The Mean Reds

I woke up today with the mean reds.

Holly Golightly: You know those days when you get the mean reds?

Paul Varjak: The mean reds, you mean like the blues?

Holly Golightly:     No. The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what

you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling -Breakfast At Tiffany's

I had absolutely no REAL reason to have the mean reds, I but I did.  Despite spending the last Friday night of 2012 JUST as I wanted to, (RAWR) I woke up this morning and felt a sadness I could not explain. All morning/early afternoon I felt weepy. Nothing untoward happened.

Maybe it's 'cause I had just enough to drink last night to feel something, but not be drunk. 

Maybe it's cause I stayed up almost until dawn.  

Maybe it's 'cause I woke up too early.

Maybe it's 'cause last night's full moon ALWAYS throws my hormones out of wack.

Maybe it's 'cause it was snowing outside today and then it turned into awful cold rain instead. 

Damn You George Michael.

I've been carrying this piece around for the last three years. I've written and rewritten it. Edited it, cut it. Today I figured I should just put it out there and be done with it so that another holiday season doesn't slip through my fingers without me posting it. Happy Holidays!

I love the holidays. I overdo it, because I come from a celebratory tribe. Mommy loves to entertain and Daddy loves to shop/gift. When I was a toddler, I recall a "Happy Birthday Baby Jesus" party thrown by my parents so that I may know the true meaning of Christmas. Later when we moved to DC, Christmas became an even more elaborate affair. Christmas Eve we'd head over to our aunt's house for one of the premier holiday events of DC's social scene. The next morning, my brothers and I would wake up to find various quadrants of the living room assigned to each of us and draped in everything we asked for. As the eldest, it fell upon me to become  Daddy's elf.  I was our family's holiday quality control.  With me on Team Santa, we always got EXACTLY what we wanted. 

Christmas Day always meant brunch of grits, fried oysters and crab claws, scrambled eggs with scallions, biscuits and coffee.  Later in the day, we'd put on our Christmas outfit, and drive out to the boondocks for Christmas dinner with family friends aka Thanksgiving pt deux.

I don't really remember what Christmas was like after my parents split up.  Traditions were shattered, friends and family divied up, lines in the sand drawn.  In undergrad, there were more than a few times that I simply didn't go home. It was easier to pretend that nothing was wrong or that nothing had changed if I just stayed away from home 'cause being there would just be a sore reminder of all the stuff we weren't doing anymore.

When I became grown, I decided that the best way to beat the holiday blues was to create my own traditions, thus, my annual Holiday Party was born.  I decorate, buy and cook too much food, too much booze, and fill up my prewar one bedroom with as many people as can show up in the hopes of erasing the years that there was no Christmas for me.

And then I got married. 

#61112

she never knew that he really existed.
so much of her time was spent focusing on trying to make do in a life without him
then she stumbled upon him by accident and what a fall it was.
some people go through life without ever being touched in special places
the way that she has over and over and over again.
each time,
she gets better at being someone's woman,
though she's never been his.
each time,
her lover gets better at being her man,
though he's never been hers.
she told him he was her partner and the world turned into hues of purple spilling over with her passion.
never had so simple a word blossomed and stained the world so exqusitely.
she stares at him when he's inside her.
she takes all of him in and glows magentas and pinks.
flowers burst through her skin when he touches her.
the purr in his voice makes her shine like stars on clear nights.
he makes her shine.
she'd gotten dull and almost varnished by those who'd tainted her with their ill will,
and she'd loved them anyway.
love is never wasted and she loved to love.
she loved being in love.
being in love suited her,
it made her beautiful.
others noticed the change in her gait,
in her smile,
in her touch.
folks would wonder what was going on in her mind.
she would see the beauty of the world and none of the flaws.
spring made her do that.
her lover made her do that.
she was unable to see the couple fighting on the block
or smell the urine in the train station.
she didn't want to keep writing about him,
but she couldn't help it.
he was in her mind,
in her heart,
in her skin,
in her sex.
loving him is both effortless and impossible to do without going crazy.
certain moments make her feel like she's not strong enough to take it.
she needs him
he needs her
making him hers was the only way things could have gone.
she never planned on releasing him,
letting him rest within her coils was the only way.

when he is not near, she longs for him and tightens with anticipation.
she wants him by her side always.
she wants to greet every morning with him and close out every night wrapped in his embrace.
she doesn't want to know life without him in it.

she had to possess him, entirely,
wrapping her limbs around him enveloping him in her cloud

#051111 Recycling

I wanted to know.

