Saturday, November 28, 2009

You Can't Stop Me

HA! It's Friday night (or Saturday morning I'm not sure). It took me a few tries to sign in, but here I is. I've been hurting and fighting and drowning and tonight - drinking. I'm sure I'll regret this post in the morning but for now, here it is.

You can't stop me. Tonight I was filled with so much ugliness it boiled over my head. It scrambled my brain and whispered in my ears. It made me want to scream at the heavens and tear holes in the universe just to see my own damage. I wanted to jump from the balcony and stand in the parking lot and scream until my voice had deserted me. I wanted to rip out my fingernails just to feel tangible pain and escape the hell in my head.
But I didn't. Instead, I got quiet.
I quietly sat there while she demanded attention, hovered at the entrances and navel-gazed. I sat in the corner, shrouded in darkness and twiddled the fringe of my scarf to avoid scratching out my own eyes. I sat and I listened and I grew quiet and I grew calm. You couldn't stop me.
I drank and I felt and I fuzzed and grew warm at the center. I read and I wrote and I laughed and I cried and somehow, somewhere I died. But you couldn't stop me.
So I stumbled in the door and across the bedroom floor where I found your discarded t-shirt and I donned it. I sprayed it with your cologne and I marveled at the line I drew around myself, lost in the comfort I made and you couldn't stop me.
Tonight I am safe and I am held, even in the absence of your arms. The world is spinney and the bed is empty but I'm ok.
And you couldn't stop me.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Routine

Routine is slowly swallowing me whole.

Every morning I wake at 530 am to begin preparing for the day. Lately, 530 am brings with it a feeling of despair, stress, worry and I spend the next ten minutes contesting my muscles. They want to sleep. I want to sleep. Collectively we would prefer to hide under the mocha duvet, finding comfort and security snuggled in the down. We want to spend the day curled around the heat of last night's sleeping bodies.

The mornings are getting colder now. The floors are cold on my warm toes, frigid whispers of winter's promise. The children protest against my gentle murmers, wanting to remain in the vestiges of sleep where dreams become adventures. I pull them from their reveries with bowls of steaming oatmeal. Bleary-eyed and rosy cheeked, they slowly wind towards the day with complaints dormant on their lips.

It is moments like this that I wonder when I will be able to enjoy them. This. Life. When will the spinning top come screeching to a halt and rust, stuck in the moment. When will I have a chance to pause. Take in. Breathe. Will there come a day that I greet the morning with optimism, pushing up from the calm and not feeling the pressures to perform, dance, create - obtain.

Excellence.

Demanded.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Blurred

We dance, he and I.
We dance in and out of the real,
the imagined,
and tear at the seams.
I reach for him and he skips away,
A shadow of yesterdays.
I feel him slipping,
the whisper of clothing sliding between my fingers.
Hands cramping and fingers splayed I scrabble in desperation.
Bring him closer.

We dance, he and I.
It is ugly and broken.
Our limbs akimbo, we gyrate and sweat.
We curse, we grimace and we hate.
I struggle for the fluid motions of moments gone
While he struggles to find what he has lost.
We spin and the world melts to blur,
Images doubled and distorted, trailing away like the laughter of innocence.

We fall, he and I.
In a jumble of arms and legs we lie piecemeal,
kneeling on pride and crushing spirit.
In a heap I dig,
Fingernails ragged and dirty
Searching.
Beneath the hate and the ugly and the arms and the legs.
Seeping from between hurt pride and broken spirits I know it hides.
Haunting.

We cry, he and I.
Shattered and crushed beneath turmoil and fear.
Panic flutters in his breast and helplessness stays my heart.
We drown in the layers I've exposed,
ugly and broken.
In a chemical haze, we tumble.
Darkened. Lost. Looking.
For the elusive Mickey Blue.


Don't worry. Mommy will find you once again.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Wordless Wednesday

October Wedding

I recently shot a wedding for my cousin in Niagara. It was a beautiful
fall day. Thought I'd share one or two from a truly lovely fall wedding.


DAG