst madness you can find clarity and hope.

Rain is beautiful, if you take the time to notice.

The most evident thing of all: you don't need evidence to believe, to know that something is true, to have unshakeable faith that something is more right than anything has been before it.

oneword: evidence

proof of purchase. of importance. of truth. proof that we just can't seem to move fast enough. to breathe deep enough. to just spin in unison. it's really that things so rarely line up... when they do we don't believe it anyway.

wordcount #6: in

i find myself spinning... AGAIN. that tornado in between like and love. carry me up, out and all around my bloated insecurities, full of lust and fear and the way my hormones shake when yours are near. this is not the first time i have been here and it makes me question if this is not as good, just as good, better or just different. my insides tell me that it's a little bit of all of that and honestly, that is way more complicated than i am really prepared to deal with right now. so my body is following my mind down the rabbit hole. let's just run away and hope all of this clears itself up on it's own.

:sticks head in sand:

by accident

inspired by today's oneword: feathered

her outfits always match
the weather

her hair is always up
and feathered

she carries
her heart
in her jeans'
back left pocket

and sometimes,
by accident
it gets squished
when she sits on it

* originally written 9/12/03

oneword: feathered

swift flight; soft goodbyes. they escape quickly out of the corners of my mouth as i smile away all of the coquetries that danced between our lips and jumped cannonballs off our finger tips. plunge deep, dark -- into pools of liquefied sugar cubes; hot, buttered, melted fools feel like they sprout wings (amongst other things).

wordcount # 5: a

signifying the singular. one. a solitude necessary in proving this point of he + she = we, but still seperate in mind even when legs are intertwined. a bonding of the soul may not actually exist, but a mere recognition in a bigger, united, collective insists that our journey can be shared, but is never the same.

oneword: proud

I am starting to listen more than I talk. This is mostly and more importantly true with myself. I am starting to hear that little voice inside loud and clear. And she is starting to show me the way to that intangible place called happiness. I am starting to let that pigheaded pride trickle away, or at least diminish into the background, and I am really starting to see the pieces of me I can be proud of.

oneword: proud

no, no. this negativity i am not proud of. this doubt and speculation. i am ruining this. i am desperately searching for a reason not to like him more than he likes me. for a reason to stay in control. to not be so fucking vulnerable. i am terrified of getting hurt again. but this time... this time if it doesn't work... i will actually lose a good man.

oneword: proud

Too proud to accept that I have been beaten, I will trudge through the shattered dreams and numerous disappointments with my head down, eyes averted. Looking up would force me to see the reality. That life seems to have lost a bit of its luster. I can create my own world by keeping my head to the ground.

oneword: wildflower

There is something rugged about you. Hardy. While the world boxes itself into concrete fortresses, you seem to fight back against the paved walls, screaming in color.

I am still here. I am still alive. I am still blooming.

And I will fight.

oneword: wildflower

Masses of these multi-colored miracles rock and sway in the Indian Summer breeze. The humidity that choked them for so long, smothering their petals with disillusionment and disdain, is beginning to thin. Dissipating into the beautiful brutal truth of fall. As the air molecules spread apart, their life lines are freed, their breath is released. Their tension takes off, stemming an oxymoronical rebirth at the prewritten end. The cold winds are coming in, and soon the trees' multi-colored miracles too will be stripped from their branches, leaving empty, honest space.

And in this space we'll find the truest miracle of all: a soul writing its newest beginning's fall.

oneword: wildflower

they seem to grow in abundance around here. i am somehow -- simultaneously, gratefully, inspired and divinely jealous; breathing in the stink of their petals, some flawed, yet all imperfectly, beautifully breathtaking. this little garden cultivated in my heart and printed on the pages of the diary at the back of my mind; the soil is moist and dark and our roots tickle each other. We struggle to grow, ache to bloom, and let the bumble bees share our nectar as they buzz from blog to blog.

oneword: brick

a wall that was once torn down. brick by brick it has gone back up. i remember why it was there, and i remember why and how it came down. i didn't realize it was back, or maybe i chose to ignore it slowly creeping back up. i can say that tearing it down is a heck of a lot happier than the process of it being rebuilt. now i am trapped with myself again, and everyone is once again at a comfortable arm's length away. it went back up a lot faster than it came down.

