Silence is Ticking

Sometimes I feel like my candle has blown out and I’m searching around in the dark for a match just to get it going again. The flame is temporary and yet somehow it has this magnetic appeal that I’m swept into like a moth burning my precious wings. Then, usually without warning, the flame extinguishes and I’m alone in the dark again. Lost.

I refuse to tout gender generalizations or place blame on anyone here. That is not my purpose. What I’ve discovered is a simple, negative self-realization that I’m determined to defeat. I have no idea what love is anymore. My vision is clouded by physical eroticism blocking that ever-so important emotional and mental bond to form. I’m a serial “sexcapader” or so it seems.

Call it a vow, pledge, oath or promise; it is what it is. The clock started silently ticking the moment I undertook this task. Voluntary celibacy.

It’s too easy these days to be what I used to call myself, a “free-loving-spirit”. There is no such thing in modern society as courting, dating or romance. Nothing is done with any formalized tradition. I’ve not become a prude by any means. I just simply refuse to associate myself or waste my precious time with another male who does not respect me enough to build a solid foundation of friendship, trust, respect and love before sharing with me the intimacies of the flesh.

My lack in posting an explanation earlier can be attributed to my detailed preparation in how to mentally deal with the skeptics. I’ve accepted that there are going to be the people who think I’m doing this simply because I’ve hit a “dry spell” so-to-speak, those who think I’ve lost my bloody mind, others who have taken up a pool to see when I’ll finally crack and then those who find it a complete waste of talent. While I salute everyone in forming a preemptive judgment against me, this pledge is between me and my ever broken heart.

So here I am again, alone in the dark without a flame. I’m no longer looking for matches. I’m search for something brighter. Love.

Princess of Preeminence

Apparently...

I have some amazing microchip installed in my brain that randomly pulls vocabulary from the "dictionary or thesaurus" into my every day speech and blog.

That's fucking fresh. Imo.

Please don't forget my other fine qualities; inhuman strength, the ability to leap tall buildings and my ever-amazing machine gun jubblies.

Let me stop for a moment and bask in my preeminence. /bow

Oh poo…I used a big word again. Just so you don’t have to look it up yourself, preeminence means superior. :)

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This post dedicated with love to:

Captain Emo and his faithful comrades; the guy that looks like a meth addict in the last stages of life, and to the math major who despite an undergraduate degree still falls short in the ability to compose a complete sentence with grammar and punctuation.

Addiction

Guitar Hero III!!! If you have played Guitar Hero I, II or the Encores then you'll know what I'm talking about...what is with this game?!

My brother locks me into playing Guitar Hero III with him and I think, "no...I'm not that into it". I hadn't picked that damn guitar up in 3 weeks, but guess what?! The minute I picked it up I couldn't put it down!

So yes...

My name is Ti, I play in the band called Sausagewallet, and I'm a Guitar Hero-aholic!

There I said it! That's the first step towards recovery in any addiction.

I guess my simple point is that if you have ever wanted to be/feel like a rockstar, then you should find someone who owns this game and invite yourself over.

Note: Good luck trying to get a chance to play here...between my brother, Rafa, Jim and myself...you are NOT getting validated.

Sunday, Sulking, Sloth

There is something deeply sacrilegious about sulking around in yoga pants and a baby-t on Sunday. At first glance I would appear to be the epitome of a deadly sin; sloth. Eventually I'll drag my self out of these sheets to a soft ginger and vanilla bubble bath in an attempt to raise my spirits, but until I muster enough energy to do that I'm just going to cuddle back in next to this laptop and feel sorry for myself.

I listen intently to the weaving sound waves coming from the little speaker on my laptop. Harmonious chords sang by the Beatles echo in the song “Because”. Normally these lyrics are nonsense and good for a trip to senselessness. Today I think understand them. They seem to operate as the perfect soundtrack to my dour state. I think that my only reason for leaving this shelter of cotton sheets and country quilt would be to tip toe my cold feet down the stairs and sit at my precious out-of-tune piano.

The only experience of true love I've ever had is buried deep within the dusty crevices of those cracked ebony and yellowed ivory keys. I don't have to tell the music my feelings. The keys respond to my very touch reflecting each pent up and hidden emotion within me. If I cry the chords quiver, if I'm mad they echo and if I'm in love they flow like invisible doves spiraling in each other's harmony to into the sky.

