#010114 I'm Back...

10 years ago began one of the rockiest decades of my life.  In the space of 60 days, I lost 2 grandparents, broke up with one of the best boyfriends I ever had for reasons that seem positively ridiculous now, and allowed all of the worries of a quarter life crisis to kick into full throttle. These stresses would strangle me nightly. I had debilitating insomnia, manic anxiety episodes, and other slightly OCD behaviors that could only be  “cured” by a high twice daily dosage of anticonvulsant/mood stabilizers, copious drinking and constant attention from would-be-lovers.  To call them suitors would have been an insult to men who actually court women. All of this took place before through low self esteem, I met, fell in love with and married the wrong person.  That (discussed ad nauseam) relationship was five-year roller-coaster whose aftermath ricocheted through my life (and finances) longer than the marriage itself. 

My Favorite Girl in the World

I know I often say that certain things give me life, but there is only one woman who can say that she ACTUALLY did it. Yaaaaaaaaas girl, YOU DID THAT.

Then You'll Be Free

So I'm "dating" again.  I put it in quotes cause in my mind, until you're hitched or planning to get hitched, you're basically dating. I don't believe in half assing when I do something so I have dusted off and broken out my dog & pony traveling roadshow that showcases my awesomeness for the potential eligible bachelors of the world. I'm smiling as I walk down the street even in torrential downpours like what NYC had this morning, I flirt incessantly, and I maintain a positive outlook at all costs.  I don't know the terminology for what you call it when you are being open to what life, the universe, and the internet bring you. Whatever you call that, that's what I'm doing. Being open without being easy I guess, and learning about myself in the process.

#111504 SAVE ME! SOMEBODY SAVE ME!!!

Protect me from myself
save me from my own vices
my own social ills that force me
to ignore and not appreciate that
which i love above all else
help me!
help me abolish self doubt and criticism
ban impatience and frustration
open me completely to love
as freely as i feel inside
allow me to embrace you as i have my own body

protect me

be my shield and i will be your sword
i am by your side
in the palm of your hand

you possess me
you inspire me
you enthrall me
you distract me

protect me
help me

eternally
ethereally

i don't have to hunt for the rhyme and verse in any pen
'cause we exist in a place of
free verse
we exist on planes where our caresses become songs
where our embraces are dances
all words traded between our tongues
are sure to be transcribed
into every scholar's canon of love

you entice me
you inspire me
you irk me
you possess me
to step outside realms of comfort and places of safe choices
you push me to the outer edges of my existence
wanting to die suddenly
only to be reborn to rediscover how delicious you felt the first time
lascivious, lustful thoughts make me
want to run naked in the rain
only to stumble upon you on a sidewalk
and be subjected to your kindness

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