because posting on facebook is often taken far too personally

people reveal their darkest and ugliest colors when they're experiencing great difficulty. i've seen many colors and some have been horrible and terrifying to witness, before they are hidden again. but like seeing a monster, you cannot forget it's face no matter how hard you try. no matter how many beautiful masks it wears, you will always see it.

dear k,
i'd rather write this where you will never see it, as i have tried again and again to communicate my feelings towards you and have always been turned away. are you afraid of hearing the truth you very well know? the message where i finally poured it all out was completely ignored has been a huge disappointment. i am disappointed of your cowardice. your selfishness. your ignorance.

i remember there was once a time where you were almost blood to me. i ignored everything about you that bothered me, because like family, those minor things didn't matter. i cared about you so greatly that i sacrificed my own feelings many times, made sure you were fed when you were starving, had a place for you to sleep when things became too rough for you. i ignored the voices that told me you were not a good friend to me and that you likely have stolen a few of my possessions under my nose, but i do not hold possessions so highly so it was easy to let go. that was a mistake, because while it was just material items you took, it was your values that i should have noticed. you will deny to this day that you have taken anything and explain how you are a decent person, but i know you better than that. i have seen it.

as i developed and grew, i felt repressed by you. my opinions were stepped on. my wants and voice, unheard. i grew into this strong person and i longed to stretch my wings but you were confining me by your own wants and needs. i felt uncomfortable. i watched your voice lash out and whip at those you felt were beneath you and i feared ever being subjected to that. i never understood why you were so defensive about everything.

i saw the way you treated your brother, my lover. i felt rage boil in me and my resentment turn darker the more you felt you had a right to treat him in such a way. if not for him, where would you be? my growing distaste for your personality made things a bit worse, my opinion of you was no longer high. i lost respect for you and eventually, lost much of the care i once had for you. i saw your laziness and your complete selfishness. your subconscious idea that the world revolved around you sickened me.

with my newfound and amazing love, i became stronger and stronger and my self-respect grew. i no longer tolerated your 'shit,' so to speak. this caused great turmoil, because everything i had wanted to say in the past but held in, was out. i made sure it was known that i had a voice after all. it was obvious you did not like this and blamed my relationship for my distance and while you are wrong about it, you are also right.

lindsay has given me strength. he has filled me up with warmth and given me so much purpose in life, i feel like i deserve much more than what i had before. that includes the friendships that were poisonous.

you.

i appreciate what you have done for me. you weren't always a bad friend, there was a lot of good too. you stood by me during a very hard time in my life when everyone else turned their backs. when i wouldn't listen to you, you did not give up on me. i appreciate it all very much and always will. there were times we laughed and cried together and spent a lot of time sitting at my kitchen table just talking for hours. i will miss those times and sometimes i wish you didn't taint it, but at least i know you now. i truly know you.

friendship is a choice. the deeper you go and the more you learn, you have a choice each day whether or not to stick around.

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.

I can’t write, I can’t write, I can’t write.

My mind is filled with a damp fog these days. The kind of fog that you reach into and watch as your hand disappears right in front of you. I can’t sweep it away or tuck it in my pocket, it is hovering like a raincloud and it is consuming me.

What I want to write about is how beautiful he is. I want to describe it in as many ways as I possibly can but I can’t find the words. My head aches from searching for the correct way to describe him but it doesn’t seem to be possible. I want to describe, in perfect detail, his smile. I want to describe the feeling that spreads throughout my entire being when I see it, when I hear the melody of his laugh, when I press my lips to his. It’s almost numbing, how much I feel.

What I want to write about is what Sunday mornings are like when the light touches my exposed eyelids and shakes my eyes open. I realize he is too far away and I bring my body closer, enveloping myself in his warmth and scent. I look up at his slumbering face and notice how much fatigue I can see and quietly, slowly, give him a kiss. It always surprises me when he kisses me back every time.

What I want to write about is impossible to describe to anyone. The fog is seeping into my brain again when I try and I can’t, for the life of me, explain it. Not even to myself.
 And here I go again – getting lost. There is no beginning, middle, or end. It is infinite and feels unreal but it truly is. I just can’t write it all down.

Tell me, how would you describe a tickle - without calling it a tickle?