The first boy I ever kissed

Where do you start? How do you explain anything when your heart is this open? There is no greater honor, no more profound experience of being alive than to witness another's heart in its entirety.

He is sitting next to me on this couch in the back of a dimly lit bar. Ice clinks in our glasses and the taste of vodka is pungent and of this moment. He is raw, vulnerable and sitting beside me with the most open heart.

I am engulfed in the loose fabric of his pants and sweatshirt I borrowed. It seems fitting to live this moment exemplifying the irrelevance of my appearance. Sometimes the absolute only thing that matters is to let go of the role you play each and everyday and be bare as a human being. To be enough in this way, with no ribbons or garnishes, but in the truest sense of yourself, this is what you need to witness another. All else falls away, so let it.

Three days ago when he told me what happened i felt hopeless. Three days ago i couldn't remember why we all do this. Why we allow ourselves to fall for another, why we allow our vulnerability to surface when loud voices somewhere deep and away scream not to. But now the thought resonates so deeply within my heart--how could we ever pass this up? I look at him and I realize how worth it all of this is. In this very moment, with his heart heavy and scrounging for hope, he is the best he's ever been. He's never been stronger or more alive because he is in it so entirely. He embraces the extreme heartache and sadness in a way that greets the fear which resides there and moves through it.

Someone can betray another but it doesn't have to be the end. There is so much opportunity in our worst moments, when you've failed at epic proportions I want to know if you can make the biggest mistake and stay with yourself. If you can love yourself even more because you realize how your vulnerability is the most beautiful thing about you.

Unresolved

Is there that person in your life with whom there is so much still unresolved? Perhaps it's been three years of moving on and moving apart and so much is but a distant memory. But what of that which was never said? Where do you put all the words that dance about your heart when it is most quiet and still in your life? Do you keep carrying them? It seems it's only when the words from your heart land upon the person for whom they're meant that suddenly they dissolve into weightlessness. But what about the words that will never greet the person who could hear them and know why they matter? You carry them always and you still think about him and whisper to him words that bounce about in empty space and come back to you. Because you're not done with them and you don't get to be. That's why the love lasts and every other person reminds you of that first one.

i'll still imagine that we're gettin' down right now

i started dating this new guy...and i really like him...

but it also has made me miss the last boy i cared for a little more so...

i have also been horny as FUCK for the past two days. all this making out with new guy and not going any further. sexual frustration. but it's also pretty hot.

so horny, in fact, that i considered going balls to the wall tonight. i wanted to text new guy and say "hey watcha doin tonight?" and if he said "oh nothing..." my next text would say something like "want to make out a shit ton?"

i really almost did that.

but then i evaluated my motives. and i realized that about 50% of me wanted this because i like this guy.

but the other 50% is hurting over previous guy, wants to get over him. AND is horny as fuck.

as soon as i knew the ratio of my motives i also knew it wasn't fair to new guy. my wanting to be with him needs to be about him and the fact that i like him and care about him in order for me to feel right about it in my heart. otherwise i'm just objectifying him.

but dear god I'm horny as fuck.

And your hair needs to be a mess

And then I flipped back to Facebook and there you were. I'd (of course) forgotten what you look like but that picture was so familiar. You are so familiar and so long ago.

And then I broke.

Sometimes you need to wear giant sweats and an even larger sweatshirt and your hair needs to be a mess and there is nothing to do but blast Bon iver and wander around the house gasping and sobbing and letting it hurt.

Then you make tea and notice all the ways you can care for yourself right now. So you do it. You make this space beautiful for yourself to enjoy. You wish him well.

Note how it sits on your heart. How his presence is absurdly lost but still so heavy.

tonight i am thinking about...

...well, i am thinking about sex.

i am thinking how afraid i am and how dating a new person means having to start ALL over again. means having to go through the 'o btdubs, i'm a vir-gin' conversation again. the silence and the unreadable expression on his face conversation. again.

and then the will he be patient with me questions. again.

...i am thinking about something i just read. this person used the phrase 'true heartbreak' versus a 'heart sprain'...and i am thinking how the guy i've been writing about on this blog is somewhere between a true heartbreak and a heart sprain. and i am thinking about the guy who was my one true heartbreak. how it's been three years since i've seen or spoken to him and how sometimes things happen and he's the person i want to tell. to laugh with.

