Random Acts of Awesome

I hate it when I meet a woman who is almost as afraid of herself as she is of her partner. She hunkers down into her skin as much when she's alone as she does when he's near. She clings to kind others when he's not around, basking in the warmth of sympathy, comfortable in the knowledge that she doesn't deserve it. These women tend to be highly sexual creatures, underneath a very thick skin. They have roiling oceans creating maelstroms in their own and others desires, and they have crafted the best shields imaginable to hide that fact from a world that is terrified of them. I was one of those women for a while. Maybe for forever, but I didn't know what I was looking for until I found it. Found him. A blanket to be smothered under, a cage to be contained in. See, it's hard to fight yourself for so long. You've been taught to contain, to push your storms back down inside you, for your entire life. Then you meet someone who offers to help. Shit, who insists on

I found an old poetry journal of mine yesterday. I'd packed it away in a box FULL of old journals and drawings, and took it with me when I left almost everything else behind. I keep debating the merit of burning old journals, the idea being that you're letting go of the past. But then I re-read my thoughts from when I was young, and I'm glad I haven't done it yet. This journal is from my very early 20s, between 21-23. It's a huge, red, hardcover journal, something meant to last. The paper is ivory, and thick. I filled less than half of it with writing. But it's some of the best, most evocative writing I've ever done. It's almost all poems, mostly short, very Emily Dickinson. An example: I am not potential I am not possibility I am not someday I am not maybe I am the here I am the now I am the present I am the how Reading these poems, I'm reminded of a time when I my life when I had gone from thinking to doing. I'd spend most of my lat