I swore I'd never love again.


I'm too close to the fire. My rubber soles are melting and soon I'll be running barefoot. Running away. Or pushing. If he runs first I won't have to. Or I'll be stuck. I'll stand here long enough, and when the fire goes out my melted shoes will cool and bind me to the earth.
And I'll swear I'll never love again.


That's the thing about love.
You don't really have a say in it.


And if I get burned this time? Well then I'll never love again.

I think you could be something I would be good at. 

If you could only see the beast you've made of me, I held it in but now it seems you've set it running free. Screaming in the dark, I howl when we're apart, drag my teeth across your chest to taste your beating heart. My fingers claw your skin, try to tear my way in, you are the moon that breaks the night for which I have to howl. Howl.  Now there's no holding back, I'm aching to attack. My blood is singing with your voice I want to let it out. The saints can't help me now, the ropes have been unbound, I hunt for you with bloodied feet across the hallowed ground. Like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins. I want to find you and tear out all of your tenderness. And howl. Be careful of the curse that falls on young lovers, starts so soft and sweet and turns them into hunters.

Hunters. Hunters. Hunters. 

This is thrilling, and also very terrifying.

I think one of the reasons I went to Switzerland in the first place, was to realize that there is a lot more to life than what is drilled into our heads from birth: go to school, go to university, get a job, get married, have lots and lots of babies. As if babies and marriage and a job are what determine our success in life, what determine our merit as individuals. 

We're kept busy. School, homework, part-time jobs, extracurricular activities, family events. And we're kept underpressure. A+'s, GET A JOB, "do you have a boyfriend yet"'s. It's a wonder anybody has any time to think.  Think about whether or not what they are doing, is what they want to be doing, or if it's what everyone else is telling them to do. 

Don't get me wrong, I want to get a job, and get married, and have babies. Since jobs make money you need to live, and I don't want to die alone, and any person living on this earth will do a combination of these things, if not all three for the exact same reasons. But along the way, they'll take the mere action of breathing for granted, robotically moving towards an intangible goal that everyone is telling them to move towards. Some picture society has painted for them to keep them motivated. Some point down the road where everything will make sense, and they'll know exactly why they had to work so hard at everything and someone will tell them "good job, you win at life". And they'll look around, and have everything they ever thought they wanted, but they'll have spent 40 years of their life tediously drudging through a whole lot of uneccesary shit and never experiencing anything. 

Life is short. So live it up, drink it down, laugh it off, avoid the drama, take chances, and never have regrets because at one point everything you've ever done was exactly what you wanted.

I have learned that consequences shouldn't prevent you from anything. There IS no destination, there is movement. There is life, and love, and we shouldn't ask for anything more than that.

Inspiration comes to me easier when I am unhappy. And when I am bored.

I am neither of these things, so maybe I should go in a different direction with todays blog? Except, I am not very funny either. So, I guess I will just leave it at the fact that I am ridiculously happy.

So take me with you when you go, I don't want to stay here alone. Remember when we were golden? Yeah, that was a long time ago. You told me that you felt foolish, you stayed where you didn't belong. Well I don't want to be foolish, square peg in a round hole. Square peg in a round hole. You said that it was still stolen, but it just didn't beat any more. I guess that when it's done falling, it's just lying dead on the floor. Said if you want to be foolish, then you can go do it alone. Square peg in a round hole.

Sometimes the shoe fits, but I don't know if that means I should go shoving my foot into it and run the risk of blisters. I've grown just enough for this to be uncomfortable. Winnipeg is uncomfortable. Winnipeg remembers who I was, and tries to make me forget who I am.

I am not going to let myself be hurt any more.
I am done chasing after people who don't have the maturity to confront me and be honest with themselves and how they feel. Done chasing after people who wouldn't chase after me, people who avoid problems rather than facing and resolving them. People who expect more of me than they are willing to give.

I think I am done here.

You've been acting awful tough lately, smoking a lot of cigarettes lately, but inside you're just a little baby. Its okay to say you got a weak spot you dont always have to be ontop better to be hated than loved loved loved for what you're not. You're vulnerable, you're vulnerable, you are not a robot. You're lovable, so lovable, but you're just trouble.

I think I portray an image of myself that is less than desirable. Are all men slime, or do I only attract them because I appear to have no self-respect? I am a very sexual person, driven by passion and lust and I admit that I tend to end up in beds that aren't my own, beside men that I don't know very well. But I am passionate about my relationships, about being a good person, about self-improvement. Regardless, I am objectified by every man I ever meet, and being the common factor in all of these encounters I can only assume that it's my fault. 

Why don't men want anything more from me? Do I not deserve love?

I have learned my lesson. And I need to be okay.

12.03.2010

All there is is silence. This bed. His bare arms wrapped around me. My face buried in his chest holding back the words I don`t know if I mean yet. If I am even allowed to mean them. He`s drifting off, I can tell because his grip around me loosens, his gentle fingers stop mid-stroke on my ribcage, I feel his warm breath on my hair slow and deepen. I raise my mouth to his one last time before he gives into sleep, which isn`t coming as easy to me. A million thoughts flitter around in my head, fluttering in time with my eyelids that won`t stay shut. My chest feels heavy and tight. I keep clenching and unclenching my jaw, grinding my teeth in time with the pulse of blood pounding in my ears. His heart beats against the side of my head out of rhythm with it.