...i am thinking about what it means to surrender. to let go.

i have high expectations of the way my body should look and i'm at a loss with the madness. i feel my heart breaking and saying: pleeeease. just feed this body enough. pleeeease, let me enjoy eating. let me know i deserve it. to eat. and my heart says also, i need for you to send me acceptance. i. can't. take. any. more. of. this. bashing. you pound me with every time you look in a mirror/glass/car window. i can't take the punishing words you speak when you notice the excess under my clothes. i am exhausted.

please let me be. as i am. now.

i am thinking how this is the safest place for me. the transfer of thoughts to page. and how unbelievably grateful i am for this mode of expression.

how a song can take you back to a moment

digital love, Daft Punk

it is early december and my heart is breaking, the relationship with the boy i've been falling for is crumbling, he has pulled away slowly for several weeks...
it's been a long, arduous day and i'm waiting in a parking lot downtown for one of my best friends...my crazy friend...she pulls up across the street and synonymously this song starts playing and it hits me somewhere deep...
my heart is so wrecked...I am in such surrender and i simply don't care...i am out of my car and i leave the door open to allow the music to blast from my speakers and i am dancing with wild abandon all around the parking lot. i am half aware of a car full of boys who are watching me across the way, but i don't give a fuck because this is the first time i've felt light in my heart all day...
my friend approaches and she knows what to do without question without words she joins me in this absurdity...
once the song ends one of the boys get out of the car and asks if we are professional dancers...


lights, Ellie Goulding

it is mid september and i am flying across country, headed east. leaving my life behind allows me to see it more clearly as i recall being in his arms a week ago...my naked breasts against his chest, the familiarity of his sheets, his tatted arms...i recall all of this while on a plane surrounded by people but i am alone and so far away in my thoughts of that night, this song is ringing in my ears through my headphones, it calls to my adrenaline, quickens the pace of my heart as i realize this IS how it is to be with him, this song is my experience in his sheets, and earlier that night how he drove us in my car to his house and we sang loudly together to whatever 90s grunge band was playing on my stereo.
that was the night i understood what he is to me--how he appears in my life for moments and adventures laced with abandon and freedom. how he is the first man i ever kissed and how he never meant security to me...
i am on this plane surrounded by so many people, by this song, and i am somewhere else entirely in my thoughts.


ego, Beyonce

it is mid august. i am flying down the freeway with the blur of redwoods in my peripheral. the sunroof is open letting in the sunshine and all the windows are down inviting a frenzy of wind that sweeps my wet curls every which way.
i've got that feeling when you are owning it--who you are as a woman, and as a spirit. when you feel free and passionate because you've allowed yourself to surrender to sensuality. i feel sexy and vibrantly alive.
one of my best friends is beside me and we are rocking it to this song. hamming it particularly to the dialogue at the beginning.
it is summer. my legs are bare, my hair is free and the night is before us. everything is good and free and light.

ten hours spent on a saturday

this morning i couldn't find the strength to get out of bed. ten hours later i am inspired, alive, in Love with who i am. tears drip down my face because i feel it from my soul.

naked

we are seated in the corner of a noisy bar in Oakland. both of us are several drinks in, just enough to feel unnerved. the bar is brimming over and you ask--"was that the first time you've given head?"..."yes," I reply in complete surrender. there it is...
     
we get to the concert and somehow end up separated. in a drunken stupor I make my way to the ladies'. in the process of skirting through the crowd I am melting down and the tears start to collect. i see nothing but blurred faces as I push past strangers and through the swinging door to find both stalls occupied. with the uninhibition that comes along with alcohol I begin to wail while standing in the open area at the sinks. a stall door opens and i make my way inside dodging the question- "are you okay...?" i shut the door on everything and close in on myself. suddenly I am utterly ragged and vulnerable. I sob in this bathroom and drop to a seated fetal position on the presumably nasty tile floor. I didn't intend for you to have so much of my vulnerability, and in turn, my heart. I am so debilitated in this moment by how exposed I feel toward you. 
     
I've been naked with you and I am naked in front of you.