I needed to know.

There is something to be said about someone who knows exactly when and how to touch you. Then again, when you've had over a decade's worth of touches, is it a testament to someone's skill or their ability to adapt to routine?

Was it availability or desire that kept us boomeranging towards each other?

It was easy to get lost in him. 

There was so little offered, I could imagine or make up the rest.

I invented a world between us and he did not protest.

He always knew just where to put his hands.

Much to my dismay,

he ALWAYS knew just where to put his hands and my well formed protest would evaporate, becoming extraterrestrial to my mind.

I tried to have all serious conversations at a distance.  Even the phone would become one of his tools of manipulation and control.

Inevitably, I'd find myself touching myself simply from feeling the gravel in his voice and remembering what it felt like with breath pouring across my neck 

as he'd beckon me

as he'd implore me

as he'd command me to do his bidding.  

Thing is, 

he never even had to say anything.

Just look at me and I would know exactly what and how we were about to do things.

In person, 

I couldn't resist him.

On the phone,

he tortured my imagination with unwilling reminisces about the countless times shared between us.

I had to find a way to talk to him without talking.

Text or email would be the only way I could fortify myself when I had something of import to say to him.

Whether he'd memorized the map of pleasure he'd inked in kisses along my body over time

or 

if he was still discovering new ways to make me pant did not matter.

This time,

I would hold strong and speak to him in a font that conveyed my seriousness.

I would stray from the flowery language he'd make me spout.

My tongue would be leaden and expository instead of made from cotton candy and metaphor.

I would not exhale poetry during this conversation.

I would not sweat verse.

If he answered correctly,

if he took the silly girl seriously, 

then we'd resume our irregular existence in the never never land we created amidst the soft fabric of high thread counts.

I wanted to know

I needed to know.

#9611 Dawn

Filled w/post coitus bravado he'd curl up beside me as though he had another round in his joints.  Within seconds, he's so sleep I feel his random twitches & involuntary muscle spasms coupled with that deep chest breathing that lets me know that round 2 won't be going down any time soon. I smirked to myself, happy with the warm and now quiet body wrapped around me. With his massive form I was always serpentine curling myself around his limbs, those awesomely sculpted mounds of toned flesh,  like a boa trying desperately to draw the warmth from stone.

I wrap round him like ivy across the bricks of his stomach.
I am spanish moss dripping from his boughs.

Watching him get dressed so early in the morning makes me smile. The light is too dim for him to see that my eyes are open, but they are....They ALWAYS are.   In the sliver of silver dusk that crept over the tops and around my billowy curtains I can freely ogle his chest, arms, legs, stomach as he unknowingly stands in nature's perfect spotlight. The grey blue of the morning kissing every curve of his exquisitely chiseled form, echoing each place I'd allowed my tongue to dance just a few hours before.

It's a crime against humanity, un pecado mortal,  to see such an amazingly perfect musculature wrapped so shabbily & ironically in a cheap wife beater. Nothing about his physique is cheap. He looks like all the wealth people pray for. Delightful, sensual, insatiable.....I wasn't going to let him leave that easy, When he bends to pull up the black sweats that'd been left in a puddle on the floor I reach out to tug on the waistband of his boxer briefs and pull him back into the jersey sheets I'd picked because they remind me of him. They are the same color as that amazing torso of his.

The first time I'd turned the lights off with him, I'd had white hotel sheets on the bed. Even in the dark, he stands out like a remarkable candied spectre.  I wanted to melt against him on those overly soft sheets, and I did.
And he did.
And we did.
Again
And
Again
And
Again

Until it was the bright haze of afternoon streaming in through the same window and languidly we lay, spent and draped across each other bodies all akimbo, adhered to each other with a paste of passion in too many places to distinguish who or what was the origin. Eventually, he'd stand, and begin to wrap that divine body in fabric unworthy of his form. This time, I'd let him. Unsure, he'd glance in my direction as he dressed slooooooowly, inviting me, challenging me to stop him so our game could begin again. Eventually, the two of us would hobble to the door, 2 Olympians destroyed by our favorite sport, leaning on each other like 2 wounded veterans, and he would leave.

