You Are Light

You Are Light.

You were just yourself and that was more than enough.

You were so kind, and without deserving it, you still give that kindness to me.

When I let you see those Dark and Twisted Things that I use to chase away the Light, you kept on shining. Never dim. Never ashamed. Never judging.

You tried to give me understanding and even tasted my Darkness. You did it as if I was natural and normal. You called my bluff without even knowing my tells.

Your innocence made the Darkness turn inward. It no longer kept others at bay, I felt it now. It distanced me from myself. I know now it is wrong. I knew shame.

All too late to draw you to me. I wasn’t good enough for you even if you didn’t see that. I’m still not, but I am changing. Yet, you didn’t try to change me for yourself.

In our brief moments, your honesty and naked existence saved me. You’ll never fully get it, but that is what gives you such Grace.

Too many do not see you, I haven’t even seen it all, but I know it is there. You are more than letters. You are Light and I am waiting for my eyes to adjust.

Journal

06-29-10 5:23PM

My ex-fiance has come up once again and considering this having been Pride Weekend, I have been confronted with stories and questions about him too much and I need to unload my thoughts on this and get it straightened out the best I can.

I love him and hate him. Most people feel one way or the other about him I have discovered. We brought out the worst, abusive, manipulative qualities in one another. It could be really, really bad. Yet, we could also bring out sweet, romantic, loving qualities too. The sad thing is, I don’t know if one of us was to blame more in this, but we used one another for sex and other things after we broke up even, and for a much longer time than one would think humanity would allow.

I find myself wanting to trash talk and hate him because it would be easier, but then I find myself being overwrought with intense guilt. The complications of what went on between us is sickening and I despise it. I want to tell him I am sorry, I want us to be able to forgive and in some ways totally forget one another. The pain a pettiness that can occur between us is disgusting and heartbreaking. I have to try and let it go the best I can.

My brother spotted him at pride with another guy and I actually hid. I don’t know when my life became a childish game, but it did as far as he is concerned. I wished that we had been more mature when we dated, that we could have dealt with things more appropriately, but we couldn’t. Now the shame of that has become overwhelming and keeps me from making the right decisions as far as he is concerned. It makes me sick just thinking about it.

So, you may never read this or know about it, but I am sorry. I can’t take back the bruises or hateful words that occurred between us. The holes in the walls and broken picture frames. Time and money lost.

The thing that I don’t understand is usually you have a hard time remembering the bad things and an easier time remembering the good. That’s what makes it so hard to avoid falling in that sand trap of an old relationship, but when it comes to us, I have a hard time remembering the good. Our first date, you getting down on your knee in the bathroom after that fight, and me returning the favor a year later in the rain… Those were nice. Nice, but they apparently weren’t enough.

Did we love each other even, or did we love to hate each other?

Then, way back, before I was even a legal drinking…there was You. The opposite, the guy that I knew was 100% my screw up. The greatest guy I ever knew and maybe the only one I ever loved. I messed things up on purpose. I was weak and the drugs meant more to me than my life at times. I wanted to save You from that, only later did I realize that if I had been smarter, You may have been able to save me if I wasn’t so blind. I am so happy for You having the life You do with such a beautiful, successful man. Seeing You in a better place actually brings me peace. Although the memories of the good times sting.

I’ve let a man tear me up emotionally because I wanted to be dedicated for once. Only I chose to be stubborn and stick it out in a bad situation, I ignored my instincts. I ended up having to get tested after that one. Dodged a bullet there.

I have NEVER been in sync with dating and I have never been good at being honest with someone. I never want them to see who I really am. I am so fearful that it will not be enough, that I am somehow inferior and unworthy of love and adoration.

This brings me to another thing that came up at pride. I accidentally made a side joke about not being able to pay a friend back if he took a look at my car since I couldn’t turn a trick for him since I cared too much for his boyfriend. I meant it to be funny and maybe if we weren’t drunk it would have gone over better. He took offense though and gave me this lecture about it being ok for someone to do something nice for me without having to pay them. I don’t know if he was mad because of how I saw myself or because he thought I saw him a certain way or both. I do know that it didn’t help that when I said something to his boyfriend about it and he talked to him that he cornered me in a way that, in my drunken state, I basically came back with and old habits comment. Then he went from made to a righteous intensity that was scary and sweet at the same time. I was cornered and I had to tell him the truth about my past. I mean details. It came out. It wouldn’t have if my judgments hadn’t been impaired I am sure, but it did. I’ve joked about it nonchalantly with some people. However, there are only three people who had ever seen how deep the pain was or heard any details and they had been there so to speak. Well, with that, I asked him to keep a secret and he said he would but not from his boyfriend. I can understand that, so I only had one choice and that was to tell this friend of years what was a part of me that nobody else was allowed to see. Either way, after a few tears, he was great about it.