I am ready. I am content.

Be curious about all of this. It is part of your life, part of the process. It is all beautiful, especially when met with open arms. This aching and this longing, this smallness and this sadness, this is all part of the experience of living and of Loving. You will let go a thousand times..."imitate the trees"...
       imitate a child who knows of her own goodness and worthiness until the world shows her otherwise. Notice the ways you are of this world and let it float into your consciousness and away, away...it is only weighted if you try to carry it. So don't. Recall the truth you know but forget so often.
      What do you need? ....paint yourself with Love even when it appears lost. You are an entire universe to witness all on your own.

protection is a seal that locks in so much quiet suffering

Driving through trees illuminated by sunlight and quaint little houses tucked quietly and spaciously into one another, you arrive at a family house where people stay and find stability. You find yourself in a back room with art covering the walls. These sketches beckon to the ache and confusion that can and does reside in this idyllic, back country world in which family protects you and holds each other accountable to the righteous life. It is oppressive but also safe and innocent searching the eyes of the people in this world, which are revealingly told in the painting and sketches on the wall.

Your friend is getting married and she is trying on her wedding dress. The one that you helped her pick out 9 long months ago. It is exactly as you remember it against her delicate frame, features, and soft blonde hair that hangs along the beading down the back. She is the Virgin Mary on the night Gabriel came to her. So trusting and protected by the course she takes because it keeps her pulled in to this secluded world in which people stay together--marriages last. This protection is like a seal that locks in so much quiet suffering. It is a hard path to take. All of this is mixed in my heart as I cherish her image of grace in the mirror. She will walk toward one man in just two short months and they will hold each other as long as life allows them to. They will experience first times together and their bodies will know each other for the first time and it will remain this private, chosen eros for as long as they live.

I love her as my sister but I will not stay here. As I walk out the front door and down the path I turn to smile at her and know she will close the outside and go to him where he waits in a quiet, solitary room in the tucked away house.

Driving back through the trees leaves me profoundly aware that I am moving in a direction that is oppositional to the life represented by the purity of her image created in white lace and beading that is now reflected in my mind. I've already made the choice, I've already breached my own purity on a drunken night from which no consistency remains. I've already chosen not to keep my dress so white as hers. I continue to move in the direction of unsolicited sensuality that lasts a moment, not a lifetime. I have already made this choice and she will stay there and I will keep moving toward my ownness. I will make choices by questioning what drives my decisions. I will constantly work towards faith and recognize fear but then let it fall back where the trees will hide it in those back country roads. I am choosing uncertainty and men who strive for authenticity rather than to be good. I am choosing to realize there may not be just one man and he won't be what I've pictured or held out for. Because if I were to keep waiting for that man I still would be--my life would be stagnant.

Ultimately I am choosing freedom, ambiguity, I am allowing my life to be messy because that is what my heart needs to be. This is what I've always needed--room, spaciousness to allow my heart and body to "love what it loves (Mary Oliver)."

Just be scared

Surrender to Love
Let your tears fall
And leave your face streaked
And your eyes red
Listen to how quickly your heart beats
With loving curiosity
Notice the tangles in your stomach
Feel their confusion and fear
Be with the insecurity
That empty space amongst the tangles
Let that craving to be touched
Wash over you like a hot bath
And embrace your aching heart
Surrender to Love, little girl.
Just be scared.

I know what you ache for

I know what you ache for
What keeps you awake at night
And fills your heart
But leaves it painfully empty
I've caught your tears
And sat with you in every one of those moments
I see what you see
And feel that your shoulders appear to you
As the only with none to sit beside them
I've touched your heart
As it beat practically through your chest
Because the loneliness was too much to stay inside
I've witnessed your heartache and your love for those with whom you can never be
I've seen you sit patiently on the outside
While inside carrying a broken heart
I KNOW WHAT YOU ACHE FOR
And I won't forget you.

