Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Today I Rise

Day 268 of my journey OUT of hell. 

Ok, ok, you got me.  Its still only been a month.  Today I focus on the life inside me.  Today I smile.  Today I laugh at the childish behavior of the people who wish to see me fail every day.  Today I defy them.  Today I got called a cunt.  Today I own that name, because I have never, at least to my face, been called that.  Today I am proud of that name, because today I stood up for myself and, in the spirit of kindness, let someone know the shit being talked about them due to their black hole that is their lack of maturity, and although I did not say it in the kindest way, it was honest.  Today I am a cunt, if that is what you call a person who sticks up for themselves when people who once posed as friends make it their daily mission to tear down my sense of worth, only failing miserably to realize that the only people they are succeeding in hurting is themselves, then yes, I am a CUNT.

Don't get me wrong, there is a sting, as when you love someone, as I love someone, which is with all my heart and soul, its hard to accept that that person never was the person you believed them to be.  It is hard to put your faith into someone, and to find that all along they were waiting for you to fail.  That every smile was false, and they were not brave enough to be honest with you.  The faith I am speaking of is not the faith you put into a lover's relationship, because when an ex lover makes up their mind that they are hurt, you expect them to lash out as sad as it is. A friend however, to whom you have never had anything but faith in, and the last time that person looked at you was with a smile and outstretched arms to hug you, and then you turn around and feel the cold steel of the knife trying to cut into you.  I am sorry, did my back break your knife, because while it stings where you broke the skin, you will not, and cannot cut me any deeper, because all I feel for you is pity.  Pity that you call yourself a friend yet do not know what it is like to be one, pity that obviously you don't know a what a true friend is to you, one who will watch you screw up, pick you up, tell you where you screwed up, and love you anyway. 

You only have to sit back and watch how a person treats the people who have left their lives, no matter who does the leaving, to know that you are not immune to the same treatment when you fall out of favor.  I made that mistake, because I once thought I was immune.  I can hold my head high, regardless of my previous beggar whore status in my last catharsis.  I know everything I did was out of love, and I will not sink to the level of hatred.  My heart may have wretched disgusting pain, but the only thing that is larger than that is love, and the combination of both leaves no room for hatred.  Only sadness, sadness is the another slice of the pie that beats within my chest.  (Mmm pie, I am pregnant do not forget.) Sadness that slowly, each day, becomes less about me and more about those who try to destroy me.  Sadness that lives can be so empty that my pain is what fills their worlds, and they mistake my pain as their joy.  They pat themselves on the back, and give one another cheers.  "Way to go, you sure showed her, the woman who would have walked through hell for you, who never turned her back, who was honest and kind and loved you to the ends of the earth and beyond, the woman who loved your children, who gave you her heart and soul, and more importantly her trust, the one you never had the courage to tell you were unhappy, the woman who boosted your ego until it was so large that she no longer fit inside your arms. Way to show her!"

Show me what? That while I am not a better human being than you, but I have better actions?  Show me how thankful I am that I do not gloat in others misery, and their feelings, no matter who they are and what they have done, matter? That I choose to do my best not to contribute to the misery of this already wretched world of greed, pride, self loathing, and hatred?  That when I do fall short I admit my mistakes, apologize with sincerity, and strive to make the wrong I have created right?  Thanks for showing me guys (and lady).   Thanks for showing me who my true friends are, and saving me the trouble of believing your lies any longer.  Thank you for turning your backs, because I would not want to gaze on your face lest I turn into stone from the ugliness that seeps from your soul.  Thank you for giving me the strength to own the name cunt, and to learn how to stand up for myself in the face of opposition and to truly know that I am the one who is strong, who is beautiful, and who is a true friend.  Because a true friend lets you know why they walk away before they do it. 

When people tell you can do better, you believe it.   When people tell me I can do better, they believe it. When I tell myself you are better, I begin to doubt it. When you tell yourself you can do better, you may believe it, but you are beginning to doubt it.  Otherwise you wouldn't need the approval of the minions to boost your confidence in your decision, you would remain silent, choose the higher road, and move on quietly.  Instead you choose to make noise and scream "Everyone look at me I am fine! I left!  I am right!  Agree with me! I know no pain!" And that, with no regard for the life inside, me, the life that you stood up and said you wanted.  Your actions show nothing close to that want, for as you tear down the mother, you tear down the child inside her, as we are two souls within one body.  You cannot even handle your own soul with respect right now.