So what am I saying here? To be so utilitarian about sex, so cavalier about relationships and to seem like I have such a big mouth without ever telling anyone the raw truth has left me isolated. I see it more and more everyday. I so badly want people to be close and yet I fear it so. When and why did this happen? Should I have cried and reconciled my moments of childhood sexual abuse more? Should I have recounted my tales of the physical trespasses that occurred against me in my teen years more? Maybe it was the drugs, or was it too late then and they were a tool for my separation?

How do you move forward without looking back when the past is licking at your heels?

That is the million dollar question.

Journal

06-29-10 4:33PM

We’ll start this now, but it will probably take me forever to finish writing down all the scattered thoughts in my head. This was a long weekend and I overindulged in too many things that left me weak enough to catch a virus that was running rampantly through my family. Yesterday I thought it was just the worst hangover I ever had, but it has continued on through today and I am incapable of cohesive thought so I am neglecting my book again. At least I am writing something to keep the gears inside my head oiled.

I managed to stick my foot in my mouth way too many times this weekend, well, I was doing good until the last day when I mixed liquors and drank the cheap shit. I don’t know why but it makes me spin off into this alternate dimension where more than just feeling sick occurs. No, I word things worse than normal and then let slip secrets about myself. Ugh. Plus, well, let’s just leave it at being a little tragic. I need to get out and blow steam off a little bit at a time so I don’t go off like a bomb I think.

I tried to plan dinner for tonight and my brain was so scattered that I bought the wrong stuff. Wrong buns, no raspberry chipotle sauce, forgot the bread crumbs. Luckily, I am honestly a MacGyver in the kitchen. At least I remembered my beloved Key Lime pie…LOL…

Man, I love the show “Can’t Get A Date.” If you haven’t ever seen it I would track it down. It is pretty entertaining and some of it hits home. I am not one of those who dates well. If I could think out and type all my responses or write them down I would be much, much better off. I don’t know why it is so much easier to formulate my thoughts that way, but it easy. Plus, it is hard to stutter and stammer in writing…LOL…

Ok, so I am thinking I should probably get to work on this dinner thing. I’ll tell you what it was supposed to be, although I will have to change it a bit. Venison burger and venison/pork sausage with veggie dip seasoning mix and garlic. That’s made into patties and grilled. Pepper jack cheese on top, a slice of tomato, a fried mix of cabbage, onion, and mushrooms on it, pickle slice, and a dab of raspberry chipotle. All on a ciabatta bun. Going to make some homemade fries and a cheesey, steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and carrot side dish. I’m hoping that someone thinks that sounds good…LOL…knowing my fam, they won’t dig it too much. :P

Journal

06-29-2010 12:46AM

I have been neglecting writing in most forms lately. I haven’t done too much with my book since I haven’t been getting my edits back and I am at a rough point in the plot. I haven’t even been working on my practice essays that I pound out quickly to exercise my mind.

I have spent so much time at a distance from people that I know feel like a total moron in social settings. I can’t think of the words I want to use and I get nervous and fumble over the ones I do remember and I stutter, stammer, and mispronounce. I have no idea what the Hell is up with me.

I freeze because I don’t want to be seen lacking or unintelligent or negatively and I end up in that position because of my paranoia.

I had all this crazy stuff that I wanted to talk about. My overindulgent weekend, my self-seclusion from society, the worsening of my headaches, being tired all the time, and my habit of sticking my foot in the mouth and telling bad jokes. However, I think that I am actually tired enough to sleep for once.

We’ll see.

I drift off to Neighbors From Hell, I love Tivo…LOL…

Night!

500 Words or Less Writing Exercise 3: Feelings.

500 Words or Less Writing Exercise 3: Feelings.

I have always wished that I was more capable of understanding and expressing my own feelings. The older I get the more confusing they are. I often wonder if it isn’t from all the work of avoiding and suppressing I have done. I didn’t want to be too sensitive as that is too “gay.” Crying was weak and even though I have learned in my adulthood that vulnerable is a more accurate word, I can’t find myself allowing my own “vulnerability.” Actually, I think that I may use the word vulnerable, but I switched its definition to the same as weak. Being sweet and romantic has left a bitter taste in my mouth. I try to hold it back as it always ends badly for me, but eventually the floodgates break and I end up sharing my softer side with the wrong guy and it reinforces my bitter, jaded view.

So what is left for me? Anger. That is it. I feel sad, I get mad. I get lonely, I get mad. I get mad, then I get really mad. It’s so much easier for me to push people away with anger than having to sort through what I am actually thinking and feeling. I brood and think in dark thoughts.

I often wonder if I am capable of experiencing emotions normally. I wonder if I am capable of experiencing true joy. I have felt moments of what I believe are genuine elation and excitement, however they have been fleeting and from some external source. So what then is true inner happiness and how they hell do you find it? Hobbies? Friends, family, relationships? A pet? Your job? I just can’t figure it out, I cannot wrap my brain around it. I keep hoping that one day I will have an epiphany and it will all make sense and I will be a whole new, lighthearted person.