Long after he'd leave I'd find myself rubbing each place he'd kissed, touched, held, caressed or bit with the sheets that still smelled like him. Licking my lips as slowly as he had to taste the traces of his kiss he'd left behind. Even if only gone for but a few minutes a sense of overwhelming longing would wash over me.

It has been FAR too long....
Come see me baby...

#9311 JUST friends

We were 

JUST friends,

but that didn't dull the sting,
not even a little bit.

You left.

I was celebrating and hadn't even planned on seeing you.
I'd put all thoughts of you

and what I really wanted from you

out of my mind.

Somehow,
you manifested
and
you
just
being
there
tortured
me.

Being just close enough,
but somehow not close enough.

Right then,

I wanted you more than I wanted wealth.

Right then,

I wanted you more than I wanted fame.

Right then,

I wanted you more than I wanted to be free.

Why would I want freedom when I could be bound to you?
Why would I want freedom when I could be braiding my limbs to you?

You rested your hand
                  your hands
on my body....

Through my dress,

I wanted every single one of those digits to memorize every single piece of me.

Through my dress,

your fingertips burned into my skin the words you pretended not to want to say.

But you were leaving shortly.

You were leaving the event
                 leaving our unspoken conversation
                 leaving me

your friend

to go and see another.

You didn't say it.

I could read it in the pain of your expression

I could read it in the way you said

you had to go

as if waiting for me to give you a reason to stay.

I couldn't say what I was thinking.

After all,

We were JUST friends.

I couldn't say to you

She's not me

Isn't

Won't be

Can't be

All you need and want

She has you tonight when I want you

She has you tonight when I danced with you

for the second time

She has you tonight when 

I've put an hour's extra effort into how I look

                                                     how I smell

                                                     how I feel

All for you

All to let you know I hear what you're thinking.

Yet,

You left me to go and see her

Whoever she is doesn't matter.

She's not me.

Isn't

Won't be

Can't be

All you need and want

I shouldn't care.

We're JUST supposed to be

JUST friends

I'm on one tonight.

I'm killing it tonight.

I'm serving tonight.

                              serving lipslegsandlashes tonight

I caught you staring at my lipslegsandlashes

I want those fingers on my lipslegsandlashes

The fact that those fingers won't know me tonight,

intimately

won't touch me in the morning like J Cole said

won't make me grateful for waiting 

ALL THIS TIME

for you

won't make me gasp as if on the place I touch real late when all alone and call your name

because of course,

we're JUST friends

Neither of us wants this.

You know as well as I do

If your eyes hadn't told on you,

your hands certainly did

those hands that didn't fight my hem as my moves made it move dangerously north

those hands that rested far too low on my curves 

those hands that burned intentions through my dress as you pulled me too close

It was late

and so you left

                  left the event

                  left our unspoken conversation

                  left me

JUST your friend

to go and see another.

You didn't say it

I could read it in the pain of your expression

I could read it in the way you said

you had to go.

I tried dancing with others, but their hands felt clumsy

I tried dancing with others, but they told me to put my phone away.

I kept it close in case you changed your mind

I watched the door in case you changed your mind

                              in case you realized what I already know

You deserve better

You could do better

I promise

I'm better

-tygerlily

#82411 My Hair as a Metaphor

I forgot....
I used to get drunk and he would brush my hair for me.

I was so sensitive. When I drink, it dulls my inhibitions and it makes my senses so alert and awake; my scalp felt alive. I was completely in tune with how I felt. When he brushed my hair, it was soooo soothing. We used to drink so much that we would completely lose track of time and it would feel like he'd been brushing my hair for hours.  My hair got sooooo long when I was with him.

We used to drink a whole lot.
We used to drink a whole, whole lot.
And when I would get drunk, I'd ask him to brush my hair.