I suppose it's time I crawl out of this slumber, take a bath and do something semi-productive today. If you look for me later, I'll be found next to my piano playing something dissonant and cold.

Grumpypants

I admit it. I've been dragging my lifeless limbs around in what some would call "grumpypants". While this accusation might be true I don't think that a willing soul would choose such unfashionable attire. I choose to describe this syndrome as more my mixture of emotions steaming in a dark cauldron of impossibilities stirred with the harsh wooden spoon of reality.

Every night I lie in my clouded state of sleeplessness and think about things that simply cannot be. My tears tell me these thoughts are detrimental to my well being and yet my heart keeps on forcing them into my imagination. Fantasy takes hold and I try to convince myself that the impossible is full of possibility. It's all nonsense.

My being grumpy towards you is just my way of showing the white flag of defeat. You may not take it as such or even have the experience to decipher my emotional riddles. I don't expect you to understand. After all, you are only my friend.

In-depth conversations held underneath the stars are full of uncertainty. Words ring so true on occasion. "Sometimes a girl will look so hard at one individual that she will miss entirely the nice guy in the shadow." We may speak in truth perhaps, but in what context. Do we reverse the roles? It seems as soon as I start glancing in the angles of what I refer to as "impossibilities" I'm struck down by that internal spark of realism. I want what I can't ever have. I strive for something unattainable. My head sends warnings to watch my heart for it's going to break and for once I'll be the only one to blame.

I cry. For the first time in my life I never lowered the bar, forgot about treading on my line of distrust and walked into something without ever expecting to feel the way I do right now. Unfortunately I'm on the dark side of a two way mirror, impossible to reach, feel or see. You have my attention but another has yours.

It's cold and lonely over here. Just like the heart you are about to leave unknowingly in ruins.

Nightmares

My ears are numb. Numb to the words but not to the harsh volume. I don't need to know what they say as each syllable is painstakingly stuck in my head forever. I can handle the yelling but painful tears well as I know what comes next. My bruises are still fresh from last time. Please don't do this again. Please.

My wrists look tiny in your hands. That's all I can think as the pressure from your fingertips absorbs into my skin. I can't even feel the tears streaming down my face. The pain I should feel is withholding itself for when the floor meets my body. Each bone shattering time I'm prepared for it and yet it still takes the breath from my lungs. I muster all that is left and scream.

Let me go. I want to leave. Please.

Pinned merciless to the floor by the weight of your body I'll never forget how cold the steel felt against my temple. That's all I can remember. Just the cold. My emotions died at that very moment. I wouldn’t even notice if you pulled the trigger.

I lay there chaotic until you grew tired of this game you play. You leave me laying there frozen on the floor like a forgotten toy. Too scared to move, breathe or cry.

I’ve blocked from my memory these experiences only until they are released in a harsh nightmare. I wake up feeling like I've drown.

Horrible memories please leave me.

Romantic Failure

Me: This may seem silly but just trust me. Go outside.
Boy: Right now?
Me: Yes.
Boy: Okay. I'm outside.
Me: Do you see the moon?
Boy: No. It's cloudy here.
Me: ...
Boy: What?
Me: I finally thought of one thing that we can do together and it's cloudy.
Boy: ...
Boy: It's the thought that counts.

I can't even be romantic. Foiled. Always.

I give up.

Fa~La~La~La...Die

Torture begins.

My eardrums tingle in anticipation of the pure pain I will experience with each off-key rendition of "O Christmas Tree". The agony of ravaging adults and children tearing apart aisles after some pathetic "toy-of-the-season" manufactured with toxic materials and exported from China. Meaningless Christmas greetings sent by people I only talk to once a year via these recycled cardboard wastes of postage. The bell ringers, please make them stop. I’m surrounded by sweets and more fattening savory bits of goodness putting mass on my thighs just by looking their very direction. Television plagued with specials and previews for yet again another Tim Allen travesty. Then the worst, a smelly balding man with a pure lack of fashion sense and a obvious problem with obesity gets to take credit for gifts that I, not him, so painstakingly braved shopping malls and traffic to purchase.

Call me the Grinch, Scrooge or sacrilegious but I loathe Christmas.

Note to Self: Find country that does not celebrate it and vacation there conveniently for the entire month of December.

Breaking Free

Adorned in invisible shackles and chains I'm bound by control. I race wildly in unknown directions trying to reach the end and am yanked back when I reach limitation. I'm tired of wearing them. They are beginning to pierce my sensitive skin and have grown into an uncomfortable obstacle on my soul. I want to be free.

