Tag: moving forward

football season

he is like lucy
with the football
assuring me
he is totally
one hundred percent
here for me
everything
will be okay
so i trust him
i run forward
& the earth falls away
& the wind is knocked out of me
& i am flattened…again
as he lets me know
it’s my own fault
while he places the football in place
again
& tells me
i should believe in him.

i am so hoping that i have broken the pattern. that i am no longer going to run up & try to kick that football. that i am able to walk away and keep on walking.
the man is not my friend.
he is not my family.
i cannot pretend otherwise, or i will get the air knocked out of me
again.

4

of course i was spinning out on mother’s day

sometimes 
you have to dip your toe
back into that
pool of pain
sometimes
you have to take a sip
of your sweet misery
sometimes
you have to
dive in
wallow
swallow
drown yourself
baptize yourself
rise again
& face another day
forgiving 
yourself
but never 
quite
forgetting
who you were then
who you are now
so you never
have to do it
again.

on this seventeenth mother’s day, i obsess about mother’s day number ten. on that day we returned home from a trip to manitowoc after visiting a friend, the dad hurried ahead of me to our apartment. i was unloading the car, herding our four minions, oblivious.
however, once in our apartment, i happened to look out the window to see the dad throwing something into the dumpster. this struck me as odd because the dad never took out the trash. 
so, being in the midst of a fucked up relationship where things were constantly being done behind my back, i went out & looked in the dumpster.
there i found a bouquet of beautiful flowers and a letter from the dad’s crazy stalker girlfriend. but instead of being addressed to him, they were addressed to me. 
would he have thrown them out if they were for him?
the dad had never gotten me flowers (or anything else) for mother’s day because “she’s not my mother.” i was actually touched that his crazy stalker girlfriend had gotten me flowers. beautiful flowers. despite the betrayal involved in her fucking the dad as we tried (again) to be a family.
he could have let me have the goddamned flowers. 
i would have liked any flowers on mother’s day.
but once again my mother’s day was in a dumpster….

7

queen of the imposters

it’s my grandma saying
“you’d be so pretty if only you dressed like a girl”
it’s my parents saying
“writing is a nice hobby, but what will you really do?”
it’s that boyfriend saying
“you might be sexy if you started jogging and lost some weight”
it’s the father of my children saying
“why do i have to work why you do nothing?”
the father of my children
questioning all my decisions while offering no help
the father of my children
insinuating i’m doing it all
wrong….
but they don’t even know
they don’t even know what they have done to me
that they have become a little voice in my head
telling me i’m an imposter
when i wear girl’s clothes & pretend to be pretty
i’m an imposter
when i say i’m a writer
i’m an imposter
when i feel sexy
i’m an imposter
when i try to mother my children….

a friend of mine was talking about how the judging voice in her head was “the white lady.” this made me wonder what the most disruptive voice in my head looked like.
so i meditated & journeyed into myself to confront the one who whispers “imposter” whenever i try to do certain things.
i couldn’t find anyone. no one came forward. i called & called, but no one answered. i assumed they were hiding from me.
but then last night as i lay in bed after being screamed at by my ex-husband who was visiting for our son’s birthday, i realized, my imposter voice was there…they just didn’t realize i was talking to them. they are oblivious to what they are doing to me. they think they have done nothing wrong. they see themselves as completely innocent.
this made me realize i need to start being oblivious to it as well. just drown it out by proclaiming, “i am not an imposter. i am a good mother. a good writer. i am pretty & goddammit, sexy too.”

4

deconstructing

i feel like anger
has been woven into me
& now
i need to undo all these fibers
work backward
get the knot out
the fucked up stitch
& re-weave myself
into the person
i need to be
the person
i want to be
but
fuck me
it feels like so much work.

of course, if i don’t do the work, that will drive me crazy. looking at the mess of me will bug me until i finally do do the work.
and i will do it.
i will. just, right now, i could really use a nap.

“lydia”
8X10 ink on watercolor paper
$45 ish

5

flowing

letting go
of my anger with the men
all the men…
they can no longer hurt me
letting go
of my anger with motherhood
we get it
it’s a thankless fucking job
but you’re going to do it
so just do it
letting go
of my need to make sense
of things
that just don’t
letting go
my need to control
that which needs to be free
is like my insisting on
trying to sculpt water
i need to
accept
just
accept
& move forward in the flow.

some of my posts are inspired by texts to people. this one was inspired by a comment made by robert wertzler who has been sharing my blog over on his blog. thank you, robert!

i feel like i have been stuck for awhile. i was moving, and now i am caught up in one of those inadvertent dams that happen when there is too much debris in too narrow a flow.
that’s exactly where i’m at.
stuck.
maybe i need to sort through the debris? or maybe i just need to blow out my dam & get moving again.

“blooms”
8X10 inking on watercolor paper
$45 ish

4

one thousand cuts

just because what he does
isn’t the worst thing
he could do
just because it isn’t
completely
wrong
doesn’t make it
right
is death by a thousand cuts
any better
than being destroyed
all at
once?

more thoughts on the “little crimes” done by past boyfriends & not-my-boyfriends. i got some texts from mr. 2-to-tango (who apparently reads my blog) after each of the last two posts…but i did not read them. so!
my dreams have moved from oceans to smaller bodies of moving water. i am taking this as a good sign. like maybe i am getting some direction? direction would be nice.

4

trying new things

are we just bundles
of cells
hurtling through space
on some rock
whose movements
are all do to an attraction
to a ball of gas?
or is there
more….

crisis of faith. right? who’s with me? but if i don’t believe in something greater than myself…what then? it doesn’t help that i have at least two nihilistic little anarchists running around my house declaring there is no point to it all.

fuck a duck.

i am playing around with ink on canvas as i feel my scorpio’s need to keep on growing & transforming. i have a huge (like 3′ X 4′?) sized canvas i want to do a mural on. but first i am practicing on some canvases i have been hauling around with for almost 20 years.

also, i am going to write one (or two) more pages of moses jones before putting her away. i don’t know if she is done or not, but i want to focus on other projects so i am bringing her to a stopping point so i can move on.

there are a number of projects always whirling around in my brain. i think i need to just throw a dart, pin one down, and get busy.

1

spilled ink

last year i thought it was a bad thing
to have a hair trigger
on the drawbridge
to my heart
this year i am looking at it differently
i am trusting myself
to know
when
& when not
to pull the lever that will send you
sailing
away.

this inking was made last night in an effort to use spilled ink… i do like to try to keep my accidents happy.

“eve”
up top: “drawbridge”
9X12 inking on watercolor paper
$45 plust $5 shipping

5

song sung blue

these pieces are from a year ago
many art journal pages
lamenting my lonely heart
yet i somehow survived
& i will keep on
keeping on
from one valentine’s day
to the next.

up top: “song sung blue”
bottom left: “chances”
bottom right: “fear of success”

9X12 inking on watercolor paper
$45 plus $5 for shipping & handling

2

i don’t need another hero

i’ve changed
my heart no longer
starts or stops
with
the attention
or lack thereof
of a potential suitor
i’ve changed
my priorities
are me & mine
not his
i am no longer
looking
for a hero
no longer
waiting
to be saved.

this was a nice epiphany. too much of my life has been spent obsessing over the needs–wants–desires of whomever i was with at the time. too much time wasted trying to please other people. i was thrilled to realize that part of my brain has switched off in favor of taking care of what i need, want, and desire.
it’s about fucking time.
so i’m not sure what this means in terms of romantic relationships except that i no longer plan to get swallowed up by one.
i’m writing my own story now.

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