I choose to speak, but I speak in truth, I admit I am not perfect, I admit I was not perfect to you, or to myself, or to our children, but I recognize this and vow to do better, for the children I have left to love, and for myself.  I refuse to lie and say "I am fine, look at me, I never cared, and I never will."  I say "I am hurt, I am broken, I am not fine, but I will be ok, I will be fine, and I will be mended, when I am ready, but now I mourn, now I cry, and now I begin to pick up the pieces, but I will never disrespect the parts that will someday, I hope, remain the truth, not the lie I think it might have been, of what was once crazybeautifulimperfectpowerfullove." I respect the soul inside me, I respect my soul, and I still respect yours. I will not tear you down. How could I? I still love you, I will always love you, unconditionally.  I never said I would always like you though. And besides, ou are doing a fine job tearing yourself down.  The ones who agree with you, are lying to you same as they lied to me. Even the "lady" who you tried to convince me for so long was my friend, as I knew her before I knew you, was anything but, yet you still try to believe she is one to you. Someone like that is a friend to know one, and you say you hate drama, but that is all that fuels her life, and the lives of your minions.  If it was not, they would not bother to try to suck life out of my pain. 

Oh, and PS: a true friend will always realize their mistakes, and find that sincere apology, and a true friend, one of beauty and love, will always forgive. Because another slice of that beautiful pie beating inside my ches, that grows larger every day, is forgiveness.  I will always forgive, I will never turn my back, although I will no longer break it to show you who I am.  Forgiveness is something I can always grant, but there is only one of you who can ever hope to see my trust again.  And that is really pushing it at this point.

Today I Scar

Day 257 of my journey into the inner circle of hell...

Ok not really.  Its been just over a month, but it feels like hours pass within each minute.  If you have ever seen a jack-o-lantern about a week after halloween, hollow, its inside scraped clean, its crooked smile caving in, the light that once was inside it long gone, begging to be smashed in the street by wreckless teenagers... that is how I feel today. Hollow, my insides scraped and strewn about, wilted, tired, but still with a crooked sad smile.  If you dropped a pebble into me it would fall forever, and I am not sure if you would ever hear the splash of the reason the well was created in the first place... you could yell and you would only hear the echo of your own voice, misplaced and bouncing across the walls of insanity.

Speaking of insanity, I am done trying the same thing over and over and expecting it to change, for a heart to soften, for a mind to remember, for a dream to pick up at the same blissful moment that your alarm went off to awaken me to the reality that is my momentary eternity.  Which is what it is... it will only be a moment in this my life, and not even a blink of an eye in the grander scheme of things.  However, I can hardly describe it as grand in this breath, as I said, today, I have not a hope, not a dream, not a want, aside from the want to stop loving the way I do, to stop bleeding, to pass the stage of healing and to live as the scar.  But a scar only for a short while, as scars are not as strong as the original flesh they replace, they are weaker, more vulnerable to reinjury, and do not have the same ability to regenerate as unwounded tissue.  I will not be a scar, because when this is all over, when my heart does not travel between two souls, and returns to my chest, I will be stronger than I was, more determined not to compromise, more intent on finding something that is worth the pain.

But today, today I am tired.  Today I am aching. Today I want to run away, and never look back.  Today I stopped trying, and not for me, but for what once was.  Today I begin to accept for all its fire and screams and tears, that there is nothing left to save.  That maybe it was an illusion, all smoke and mirrors.  Maybe the mirror that didn't lie, the one who reflected my joy, was in fact the king of liars.  Because no matter how I fight, no matter how far I crawl through shards of glass, hoping to get to the other side, to be healed, I realize that all I have been crawling through was that mirror, exploding my false reality into what I can only assume was always a lie.  Because if it wasn't, if it was real, it would not be what it is now, because no one you love like I was loved would ever rip you apart and feed you to the wolves, wolves that you never knew were starving for their attention.  They would not steal your dignity and have you begging like a whore for even a glimpse of understanding into who they have become, why they do what they do, or why they would hand you your dream only to take it away and pretend it never was so.  I can only believe that who they were to me, was never who they really were.  That the good in me has been so blinded by wanting to believe it was really happening that I never actually saw what was really happening... and where my dream, where the only thing I have ever dreamed of having, being, feeling, loving, where that all turned into a nightmare from which I am waiting to wake up.

