Stuck in the Art of it All (a writing prompt)

I never remembered how or when I got here, knowing little of my life prior to being a figure of art

It is a strange feeling to be constantly stared at, even if admired

It’s agonizing seeing people live their lives in such a real way outside of this fishbowl that is my life

The only joy I get is observing the observers, listening for the mistakes that they are contemplating making

Attempting to predict their next moves, sometimes disapointed, sometimes proud of their actions as if I have an ounce of control over the outcomes

But today, today feels different

It began as any other day in the museum, until an altercation pursued between who I thought was an innocent bystander and the perpetrator, an older dark haired gentleman

Even their correspondance was normal until their conversation escalated from cordial to defensive

The bystander, a young man named Dave, who appeared fresh out of grad school, sleep deprived and disheveled

The perpetrator, an older attractive gentleman clean shaven with specks of silvered hair, refined, yet suspicious-Dave referred to him as Joe

As I watched their intensity increase as Dave refused to abide by Joe’s demands, Joe presented his gun as a solitary statement in its own right, prepared to use it as necessary to convince the young man to adhere to his commands

Dave’s surprise informed me that he had never imagined this circumstance as a possibility, and yet his surprise was the least interesting part of this show

The strangest thing happened: They both simultaneously turned not just to my painting, but to ME, PERSONALLY, eye to eye as if they were positive beyond doubt that I was not only a part of the painting, but that I am a person stuck in an alternate reality, destined to live amongst them in the real world

Now I was hooked.

questions flooded me, starting with the obvious: how could they possibly know that? and who am I?

Dave took this pause as an opportunity to run, but as he was about to do so, Joe cocked the gun; he meant business

Dave turned around to assess his options, but it was too late, Joe fired the gun

I knew today felt different, but I had no idea what was in store for me

I don’t know exactly what happened next, it was just a knee jerk reaction to protect a young man

I found myself stupidly reaching for Dave, to cover him from the bullet, as if I had this ability

only to find out that I did.

When I reached for Dave, pulling him to safety, I did a little more than intended

I pulled him into my painting, only now it was his painting, because I was busy dodging his bullet

To Be Continued….

Another One Bites the Dust

Another wooden box to fill

More motherless children to fit the bill

Do the survival benefits outweigh the losses

What are the actual costs

Another smoke, another sniff, another drink, no time to stop and think

one more needle in the arm or maybe between the toes, what’s the harm?

just one more,

but one more is too many and a thousand is never enough

you can never be too tough

no ability for them to consider us, we are just one more excuse to use to drown their sorrows.

or to ignore until “tomorrow”

when they’ll have more time

time to see the life they usually choose to leave.

with hopes of euphoria rather than memories of shame and grief

It doesn’t matter, It’s sneaky and progressive.

Is he alive and living in a slide just to get high, or is he alone in the gutter shoved to the side

Does she regret that last use, or was it worth her last breath, not able to say goodbye to her kids

What do THEY have left

How many more have to die?

I preferred it when they lied

How many more do we have to bury

the weight of the burden is getting too much to carry

They get the release; we get to stay and feel the pain from them being set free

free of the disease, but what they thought they wanted was the freedom from pain

while getting the chance to stay-now there’s nothing more for them to gain

If only they had one more chance, but It gets to decide who to battle, and who dies

