I don’t buy the primordial ooze theory
Or the Big Bang, for that matter (pun intended)
I look at a flower, its perfect design
The hide of the cougar, its markings
The veins in a leaf, the pattern in a snowflake
My own body – my eyelashes, my skin cells!
The systems that keep me alive
It’s not random
It’s too brilliant
I don’t have a name for for what created it all
I don’t have a theory
But I sure do have reverence
And I sure do have awe
Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: ooze
Perhaps my way’s not been graceful
I’ve done my best, and that’s not for nothing
At times I’ve lurched or been wasteful
But it’s been my way, and that is something
I’m emerging from my center
More confident
More curious
Something’s unfurling deep within
A knowing
A joy in being
A releasing of what’s seemed lost
So missed
So welcome
So…mine
Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: unfurl
There's something under my skin
Something grainy, irritating
I can't get to it, make it go away
Want to cut it out
Feels like him, still there, still taking what's mine alone to give
A pressure behind my neck
An invisible yoke I can't escape
Can't get rid of the grip, can't get away
Can't rub away the imprint of his touch
These are the moments I despair
These, the moments that he wins
I was covered in prickles
The barbs of life's sharpness
Had entered my peripheries
Pierced underneath, to my core
In time, I grew around them
As a tree around wrought iron
In my humanness I adapted
They became part of my selfscape
Then one day, one fell away
I felt the freedom remaining
So I extracted with care and love
Each well-known thorn, reborn
I’m searching for the girl with the twinkle in her eyes
She’s there in the photos from the past
That shimmer – that sparkle – who I long to be again
If I keep looking, will I find her at last?
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
There was once a cacophony
Of thoughts that were in other people’s heads before mine
A terrible discord of voices
Some loud and bullying, others plaintive and pitiful
Others I could not identify (that was the most frightening of all)
I thought I was losing my mind
But I could not yet hear my own voice
Or discern my own thoughts from the din
So I got very quiet and began to listen to all of the voices, one by one
Until I finally found my own
Now there is a symphony
I still hear many melodies in addition to my own
But there is music where there once was just noise
Confession: I often poo-poo fads or things that get really popular really fast without even trying them firsthand.
I won't go see a movie that everyone is talking about, for example. Like The Revenant. Wouldn't go see it in the theatre.
It is an annoying habit. A strange, stubborn character trait that I both wear like a badge and admit is pretty ridiculous at the same time.
It's like I just have to go the opposite way because everyone else is all-over a thing.
Like when electric toothbrushes came out.
I had so much judgement around them!
I prided myself on staying old school. I harshly judged those who bought them as "Suckers fallen prey to marketing schemes of money-hungry dentists!"
I mean, come on! Does anybody really need a frigging electric toothbrush? Jeez! Lazy much?
And then, one day, years after they'd been out, I tried one.
And I finally discovered what all the fuss is about.
And now, it is one of my must-have items.
I still haven't passed over into the truly high-end versions.
I love a particular brand, the Colgate Optic White Battery Powered toothbrush. (Full disclosure: a big plus is that it matches my bathroom wall color, a detail that greatly influenced my choice.)
And so just as was the case with jalapeños, Diet Sierra Mist, Tab and QuestBars, I became a convert once I actually tried it for myself.
Sometimes, a fad is just a fad. (I finally did see The Revenant and still think it was way overrated and was not happy when Leo Di Caprio won the Oscar that year for it.)
But sometimes, a fad is a fad for good reason.
And sometimes, I eventually "get it," despite myself.
Much of my adult life has been about coming to terms with lust.
Having grown up in a fairly conservative family with mainly Protestant roots, I learned early on to deny and repress my lust: for life, for sex, for fame, for love, for food.
So much so that I lived a kind of double life from my teens into my twenties.
I hid many behaviors that all revolved around my various appetites. Somewhere in my somewhat stunted emotional development, I had learned that being seen as having a need (be it physical or otherwise) was weak, unattractive.
And so I learned to pretend I did not have them.
And yet, at the same time, I also had a very strong need to be seen as a sexual object. (See Sexual Healing, my previous post on this issue.) This presented quite a war within me. I desperately wanted to be seen and treated like a sexually desirable woman – that was sort of the ultimate need. At the same time, I had shame and embarrassment around this and had strong messaging that that was bad, and that I should be a good girl with no sexuality, appetites, strong opinions or feelings.
And so I pretended to be one one way while in secret I acted in other ways.
I invested a great deal of time into creating the illusion that I was chaste, a normal eater, and had a very neutral opinion on just about everything. I monitored my emotions and watched myself around people, carefully choosing mannerisms and tones to project a good girl.
Meanwhile, I was living quite another kind of life, a life I hid from my family, my friends. A life of appetite and lust and danger.
There were certainly angels watching over me. I was often in the wrong places at the wrong time. Somehow, I survived.
At a certain point in my twenties, the jig was up, as they say.
My psyche demanded that I heal the split, and I began the process of recovering wholeness again.
Of uncovering my own genuine appetites from a place of love, curiosity and acceptance. Of letting go of the urge to keep my appetites hidden.
I began a process of embracing of my true nature and wants and needs as beautiful reflections of my own humanity. I began the shedding of the shaming nature that I inherited.
An unlearning of the social pressure that happens in middle school to put a damper on enthusiasm, to keep a lid on want to look cool.
I learned to let myself eat as I really wanted to in front of others.
I learned to let myself be seen trying, excited, wanting, sexy, hungry, angry, hopeful, happy, disappointed, frightened, messy, unhappy, empty, full, vulnerable, awkward, lonely, blissful.
I learned to let myself be seen. As I really am.
Today I value the self-honesty that I live from. Truth is of huge importance to me.
Though I am still in awe of the capacity I had within my own psyche to maintain such a dichotomy the way I did – that I could compartmentalize two such distinct worlds at once – I am so grateful that that is just a chapter in my story.
Today, I have one world with many parts: parts that co-mingle and bring me great joy in their diversity.
I celebrate my appetites, I revel in my enthusiasms and passions.
I love my lust. It is what lets me know I am human. And alive.
So today, I try to wear my lust like a smile.
Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: lust
Beyond the Skinny Branches 