Once I escaped beyond the bounds of their touch and built a wall around myself so immense that even the power of my own fear couldn't bolster the brick. I don't want this to happen again but I know that if I don't escape soon the barricade that has been growing in my sub consciousness will soon overwhelm me. I feel locked out and away from the world. Faded like the window I gaze out of into the pouring down rain. Something is happening.

I'm not comfortable anymore. I need to stretch my wings.

Truth & Lies

"Hate" is a strong word.

Then again...so is "Love".

Which word holds more power when misused?

Haunted

I'm haunted. Not spiritually or in superstition, but by my own parading thoughts. They dance questions in little pink ballet slippers performing a series of delicate moments on each sensitive emotion. Their symphony is the resonation of my own heart strings. I have no answers.

Distraction is my arsenal against what it is that I do not know. I evade into mindless adventures where I don't have to ponder the unrealistic internal battle raging inside me. I consistently fail.

I know placing so much mind power wondering that which is just impossible will only make me insane. I suppose the voices are right. I suppose that I am crazy. Then again what great individual was not romanced as crazy at one time in their life? Challenge me with that and I will build you a sanctuary for the mentally insane. It is just that sometimes I wish my mind was as simple as those with accusations on their lips, and then I would not drive myself to ends wondering things that are too complicated for a delicate mind.

Dropping text into another random escapade of insecurity and hope is what I've accomplished here.

Sending text messages of nonsense to another plagued with unknown answers to the same impossible questions.

Now I lay me down to sleep, my haunted soul is his to keep.

The Music was Mine

I stab the straw into a concoction of ice and whiskey as I slowly gather my confidence. Each biting sip of the straw warming my vocal cords making the music within me begins to build. My name is called. I rise from my chair to the cheers of my friends and random applause from faces that I will never see again. My eyes sparkle and my teeth shine in my smile as I take the beat-up microphone. I can smell the swirling smoke of the cigars around me and smell the musk from the alcohol sinking into each patron's veins. The music begins.

I close my eyes letting the opening measures in their time absorb me. Facing the crowd with the power in my abdomen I open my eyes and send my voice echoing into the cold brick walls around me. The sound system picks up the depth of my vibrato as the faces of each person who has suddenly stopped what they were doing, look up and locate the creator of the song. It is my moment under the bright lights standing strong on the knotted wooden stage below me unafraid and uninhibited. Senseless.

There are no words on the screen, no written notes to follow. This is my arrangement. This moment is mine.

At the highest point of the song I feel my voice open its wings and begin soaring above and beyond. I don't see the rundown walls, air swirling in smoke and the flickering bulb in the corner threatening to go out. I only feel the music coming alive in my soul and pushing itself outward into oblivion.

As I finish my melody the euphoria I was held in is replaced with thunderous applause and cheers. People who don't understand the music enough to live it but yet can appreciate it. I am left standing alone again. I am abandoned in the reality of the world that I left for only that brief moment. The moment the music was mine.

Little Miracles

As I sit here in front of my laptop with my shoulders poised and my legs criss-crossed in front of me I ponder. How is it that when the passing of current seconds collide with seconds lived in the past you experience a moment in euphoric memory? Decades melt away like liquid dreams into a rusty drain before your eyes. You force yourself to blink and yet the clarity of the modernized past is laid out before you like it never passed. There is no timestamp on friendship. That in itself is rare and just maybe is myself experiencing a miracle.

If that is the correct definition of a miracle, than this weekend, I had an experience in the form of two rekindled friendships.

I remember you. The same black eyes that sparkled at me across our desks as we easily printed our names on the nameplate on our desks. As the rest of the class struggled to achieve the task I remember exchanging laughter in our eyes and watching your freckled cheeks turn moving to show your smile. We knew we shared something as we glanced at the nameplates. Our names will never be pronounced correctly. We were friends for that year. Then forgotten until twenty years later when we greeted each other with the same elementary school eyes concealed in our now adult faces. The topics are different today but the conversation echoes from yesterday. As you take my small hand in yours so strong now I say to you "it's good to have you back my friend".

