I see you there, asymmetrical. Tip-toe balancing and staring with your unfocused eyes. I see you there and you are long gone, your weathered and tattered soul torments from your sleepless death.

I see you there, you never knew my name, long after I learned yours. I see you there, in your own torture, sticky as toffee. You’re trapped. You are trapped in the steel cage of this sleeping mind. I, alone can release you and I don’t. Without you there, staring, scaring, watching..I don’t know who I am.

The absence of you, of the terror of you, the experience of you the choke hold you have on me, I have on you. You must watch me from your bed of thorns, struggling to break free. You must watch me and remember how I felt, how that one tear rolled down my cheek. You must have felt so proud, so tall so powerful. You sad little creature, you pitious thing. Why you have a corner all your own in me, I cannot fathom.

Unfurling from you is my struggle, it is my journey. To take back what your diseased mind took from me. To have what you stole. To put you to sleep and to finally rest.

To find out who I am without you.

The urge to sleep wraps her comfortable arms around my waist. She pulls me close into her lap, stroking my hair with her moonlight fingers. She sings softly like my mother.

She holds onto me through nightmares, and clings me fast to her well past when hours call me to wake. She is the very first signal of her demon brother, depression. He settles into the space between my eyes and cheeks and paints his presence smudgy blue. Light bruising that make my eyes seem more green, but more sad. Adds years to my face.

My heart.

I call to her, please come to me. Please come to me and take me for a few hours, where dreams paint me as I should be. Healthy, whole, unbroken. She acquiesces only when she feels it prudent to do so. Her arms hold me hostage to the other dreams as well. With his sweat on my face, the room rich and spinning with the copper penny smell of my blood. She is unfair in what she grants me.

As I am unfair. As I am unrested, even in hours of her company. I drink of this magic sleep and crave endless days more. Cool and stretched in my own bed. She gives and erases pain and I am willing to endure one for a taste of the other.

That cannot be good.

Without serious injury

despite his extracurricular activities. Happy birthday, babe.

I have been hearing a lot to the effect of “go ahead and take my money if it helps someone less fortunate”.

This bugs me and at the risk of pissing everyone off, I will tell you why.

The very first thing that rubs me the wrong way is the compulsory nature of someone “taking” your money to parcel it out as they see fit. That’s right. It is YOUR money. Government is known far and wide for being irresponsible with taxpayer funds. There is a thick and heavy layer of red tape-laden bureaucracy between your paycheck and the end result of government funded programs. A percentage here, a penny there. It adds up and soon, the money that you have generously told the government to take is lining the pockets of your legislators while programs see their doors closing for lack of government funding.

Long story short? Government fails. Government failure is not new to this administration,it is rather an epidemic of increasing frequency, spanning decades. Government fails, people pay the price.  I say this from experience. While my photos show that I have a place to live, and clothes I have been on more than one occasion, very near utter poverty. One time, not too long ago I was in desperate need of assistance. Sick and working class poor, I applied for assistance and was denied for making too much money.

I was making $1000.00 a month. Had I children, I would have been accepted. Had I not been employed, I would have been accepted. But because I was a childless, single woman with a job I was not worthy of assistance. A program that I paid into, a program to help people just like me, or so they say, refused to help. Government failed me.

Private charity, did not. Private charity assisted when I had no money to feed myself. Private charity helped with medication that I needed. Private charity did not deem me unworthy. A private charity with minimal government funding and a vast network of caring individuals who did not ask for money to be taken from them, but freely gave money. Without lassos of obligation, gave of their heart, above and beyond the prying and filthy hands of elected officials.

The imbalance of the governing “class” is a product of a corrupt and power hungry ego, en masse.  We elect them to represent us, only then to be regarded as though they know better what we suffer. They know better how to spend our money, they know better how to live. However, I have watched non-profit in the private sector and watched how it flourishes. Watched how the loving arms of community wraps around them, lifting, supporting, revering. Dedicated and passionate individuals who are in non-profit to help, whose hearts were guided by a need. A community who heeds the call of the desperate, the hungry, the abandoned, the sick. Responding in a way and with generosity that the government simply cannot match.