wordcount #5: a

A woman. A sister. A daughter. A grand-daughter. A cousin. A "mama" to anyone who needs mothering. A caretaker. A stand-in sister for some. A Miss Tina for years. A T, Tbina, G, or Tiner to many. A sweetness to one. A cutie to another. A dancer. A teacher. A friend. A listener. A laugher. A discusser of the here-after. A choreographer. A coordinator. A writer. A creator. A doer. A compromiser. A fighter. A debater. A tentative lover. A challenge and a challenger. A thinker. A reader. A non-meat eater. A meditator. A dog lover. A fun lover. A cat lover, too. An imaginer. A questioner. A dreamer. A traveler. A supporter. A volunteer. A hat wearer. A hair changer. A funky shoe wearer. A wannabe guitar player. A little girl in a big girl's body trying to be all that I can be, but really just a best version of me.

oneword: brick

A thick, tall, impenetrable wall has been built up around me, brick by brick, disappointment by disappointment. Or is it, illusion by delusion? Either way, it has weathered many a storm. It has protected me from harm, while keeping me safely in a void of independence.

Or is it loneliness?

It stands there still, but so do you. Looking patiently, intently toward the other side, biding your time before you attempt the climb.

oneword: brick

And so we keep building.

But what, exactly? Why do we keep coming back to this same tired dance?

Why do I continue to play, when I know that a few weeks from now, you'll want nothing to do with me again?

Why do I hang on to this sick, twisted hope that you want to do more than hook-up, BE more than a late-night phone call?

The chemistry is still there. Definitely. But, Mr. October, am I strong enough to resist it?

oneword: throw

I want to throw out all of the silly little notions I've learned. Toss them clear out a 3rd story window. Sometimes those notions throw me into a tizzy and I escalate so fast that few know what to do. And then someone or something reminds me that this too shall pass. This too is not worth throwing everything into flux. So I will change my approach. I will reevaluate the way I evaluate the world. I will put myself in check. Because, as it turns out, I am not superficial. But I am emotional. I am sensitive.

And sometimes that pushes me off center.

I am grateful for the people in my life who provide the solid ground I often struggle to find, the people who tell me like it is, in such clear and certain terms that I wonder why I couldn't see it before. Those people are the ones I want to throw all of my energy towards. They help me first to find and see myself, and then they help me reveal that to the world.

I don't know what I would do without them.

wanting

have you ever tried to imagine heaven? i've always heard that the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard the glory in God's word. still, i remember listening to the descriptions of heaven from many a preacher. they talked of streets paved of gold, of buildings built of rubies and emeralds. in my young mind, i thought of hollywood and the taj mahal. later, my version of heaven had purple oceans washing up on grey beaches, with big black skelatol trees and black skies, and big square buildings. i wanted structure and plans and concrete. always concrete.

more recently, i realized my vision of heaven had at some point shifted and then changed completely. now when i think of heaven i think of a rainy day and the wind in my face. that's today. tomorrow i'm sure i'll imagine something else. maybe structure, again. i don't know.

i remember my father saying to me once that he imagined heaven would be alot of sitting around doing nothing and that that didn't appeal to him at all. it's hard enough to stick with the discipline of our faith without not being over joyed at our misconception of the reward. i think i've had the same problem. sometimes i imagine that the believers will all be there, like some big social gathering. and that doesn't appeal to me at all. anyone who knows me can tell you social gatherings start wearing on my nerves after about half an hour and then i start seeking to be my namesake. a ghost.

i suppose what i truly want is flexibility and i want heaven to change with me, according to what i want. wait, that's not true either. what i really want is to be alive. i want life, bright, pulsing, and absorbing me. i don't truly want what i want. i never have. i don't want concrete buildings or wind in my face. i want busy freeways and i want abandoned roads. i want confrontation and a certain amount of strife. i want strangers and lovers and people i will never meet passing by. i want to teach and to learn and to hate and to feel. i want to feel.

heaven according to all i've been told by all those preachers over all these years could never be like that. heaven could never imitate real life. as tired as i get, i, deep down inside, and you, deep down inside in those places you don't really wanna look, like the struggle to make life mean something before death.

i associate heaven with death. and that's not what i want. peace isn't what i want. i want the struggle, the difficulty, the joy, the pain, the rapture, everything. i want everything. i want to live.

oneword: delay

i'm not sure why i can't just sit back and wait for these things to happen a bit more naturally. i wonder sometimes, am i so in need of a confidence boost that i throw myself into unhappy situations for the sake of a compliment?