I think about what has brought me to this moment. If it was meant, what it means now. To me, or to him. But when I begin to think about what has led me to this country, I become more and more aware that it has also led me to become suspicious. Guarded. I am wary of deceit, and all too familiar with the lies told by men to get what they want. And now, in these arms, in this room, in this tiny mountain town, I am wondering if this boy is who he says he is; and if he is so, whether or not I know who that would be, being that our mother tongues lie so discordant with the other. He stirs beside me so that his body is facing mine. His eyes open, shyly, one at a time, and he regards me with his lips curled up towards his ears-which I understand to be a look of fondness. He draws me closer to him, places his mouth to my forehead, and reassumes his place in dream.

I decide that nobody could be that cunning, that committed to subterfuge as to mislead me from the hazy edge of sleep-a decision that surprises me, considering how cynical I have become over the years-and that even if such a thing were possible I would be lucky to never find out. Hopes can only come true when there is someone there to hope them, and they become increasingly hard to hold onto the more they are veiled by disappointment. I resolve to not let myself be disappointed by this boy. 

A wise girl kisses, but never loves, listens, but never believes, and leaves before she can be left.

I'm learning how to be more grounded, how to root myself to the moment. 

Sometimes volcanoes erupt when you least expect them too, and you're left with no direction.

My life up until four days ago has been a series of countdowns. 

[827 days until graduation. 

14 days until I see Calum. 

85 days until I start university. 

35 days until I leave for Vancouver. 

7 days until I leave for Switzerland. 

2 days until Amsterdam. 

2 weeks until mom visits.

2 weeks until mom leaves. 

21 days until my period. 

A month until Budapest.

23 hours until I'm on a plane to Canada.]

Only, I never get on that plane. I never get on that plane and I am lost. 

I am so busy looking ahead of me, that I keep tripping on what's right beneath my feet. Lost in time, and the only thing I can do is live minute by minute. So for the last four days I have been doing just that. 

As liberating as it has been, I am still glad to know when I get to come home. 

Tuesday, April 27th.

On January 1st, 2007 I made a resolution to finish everything I start.

I have a closet full of knitting needles with half knit scarves. Books on bookshelves with bookmarks two thirds of the way in in. Two novels each a sixth written. Four glasses of water of varying volumes and ages on my nightstand. Pieces of music with four movements in which I have only learned one. Five thousand, five hundred, and twenty eight songs out of eight thousand, one hundred, and eighty three, in my iTunes library that I haven't listened to the whole way through.

I can barely finish my sentences.  And when I do, they are mere fragments of sentences.

Three hundred and fifty three days later and it's almost finished. Five days and the hardest year of my life will be over. I can't wrap what I learned this year around my neck, I can't quote page 250 of a Hemingway or Phillip Ball, play the double-tounged thirty second notes in Poulencs Sonata, and I will most likely pour the stale water in those glasses out. 

But this extends far beyond warm necks and literature. Beyond substance, matter, the concrete or visible. Beyond wasted glasses of water, one quarter full. 

I'm leaving with new friendships, new values, ideas, opinions, attitude. I'm leaving with a new perception, a new definition. Strength, spirit, appreciation. Awareness. Experience. Knowledge. Certainty, or a new inspiration to find it. Independence. I found the maturity it takes to be immature. Because adults are sometimes boring four-sided figures who forget how to laugh. I've learned what it takes to raise a family, what it means to be a good friend and how to tell when you've found one. I've learned how to undo belt buckles and jean buttons with one hand without looking, and how to spot a lie from even the most practiced of liars. I've learned how to drink beer without making a face, the consequences of letting a man get the best of you, the ability to say NO when I want to say no, swiss etiquette, and how to make mulled wine. 

I've learned to let loose in a country where seemingly no one knows how to let loose. 

And I've learned about myself in all of that. Accepted who I've been and where it has taken me. And I've realized everything I'm capable of despite the cruelty everyone else is capable of. 

I'm ready. For whatever lies ahead. 

I can't really say why everybody wishes they were somewhere else,

but in the end the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself.

I am proud of me. And for the first time in my entire life, I don't need anyone else to be. This has been the worst, most amazing, most substantial learning experience I could have ever experienced, and I wouldn't trade it to be anywhere else. I am going to soak up every last minute of my time here, and I am going to take with me the self-certainty I deserve.

The men in my life...

You had nothing to do with it. I am where I am because of the steps I took to get here. Maybe I'll never know who I am, maybe no one CAN ever know that, but of this I am certain: who I am is strong, determined, passionate. It took an entire year of looking, and only one night to make this entire year make sense.

I have no photo for today, or for the weekend.

I am sick, and I am scared, and I am nervous. As little as it helps, I am expecting the worst and I haven`t been this worried in my entire life.

