She was not a fine and precious thing.
She was a girl.
I don't cry as much as I mean to,
It's a weakness.
There's nothing more soothing than to turn the lights off,and in the stillness and the darkness,bawl your head off.
Dry up the wells of tears,the wells of emotions.Both good and bad.
And with the sole company of your thoughts,reassure yourself back to safety,reassure yourself back to comfort,back to 'keeping it together.
Then after this your self medication,stare out into the bleakness,make out shadows in the abyss of night,spin a little humor into that which clouded your day,Sigh or just think of the 'perhaps',the possibility that the next day might bring.
Ah,the sun will come out tomorrow,and that blissful tomorrow was only one dark and lonely night away.
And then your thoughts put down your healed and heavy laden self to sleep.A hopeful sleep, the kind Annie experienced everyday in that dreadful orphanage.
I don't do that,
I close my eyes and wish it all way,
Pray that by some gifting of this so unsavory universe
that the next day I could lay in my sheets all day and not have to face it all.
I sink deep into the covers praying again by some miracle they may swallow me whole,
and the next day I'll wake up and the todays and the yesterdays were a dream.
I'm in a different place,responding to a different name.Living the life I'd always imagined.
The next day and the consequent days,
I'm awake but I'm exhausted,and I'm finding less and less to smile at.Don't get me wrong,there's lots to be cheerful about.
But I don't want that,you know to be cheerful and all.
I want to sit in the corner,
and put my hair over my face,and blast some grim music in my ears as loud as I can,the dark Indie melancholic kind
I want to hear the voices of the not so happy,not so pretty,not so perky artists.
I don't want to listen,I don't want to feel,frankly I'm not sure I want to be,well at least not here.Anywhere,but.
I want to dim my eyes into little slits,lots of eyeliner around the rim to I don't know repel out the light.
I want to wear everything,anything that makes me unseen.
Baggy and dark.
Everything's a blur and I'm just present barely,I'm just getting by.
And I cannot stand a lot of things,
And I'm rude and irritable and bitter and angry.
And it becomes a routine (takes a couple of days)my body is caving.
I'm tired and not the kind that sleep can cure.
Emotions,the negative kind, really know how to weigh you down,
If you wish them away,they thirst,biting at your heels,
seemingly growing stronger with each nip at your flesh.
Blood hounds.
You won't sweep them under the rug,they feed and clothe the darkness within you.They deepen your voids,and they fan your cravings,lust,greed,vanity,pride,envy.
"The tables are empty,the dance floor's deserted
You play the same love song,it's the 10th time you've heard it.
That's the beginning, just one of the clues
You've heard your first lesson in learning the blues"
-Frank Sinatra.
At this moment I am most vulnerable
my walls are trespassed,I feel bare,I feel exposed.
My emotions,the ones that make your heart heavy never seem to go away,
They demand an audience,
They demand to be addressed,
Hungry activists
Ambitious reporters hoping to get their big break,
Lurking like bullies in my minds hallways,tripping over any good thought that passes by.
Oh,yes I feel deeply,too deep for my own good.
That's the disclaimer they'd like me to add.
but it's a superpower,it's how I develop such a deep connection with the things and the people and the places I hold dear.
Then comes the revival.
The revival can be a person,a place,an event, or even just a simple reminder that
-Screws fall out all the time,
The world is an imperfect place.
It's what some call,the calm after the storm,ray of hope, the light at the end of the tunnel.
I don't know about that one,so is life one long dark tunnel
with gaping holes that after a handful of miles lets light in?
Because after the light,there's another tunnel,and another light and another tunnel. Continuously until there are no more lights or tunnels.
The beauty of the revival.
My other superpower,is that I draw inspiration from literally everything and anyone,It's a gift really,
one that ceaselessly surprises and amuses me
It could be Sunday morning mass,the bars of a rap song,family,an article,my thoughts bubbling out,a pinterest board,quotes,a person.
Anything really.
I'm filled with color and light and love and I cast of the shackles.
And I'm free and I'm wild again and I'm alive inside
But most importantly,I am braver.
I am strengthened.The revival is Grace.
Courage,Grace and Strength to journey on,
The Blessed Assurance
The triumph over the shadows and the addition of a new scar to my trophy collection.
And to that effect I bring out the pretty clothes,and the bright lipstick.
Our battles are carefully chosen for us,
It's all in the timing,the state of mind,capability,emotional intelligence so forth and so on,
Must involve lots of planning,
The best wisdom,is that which is not sought,not asked for,not forced out,
It's that which upon our patient wait,the universe serves us.
That which we didn't even know we were looking for.
I'm such a believer of this,that I have developed a distaste for unwarranted,coerced advisers. I say coerced,cause they are often prompted by their ego,insecurities or self interest to give you bouts of unwarranted,unsanctioned and unfiltered advice.Your betterment is just an opportunity cost.
So dear,coerced advisers
When I do share my woes or musings or ideologies,often it is to hear the echo of my own thoughts
It's a means of reflection,it's therapeutic
It's not to hear your self -absorbed theories and unfounded opinions.
Having said that,I am a seeker of wisdom and perhaps in your banter(or if I'm lucky you actually yearn for my upward growth or are indeed wise)
my gift enables me to withdraw some take-homes from your 'friendly advice'
So I won't cut you short.
What a treacherous thing,
to think that a person is more than just a person.
-John Green.
It surprised me a little,to think how so many people I've met along the way
Both loved and lost.Know so little of me.