I have seen angels, I have awoken to a demon sitting on my chest. I smelled the sulfur and felt the claws, I could not move I could only pray, and I was not sleeping.  I had a fear inside me that paled in comparison to any hollywood illusion, but I would rather face that fear again and again than to have to look someone in the eye to whom I bared my soul, to whom I revealed all my weaknesses, who I would crawl through an eternity of broken glass mirrors to stop their pain, than to have to feel the betrayal and disbelief that I have gone through in this last 257 days of my journey through hell.  Any day of the year I would say I would go through it all again to feel that love, and to know I was loved like I believed I was, but today, I say no.  Today, I would rather have never felt that safe in the arms of someone who is, and maybe always has been, a stranger.  I would have never dropped my armor, and I would be bleeding, but it would not be my heart.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Sex, Marriage, & Fairytales || Spoken Word

Today I Fail

February 27, 2012

Did you ever have one of those bad days, and someone asks you "when did your bad day start" and you just wanna say "you know, three months (years, eons, millenia) ago". Yeah. Its one of those days.

Who am I? Well, I am just your average 32 year old single mother with a broken heart. Sound familiar? Why would you want to read my story you are asking? You probably don't. But that doesn't mean I don't need to tell it.

I am not going back to year one, year 16, year 25. I am just going to deal with today. Because that is all the strength I have in this minute.

Today, I failed, I faltered, I fell. But I got back up. Why? Because its what I do. I can't sit here and pretend that today was just a day unlike most, because I have had a lot of bad days in my life. I have suffered, and no, I am not comparing my suffering to anyone else's. I am not a martyr, I am not a saint. I believe in God, and Jesus, the Universe, Buddha,nature, none I believe are mutually exclusive, but I have fallen on the side of sin more times than the side of sainthood. I have failed to listen more than I have listened, and I have learned some hard lessons because of it. Love, God, Whomever, has always taken me back into His arms, like a child who just can't listen and scrapes her knees after running too fast down a hill after her mother told her to slow down. He tells me "slow down child, you need to be patient, it is in my time not your time, my plan not your plan" but I still say "now, faster, I don't want to wait". But no matter how I protest, I still know it is not in my time, it is in His.

I have fallen pray to so many sins... I have attempted to end my life on more than one occasion. I don't expect you to understand it all. Unless you have stared yourself in the mirror and known what it feels like to despise the face in the mirror, to look at yourself and say, that is not me, that is an imposter looking at me. I am ugly and no good, I am evil and wicked, and the face who stares at me is beautiful and kind, and lovable and worth forgiveness, and believe that face must be a lie, you will never know what I am talking about. You will never stand at the end of your rope and let go, hoping that you will be brought to peace, and if not peace, at least to a blissful state of nothing.You will call me selfish, among other things. You will look at me and say nothing could ever be that bad. Only those who have looked into that mirror will understand, and if they are still here to read this, they will not judge me. The only others who would not judge me are no longer here, because they weren't so lucky as I, to wake up, still breathing, still hurting, still thanking God for another chance to... well, feel human. Because that is what being a human is about- its about pain, and suffering, and lessons, fucking so many lessons, and its about rising above that pain, and suffering and finding some sort of light to hang onto... and the only light I can ever see is love, and sometimes, I still wonder about that.

The love of my daughter is what saved me, the thing that tied me to this world, for better or for worse, through agony and bliss. She is the one thing that keeps me afloat when the world, or more often myself, has gone and tangled my limbs in a web of chains and rocks and weights that want to pull me under. She is the one thing I can still see when I look into that mirror of lies, and the one thing that pulls me back to the surface when my lungs fill with black and I can no longer breathe.
I feel selfish for that sometimes, because while I know she loves me more than anything in this world, I know all the times I have failed her, and I know her heart, so pure and full of love, deserves so much more than I can give her. But I keep trying, I keep breathing, even if every breath is like a knife in my side, and I live for those moments where she smiles, because I can feel my heart smile too.

And I say she saved me, this is true, but now, now I have another to live for. No, still not me, although I do spend countless hours fighting the evil thoughts that tell me I am not good, not worth it, and not going to make it. It may sound like I do not love myself, but if I did not, I would have self destructed long ago... long before she was in my life. I have a new life inside me. A life made from true love, from a light that lit my darkness for what seemed like forever. You have to understand, that while it was a blink in time, it was an eternity for one who has spent most of their life in the confines of darkness with only their sense of touch (and feelings, horrible, beautiful, twisted feelings) to guide them. Yes, cliche I know, that this was a man, but for a time this man replaced my mirror, and when I looked into him I saw a face staring back at me, a face that was mine, and that was beautiful and kind, and lovable and worth forgiveness, and for that time it was not a lie. He was light, and I was light, and I could see it in his soul, and feel it in mine.

