confrontation

Untamed*

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 4 Comments

I rise today,

All-powerful One

Mark the date and time

For I am done

I wanted to work

So I appeased

To follow my dreams

I scraped my knees

If you really don’t know

Somewhere deep inside

How wrong it has been

Then why did you hide

But this is not about You

You’re just one of Too Many

Time to change the conversation

To solutions, not controversy

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: tame

*I am tired of the news stories re: the Harvey Weinstein “revelations” focusing on who knew what. Why no discussion of legal ramifications? It feels so insane that we hear about these people in power abusing their authority to sexually harass women (and men) and all they get is fired? Or it becomes a business story – how will the company go on? To me, the whole point is being lost. The conversation needs to be this: why does this keep happening and how can we, as a society, take responsibility for a culture that still allows for it and is somehow even supporting and creating it? Finger-pointing to individuals misses the bigger picture. I had to say something to find some sanity in this very dismal repeating story that keeps getting lost in the stories around the story.

The In-Between

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 2 Comments

I was born a square peg

But I didn’t know enough to value it

Tried to force myself into that circle:

that round hole I was so sure I wanted to fit

Now I am neither round nor square

My corners are worn and I’ve scrapes on my sides

Neither shape feels like home

Guess I’ll have to make my own mark

“Squale” anyone?

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: circle

A Tea Time Rebellion

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 3 Comments

“Before you launch into another tirade about how cucumber sandwiches are only to be served sans crust, I ask that you please set your concerns aside just this once in order to provide an empathetic ear to my complaints,” Myrna plaintively, yet forcefully, interjected.

Though her crimson-painted lips were set in a rather firm horizon line uncharacteristic for her features, her flushed cheeks belied her trepidation at having taken such a strong public stance, and she immediately tittered a rather anemic laugh and waved her hand in a vague attempt to dissipate any remaining resonance of what she had just said.

She turned her full attention to the deviled egg on her plate, nodding now and then to maintain the illusion of her part in the conversation at hand.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: launch

Chances Are

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 6 Comments

Coincidence? I think not. Happenstance? No.

It was divine guidance. Fate. Destiny. Meant to be.

I would never have been in Central Park otherwise that day. Hadn’t been there for years.

Avoided it, actually, as I did any person, place or thing that connected me to you, or the us that we had been.

But for some reason (it felt so random at the time,) I decided to get on the train and head uptown.

It was a sunny Labor Day. New York City felt generous without most of her locals taking up space.

I had no plans. I was trying to stay active so as not to slip into loneliness.

I came out of the subway at Columbus Circle. No plan. No route in mind. I wandered, following my nose, enjoying just being in the world.

I suddenly realized I was in “our” spot, on the Great Lawn. A fluttery fear made its presence known in my belly.

Without conscious intention, my eyes scanned the horizon, and just as I realized what I was doing, I saw you lying there.

Even face down, I’d know your body anywhere. Long, lanky, tanned. Shirt off, ripped, worn jeans low on your hips.

My heart somersaulted. A rush of heartache and bruised love and attraction rushed through my body.

In a moment of agonizing indecision, I considered turning away, walking past, walking on.

But my feet and heart had other ideas, and they took me to where I was standing over you.

Did you feel my presence, or was it just that I was blocking the sun?

You turned your head and said hello.

Just like that.

It had been three years of no contact. Three years since I came home to an apartment emptied of your things. A total shock.

Three years since I learned you’d been seeing other people for at least the last year of our relationship.

Three years of putting the pieces of my heart and my life back together, mending the gaping holes you left.

And today, of all days, “randomly,” our paths cross.

I say I’m well, and I mean it. I ask how you are, and then I wish you well, and I mean that too.

The truth is, I’ve never been better. The truth is, you don’t look so well.

I see the pack of cigarettes and the empty tallboys in the grass. I see a guy who is nursing last night’s drunk with midday hair of the dog.

You look like you’re in exactly the same place you were before the shit hit the fan. The place where we both drank too much. The lost place. The place where our love did not survive.

I see this, and I wish you well, from my heart, and I walk away.

I smile to myself, a bit astonished at my strength. The capacity of my heart to forgive. My resilience. My spirit. At the Universe knowing the perfect moment, the exact moment I am ready for it, providing me with this chance to see that I have healed. This chance to let it all go.

I move forward, into the sunlight, into the lush green of the park, into the present beauty of my life.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: coincidence

Martyrdom

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 1 Comment

A thorny crown of my own making

Embedded in my righteous mind

I no longer feel the pain

You cut the wood, laid it at my feet

But the cross I bear I made myself

My tears became the stain

These things are woven into

The life and form I take today

Don’t know how to cut them out

Can I survive their extrication

Or am I Siamese with myself

Forever connected, inextricably devout

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: thorny

Tutorial

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 3 Comments

Allow me to educate you:

I am a separate person from you

I am not here to resolve your issues

It’s not my job to quell your anxieties

I am free to express myself

To use whatever tone makes sense to me

If I don’t answer in a way you think I should

Guess what?