I am shrouded in mystery,an enigma,a riddle.
At least my past is.
No one really bothers to read the chapters of my life that prequel the one they walked into.
Heck,they're still jumping lines in the present ones.
I was Margot,
and you were Quentin,
You saw me,and you had suffocated yourself in the illusion of what I was or who I am.
And I showed up at your window one night,2 am.
And we ran the streets,and your heart raced,
Then I changed,I shifted,I altered,I moved
You thought you were finally solving the riddle
And you thought I asked you to come find me,
but in truth you should have stayed where you were,
Where you were comfortable and you knew your way around.
At depths that you were okay swimming in.
But you did something,you'd never done before,
You defied your status quo,everything you lived by.
For me,the enigma,the riddle.
And you drove and drove and drove,
Hopeful you'd find your idea,your painted picture
Perfect,still,waiting for you to save me.
Then you arrived at the paper town I sought shelter.
You looked and looked for the shiny precious thing,
You were so close,all you needed was the last piece of the puzzle.
It wasn't there.
All you found was a girl.
The illusion fizzled and you were more disappointed than you cared to show.
You thought you had the last piece but the puzzle had transformed into yet another,a maze who's routes ceaselessly changed.
And you realized you'd keep solving and solving till you fell apart,
And the thing that scared you the most was the fact that you weren't sure there was even a puzzle to solve in the first place.
Maybe I am the enigma,
maybe I am the mystery
The myth,the riddle
Level-headed,
The straight shooter,put -together
Fearless,
Unbent,unbowed,unbroken.
Or maybe I was none of those things at all.
Maybe I had no idea what I was doing,
Maybe I was figuring it all out,
Maybe I was the small town girl headed for the city.
A city I had no idea where it was or if it even existed.
"You don't owe prettiness to anyone,
Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner,
Not to your co-workers,
especially not to random men on the street
..................You don't owe it to civilization in general
Prettiness isn't a rent you pay for occupying a space marked female"
-Erin Mckean.
Pretty.
Adjective.
When I was younger,I thought being called pretty or beautiful was a nice way to say,
that you weren't smart or funny or talented or interesting,
but at least you were nice to look at.
I associated it with being flimsy,shallow,naive,weak and vulnerable.
Something demeaning boys(or people) would say to you to make you feel that you weren't much more than a lifeless vase,you had absolutely no other use than to sit at home and hold up the flowers and 'be nice to look at' to polite company.And I was determined to defy their expectations.
I'd give it to the little ambitious me,
At least I didn't think like every other little girl.
But the thing is we tire people
by heaping upon their shoulders,endless illusions,endless expectations,
Oh, the grand ideas we have of others,
The painted pictures we look at in awe every morning
Discrediting the real thing.
The myths we've though out,the pedestals we've placed them on.
With expectations often come disappointments,
and we settle for them and once we uncover that under all the mystery,
after we've driven and driven
all you find is just a girl,just a boy
trying to figure it all out.
We live bitter constantly feeling they never lived up to your expectations.
You feel cheated,betrayed
but in truth you expected,you created,invented,
this perfect,supernatural,without fault being,with everything figured out.
It's not just prettiness we expect of others,it's respect,kindness,goodness and just about any other virtue or positive adjective we can think of.
There's nothing wrong with the virtues or the positive adjectives.
The problem is in the expectation,
"You can't believe he/she said/did/thought that"
The truth is,they didn't act out of character
They were in character the entire time you were just blinded by your self-made illusions.
They showed you their true colors,
You chose to paint a different picture,joke's on you.
Deception can only go so far,
truth always reveals itself,especially truth of character.
So drop the pedestals will you,
Drop the golden wreaths and the elevated platforms
we're all just strangers on a bus trying to find our way home.
I'm just a girl.
No one owes you anything,not prettiness,not kindness,not sincerity,not openness.
You'd argue that by virtue of a relationship or humanity they do,
but the saddest truth is not everyone sees it that way.
At the end of the day we're all strangers on different journeys sitting different tests.
Be kind,be merciful,be gentle,be honest,be loving
don't expect people to reciprocate your good deeds though,
After all it's a reflection of your character and not their own.
As my ego was fanned with the thought of me being this mystery,
that whoever wished to be close to me,
would have to embark on this great quest,
I realized that everyone else around me was a mystery too,
That I too never bothered to read the chapters of their lives before I
walked in and I too jumped the lines in their present chapters.
And late at night,by myself
Hot green tea reddening my palms,
Sweatpants on, hair down
Masquerade off,
I am no enigma,
I am just a girl.
In the Lonely mountain,
Some saw only gold,
some saw only the dragon,
some saw that both made it mystical.
I wonder when they say you're beautiful,
do they see the gold,
the dragon or both.
The glory,
the gore or both.
I unsubscribe to the expectations you have of me,
They are shackles you have placed on your mind
which undermine it's capacity
You shan't put them on mine.
Allow me to be,Or don't.
Either way it's insignificant.
the stranger,the seeker,the ever-changing,
confused,learning,trying,stumbling,falling,rising
-Both happy and sad and still trying to figure out how that could be.
Maybe some girls,
Are not meant to be tamed.
Maybe they are supposed to run wild until they find someone just as wild to run with.
I am that girl,
run with me but don't you dare slow me down.
Drop your misguided expectations
and illusions of me and others
Awaken yourself
and welcome to the island of misfit toys.
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