I wish to support these places, these people, these causes. With my own choice, my own voice, my own spirit of humanity. My own understanding of what it is to need. My own wanting to say “you are worthy”. Not through the many channels of siphons and grabbing hands of those who DO NOT NEED, but take. This is why I favor less government involvement. Why I choose to give and not have it taken from me. When I have more, I give more. But because it is MY job to give, not my government’s job to give for me.

the tired and probably offensive face of the unworthy, still love me?

This job is an exercise in humility. It has made me humble like no other experience I have ever had. Which sounds so stupid, but it is absolutely true. I have never been regarded with such open hostility on my entire life. It shocks me continually. I scribbled out a manifesto in a hormonal, teary rage…what you are about to read is the result.

The proper response to “Hello” is not “I AM JUST BROWSING!!!!!!”. The proper response to “Hello” is “Hello”. I lost control of my tongue today and when someone responded to my hello, with their I am just browsing, I shot back and I am just saying hello. Seriously. It is my job to say hello and to make my presence known. You can browse all you want, it doesn’t cost you a fucking penny to be polite.

Know your element. Do not come into my store and ask for a random discount. The price is what the price is. I do not control the prices, I do not make the prices. Please do not berate me for prices on items that you cannot afford…because here is a secret, I can’t afford them, either. No one is forcing you to come into my store. You know what our price point is. Don’t bother coming in if you expect to find garage sale bargains. There are sales, and I would love to tell you about them…but oh yeah, that’s right YOU WON’T LET ME SAY HELLO!!!

If you like something, just fucking try it on. Seriously. Again, it does not cost you money to try something on. It does not obligate you to purchase the item if you try it on. Just holding something up to you doesn’t give you an indication of how it will fit you. It just doesn’t. I will gladly open a dressing room for you.

Oh yeah, also? Don’t yell at me because so many people steal things that we have to lock and monitor our dressing rooms. I have worked here for a month, so again, not my fault. Do society a favor and raise children who won’t become adults who steal shit that isn’t theirs and perhaps this policy will change. In the mean time? Shut the hell up and chill out for the three seconds that it takes me to unlock the door.

If I ask you if you are doing alright in the dressing room, I am not rushing you. I am letting you know that I am around in case you need me to grab another size for you or call alterations, or give you an opinion on how something looks. Again, just doing my job.

If I tell you something looks good on you, it does. It does me absolutely no good to tell you that you look fabulous if you look like a potato on toothpicks or if those pants make your ass look like a billboard. You walking out of my store looking like ass on a plate does not establish a good relationship with my customers and it also guarantees that you will return what you bought and so the whole thing is an exercise in futility. So if I say that a color looks great on you, it does. If I tell you that the pants are too long and you need them altered, you do. If I say something is entirely too big, too small, wrong shape, bad cut etc etc, I am telling you the truth.

Which reminds me, please don’t bullshit me. If you don’t want to purchase something, you are armed with a very powerful word. It’s called “no”. No, this does not work for me. No, this is not in my budget. No, this isn’t what I had in mind. Please do not have me put items on hold that you have no intention of buying, just to avoid saying that you don’t want to buy them. It is a waste of time. You are not going to hurt my feelings by saying no. I say no all the time. It does hurt me to have that merchandise off the floor, when someone else might actually plan on buying it…but I can’t sell it because I have it on hold for you.

You are not better than I am. We have the same concerns. I have been where you are, being waited on. Being helped by a salesperson in a store. I too am worried about paying my bills and filling my gas tank and about the election. I am intelligent. I am funny. I am worth knowing. Because you are purchasing and I am selling, does not mean that you get to treat me as you wish. I am human. I am humbled to the point of embarassment to be in this position at my age. Be kind. I am fragile.

I will not take my day out on you, if you do not take your day out on me. I will do my best to make your time with me the best it can be. I am fun! Let me cheer you up! If you scream at me, it will absolutely ruin my day. Oh and also? Put away your damned cell phone, yakking on it while you throw all of my clothes on the dressing room floor, ignore questions at the register and treat me like a wart instead of a human is fucking rude.

I will be nice to you, try to do the same. We are all in this together.

But I have cute shoes. Sorry I haven’t been around.

I love wholly. Protectively with body, soul, mind and all manners of nooks and crannies. Fierce. Brave. Bold. My love is not timid. My love is not conditional.