I can still see that little spot of chipped paint on our gray locker where the combination lock had been tossed into it year after year. I remember rounding up the gang at registration so that we could all have our lockers in a solitary line. It was our little territory, our row of lockers, the girls. We were invincible back in those innocent days before parents moved us around, extra-curricular activities monopolized our time and boyfriends took capture of each moment left in between. Who would have thought that in just two precious years our little connective worlds were going to be torn apart and our friendship forgotten. Thirteen years later we sit together laughing and sharing our stories like we never lost the time in between now and then. Obvious differences from the paths we walked down stand out like that old paint on our locker and yet the trust is still as solid as that combination lock. We both still have the right numbers and can unlock them together. We raise our glasses at each other and proudly declare "let's never forget again".

Sharing time between two beautiful people from my past and reveling in the friendship we shared then and the friendship we still share now I am inspired. A year ago I was so alone, lost in my hopeless world of heartbreak, betrayl and pain. Today I walk into old doorframes and am greeted by unjudgmental faces that remember the person I was before I lost myself into that world of shadows. The remembrance of those older happy memories heals those of the painful and newer. It is bringing me back to life, one friendship, one hand and one smile at a time.

I'm finding myself again. This must be a miracle.

My Delicate Secret

The shimmer of ice, brightness of my eyes and the sparkles that dance off the Willamette River when kissed by the light of the sun; I have captured thee. Hidden in that dark part of my soul and only taken out when I am surrounded by the cavern of solitude. It’s all held in a petite globe of luminescence that I delicately hold in my small hands. It’s my secret.

The tattered tapestry of confusion I keep wrapped around me is a fallacy of my own protection. I pull a dark shade over my face so you can’t read my eyes. I speak in riddles so that my words dance around their meaning. I take a bold color and turn it pastel before your very psyche.

I’m hiding. I do all of this so that I can continue to conceal my true feelings from the one they should matter to most. The enchantment surrounding my delicate secret is in a constant skirmish to be free.

The demon of insecurity taunts me that once the globe has been broken I’ll be alone in the dark holding a broken shell. Uncertainty clouds each soft step I take in the direction of the spotlight you shine on me and yet I am continuing to walk forward.

I want to tell you my secret.

Minor Grievance

I should repent. I should feel remorse. Revenge is deliciously sweet and its sugary temptation has made me sin again. Forgive my immaturity.

While I ask openly for forgiveness I do not feel sorry even though I know that I should. Justice is best served on a plate of cold, hard revenge. Unfortunately, simple words like vengeance and retaliation echo into the same terms and immaturity and degradation.

There are three things that I refuse to tolerate or forgive; lying, cheating or stealing. Committing one of these kills our friendship, committing more than one kills you. You are indeed, dead in my eyes now.

I have a bountiful amount of friends who adore me. I simply have no use for one who degrades, disrespects, lies, cheats, insults and hurts me. I don’t need your friendship, too bad you are the one who blindly needs mine.

I’m done defending your actions, listening to your disgusting sarcasm and trying to convince myself that I am adult enough to be friends with someone as fetid as you.

Sorry about unleashing that deep of a revenge. It’s just that frankly, using your verbiage, it’s a “minor grievance” compared to the discomfort you’ve put me through trying to be your friend.

That all being said. I think…”Amen” settles it.

Solo Artist

I gathered an hour back in time today and along with it came some new clarity to some floating issues plaguing my mind.

Annual gains of maturity and accelerated levels of painful experience has aged me beyond years in which certain individuals in my life are not yet capable of grasping. Little things that used to create laughter, enjoyment and understanding now spread a twinge of disapproval and annoyance to my brow. I'm not going to tout that I am in any way better than these individuals. I'm just going to say that I now see the world they live in with a different set of eyes and realize that because of that I can no longer try to dance the same angles as them. I am a solo artist now.

I want my own existence even if it is different than what they want for me.

Fog of Frustration

It seems lately that my life has been filled with little annoyances. While normally these little things would burn off during my day like the morning fog in a sunshine smile, they seem to only be compounding into a seriously bad attitude.

Somewhere in between chipping away a layer of ice off my windshield so I can drive an hour commute each morning to endlessly analyzing conversations held under the stars, there is that little place in my mind that can separate the clarity from the fog of frustration. Somehow and somewhere I’ve lost my map to that location and my peace of mind.

Certain things I wish would stop. Some are trying to improve. Others have me too confused to make a step towards them. Another has me scared. All completed unrelated to each other and yet each is contributing to this jambalaya of feelings burning on the stove of my annoyance, frustration and anger.

I hope resolution visits before the snow does…