You may ask, why do I not make my daughter my mirror, because in her I see the good in me, but I cannot place such a burden on someone so innocent, because the only mirror she needs to be should reflect fairies and princesses and puppies,and dreams of being an astronaut, cowgirl, ballerina, and veteranarian. I will not cloud her mirror with mine, because there is not enough windex in the world to clean that away.

But I digress, as out of this light, the fire we lit within each other, just before it was smothered by, as I can only see, my own demons and the jealousy of those posing as friends (they did not like our happiness, because in it their loneliness grew so much stronger), as if the they could not stand its glow, and called to have it put out, we used the last of that pure love to create a new life. And I say the pure love, because I felt it that day, I knew in my soul the moment the life was created, and it was beautiful. It IS beautiful, but it was all that was left that was pure, because while there is still love, it has been left disheveled and broken and beaten and is unwanted by the very one who wished for it in the first place. It is no longer recognizable, to even myself, because although I feel it, I feel God's word, and I have seen the angels in my dreams, angels who I never knew while they were upon this earth, but who know me now, and knew him since he still was an innocent, and they all tell me the same thing, do not believe the lies and evil that is being shown to you now, because he is good, and he is love. Although I see the angels, and hear God's word, I still hear the demon of doubt yelling in my ear, that what I hold onto is simply the light of the star we wished upon when love was good, as you can see that light long after the body that created it is gone.

So I try to concentrate on that light, that love, the innocent being growing so fast, the love that will be born and escape into what will become newborn tears, and baby laughter, and tiny toes, and the bluest eyes that you have ever seen will stare up at me, and I will be home again, no longer lost. I will be in love all over, a feeling so incredible that love seems to be a word that does not even do it justice. Those blue eyes will look up at me, and my son (I believe that is a boy, who will restore my faith in the dirty noisy beasts that men are), my SON will look at me, and he will trust me to hold him, and love him, and protect him no matter how tired, how hurt, and how broken I may be on any given moment, and I will do that for him. And there will be times that I will fail him, as I have failed my daughter, but I will always promise them that I will try again, and I will not give up on myself because they deserve a mother who, despite the mirrors and doused flames and smoke and ashes, will try every day to love herself so she can show them what it means to love them. I love them, my son and my daughter (or maybe my daughters), even though I have not met the second. I love their brother and sisters, who I can no longer tell I love, so I have put my faith in Him, the Lord, that they know I do.

Hotel Room, Oct 2008

This cheap hotel room’s soiled sheet reminds me of your bed,
Like so many girls before me who naively were misled,
You look so polished in the mirror with your t-shirt and cologne,
As you take her hand does she understand you cannot be alone?
You fake a smile and walk the walk of a proud man standing tall,
But when you talk the talk I know the mask you put on for us all,
So inviting on the surface, so charming and so sweet,
You hide the lies and alibis and hearts left at your feet.
I know some days you’re led astray and try to hid the shame
I tried to care, I tried to share, lift the burden and the pain
You say you gave me chances to change my devilish way
Although you know it is I who is real not playing on a stage
I bought into the make-believe of your twisted fantasy
Your childlike fears and selfish tears reveal transparency
Your Blackout curtains hide the dawn drawn tightly as you sleep
My world goes on my will is strong and sunshine I will seek
This old warped glass twists the moon through the hotel's window pane,
My vision now clear, I no longer adhere, hypocritical rules of your game
I know deep down you're not all bad as I lie in this dirty hotel room,
But I wash my hands of your empty promised land as the game you do resume.
 October 28 2009

Unrest

It’s hard to believe the human race,
Was ever meant for just one face,
One set of arms to hold it tight,
One set of lips to make it right,
My mind is blank and disbelieving,
That lover’s touch won’t leave you grieving,
Seems to make more sense to me,
Hold him tonight then set him free,
Never look back in anger or unrest,
Deafened ears to his protest,
Lustful hands and wanting eyes,
Need no excuses, need no lies,
A passing glance as I walk by,
He doesn’t know me, I don’t try,
A fickle emotion love may be,
Imagination can twist the memory,
Interpretations of reality are relative,
Never get back all you give,
The human race so selfish and cold,
No room for the bashful only the bold,
Don’t covet my heart for it’s made of stone,
Not long lips like these remain alone,
He watches clocks tick away and minutes slip by,
I’m onto another, I’m blind to his cry.

