oneword: trasnparent

i see right through to you. you can mask things any which way you'd like, but it won't make a difference. you can even lie to yourself about it, but it won't make a difference. you are who you are.

oneword: spotlight

front and center with all eyes on you. your heart pounds and your stomach starts to churn. your hands no longer function properly, dropping things. you even start to panic a little. short of breath. a moment of silence, a deep breath...

ready.set.

:strum:

Spotlight

Stoplight in this spotlight. Another time to get into the limelight. Another chance to get over this stage fright and fight for a chance to stand out.

oneword: spotlight

i can see you clearly now.

... hadn't really been focused before. you were a side note annoyance. something to just deal with... from time to time.

not anymore.

my skin crawls now. painfully -- acutely aware of your presence.

behaviors put themselves on exhibit! just like symptoms on a medical chart. thrust forward. directly. in my face.

sorry. i know. psychology students think they know everything.

must i make case studies out of everyone who puts me

... on a pedestal?

oneword: spotlight

there is this intensity about me that scares a lot of people away. it's like a spotlight-heavy beam of concentration that i can aim toward all the different performances I make in my day-to-day. the problem is that i can only see or do so much at once.

i'm finding that i have missed a lot.

oneword: stripes

Yikes! Stripes! Fruit stripe gum!

oneword: stripes

there's a scar on my arm where my ex wife tried to kill me with a butcher knife. its 10 years old but still white on sun tanned flesh. it's strange to consider now, that i thought that was how marriages went. my mother stabbed my dad in the face with a fork. my cousin tried to kill her man with an iron. i thought it was par for the course.

i think it's high time i changed my stripes.

ghost

another word: habit

... it creeps back into my internal clock. to wake up. to sit here, patiently. waiting to ignite the keys beneath these... fingers rooted like trees. to remember that there is a beauty about me.

oh! well come home, starz.

oneword: stripes

painted on this paper tiger. in the all too familiar pattern. as if you couldn't read it all over my face in every word i say, every step i walk, in every look i give to you. it bleeds in streaks with every pump of my heart. i have finally stood up and earned my moment. i have earned my rank in this establishment.

now give me my damn stripes. i believe that i have more than earned at least that.

oneword: stripes

black. white. black. white. paint me up and down... separate my tomorrows from yesterdays. but i never meant it in the way we say "this is right and you are wrong" because sharp contrasts bleed grey down here... underground. each line of color, threaded tightly to the next... we are not just a random sequence of events.

signpost

and it goes on and on, this ragged phantom caravan. relationships blossom or implode like tiny novas, shaking us to our very cores. and nothing changes and yet it's all different.

i wonder who we will be next time...



ghost

oneword: overflowing

this feeling comes over me in waves.

crashing down upon me over and over again.

the build up of what remains, long after the wave has come and gone.

that is enough to keep me hoping.

and somedays...i fill up with that hope, all the way up to the tippy top.

and even rarer still, but when it happens...its brilliant, i bubble over.

oneword: overflowing

there is always this eminent sense of return about me. i thought i had lost it--that overflowing need to sit down and hammer out another episode from the black squares beneath my fingertips.

and suddenly, i realize, i am running.

running because still, after all this time, i have not dealt with it. with this. with that. with anything.

there are things about me that i can never tell a soul in words. but the keys? don't lie.

oneword: handle

there is a limit as to how much burden one person can shoulder.

everyday i question myself as to whether or not i have reached mine.

i almost always tell myself no, and pretend i am superwoman and that i can take it, whatever it is.

i do have days that i am not superwoman, and i do reach my threshold. what i can't seem to handle seems more to be accepting that i have one, and that i just can't handle something...at least not on my own.

oneword: handle

instincts pull me to type "i can't handle this."

but is that force really instinct... or habit?

i have been playing the self doubt card for too long. especially because i know that it has been a front from the beginning.

i can handle this. and whatever else you want to throw at me.

... i guess the cop out has been that i didn't really want to.

oneword: eternal

my lasting hope that this life holds something better for me than my current reality. that my heart isn't wrong this time. knowing deep down that the tiny shred i am holding onto, that keeps me believing is still there and i am still holding on.

oneword: eternal

forever and ever amen threatens to begin again and this time i have to pretend that i am more secure than previously mentioned and what happens if i let all of this in and it falls tragically by the wayside of "friends" and i give up on on this dream of blank space and hidden grace and this magical move to become who i am takes me farther away from where we could have been and now he + she only = me.

oneword: weird

oh please. like this word is supposed to make an impact anymore. watered down, overused and underappreciated. yeah. you heard me right. too many people call themselves weird now. that whole empowered anti-cool coolness type bullshit. get a new angle.

oneword: sugar

one of the ways in which our tastebuds break down how we taste things. nothing is ever as satisfying or described in such a positive light as sugar. never is anything coated in the bitter taste of a not quite ripe piece of fruit to make it easier to handle...but sugar, seems to make the world seem better and brighter.

it comes in so many forms, but one of my favorite ways...cotton candy. its fluffy, and it dissolves right on your tongue.

oneword: sugar

Hypnotizing. Tempting. Sweet. But under all that, is a substance lulling your defenses into a false sense of security.

oneword: acting

we are all acting in someway...for some reason. we hide behind masks and persona's for protection or our own agendas. what good does it really do at the end of the day to keep hiding? sometimes it just makes it worse. if you spend enough time acting...how will you ever stop and just be who you are? how does one stop after such a long time? so you continue on, knowing that those that care about you and really know you...can see right through it all.

oneword: acting

...is a way to make moments of life happen. It adds breath and truth to words on a page or ideas in a brain. It allows a person to explore him or herself AND someone or someTHING else, all at once. It is magic and organic and lovely. And we do it everyday, on purpose or not.

oneword: gallop

racing,hell for leather, speeding away from something that is on your heels. its so close to catching you and knocking you down and tear you to shreds so that nothing, but a shell of who you are remains. you are running so hard your chest is pounding and your lungs have reached their limit, but if you miss even one stride, you are caught...so you continue running, chasing freedom that will one day be yours. run, gallop, and don't lose faith for one day that sweet freedom will be yours.

oneword: incense

Streams of earthy scents twist into the air, weaving in and around my tense fist and furrowed brow. My adolescent insecurities tangle with the certainty of history, culture, and the ever-present spirit within. Breathing in, deeply, meditatively, I am a yogi-in-training.

oneword: oven

preheated and awaiting the golden crust. the warmth.there is most definitely something cooking...the ooey gooey goodness that comes from it. i think i want to be there for that. i want to be a part of it. i WANT that.