Naked Bravery

I hate being caught in transitional phases.  Now I’m sitting on the edge of a precipice again. Time to start thinking about grad school and shoring up my self-worth for rejection letters, and shoring up hope that an offer will come in. The worst part is that the process starts this July and I won’t know anything till next spring. I’m smart, that’s not the problem, it’s all the stupid steps between here and there. And then making the transition from tiny pond to something new. Making decision about what degree to get, and hoping I choose wisely. The worst part is going through this without being able to lean on you for support. You always were my biggest cheerleader, you always made my fears melt away, but I guess it’s more than time to stand on my own two feet and make some damned decisions about my life. I chose to set you free, why can’t I offer myself the same freedom?

(via snellybelly)

Hehe!

simplyjenne:

Brain helping the heart

ultimateemerson:

Take my heart
Watch it shatter
Turn my beating heart
Into dark matter
Break my wave
Let me see
That when I was with you
That was when I was most happy
But if you give it time
It might just mend
But I’ll have thoughts of you
Until the very end
I can’t write a variety of poetry
Because…

You’ve left your fingerprints all over everything that was solely mine before you came. Now I can’t attend the yearly festival without remembering what it was like to walk it with you, or how you picked out the perfect pair of earrings for me, or shared a lemonade. All my favorite things are smudged with the impression of you. Haunting me. 

“I wasn’t taught this way / with a thousand things to say / I was born with a broken heart” -Belong, The Cary Brothers

silentlyexposed:

               The remedy for heartaches:
Make long lists of nothing
And everything
Make sure to smile
Even at the smallest things
At strangers, at yourself
Write until your hands tire
Pour your soul out onto pages
               Upon pages.
Drown your sorrow in music
In your favorite songs 
Mute your thoughts
With the melody of life.
Bathe in silence and the absence
Of what was once there
But cleanse yourself
With the reassurance of
Another tomorrow.
      Don’t forget to breathe.

iamonlytemporary:

My time is measured in increments of 4 minutes and 31 seconds —
That same song I keep playing over and over.
Each day gets harder with nothing to say,
My tongue stuck in the crevices between my teeth.
I could tell you everything but I’d only get pity.
And I’ve got enough of that,
Stored in…

Sometimes you get what you ask for. In my case: freedom. And while it is what I wanted, what I needed, that doesn’t make it easy. I’m a bitter cocktail of relief, anxiety, and heartbreak. I am no longer yours, yet… how do I convince my heart to believe that? And once I do convince it of that, how do I beat back the insecurity that is just waiting in the wings to fill the spot with a quiet voice that asks questions like “Will anyone ever love you again? Did you give up on your last chance for love?” The voice that is every ready to recite my faults until I eat, breathe, sleep, and live them. The voice that kept me trapped in fear of the outside world for ten years. The voice that wears my face and keeps me trapped in the mirror - like a Happy Rhodes lyric, “there’s a very old mirror that I like to look into / it always shows me the old familiar face I loathe so well / And when I look back, it looks back too” - the voice that takes every positive and twists into something dark. 

Maybe it’s just that I don’t know how to be single, and that I don’t know how to have a normal relationship - mine have been anything but. He told me he didn’t know where I got these ideas that I’m not good enough, or that I’m unlovable. He blamed himself. But to be honest, with both myself and him, they aren’t anything new. And when those ideas are reinforced by people constantly walking out of my life like I have the plague, or love not being enough to make a relationship work (twice over) it is hard to dissuade myself that it isn’t true. The older I get the more I think about seeking professional help - but that’s just another complicated barrel of monkeys I don’t really want to have to deal with at the moment. 

Strangely enough, I didn’t come here to vent all about this, I came to write poetry. This is just what happens when my roommate is gone and isn’t here to ground me / provides an escape from this mental bullshit. She’s only been gone a day and I’m a blithering mess. Which is sort of what I wanted to write about. 

Poem 1:

My relationship with her appears unnatural
To an outsider’s eye:
More familiar than sisters,
Closer than the word friend implies 
Yet - Not sexual
Although, plenty of people assume
That we’re lovers. 

She keeps my world stable
Chases my demons away
Provides a distraction from the ever-running
Ticker-tape of thoughts filling my brain.
An anti-depressant that comes with no side effects,
But instead enriches my life.

Withdrawal is a bitch though,
The monsters crawl right back in
Surrounding me,
Jeering their insults, inflaming doubt
Trying desperately to set my world on fire.

9-4-11

Poem 2

I am set adrift in the Scylla and Charybdis infested waters
With no way of mooring my ship,
My anchor lost, and no safe harbor in sight.
Seven days will be spent fighting the -
ocean, monsters, and myself
Before I spy land.

9-4-11

Six more days…