Forever is an Invention

Long corridors winding, taking care to narrowly miss the others, labyrinth of star cross lonelies.
How one's end is this place of reason is beyond my tolerance.
Huddled in trenches, playing house in the gullies, our make believe until the grenades are set off.
It astounds, this digging with not a place for us to go.
The masses have crouched here as one collective for no existing greater good.
There are none left to debate the unmentionables.
The metal rod has cast shadows upon ceramic walls, reflected by some unseen light source.
Dark upon dark. Dark upon darker.
The noon time reflection of the glowing opal sun, but with cunning likeness to the moon.
Not the traditional burning orb, but kin to the green.
The rise of the empire reaching its peak, only to be sold before the fall.
Squalor, the end result for those who have broken their backs to be kings among us.
Chess pieces in their territory. One square to the next, and annexed.
Black to white and back again.
I am the pawn, you are the knight and the queen is nowhere to be found.
Shackles fallen clatter to the floor like coins of bastard nations.
Passing from hand to hand, through nimble fingers slipping, falling prey
To the cracks between the calluses built up over black prince witchery, despots overthrown.
To lull royalty to sleep on harp's wings and fragile notes, money comfort sounding.
All before slaying the giant and cutting the locks from the nape.
No, no sleep for the weary, pressed on, indentured, not to be settled by death's ransom note.
The clutch of the Shylock for a pound of flesh, trading life's parts for a flesh dance with the soft lady
Who in morning's light will steal the corners of your soul.
Dust built up on heels of boots cracked with age, but still am I standing.
The Sandman holds my card, tied with pink ribbon about my wrist, hanging for my callers
It swings heavily, the great pendulum, begging the question of gonging resonance.
The skull in hand with the hollowed out eyes asks the headless horseman for his limbs.
All given up in a fury of midnight surges, a hand dealt ill by the house.
Every nice past and since, the cubes dilute the arsenic at your request.
Veins harden like warm weather icicles, twisting a web about your vitals.
Let not that book be read.
The losing ticket crumpled in your grip as the shouting escalates, the climax draws near
With gasps of undulating passion, take over to shake down the fibers.
The sheets damp with unheeded slumber, twitching and rolling from the waists, have no other direction.
White-washed and ink splattered, groaning with pains from yesterday's news.
Held in palm, in the bush, in the basket, relieving of sorcery.
The Source and the Oracle are one in mind & body, breaking what's left of the spirit & ever-quaking sanity.
The poison to be bled from leeches friends into stone basins at the edge of the cliff.
The seasons know what we've done.

La Vie Boheme vs. The American Dream

I was told by someone today that she wished she could live in the moment instead of waiting for the next big thing in the near future. It made me realize that for the past while, I have been doing just that. Waiting for the weekend. Waiting for the event. Waiting for some pending meeting. Whatever it is, it is just waiting. Hoping to God that it is going to get better or be different somehow. Which in turn, only means that time is passing by and I'm rushing past my life.

My whole life I have always wanted to be older than I was. I was out to prove something to everyone. That I was smart and capable and motivated. That I was just as good as those older and more experienced. I blew past high school and college and by the time I was 20, almost every part of my childhood had evaporated. I have been laden with burdens and responsibilities and no way to be young and carefree. Even if I hadn't forced myself to excel, my personality and mind would not have allowed me to be any sort of standard. I have a fear of failure or normalcy or mediocrity. And I have a perfectionism that rears its head in the lowest of times.

So now I am in a position where I could really begin my adult life in a way that I thought I had always wanted. Or I could jump of the edge and see where I land.

It would be crazy to give up great job, the opportunity to own my own place, and eventually a car and MacBook for my music and... and... and... exactly. Could I survive in such materialism? Is there some sort of balance that can be achieved?

It sounds great and in theory it is what everyone works for and some never attain. But all I want to do is be a bohemian in a tiny little room with nothing but time and beauty surrounding me. But it is heavy hand... because to support my love- my music - I need money to pay for gear and studio time. So I either have no time or energy to create it or I have no money to get it out to the world.

I am an old soul and I want a place that is mine. I want peace and comfort. And security is only frightening because of the commitment that is involved.

I know I will never be normal. It just isn't how I'm wired. But I wonder if I can be an independent, responsible and financially sound woman and still be a weird hippie bohemian. And perhaps enjoy the little things like the first cup of coffee on an early summer Saturday morning with the greatest literary giants of the past two centuries in the meanwhile. Appreciate the glow of the tiny, hidden things that no one else gives heed to while not starving and broke.

Can I truly have my cake and eat it too? Maybe I should give it a try... If all else fails, I could sell and bail out and live in a van down buy the river.

So here is to living in the moment... appreciating the world's secrets... being an independent adult... and being my erratic, eclectic self all the while. I guess I will find out if I can make it work in my favor soon enough.

A.D.I.D.A.M.

I feel a bit torn. I've been a see-saw lately between motivated & productive to energy-less & desolate.

It has not been ALL negativity, which is a step in the right direction. But only a few activities and a few select people hold my attention for long.