Megan Forrest

If you choose to know me... 2009

If you choose to know me, know me as I am from this day on, because to know my past is to know my pain, and to know my pain is to learn where I have fallen short time and time again. To know me now is to know that I have picked myself up every time I have fallen, and have tried to right where I have wronged. I have forgiven even those who have yet to be able to forgive me. I will not share the betrayals, mine or others', because although I am the same flesh who hurt and who was hurt, I am a stranger to whom I once was. For good or for bad, I cannot change who I have been, for it has led me to who I am today. For good or for bad, in darkness and in light, I can only try each day to be better than I am at this moment, and to recognize that tomorrow opens the door to second chances. These second chances may or may not be what I thought I desired yesterday, or think I desire today, they will be at the very least a chance for a new beginning, and change. I am forever linked to the sins of my past, and the only guarantee I can make is that one day in the future I will again fall short or fail. The only promise I can make to myself is that on that day I will again pick myself back up and try to make right by learning from where I have gone wrong. I make this promise to myself because if I cannot keep a promise to myself, I can never keep a promise to another. One of the only constants in life is change, positive or negative, often unnoticed until one day you look back upon what has been days, weeks, years, or eternity, and you open your eyes and see every tiny step has become a giant leap. The only thing that carries us is faith, and without faith we are alone, but with faith we may hope to one day recognize the beauty within one another, faults and all.

April, 2010

I can sense it getting closer,
The scent of Satan on the wind,
I can taste the sulfur on his breath,
A blade of darkness through my skin,
It never seems to leave me long,
Even on the brightest days,
It circles just beyond the light,
Like a loyal dog it stays,
He moves in like a predator,
Faster than the winter chill,
And whispers in my weakened mind,
"I am waiting for you still",
Like prey I run, until my feet,
Stumble, slip, and slide,
My will begins to slowly wane,
For he is close to where I hide,
His cunning ways begin to fool,
His voice soon becomes my own,
Conniving and conspiring,
Until the seed of doubt is sown,
My thoughts become twisted and torn,
Cruelly contorted as the faces,
Of weeping souls in burning coals,
Who’ve locked themselves in wooden cases,
He arrived when I close my eyes,
A garden he waits to reap,
Of planted lies inside my soul,                                               Sweet stolen peaceful sleep,                                                Anxious as I await his arrival,                                              Close is the comfort of my enemy,                                    Another battle has begun,                                                           To God I softly plea.

 April 2010

April 26, 2010

Just because I chose to rhyme,
The lyric laid upon this page,
Doesn’t mean they aren’t mine,
The love, the lonely, the rage,
They tiptoe through your memory,
Experience defines each word,
But the context seems to deviate,
From what I have seen, felt, heard,
Drink them in with bloodshot eyes,
I am unable to intrude,
You think you have a piece of me,
However don’t be misconstrued,
I wave them like a puppet,
Connotation dances on a string,
barely scratched the surface,
Never realize how it stings,
Should one day I you choose to read
A little deeper than you should,
I won’t be held responsible,
I warned you I’m no good,
I hold a smile behind the words,
So simple to bend and shape,
While all the time dreadful thoughts
Play my mind and disguise escape
Should one day you choose to read
A little deeper than you should,
I will be held responsible,
Should have left you when I could.
 April 2010

Friday, April 29, 2011 "My Love"

Its deafening in here I can’t even see my own thoughts swirl
It’s like a ballerina forced to leap and jump and twirl
Ripped from one wing to the other my toes are cracked and bleeding
I cannot walk I cannot talk, my steps and words they are misleading,
I bend I mold I shape I fake I conform to every whim
I cannot find out who I am when I am so lost in him
What once was a rock that lifted me up has slowly pinned me down
My ribs are cracked my heart exposed and no savior is around
He was the one who’s ears were clear, who heard my every word
I must now be speaking drunkenly, he says my words they are absurd
I cannot fight for I must love, though love may kill me in the end
Kind words fall right through the cracks we never stopped to mend
Can one give up a vision although only one man holds
Or do I see it through, find the glue, or is the blacksmiths fire cold?
I cannot run I cannot hide I cannot make a sound,
I can only wait to seal my fate and believe his love will still surround.