Funny the things you forget about the people you should most remember.


I've never been tender headed. How could I dare be so with all the hair I have? When I was a baby, I didn't have any hair for the longest time.  My mother was afraid I would grow up and be baldheaded woman. She always wanted to protect me from the sun.  For the first few years of my life, you'd be hard pressed to find photos of me with nothing on my head. Mommy believes strongly in covering up babies' heads. Especially bald babies. I was the only baby being toted around in dorags, sunhats, bonnets.

Then something happened. My hair grew and grew and grew and grew.  It wasn't necessarily long per se, but it was thick.  Mommy had to get extraordinarily creative with how she would tame it. I never had the stereotypical little brown girl multitudinous braids with all the 50,000 barrettes. Mommy always used to say "I don't know why they've got those poor little girls out there looking like a pinata on their heads."  I did have the most unfortunate collection of braids and plaits ever.  My hair REALLY did look like I was one generation removed from slavery with the way she used to comb it.

I remember I always used to see the other little girls with their hair out.  All the little Black girls I went to school with had relaxers and the little White and Spanish girls just had hair that was long and hanging down their backs. Sometimes when I was at school, I would take my hair out of the confines of the barrettes she used to bind my hair into submission.  I would pull my hair to make it feel longer and straighter and I would run up to my mother when she came to pick me up after school looking like I had a cloud of brown cotton candy hovering over me flying every whichaway. No order or direction or shape.  My mother would get sooo mad at me as if the plaits were maintaining order. Or as if the crooked parts were keeping everything under control.

One summer, I stayed over my friend's grandmother's houses for a week in the summer. Her grandma lived in the suburbs so it was like a getaway for us without really ever going far.
Her grandma had cable and neither of us did.
Her grandma had central air and neither of us did.
Her grandma also let us eat whatever junk we wanted and weren't allowed to eat at home.

She also had a hot comb and pressed hair. She pressed her granddaughter's hair. She pressed my hair.
That was the first time I'd EVER gotten my hair pressed. And I almost didn't want to turn back. But then I was told I couldn't run. I couldn't sweat lest my hair would "go back."
It was summer and I couldn't run?
I couldn't sweat?
I couldn't do any of the stuff I liked to do because I had to maintain how my hair looked.

I thought "How funny! To look pretty, I can't do stuff that I love." I wondered if there was some sort of trade off or correlation you had to have where in order to be pretty, you could no longer do what you loved.  When you're pretty, it means people are looking at you and paying attention to you. You're gettin praise and whatever else. I sat and thought about it. I didn't think that long about it.  But think about what kind of thing that is for a child to weigh and measure.  The implications of what that choice meant to a little girl who liked to run and be herself: If you want to do things that you love, you might not be accepted by those around you.

That kind of stayed with me for a while. The notion that in order to be accepted and valued and praised, I had to stifle who I was or pretend not to like the things I loved.  I would have to turn down who I was if I was going to be accepted. As a result of wanting to be accepted and loved and valued I tried it for a little while. I pretended to be someone else and I was MISERABLE. I decided that acceptance by the ignorance was overrated.
I've always been eccentric.
I've always been different.
I've always wanted to stand out.
I've always who I am and just recently realized that I shouldn't apologize for that anymore.
You can be loved for being who you're supposed to be. If people can't love the woman I am, they aren't the right ones to love me.
-tygerlily

#51711 Junkie

 
he'd ruined music for me...
i was out with another. trying to enjoy myself, but really enjoying him enjoying me. across the table. i knew what his looks meant.

then a song came on and i couldn't look at this man across from me with anything other than bewilderment that he wasn't the right man.


because of my muse this one's time would be as short lived as all the others.
there was no escaping the inevitable.

i had been fated to love him even when he didn't love me.
i had been fated to think of him even when i couldn't be further from his thoughts.

other kisses were hollow in comparison
their mouths lacked the fullness of his.
their intensity never matched or surpassed mine.

they made it too easy to conquer them while he remained unnavigable.

i loved getting lost in the maze that was his mind
and signed up to do so time and time and time again.

