Port over the last few months.

slaves to society.

threads thick as wire tug at my limbs and compel them to move, my soul is fighting against the chains and i force it still. the repetitive life i am told i must live, selling my life away in order to gain... life? i see my mothers eyes fill with pride as mine fill with wonderings, about a life that is different. i see my hands in the dirt and baskets full of the product of real labour. i see light pouring through wide windows, that reveal only mountains and trees and true beauty. i see a child in my arms, making soft little nothings in my ear that mean absolutely everything. i see his smile, his hand grasping mine, the love in his eyes and him rubbing his nose against our little one. i see my family, unused to a life like this, marvelling at what he and i have dreamt and built together. i see life.

for now, i calm the being in me that is straining against the wires and chains, telling her, 'hush, it will come some day.' i lay out my dream in front of me, watching it with a heart full of joy and excitement.

it will come some day.

freewriting - brainstorm.

Where was she before all this started? Her hands shakily clutch at her head in a desperate attempt to remember, to hold onto something happy and distract her from the chaos. She was in the arms of her beloved, sipping hot cocoa and not-watching something on the television. A warning flashed on the screen, she looked into his eyes and felt she mirrored the same look of worry that she saw in his. That's the last thing she remembers.

Lowering her hands, she forces herself to look at the surrounding destruction. Violent tornadoes are crushing the city of New York. Towering pillars of wind and debris crush the stone-hard cement as if they are eggshells, tall buildings crumble mercilessly on top of fleeing people, glass sprinkling everywhere. Water overflows from the sewers and floods the streets, a sea of foul waste and flailing carcasses. Alestia watches alone atop a building, her body racking with wild, panicked sobs. Her shirt is soaked with vomit and her entire body smells of pure fear. Her hands are clasped together in prayer, muttering incoherently into them. She makes the mistake of opening her eyes as a tornado consumes another building, stripping it layer by layer until it is nothing.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" Her eyes are wide with fear as it begins to approach her, she has nowhere to run. As it edges closer and closer to her, she feels the winds pull and the rooftop rattling beneath her feet. Her hair whips around her face, violently dancing towards the massive air cyclone...

my brain gewp.

i used to write to escape reality.

it was the one place i could disappear to at any time. as lonely as it sounds, it was sometimes easier to let my laptop or a piece of paper soak up all of my tear-sodden words. i didn't crave the comfort of a human being, i didn't crave a hug or empty, reassuring words. i preferred the bite of reality, the cold slap. i liked my pain to be real and not hushed by someone telling me it was going to be okay when nothing ever was. it was an odd sort of comfort, i suppose.

i somehow transformed these waves of misery into poetry or stories. they were always about a girl who falls in love only to be hurt quite badly. the majority of them, anyway. not that i had been in love that many times, but i associated that hurt feeling with a lot of things. friends that betrayed me, growing distant from someone out of the blue. those types of things. i had no idea what love really felt like at that point in my life, after all.(i always assumed it was a very painful thing.)
sometimes i wrote about my father and what i remember about my childhood. sometimes i wrote about my past disgust for myself. i wrote about a lot of painful things, but it always gave me relief.

these days, i open up a blank document and stare at it after typing a few sentences. the only thing i have been able to write is this post right here. i have been (ever so slowly) working on the last part of my short story, but the inspiration comes in short bursts and i have to type frantically until it fades away. it's becoming a long process, to say the least.

i want to join nanowrimo and write a short story next month, but this lack of inspiration and creativity has stunted me. i want to write so many things but i can never find the words.

lindsay.

he is all i want to write about. i try to see if i can write something that isn't him, a completely different concept or idea, and i come up with stories but he is in all of them. his hat. his cat, Tzar. gelato from our first date. so many things. i find myself getting lost in lame-o plot lines because all i want to write about is him and i don't feel strongly for anything else i come up with.
anytime i become upset, i don't open up a blank document and type it all away, i tell him. everything that i want to say, i say to him. even if i can't word it properly because sometimes i feel like i just can't communicate with my mouth that well, i say it.

he has filled my reality with so much joy and excitement that there is no reason for me to escape. i understand writing isn't always a form of escape and it's a way of expressing creativity, but it wasn't like that for me in the past.

i guess it's a bit sad that this post is the only thing i have been able to consistently write in awhile, but i don't find it sad at all. it's actually a very happy thing.

I want to do something.

The last two-three years were the hardest times of my life.

Not because I couldn't handle what was happening to me, but because I could not get out of it no matter how hard I tried. I tried and tried again, only to fall into the same torturous cycle. I had to wait until something horrid happened, until he did something so awful and painful that I would not allow myself to go back.

And it happened, finally. I was finally free. He tried to capture me again but I ran. I allowed his words to seep into my mind and wash over me, allowed his own words to set me free.

'All my friends think I am dating a whore.'

'You're a fucking slut.'

'I am so embarrassed.'

'I wish I had fucked all those girls and had never met you.'

Things like that. All because I had protected my best friend from a scum bag. It looked like I was flirting apparently. We were all drunk, but he was drugged up beyond belief. I am relieved that his crazed mind was so unable to interpret anything real, it set me free.

...

I lost a lot of friends. They slowly, one by one, gave up on me. I was hopeless and they knew it. They thought I wasn't listening to them when I kept going back, they no longer wanted to support someone so pathetic.

It saddens me to this day, but at the same time I know real friends would have never tried to control me and get angry at me for 'disobeying' them. I understood the concern, but I know if I had cared for someone, I would have never left them alone. I also understand that they stopped wanting to hang out with me because he clung to my limbs wherever I went. He scared them. But... if a friend of mine was alone all the time with such a scary person, I would still not leave her alone. Sometimes I cannot fathom their mindset. I stopped going to them whenever they asked to hang out. Judgmental people piss me off. A lot.

Other friends of mine I had known forever seemed to shrug off what he did to me and continued to try and be friends with him. Despite the sprained arm, despite the terrible words, despite... everything. Sometimes I am angry at them. I am hurt for their lack of concern. Because I would have done something if it were them.

However, I gained more than what I lost. I found out where my true support was. My family and one friend of mine that had been with me to the end. She and I aren't so close anymore, but I do appreciate what she had done for me.

She's heard me cry multiple times. She never gave up on me even when I kept falling for his sugar-coated words. She was definitely disappointed that I did, but it was almost astonishing that she still sat by me and didn't judge me for any of my decisions. She understood what I was going through.

And now that I am finally free, I am stronger. I feel like I am looking at life through different eyes. I have found someone so utterly amazing and he has saved my soul. He picked me up and dusted me off and planted a kiss on every bit of me, sealing every open wound. All that's left are scars that I think about sometimes. Not because I miss that demon, or because I am still profoundly hurt by what he did. But because I am looking at all the things on the side. I am looking at the friends that disappeared into the fog when I was in most need of them, I am looking at the friends that stayed by me throughout the entire thing. I felt alone, but I wasn't completely. I cannot imagine what would have happened if I truly was alone. I am looking at every single thing I have gained.

I gained an understanding. An understanding of people, of life, of pain and of happiness. I gained strength that nobody is born with and I am able to use it every single day of my life. I have stopped being a pushover, I have stopped allowing people to step all over me. I have learned to recognize what caring truly is.

So, I guess all in all. I have gained much more than what I have 'lost.' If I think about it, I didn't lose a single thing.