Right now, it is MUSIC, MUSIC, MUSIC... all day, all the time. It's all I can think about. While not a bad thing, I can't help but wonder if it is becoming my crutch, because I can't cope with the stuff that is constantly running through my head. A distraction, if you will.

Well, whatever it is in reality, I am afloat above the sludge and turmoil. Soaking up the rays of the melody and rhythm that glisten around me.

I feel like for the first time in a long time, I can be honest in my music- I can be angry, I can be sad, I can be dark, I can be stripped down, I can be mysterious & cryptic. A little freedom goes a long way in keeping the mind parallel to your intentions.

So soon, I will be able to focus solely on that. At least for awhile. It will be divine.

Oh, I am Narcissus and Echo, too

May I just say that while I think it is perfectly fine to hold whichever opinion one might prefer, that most often than not, there is not one formula for all and there are very few hard, unfailing, unflinching truths. Yes, I realize that THAT is MY opinion. But honestly, I am so tired of everyone telling me how they think my life will turn out- what I should do, how I should do it, who I should be with when I do it, how my mind will change with age...

I am not stupid or naive enough to think that I will always be youthful, idealistic and though contrary it may be, overtly cynical. I will probably settle into something... a mood, a lifestyle, whatever. However, the more that people tell me THIS is how life happens, the more I strive to reject it and hold fast to my twenty-something passions and general bohemianism. Again, I realize I most likely will outgrow the need to stay entwined with this mindset. But for the love of all, STOP TELLING ME I WILL TURN OUT JUST LIKE YOU.

Each person has their own experiences, their own lives to lead and there ARE exceptions to the rule (though I do acknowledge the rule).

SO, that being said, let me say that honestly, blatantly, I may never get married or have kids or get over the person who shall not be named or get into another relationship or settle down in the suburbs or live until I'm eighty or stay within the confines of the country. Not saying I won't, but stop telling me I will.

When I say that I think I would be happiest being alone, I am not saying it out of bitterness or melancholy. I am saying it because I really think it. As mentioned before, being an artist of any sort, it is a bit difficult to get along with others on any level. And there are many things that I want to do and not do.

But to any who read this that this may be in reference to, I know these things are said in love and encouragement. So it was appreciated the first time... just rejected all of the other times thereafter.

Glass, Metal and Flesh

I keep trying to see what my life will turn out to be like. I fast forward in my mind 1 yr, 5 yrs, 10 yrs, 50 yrs and I try to see where I might be headed.

These last few years have been the only time where I have felt that I have NO IDEA where I will end up. Everything I thought I would keep or follow has somehow fallen through my fingers or morphed into something else.

I'm learning as I get older that absolutely nothing happens as you would expect. I am not where I had envisioned before in my younger days. I'm not sure if that is a good or a bad thing yet. I suppose I will know when I'm a little more down the line.

As far as I can tell, there are only two real directions I can see things going. However, one seems much more likely than the other.

I am naturally the type to worry, to wonder, to ask and to try to prepare. But what happens more often than not is something that you never could have planned. Maybe that's why despite all of my heartbreak and disappointments, I still feel like God is up there.

I have become a cynic and at times bitter, but I have this underlying hope that keeps me going. It may be a bit naive. Maybe I really am too much of a romantic, in the sense that I see things as a sepia toned photo, some grand sweeping epic that unfolds into either tragedy or beauty. But I'm still hanging on to the idea that things have to get better.

For Keep's Sake

I keep thinking I see you. Everytime I turn a corner. Everytime a door opens, no matter what type of establishment it might be.Any city, any street corner, something grabs my eye and makes me fixate on the distant, coming orb until as my eyesight clears, you dissolve into someone else.

I see someone wearing a certain article of clothing. I notice a certain stance. I smell a certain scent. I hear a certain voice. And then I realize that it was in my head all along. It was never you, no, nor never like you. I just wanted it to be.

Everytime a branch hits my window in the midst of the storms that brew outside, I secretly hope its you, tapping on the glass to get my attention. To let you in. To stay warm inside, together, listening to the rain hit the roof like we used to in the cold months. You on the side closest to the door, to block the cool air from hitting me. Me, curled up against you, absorbing the warmth you secrete.

I keep waiting for you to show up on my doorstep, to say its all been a mistake, to grab me with brute force and to never let me go. But you don't even know where I live anymore. The house I have now has no memories of us.

I wake up alone every morning, after being with you, haunted by you, in my dreams every night. It is a cold reminder that you should be there and you're not. I instinctively reach out, every single time, to find a cold and barren bedside. I keep wondering if I will be able to continue this routine without going mad. I think perhaps I should get a cat.

I have grown so accustomed to you, your presence, that I am in a foggy reality without it. Every day repeats the same as the one before, like some eternal purgatory, though I am not Catholic. An eternal waiting. An eternal waiting... for nothing, really. Cause I don't think you'll ever end it. I don't think you'll ever come back. I don't really know if you can.

So instead, I've decided that I must settle into my melancholy. Into being alone. And maybe thrive from the mental deception. I can only hope that my art will flourish where my heart cannot. And try not to wonder if it meant anything at all to you. Those dozens of months. Those countless, sleepless, tear-stained nights. Those countless, sleepless, breathless nights. The ones when we were alive. The ones in which I am now not.