i kept swearing him off
but like the junkie i am,
i've never kicked him...
he is my greatest vice
my favorite drug....

he ruined music for me.

me who has an eternal soundtrack for my life.
me who hears music in conversations
me who sings even without opening my mouth....

other's arms couldn't hold on strong enough.
other's embraces felt oppressive.
other's kisses tasted nasty to me.

they made it soo easy to be mean to them while he always got the best of me.

i wanted to get him out of my system,
then the chords of a song i'd forgotten would bring me right back
right back to the first time i realized i'd fallen in a well i couldn't get out of
right back to the first time he gave me goosebumps in body parts i didn't know existed.

i loved getting lost in the maze that was his heart
and signed up to do so time and time and time again.

the intricasies of his patterns
a creature of habit who confirms to none.


i kept swearing him off
but like the junkie i am,
i've never kicked him...
he is my greatest vice
my favorite drug....

i am addicted and there is no substitute for the high he gives me...
even at my worst,
i am my best for him and him alone....
i can't get him out of my system....
i've known a life without him and don't want to see those days again...
i don't wanna....

#5511 Camera Phone

It all started with a couple of glasses of wine for dinner on a weeknight and I got to thinking,

"I feel like rocking a wig."  

I don't rock wigs as much as I used to, but I like to keep one around 'cause....well, I've always liked being able to play dress up soooo....What? I'm a drama person and aspiring drag queen. You never know when you'll need a good wig. YAAASSSSS.....

What makes one randomly feel like she needs to rock a wig? With my return to #twitter & my twitterversary coming up, I was having a lil' bit of hair envy.  Some of y'all just have luxurious locks (both grown and purchased) all cascading all cross your shoulders and down your backs in profile pics & twitpics.  Yeah I Solange'd myself a million moons ago, but now I wanted something to be cascading down my back and cross my shoulders. #noheauxsht. I wanted daytime stripper hair.  (shout out to @saigrundy) Me with loooong hair and sexy poses would look awesome in a new profile pic.  He also hadn't seen me with longer hair. I thought about surprising him rocking it next time we went out.

Oooh he'd like that! I'd just show up w/my wig luxuriating like I'd gotten out ALLLL the Indian in my family blown out in the Dominican's chair.  Oooooohhh! What if I I played sexytime dress up by myself and snap flicks on my phone and sent those to him.  YAAASSSSS. He'd like that. (This is where having wine for dinner starts to be a bad idea....)

What started out as me creating and homage to soooo many people's faux fly camera flicks evolved into me playing out my skripper fantasies in the full length mirror in my room to achieve the perfect poses for my photo shoot then went all the way left and almost left me needing the ER last night.

Don't get it twisted,  the Doll is fairly fit.  I'm REAL sexy with my clothes on. Hell, once or twice I've  even been told I'm not just limber, but FLEXIBLE.....For my age anyway....Chile....In trying to achieve the perfect sexy yet anonymous photo I got about three cricks in my neck, did something strange that made my kidneys ache and somehow caught a charlie horse AND a deadleg.

I have a new found respect for those who have folders full of self shot self soft porn portraits on their smart phones.  That mess is not as easy as you would think it is.  I thought I'd be able to face the mirror, hold the camera just so and end up w/ a flick that both was and wasn't me.  I wanted it to suggest me, but not look like something I'd have to explain after I become famous when it suddenly surfaces on the top of someone's blog or comes across my bosses desk.  When I set out to try record my grown up game up by-myself dress up and take these semi sexy self portraits I KNEW not to commit the cardinal sin others have done in the past:

DON'T SHOW YOUR FACE

DON'T SHOW SOMETHING THAT EVERYONE KNOWS IS YOU

Some of you may already know that I am a woman with ink. The ink I rock proudly is fairly distinguishable and in places hard to mask.  Well, under normal FULLY clothed circumstances, you wouldn't be able to see it. But these were not NORMAL fully clothed circumstances.  These wer my attempts at creating a nudie representation of myself and by nudie, I clearly mean not even Skinemax worthy.  How was I to take a photograph of myself that had neither my tits my tats or my face would get me a more stern rating with the MPAA? I mean, the wig would help in hiding features I wanted to disguise, so on it went. That was easy.

