I pickedscraped…

I picked
scraped
peeled
away at
the nail on
my middle
finger on my
left hand.
Half of my
nail is
gone.
The burn of
it feels, it
is. Even
while you
wove
yourself
with your hands
into the
strings
on your
guitar,
I scraped
at the
shell the
deadness
of my alive.
When you fall, I
front-crawl towards
you. A path
Yours,
my left hand like an ice
cream
scoop
slicing into
the space in front
of me to
turn and pull
while my
right hand follows
eager to
know
where
I will be.
Drink
drink
drink
drink
drink
sleep
start
again.

Lift.

Alone Is Not With Out You.

If this year was my last.

I would be completely alone.

I would drown in my processes.

Cooking, cleaning, putting things where they go.

Yoga, music, and the people I love.

All would be done with a stoic silence, and a unshakable terrible stillness.

And when you look at me you would see my love and my empty.

I would go to dog parks and write pages and pages of love poems for the people and their dogs.

I would create collages on the seats of the subway cars and hold the hands of the saddest looking people.

I would mother as many children as I could gather from the streets.

I would show them how to paint my walls and they would bring me back to their castles and lands I used to know.

I would find music that felt good and people who agreed.

I would move in and out, through and around, but I would be completely alone.

If this year was my last I would sit down with my Self and get to know her.

Get to know her so I can really be her.

If I died
tomorrow I would
cry my heart
out and let you
fuck it back into
me, let my essence
and strings and
blood and
eyelashes meet with
the shimmer you saw
when you
almost looked into
the sun.

Being Open

It’s like the best moments of childhood, but from strength. There’s this feeling I associate with childhood. It’s longing and magical and nostalgic. It is warm soggy days climbing pines in the woods surrounding the house. It is feeling like there is no harm in the world that can touch you.

Plant your feet here and let them sink down into the earth while you strengthen and lengthen your spine. Your forearms are made of steel and you are hollow and solid.

This is what being open is like.

This is what love is.

My Own Mother

I don’t know where to start here. I know my chest is tight and I feel like I’ve done something wrong. I don’t want to hate myself for doing this, it is not like me to do it. It used to be.

I’ve come into this love with Kai. It’s enveloped my being, held my insecurities, stifled my shadows. And it’s been really good. I never thought I would have to go back. Why should I when it feels so good to be Here. I did go back. I’m not taking care of the child in me. So here I am, trying not to hate her, but make her feel held.

Facts. I led a guy on, I asked for his attention, and I asked for it again. Thinking about it, feeling it, brings tears to my eyes and knots my stomach. She was in the next room and I did it. I could defend myself left and right because I still think I handled it well. But what about Little Mo? She didn’t handle it well. What kind of attention can I give her to quell her hate of me?

I don’t know how it started but I used my sex. There were so many people and, after every one of them, I hated myself. I knew boys wanted it, self-fucking -validation. I used to run this idea that feeling attractive would make me a woman or something equally as shitty, constantly.

I remember realizing it the more I spent time with Kai. After looking around the room I just walked into and judging each boy, each girl-telling myself I was so much better-hating them. I wanted all of them to love me, to tell me I was pretty, to want me.

I hate coming back here. It’s small and scary and lonely.

How do I help you Little Mo?

She made herself known again the other night. She pushed and squirmed through this love and safety that I shoved on top of her, and hurt me.

She’s still hating me, and hating my parents. She’s selfish and mean and clawing around for help.

How?

This brings me back to something I wrote she used to speak.

((I think
It’s time to make myself happy.
Maybe start at the top,
Brush a little dirt away,
Then lift an arm,
Tear it from the cobwebs that
bind me like chains.
Dig a little around my feet,
Pull them out of the
Engulfing quicksand,
And finally,
Rub my hands around
My cold, sad heart.))

Don’t you know you are loved? That I’ve tried to quell your fears, that Kai loves you too? She’s been teaching me to love you, even if I just figured that out. I just figured that out.

I’ve ignored

covered

muffled all

I have left.

Looking forward,

narrowly

focused.

I’m sorry,

I have left you.

You can come

with me. I’d

like to teach you

what I have learned.

All I can say is fuck-I feel better.

I think she feels better.

I’ve had the zeropoint experience enough where I am beginning and able to play with and mold my attention in situations I meet out in the world. Where I react as I used to with fear and weakness, I am sometimes able to catch my dishonest behavior. I bring my attention inward, am able to notice how my body is, and have a brief moment of “What the fuck?!” before I bring it back out and am present.

Today, I didn’t catch it. I made a mistake I didn’t want to admit to another person. So I covered it, thinking I could fix it and no one would know I ever had a damn fault in my life. I lied. I would never call myself a liar. I am still baffled that I didn’t think I was lying. “I was just trying to fix it.” What has been difficult is relying on others. Or, willing to admit responsibility, aware of it’s potentially hurtful impact on another, and feeling shitty about making a mistake. What she said is completely true here. Sorts-by-others. If I make you feel bad, you aren’t going to approve of me, so I’m probably not okay. What the fuck.

Thinking about it, I wanted her approval. I didn’t want her to know that there was a moment where I acted without integrity. Because I know I was being a dipshit. I didn’t want anyone else to know.

I was careful about the information I gave, I thought I was going to get away with it. As soon as she asked if I was being honest, I admitted it. Before this most recent episode of “Monique is a Liar,” I would’ve kept lying. As soon as I met resistance, I became present. I realized what I had done…I couldn’t believe I thought I could still get away with it.

Would it be useful to you and I to describe how I am in my body when I dissociate in this way? I am between thinking it would be useful to really know this state from my present state of perfection (haha), and being wary of falling back into the literal experience of it in my body and not being able to come back out. And then I am thinking, what if there were an instant way of running a certain focus of attention in my body. Shouldn’t I be practicing the language and structure of these states so I may move in and out of them fluidly?

What would it feel like to be open about my faults and mistakes? I don’t know, maybe I should try it. Hiding things doesn’t make anything different. I’ll do it again. Because I did it this time. Will being vulnerable translate to not-making-retarded-decisions?

And now I take from this a deeper understanding of my habit of protecting and scheming, lying and manipulating. Running the same reaction in my body while I am zeroed-in I have become familiar with how it is not me, but just an excuse. I hope to catch myself falling into this state of childishness, or even avoid the tendency all together.

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