It is easily ignited and hard to extinguish and the slow burning embers of my love take years of the angriest storms to drown. It is strong, even when it is confused. It is intense, even when it is fading. It settles deep in my bones. It settles in, through the layers of fat that I have packed on to protect it, and comes out gleaming through my eyes.

If you can see past this:

(ohai there lumpy dumpy schlumpy frumpy. smile much?)

It is worth it.

I watch this fall roll in, with no leaves changing color in this stifling heat. Darkness turns to daylight turns to darkness with me in the capsule of air conditioning and unnatural light. The summer dying slowly, with great tragedy. The days shrinking by hours and inches. My life, altered.

Always altered.

I fight hard, in this graying light. I fight hard against the pain that it takes to see myself. This sense of rage that envelopes the mirror reflection. The itch of the newness of this skin, waiting permission to split open and release me into something. Something. Different. Anything but this.

Anything but this.

Every pore, every thought every breath in sleep, in consciousness holds the pattern. I fight so hard against being glued into this motif. This motion-sick design. It is still stronger than I am. How this life hands me small victories and I manage to turn them into major gaffes. How I just need to catch a fucking break.

I really do.

I pride myself on little, but for one thing that I wave my banner. I am not a whiner. However, I find myself begging for reprieve. Begging for strength. Begging for lightness. Begging for maintaining the blessings I have been given…because damn it, I have had enough.

I have had enough.

I am uncharacteristically mad. I am uncharacteristically morose. I am trying to walk through the colored leaves of a beautiful autumn, to see the world for the beautiful colors. I am trying to celebrate the shortened days, if even for the added hours that I get to spend with the stars. I feel out of control. I just need to feel as though some things are purely mine to direct.

my dreams are vivid

bold colors

sound

memories

unresolved

that leave these shadows

under my eyes

when I wake

yeah I dunno what happened here.

I was never really a Jesus person. Which is not to say that I didn’t or don’t believe, I just never had the moment where I fell to my knees, awed and speechless in the presence of a divine spirit. Church only ever appealed to me when I was singing…or once when I was accidentally involved in a cult.

Not long after I’d been assaulted, I was at war with my body. I was mad at Jesus, I was mad at angels, I was mad at the sky. I figured myself to be one big cum dumpster and I wondered if I would ever care how my body was used. But oddly, I didn’t run out and have sex. I didn’t avoid it, either. In retrospect I seemed to just sidestep it. Just end a date before it went too far, just never return advances from nice guys. Just always hang out with gay men, who posed me no threat.

One night, I let hormones take over. I’d prepared to go out with a nice enough guy, who somehow looked past all of the obvious signs of my skittishness and asked me out. 6 times. 5 times I was busy, or had to work, or was ill. Time 6, he smiled and said “It is free dinner and a movie, and you don’t have to drive. That doesn’t sound so bad, right?”

Right.

I showered that night, smoothing on a moisturizer that somehow reminded me of church incense. Heady, slightly sweet, slightly spicy. The smell trapped itself in the steam of my bathroom. It made me feel sexy and guilty all at once. The cloying steam stung my eyes like smoke from a peccant fire. The movie was chaste, he lightly rested his arm on the back of my chair. The dinner was quiet, I smiled shyly from across the table in the world’s noisiest restaurant. He held my hand and opened my door.

We sat in the cold air, watching ocean waves, inky black, roll over the beach. He pulled me to him. He ran his nose from my jaw to my collarbone. Then he ran his tongue from my collarbone back to my jaw. The wet sea air left the trail his tongue left, cold. I had goosebumps over every square inch of me. My breath came in halted gulps. With one hand cupping my face, and the other propping himself on the sand, he nudged my ear with his nose and whispered. “Jesus, you smell good.”

I snapped directly out of the mood, and scooted away from him. Wincing against the light of the moon on the water. He asked me out again, as he drove me home. I smiled quietly and with one tear betraying me, I said no.

He had no idea what he’d done to upset me. I was at a loss to articulate it. I know now, with years and experience and the subtle shades of life that color our memories, I know…I felt betrayed by the divine. Abandoned. I felt Godless. Any mention of the name, any mention of the presence, no matter how innocuous drove the point home to me. I was not good enough to be loved by God.

So heavy a load to be carried by a kid.

 This photo? Could not be more inappropriate for this post, but it is ALL YER GETTIN!