Figuring out how and where to hold the camera was a totally different adventure. That mess was HARD!!!!

I'm a woman of a certain age so I have a fairly good grasp of what my good angles are, in what I look best etc.... It's something I  had to learn over time. It's amazing how the slightest change in posture or angle could add or take away years from my image on a real camera.  With a real camera I can appear fairly photogenic. I say this with great modesty from years and years and years of feeling awkward in what was my gangly body.  (You can take a tomboy out of her overalls.....) Finding out what makes me look/feel good on and off camera has been an arduous task.  When asked to take a picture, I would feel a certain way inside when I posed for the picture, but there was a decade or so where that feeling wouldn't translate to the film. In a lot of ways it was because I was trying way too hard to hide the discomfort I felt and trying to look like something or someone I wasn't. I have no idea who or what, just not me.

Within the last 5 years, somehow that all changed.

I finally felt comfortable in my skin.  Graduating to taking a big girl photo of myself seemed like a natural progression.  Practicing by myself was like the (un)dress rehearsal.

All bets were off with this damn camera phone.

First of all, in trying to mimick America's Favorite Camera Phone Poses, I have deduced that you have to have the wingspan of Shaq to take them well. I'm not a short woman, but my arms are far too short to box with the god of cameras on phones. Other than overhead flouresent lighting, NOTHING is as unflattering as the indoor lighting on "impromptu" phone photo shoots.  Every time I'd get what I thought was a semi decent pose or expression going, something disastrous would go down.  In trying to give the camera smoldering vixen, I ended up looking like a porous crone from zooming in far too much.  When I got what I thought was my petulant cherub pout going I instead looked like I'd scorched my lips on a curling iron.

I've seen sooo many people with actual sexy pics with their phone.  Somehow they have mastered the art of looking #popsiclehot with low pixels and resolution. Then to flaunt their skills and shape they post them all the time on thematically nude Twitter days.

How the hell does someone take a photograph of their own ass?
Are y'all hiring production assistants for these situations?
Is there some secret rule book or Facebook group that offers pointers on this kind of thing?
Why were my attempts at sexy pics coming out looking like a preschooler drew them with dull crayons on wet oaktag?

I started to feel like the awkard tomboy again trying too hard to be the Lolita and failing miserably.  The pics were dark and blurry and unflattering.  I could see my stretchmarks.  I sucked my stomach in until I could count my ribs. I pouted with an open mouth. A closed mouth. Snarled slightly. Tossed the wig. Put it back on. NOTHING I did or wore made the photos look nice.  I was about to give up the ghost and throw in the towel when it occurred to me:

Could it be my phone?

palm+forehead.

Do y'all know this old raggedy ass janky ass phone I've had for a year now still had the protective film on the lens?

palm+forehead.  

Maybe it wasn't me.

Kudos to those with the time and expertise to perfect that utterly useless skill. It seriously took me the better part of an hour to get just ONE flick where I looked cute, inviting, and like one of my secret selves.  I've watched enough seasons of Top Model to know that taking an hour's worth of flicks to get ONE passable shot would've had Tyra telling me to return to the mansion, pack my bags, and go home. To top it all off, it wasn't even a SUPER sexy pic like I wanted.

Lawd y'all.  This is why some of us shouldn't have idle time on our hands...

'Til next time.
-tygerlily 

#100304 exhausted

 

to see you makes me....smile?

sometimes,

sometimes i can't help but to beam when the idea of you crosses my mind.
I think of all of you
from the way you stare at me when you think i've fallen asleep
to the way everything feels like it has dropped out of my insides when we're unhappy....

making you mine was the only way this could have gone
i never planned on releasing you
letting you rest within my coils was the only way
i had to possess you
entirely wrapping my limbs around you
enveloping you in my cloud

fatigued beyond belief
you have made us this way
our quabble has forced us to live exhausted for two days
i would rather live exhausted from hours too late from drinking you

love him so much, it was all that mattered.
before i even opened my mouth to utter the words to him...
makes my speech seem tattered
words i'm used to using end up sounding foreign