Twoandahalfyearsago

Fear is sex
And shame
And forbidden dirty lust
Betrayal knows sex also
Because it often follows
To lose myself is sex
Sin and dirty
These are sex
Wrongdoing
And men
Can never be trusted
For they will betray your heart
Is sex
And you
Ache and pain
Suffer with or without
Of this and with this you fall asleep at night
And you
Are sex
And you're wrong.

where is Spirit

The hardest part is sitting with myself. I think there's a sense of fear about who I am. Some of my habits, qualities, emotions, desires make me feel unworthy. I find myself so resistant to sit with these pieces of myself that I have judgment about. I really don't like how I get swept away by one particular boy at a given moment. I feel terrified by this tendency of mine.
According to Deepak Chopra it is evidence that I am longing for Spirit. But it still scares me because of this feeling of desperation and relentless clinging. I see a guy whose qualities strike the root of my soul (thankfully this is a rare experience) and because he reaches something in me that profoundly quenches my longing I experience a rush that is a beautiful moment of pure bliss! It feels like I've found the guy I've always wanted--and he becomes the only man I can ever imagine. I attach so deeply but also fearfully because it feels like he could be the one who can save me. Then, without fail, and usually quite quickly after the bliss moment, I lose him. I lose him.
It's as if I saw something I've always searched for, but then when I reach out to touch it I discover it's only a mirage and my fingers move right through it. And I know I'm not in Love with him, but rather with how he makes me feel--he quenches the longing of my soul. But when just as suddenly I realize he is gone and that bliss is not something I can hold onto, my heart shatters and stays this way. I am so utterly uncomfortable in this state. I start to believe that he is the only person who matters. I am either disturbingly aware of my feelings or I sink into this depressed state where I start to believe that nothing matters outside of him. That I don't matter.
But I just had an insight--if, according to Chopra, my experience of bliss because of a guy is actually about my longing for Spirit, for Spirit here on earth, and the guy is the medium through which I experience this, it is because I am witnessing Spirit in him. And it ignites a passion in me that I assume is dependent on the guy. But if it's Spirit I'm experiencing in this guy who I have absolutely no way of holding onto (ouch!), then I don't actually need the guy to be in mindfulness of Spirit because I have this opportunity in my own presence with myself. The bliss I witness through a guy is attainable in the solitude of my own soul.

through different eyes

Tonight i see my body as if through the eyes of an artist. If Picasso laid his eyes upon me he'd see softness of flesh and womanly curves. He'd see my full boobs and tanned skin covering muscle and a soft middle leading down my back to the rounded backside, which bears the grunt of epic portions of disdain from most women onto their own. He'd see the red flush as a mixture of paints against the softer beiges of the parts that have been left alone--allowed to be. Tonight I see this animal entity not as a question of beauty or worth, but simply as an aged living being that honorably fulfills its place in the ambivalence of existence.

if they really love you

“Never ignore a person who loves you, cares for you, and misses you. Because one day, you might wake up from your sleep and realize that you lost the moon while counting the stars.”

—	Nico Lang (via abstractnumbers)

let me go

People's actions do speak more than their words very often.

He's letting me go.

Therefore: he means to let me go.

Believe him and relish the fact that everyday you are moving on more and more. It is getting easier everyday.

Believe that it is over because of the way he is letting you go.

My dad let me go.

It wasn't that he didn't care at all, but that he didn't care enough in the way your heart aches to be cared for.

My dad let me go, and He let me go.

Someday someone will want to fight for me. Someone will care enough to be vulnerable, raw, and out on a ledge with his heart and I will be there beside him. That's the Love that my heart wants and the Love I believe is possible.

the freedom of allowing

In his arms...I keep thinking about when and how this will be. About having my naked body intertwined with his. About the warmth of skin on skin. Of his mouth moving all over me. Just having his way with my body. Of his back and my hands exploring him with abandon. I want his mouth on my mouth. I want him touching me everywhere. Exploring my body. I want him I want him...
I want to breathe heavily beside his ear as he fingers me and I want to moan when he makes me orgasm. I want my hips pressed into his and my breasts on his chest. I want the weight of my body to blanket him. I want to let go of sexual repression, fear, shame, insecurity, and be free in exactly the way that I am. I want to lose the sensical notion of myself while immersed in his arms and his kisses. I want him along with his heart and the unnerving way I have come to care for him. I want all of this with him because it would mean something. Because I have let him into my heart and he still accepts me. I want him to know me. I want the freedom of allowing him to know me as I am.