Let`s just try to get through the next 32 days.

Hi. My name is Lisa and I am really good at mathematics.

I wish I still had that bow.

Fiesty

Occasionally I miss him. One. Or more so, I miss who I was with him. Feisty. Full of optimism and energy and enthusiasm. Cynicism does not look good on me. Flushes out my skin tone and makes me look fat. Does growing up mean becoming impassive and detached? Or have I just been broken too many times? I want to feel butterflies again. I want to be too nauseous to eat. Every muscle, every nerve, every tendon, bone, and ligament, I want them to pulsate out of rhythym with one another and make my fingers vibrate and my voice quiver. I want to hear the blood pounding in my ears and feel my heart thrashing against my ribcage again. I want love to have a feeling, not just a definitition. 

Am I broken?

Impatient

I've run out of words. Or, at least I have run out of ways to compose them in an expressive, lyrical manner. Today I have no observations. I thought of relatively little, I felt even less. I vacuumed, I mopped. I folded laundry. Every action was automatic.  Mechanical. Emotionless. 

Being liberated from my obligations leaves me time to think. And to feel, which is sad. I feel sad and I couldn't tell you exactly why. So I won't bother trying. 

Pensive.

02.03.2010

Patterns. If I want to fall in love there has to be a deadline. A deadline of exactly two months. This I know to be safe. Love is hard and running away is easy and safety is everything. As much as I miss such and such and so and so, I can't make up my mind and I can't settle.

I'm restless.

People throw around the word love a lot. Guilty guilty guilty. Sometimes they mean it. Sometimes I am sure that they don't. Desire and lust can eclipse reason and sense. Words come out without thinking and leave a trail of pain in their wake. 

Of one thing I am sure. After 12 years of knowing you, it's love. Pain is inevitable, and maybe we don't always forget, but we forgive. Always. Nobody takes better care of my heart than you do. Who says my Soulmate has to be a lover? Nein doch! 

Bests.

17.04.2009

19.03.2009

 

Nostalgic.

Once upon a time I was sixteen. I was sixteen and I used to keep a journal very similar to this one and I used to be sad and now I am not. There are some things in this world that are "inappropriate", but I don't know why loving him had to be one of them.

You made it okay to be ME.

And sometimes I have dreams about it. And we escape and live on the moon, because nothing is inappropriate on the moon. Not even the complete absence of gravity.

And I will run until my feet don't want to run no more.

Photography is a big part of my life, and at the moment it is one of the only creative outlets I have. So starting today, I will post a photo everyday pertaining to what I did or how I feel.

04.02.2009

Worried.

And now six years later. Oregon. June, 2010. Watch out.

04.01.2005

I am fourteen. I am fourteen and it is unfortunate and I think that I am in love and I am ignorant. And now I am bleeding but it doesn't hurt where it should. My brain is hammering against my skull, my heart thrashing, pulsating, twisting. Trying to loosen itself and escape and run into a chest that will take better care of it. Breathless. Heaving with each heavy sob. Quivering in the dampness of my basement. Naive. And now I am bleeding. And Lola Ray is my favourite band. 

I want to stop. I wanted to stop ten minutes ago before I started. Now where there used to be him there is nothing. Emptiness except for all the muddled thoughts that keep hurtling into each other and piling up. Nothing makes sense. Now where there used to be a place there is nowhere. I am nowhere. Nowhere except for this basement, on this floor, in these pajamas that aren't normally so red. And soon, where now there is despondency, desperation, dejection, there will be manipulation. Attention. Something is silently screaming for attention, and soon won't be so silent. Où l'avez-vous mis?

Remembering is something I need to forget to do.

Comparatively, I am a lot less cynical than I used to be.

 

Fourteen.

24.04.2009

Courage. This is a big word for big people. Unfortunately, I am a small person with small problems and instead of facing them I am running away. Across oceans.There are people: jealous people, angry people, indifferent people. There are people commending me on my bravery. But this is an escape route. I am escaping.

I won't accept it. I do my best to reject patterns til it hurts,
every second making bad turns for the worse.
She's getting further away I can feel it in the way my bones ache.
The ocean sealed it's lips, now the waves won't break.

The secrets it won't say has got us trying to break codes in churches
and lately I've been hating its soul purpose.
When a boy writes off the world it's done with sloppy misspelled words if
a girl writes off the world it's done in cursive.

I'm searching for the cure
this is a sickness.
can you hear me, love?


Now I look for air pockets to pick, walk with a stick, start picking locks with it.
Opening up heart-shaped lockets with little arguments.
The tawdry trinkets start to split and contradict
those who say one thing but think the opposite.

I bit the dust tongue kissing documents in a smoke stack.
Faith is harder to swallow than pride it, turns our throats black.
I want my home back. I know that's not an available option.
It's the way that I'm walking in between a cradle and coffin.

That makes me pace myself. if half the battle is done right,
the other half won't take my health while jacking my shadow's sunlight
to crack it open and find the space between my breaths are desolate
life is just a lie with an "f" in it and death is definite.


Sage Francis, The Cure