Tough fucking luck

Inspired by TheDaily Post Daily Word Prompt: educate

The Price

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ Leave a comment

Memorize this:

You will never know me

I will be there (have nowhere else to go)

dutifully doing what is expected of me

Keep my part of the silent agreement we’re all in

Actually, I’ll go beyond all expectations

I will be beyond criticism, beyond reproach

The outer world will see that perfect picture you are so invested in

But you will never know me

You will not gain entrance to my inner spaces

Never have my attention in any meaningful way

My heart and soul are permanently shut to you

This, I choose, and it will forever be my choice

Remember this

I know I will

 

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: memorize

The Comeback Kid

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 4 Comments

“Are you a boy, or a girl?” she asked, lip curled in a grin that implied she knew but just wanted to make me feel small. It worked.

“I won’t even dignify that with an answer!” I said…

…silently, in my head.

I felt the familiar rush of shame blush my cheeks a rosy pink, and stood, frozen, eyeing the group of kids standing behind the most popular girl in my new school.

My heart pounded in my chest so hard I feared it might explode through like a fist.

That image gave me some comfort: the blood would splatter all over Susie (Jenny? Brittany?) and crowd, so there’d at least be that.

Ruing the short haircut my Mom had talked me into just before we moved, my flat-chested, barrel-like bigger-than-most-girls-my-age body, and my fair, freckle-speckled skin, I tried to think of something to say that would get me out of this encounter with some teensy shred of my dignity in tact.

This was it. The way I handled this moment would set the tone for my future in this new environment, this new social strata. I searched the memory banks of my mind for some comeback that could get me out of this mess relatively unscathed. Perhaps even ahead in some way, having won them over with my wit under duress.

Nope. I got nothin’.

I felt a bead of sweat drip from under my left arm, causing a tickling sensation that, unfortunately, made me start to giggle. Hearing myself giggle made me feel a bit hysterical, which then caused me to actually start laughing hysterically.

And so what I actually did when faced with the elite of my new school was I stood there like a laughing hyena while they stood and stared in a mix of disgust and curiosity.

Eventually, the ringleader (Alyssa? Mandy? What was her name?) flipped her blond hair and said “Whatever!” as she turned and led the rest off.

Alone again, after the hysteria had crested and eventually receded, I took a deep breath in, and gave myself a silent “Welcome to your new school, Loser!”

The laughing jag had worn me out and left me with a hollow feeling that I knew all too well.

It was gonna be a bumpy year.

 

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: dignify

 

 

Anti-glare

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 3 Comments

Some time ago, I decided it was time to eradicate the “glare” from my roster of habitual modes of communication.

Let me back up a bit.

I come from the sorta South, Texas. Between my southern upbringing and being a female, early-on I developed-through-osmosis the skill of passive-aggression.

Being that I grew up in a family of Olympian-level champion passive-aggressors, I became quite an expert-level practitioner this behavior myself.

Then I married a man who cannot tolerate passive-aggression. He highly values directness and being able to “feel” a person and match that to what they are communicating in words and actions. It is really important to him, for various reasons that are his own to explore and not mine to share.

He challenged this in me, and I rose to the occasion. I began to own this learned and honed behavior, to forgive myself for it, and then to make different choices.

In due time, I decided that I wanted to eradicate it as best I could from my palate of expressions. I decided that I wanted to be direct in my conflicts.

Gone would be the days that I would silently glare at someone, hoping that my glance would convey all that was burning within me.

Like all those times to the person who just cut me off in traffic. I’d drive by and give them “the look.” (Didn’t seem to really have an affect…but then again, I’d already passed by and was speeding off…) Now I also know that if someone is an asshole driver, nothing anyone else does is going to change them. If they could care about it, they would. The glare will never translate to them.

Or those times somebody is having a very loud (and annoying) conversation on their phone on the bus/street/train/restaurant. Boy, did I give them a look, and more than once, at that. (Yet they never got off that phone…) These people also fall into the category of being incapable of really “getting” it. If they could “get” why it is rude to do that, they wouldn’t do it in the first place. My glare? They won’t be able to take it in.

See the problem? That glare just doesn’t do it.

In such circumstances, it is time to use my outside voice.

To say, hey. You almost killed me there. Be careful.

Hey. You are making us all hostage on this bus.

Hey, man. You are man-spreading. Make room.

No more glaring, for this recovering PG’er.

Here I go.

 

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: glaring

Dead Giveaway

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ Leave a comment

How easy was it for you? Did you ever once falter or regret as you took

the multitude of actions that led to that day on the sidewalk

in front of your restaurant (where I worked too, helping to make your food a success?)

You seemed so casual that day – that day I finally knew something was up – happy, even.

I was intense, laser-focused (because that is where I go when I am terrified)

but inside I felt like my hair was on fire, my gut was being ripped apart,

as I pressed you for details of who, what, and for how long.

(Really? That blonde you had me wait on the other day?)

You were so cool, so blasé, as you easily dropped the bombs that exploded my world apart.

For a long while I would look back, wish I had slapped you – said or done something –

to wipe that tiny smile at the corner of your mouth right off your guilty face.

Now I know that that little smile was not you being smug,

it was because you knew what a coward you were,

and you knew that now, I knew it too.

 

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: casual