500 Words or Less Writing Exercise 2: HIV and Me.

500 Words or Less Writing Exercise 2: HIV and Me.

I am of a generation who has taken medical advancements for granted. An age group that lacks the sexual responsibility instilled via the fear of a disease, a fear fueled by watching those you love die from it. Presently, I have dated serodiscordantly and I have been careful about it. There is one man in particular who I care for, a man I have known for such a short time, but a man who has filled my heart with so much inspiration and compassion that I did something I swore I never would do; I got a tattoo in his honor of an AIDS ribbon with the word “hope” on it.

I know now had I not had a taste of the fear that I imagine once ran rampant in the 80’s and 90’s I may still be uneducated, willful, and wanton in my actions. In the past, I dated a man years ago whom I trusted for all the wrong reasons. I was clean from drugs and even though I KNEW the signs, I believed he was too because he said so. When he said he was faithful, I believed him even though he left the bars without me in the arms of men who “were just friends,” even though I KNEW better. So why did I believe the lies if I knew so much? The same reason that I believed he had been tested and I had nothing to worry about when he told me. I wanted to believe. I wanted to believe I was safe.

I remember how badly it felt to jump through hoops to try to keep a man who could care less about me. I remember how horrible it felt when he broke up over the phone without so much as a reason as to why I wasn’t right for him. I remember how painful it felt to see him on a gay chat site within a week looking for a “big d***ed athletic man” to dominate him for the night. The worst, gut wrenching moment was a month after we were finished he called and asked me if I was “sitting down.”

I don’t know if I was working, but I know my mother and I were on a cigarette break at the hospital, chatting in the van. My phone rang and it was him. The conversation was so short, so to the point. He was positive. My world crashed. Shame, guilt, fear, helplessness, and regret flooded me. Those feelings were with me through years of testing. I know better, I know now how slim my chances of infection were, but the fear was still there.

Now I give to amfAR on a regular basis and I take extra precautions that I didn’t before, but I can’t help but wonder about how many people were like me, only not so lucky. In the end, I tested negative.

The Snow Garden - Christopher Rice Book Review

Gloria Bigelow Clip For a Laugh

Vlog 06-06-2010

500 Words or Less Writing Exercise 1: Description and Analysis of My Room.

500 Words or Less Writing Exercise 1: Description and Analysis of My Room.

My room is a cluttered and jumbled mess. I have clothes to hang-up, a bed I never make, too many TV shows taped then I will ever watch, a supply of books always three too many to have kept up on my reading, and mail that I never quite finish sorting and disposing of.

I know now, with all the time that I have had for reflection, that I do this to remain unfinished and so I do not have to assess myself and so I do not have to decide what to do with myself when I find it. Yet, even with these great and seemingly disorderly lengths at which I strive towards in order to dismantle myself to remain slightly unhinged for fear of finding myself completely undone, I have a nervous, bitter, storm that rumbles beneath my flesh. Listless and messy.

So, what does this means? My room serves as a double edged sword. It keeps me from realizing a life outside of these four walls that could be a disaster and in some odd way it is a projection of how I feel inside. So if the last part is true, what do some of the little habits I have and decorations that adorn it mean?

Three matchbooks in various states of use are pinned above my desk from random resorts and a club. Beside them resides a calendar depicting nature in all Her beauty as a stoic sentinel reminding me that days tick by just as the time on the clock resting, gathering dust, beneath it does. A clock that has an alarm, but has had no reason to cry out in the AM for me, for I have no place to be. I have plants that try their best to keep me company, more alive than I sometimes, and maybe more resilient than I am for all the neglect they are fed they survive, some even flourish. The Asian art pieces scattered on ledges and shelves reminding me that I once shared a home decorated with love with a man I thought I loved as much as what we made together. At least the walls have a warmth that makes anything before them pop, their hue a mix between a burnt orange and a sandy muck that come together as a heterogeneous terra cotta, almost as if I planned on making this a metaphorical womb of Mother Nature. Two versions of the Transformer Bumblebee sit atop a shelf in original packaging, an epitaph to my childhood. Finally, on my laptop and best friend, and image of “The Garden Of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch to take place of the one I desire to own, frame, and suspend above my bed, but lack the funds to do so.

So what does that tell you of me?

My First Taste of Writing.

I wrote this about a decade or so ago and a few years after that it was published. I had a taste for writing before that, but afterward I was enthralled. However, something pushed me down and I lost faith in what I enjoyed. Whether it was because I was told that I wouldn't make money at it or it was a pipe dream and college was the only option, IDK. Either way, I dropped it and my other artistic expressions. Now I am trying to find that person again.