to move slower

My intentions are to move slower, To listen more intently to my body's needs. To trust life enough to be willing to pull back from exterior living and lovingly focus more on my interior life. I forgot that my sexuality and sensuality is mine. Whatever I do or don't do with him is for me.

this is so beautiful

...this is so beautiful. You are so beautiful with your tired eyes and worn body. You sat on a bar stool talking to a guy you didn't want because you weren't quite ready for the way that he was touching you to end. You just want to be touched and you accepted it in such a form as a douchey stranger in a bar offering to buy you food, alcohol, favors, favors...all a part of the game. The drive to take a warm body home to bed.

how to live

"And at some point I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth. If we are to understand the human condition, and if we are to accept ourselves in all the complexity, self-doubt, extravagance of feeling, guilt, joy, the slow freeing of the self to its full capacity for action and creation, both as human being and as artist, we have to know all we can about each other, and we have to be willing to go naked."

From "Journal of a Solitude" by May Sarton. Page 77.

I can't sleep

I can't sleep because I am horny as fuck. 
My head is chaos with so many thoughts of you and I together...
but you've hurt me brutally...
but...

I am pinned into a wooden fence and the weight of your body keeps me willingly balanced on a precarious step. My legs are spread wide and your hand discovers there is no underwear up my skirt, just my nakedness...Voices ring out from the house just ten feet away, light spills out from around the corner where the patio and friends mingle.
I am warm from the tequila, cigarettes, and your body heat.

...I have to roll over, I have to get down with myself at least as so many memories are driving me crazy with wanting you...but I'm supposed to think nothing of you now...I'm supposed to recall nothing more than how you've fucked around so carelessly with my heart...
but...

There are so many people moving through the crowd is like trying to squeeze that last forsaken bit of toothpaste from the tube. You hold my hand and lead as I follow diligently and trustingly. You will take care of me. The music creates this intoxicating environment when combined with alcohol consumption--it is easy to lose track of yourself, to melt into the music and the crowd.
You lead me out into the hall, up flight after flight of stairs. We stop every so often, usually by way of one or the other pinning the opposite against the wall and we make out fiendishly. I can't get enough of you.

...two weeks ago how I laid my heart out, told you I still want to be with you, and you never responded.
...person after person in my life telling me he's not treating me properly, he's messing with me...
how much I've been hurting for six weeks as you've failed time and time again to tell me anything remotely conclusive about your feelings towards me, how you've led me on only to pull away again hurting me that much more...
...how you've hurt me, you've hurt me, you've...
I come for a third time and finally my exhaustion quiets the memories in my head so maybe I can go to sleep.

pen and pages

"There were always in me two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning, and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest." --Anais Nin

"While the world watched with fascination the gay, charming, intelligent, mysterious Anais, the other women--the shy, the strong, the practical, the unsure, the observing, the detached, the childish--clamored for recognition in the pages of the diary. It is the gathering place of her fragmented self, her retreat from the demands of living." -- in the introduction by Gunther Stuhlmann of Volume I of The Diary of Anais Nin

relinquish

It was the kind of day when everything was dramatic up the One. Flowers lined the highway in the most poppy yellow, waves crashed with vigor and anticipation of change on the brink. The wind blew passionately south and shed a chill on my skin, which competed with the warmth and vibrance of the sun.

This stop was an excuse to pee, but it also happened to be the beach I took him to the day he arrived. As I descended onto the beach the pace of my heart quickened and without a thought my feet burst into a run toward the water. I had to get distance from the few people walking along the sand as the tears streamed and sobs soon followed. I ran to exhaust myself, to release everything, ultimately to let go of him. As I slowed to a stop I could picture he and I traipsing south along the water that day two months ago. I saw us walking side by side down the beach away from me. I was surprised to note that the image I saw of my body was one of strength--a body that had a presence to it.

I felt myself now with my feet burrowing into the sand, the solidity of my legs and so many sore muscles from being put to good use. The wind flapped my thick, brown shawl wildly about my body, wrapping me up in its warmth and then letting me go. 

I watched myself walk with him and thought of how it had seemed at that moment compared to what it was now with everything that had happened since. I let the image shrink further and further down the beach and I let us go.