There’s no fairness and no blame to be had,

only the casualties of the moms and the dads

It’s not about love, just about loss,

the loss of choices, choices to be better and to get better

there’s no cure, no real control

It has a mind of its own,

If we’re lucky It just leaves scars, but most often it takes lives

and chunks of time

It feeds off their hunger, their hunger for love-but not the good kind

the kind that feels like you’re being stabbed with seven knives

where removing them is just as deadly as leaving them in

In the end, no one wins

My Role Model

She has always had my back through thick or thin

She’d cuddle so I wasn’t scared, cried when her mother didn’t care

Taught me about the birds and the bees

Made brownies and lemonade so we could earn money

Nature versus nurture is the neverending debate

She wasn’t well nurtured, but nature was kind

In spite of nature, she became the ones who raised her

Her sweetness only surfaces when shes like you

or if she needs you

You’re always disposable, but never replaceable

She screams, but never listens, and powers through her self-inflicted migraines

She belittles others, out of her own insecurities

She’d beat someone up to try to protect me

She was always the pretty one, me the nice one

She has beauty and brains, leaving me with ambition and heart

Never knowing when to let something go, or when to let others start

feeling every feeling when feeling wronged, with no accountability

Always at a ten, never knowing how to descend

She guilt trips to get a rise, to feel loved

Always with a need to be worshipped, anything less is not enough

She’s everything I hoped to grow into, and now she’s everything I hope to leave

She’ll forever be my role model, but now she has two sides

one that I’ll always appreciate and one that is always behind

I was always her test dummy, but now I’m passing and she’s not catching on

Always questioning if our relationship is destined to evolve

Let’s Get Physical-inspired by a writing prompt

Let’s get physical

Physical like a kiss with a fist instead of with a bump and a grind

Physical like I wish you would, or say it one more time

The heat is gone and I have fighting on my mind

Like I want to punch you where it hurts, where I can’t take it back

Like I want you to feel the pain you’ve caused my heart, throughout your body on a repeated track

I’m sick of all your slack

and your “don’t give a f**k’s”

I don’t want to get physical like Olivia, I want to get physical like Rocky

You’re falling off your pedestal, no need to be cocky

Falling down like humpty

waiting for your great fall, but nobody’s going to put YOU together again

you ruined it all

Still in the Fire

Thinking I’m recovered, that I made it through the fire

but I’m lying to myself and to others

I’m still under the wire

I can sit here and blame the history of my mother

but truth be told I hate to fail

Lying to myself is easier

I’ll do anything to exhale

even if for leisure

I’m paralyzed by stability

Without the ability to move, I’m destined to repeat the same actions, expecting different results

Always desperate for some humilty, my ego is my liability

Wishing to be the diamond from my ashes sooner than later

Not really sure if I’m ready to meet my creator

Thinking I’m recovered, that I made it through the fire

But when looking in the mirror, I see that I’m still a liar

Thinking I’m blending in with the crowd, but I’m really just lost and alone

Feeling as though I’m bleeding out, with nowhere to go, nowhere to take cover

I want to be happy, but I’m still grieving with my glass half empty, praying for its refill

adding to the landfill

Sitting in the dark, wishing for the light, wanting to be whole and healed

Trying to go through it to get through it, following the path out of this darkeness to the otherside

The other side with the light

The heat is subsiding, but I’m not yet content, my emotions are still burning

Always ready for the kerosene, never the rainfall

Always the yearning, yearning for more and for what could be

Never willing to concede on one knee

Never desiring the fire’s full decimation

For if it burns out, I burn out, no longer eternal

Fearful of my presumed condemnation

Always prepared to speak my rehearsed fearwell

Two Steps Forward, Ten Steps Back

Everytime I believe that I am in a good space, or moving forward, closer to my future, I feel the need to switch it up

Switch it up to shake the boring, to no longer feel stagnant

I have an inner need to jeopardize something, anything

Never sitting or standing still

Afraid to do nothing

This need to feel alive

This fear that if I stay still too long, I’ll die

Literally die

as if feeling boredom is an explosive, taking out any bystanders

Working three jobs, and having at least six hobbies is my baseline

Anything less slows me down like quick sand

I have to keep running, never sure what would happen if I stop

Will the darkness catch me and keep me hostage, preventing me from fulfilling my unknown potential?

Or will some form of karma catch up to me, taking away my life right before all my dreams come true?

Terrified to find out, dreading the day that my energy wares out, and I’m lost in “the waiting place” not really knowing if I’m alive or just stuck

With no one to pull me out, and nothing more to do

Because they’re all ahead of me, moving forward, never looking to see who they left behind

Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes

His rules guided our every move, like lines you must color within, with painful penalties if you stepped outside them

Only he could be angry, only he could rage

Her house was a free for all, but only she could have feelings other than happy

she was the victim even when she was the perpertrator

You were only allowed to feel love for her, admiring her microwaved food and caring heart

Only she could cut up all the pictures in the house and tell all your secrets, with the expectation to love her more than anyone else

Only he could rage and punish with silence or violence or name calling

He could gaslight anyone at any time, with expectations of respect and admiration, never understanding the consequences of his actions onto our relationship

I ran from his rage and from her insanity

I ran to other countries, and set up homes in other states

I ran into the arms and beds of men who promised better futures, or at least great nights, different from “them”

I ran from them all

I ran into the arms of a man who was nothing like “him,” who built me up on the highest of pedestals and thought the world of me

only to break me and my world, both crashing down to reality, the reality that he was just like the him that I ran from and into

He ran our home, and ran me out, out of the apartment that I made a home for us so that he could invite another, the other woman that I would and could never be

He raged too, but silently with great shock value, telling me that he’d kill me and that he knew where he’d hide my body parts

He made sure that I knew that there was nothing that I could do to please him, unless I became his new person

anyone other than the original me that he allegedly fell in love with, only to destroy in order to build a newer more obediant model

I thought that if I stayed long enough, he would love me back, the way he did at the beginning when he was nothing like the first him

I drove cross country from him, into the arms of another,

a man who seemed so kind, harmless and loving

A man who would never rage, but would guilt me into meeting his needs when he was unable to meet his own

A man who would be captivated and held captive by his depression, while I continued to need to be needed

Needed by a man who adored me and hated himself

Needed by parents and men, to be loved

loved into a better and newer person, never good enough as is

My neurotransmitters are sending all my drafts as final, to men who like to tantrum when they do not get their way, men who do not want me to be myself in all my imperfections

My serotonin gets pumped by this familiarity

this familiarity of false senses of security

this familiarity of being loved by someone unable to love themselves much less another

My brain is still motivated by this need to be needed and taken care of by men who do not give me space to take care of myself

People who can truly love, let others voluntarily evolve

• 

They don’t take hostages and convince them to stay voluntarily

Nothing changes if nothing changes, but I’m changing, I only wish my brain would catch up

If only my brain and my heart can come to a consensus, allowing me to see what it is I actually need AND desserve

The Mushy Gushy Love Stuff

Someone’s non-sexual touch makes me flinch

Spooning makes me want to crawl out of my skin

Sex is easy, hours of limitless pleasure with an exit strategy,

especially when his pullout game is on point

I can get his dick hard, and he can get me wet,

but we haven’t had sex yet

Can he stimulate my mind

Can we make each other laugh

can we connect

can we have fun without discussing

without depth and seriousness

can we take each other to new depths within one another

Or

Is he demanding and stressful or is he caring and interested

This is mental blueballing-confusion to the core

Is this going somewhere, or is this another shot to the head and to the heart

Call Me Poor One More Time

Sitting and listening, their words bubbling inside me

Asking me to describe poor people

Implying I’ve had no contact with “them,” that since I’ve had no contact with “them,” I should not work with “them”

Reviewing descriptions and stereotypes of “poor” people as if I have not lived those scarlet letters

As if I have not desperately waited in lines with yellow coupons, only to feel humiliated for holding up those lines, putting back what we could not afford

As if I have not taken cold showers when we could not afford to pay hot water

That cold water bieng the only thing that could cool me down

Call me poor one more time

Insinuate that I am only poor and have nothing more to offer than insufficient dollars and coins,

as if I cannot create or succeed

when you call one of us poor, you call us all poor

call me lazy one more time while I relive my mother working two jobs while barely surviving off of public assistance, and balancing her depression that weighs her down

Call my mother crazy one more time while she is walking out of her psychiatric hospitalizations, ready to try again

Call me a bastard one more time while my father refuses to pay my child support, while supporting my siblings from his marriage

Call my father a junkie one more time, while he has attended a twelve step program for 32 years

Call my mother unmotivated one more time, while she made sure that I pursued college

Call me stupid one more time, while I’ve earned three degrees

Call me poor one more time, while I continue to help better the lives of children who you call poor

Being labeled poor isn’t something you outgrow through increasing your salary and earning more degrees

“Poor” is more than what is in one’s bank accounts, it is who someone is when you call them poor

Poor is what someone does when all they see when they look in the mirror, is what they don’t have

so.

Call me poor one more time, and I’ll show you all we have to offer.

Lost in 2022

New year, new me, but I’m lost in 2020

New year, new me:

meaning the old me needs to be tossed away like yesterday’s garbage, because I’m not who I want to be today

In this new year, I’m supposed to be “there” already, like yesterday; not lost in tomorrow today

“There” like me with three kids, the hot, smart, funny, ambitious, and successful husband

“There” like the aparment in the city, with a beach house waiting for us on long weekends

“There” like My job is “supposed” to still feel fulfilling

“There” like being a best selling author for at least two books, no NEED to work only desire to not feel still

I want to be the new me in this new year, looking in the rear view mirror to today, today

Instead I’m here, lost in 2020, trying to figure out the “how to’s” instead of the “the next goals”

I’m lost in 2020 trying to figure out my thirties when I’m three years in

Clocks are ticking everywhere I look, the ball has dropped, time is up

How much time do we really have left to leave our old selves behind, shed the old, and transform into our true and new selves

I’m lost in this same body, residing in the apartment, driving to and from the same job in the same car

Being stationary or even consistent for too long feels like failure when nothing is changing or improving

My head is lost in 2020 balancing black and white thinking about where I am in life in 2022

Am I almost “there” yet? or will I ever get “there?”