Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Untitled

Untitled so far. This is my newest, and I'll probably make some changes.

The small azalea and blueberry bushes grew
In small pots on the porch when they were tiny and new.
They were junkies, too.
Addicted to long drinks of rain and sips of dew
(on the rocks).

They jonesed for the sunlight.
They quivered beneath the moonlight.
They had some blow when the wind was right.
Grass could be found everywhere in sight.

They were cut off cold when the winter came.
No sunshine, no dew, no drops of rain.
The blow turned bitter and caused them pain.
Nothing sustaining shot up through their veins.
(So they slept).

They awakened when they heard the robin’s song!
They survived the darkness, and their branches are long.
I wish you had of been as strong.

You couldn’t find a way to bud or start your life anew.
Stuck in the void, you decided you were through,
While the little plants fought their addictions and grew.
So we planted them, but we scattered you.
(And I wept).

©tnicholas2010

Mental Masturbation

Here's the title poem from my (hopefully soon-to-be published) book "Mental Masturbation: Poetry that has no point. It just feels good." Yeah...I don't give a crap about psychological nudity.

Mental Masturbation

If I try to concentrate on serious drudgery,
My mind goes off on a solo spree.
Thoughts come that bring joy to only me.
My mind masturbates in poetry.

I try to focus on hardcore work,
But my mind begins to jerk
Away to where creativity flows free,
My mind masturbates in poetry.

If I try to converge on important matters,
My mind beats off like the wings of moth.
Wild horses need out of the barn.
Breasts shouldn’t be captive to a corset.
It’s too hard to read dry material,
That doesn’t keep my gray matter wet.
It shoots off every chance it gets.

When worries are crushing my mental libido,
The spirit reminds me which way to go.
I can play alone, and nobody will know!
Poems get me off,
And help me stay where life is soft.
Imagery tends to relax.
Rhythm and Rhyme’s union produces the climax.

Words spluge forth and cover the page.
The ink defiles the virgin white.
There’s no course plotted out for this flight,
And there’s no destination.
There’s no point. It just feels good,
This…mental masturbation.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

The blog about wallpaper (that isn't really about wallpaper)

I decided to skip sign language class tonight because I was feelin too tired to go. Last week I got really tired in class and was dozin off on the way home :0(. That gave me some time to meander around Charleston before heading home. I went to a place that has been daydream-provoking for me lately....Lowe's lol.

I justified the trip to Lowe's by telling myself that I need to finish painting Sully's room and to do that I need more paint, plastic liners, smaller brushes. I love buying shit like this. My whole house needs done. I don't think I've done any painting/fixing up since Raven was a baby (and Sully's severity of autism became evident). For whatever reason, home improvements/ changes have always ushered in transition periods in my life. The last two times I've redecorated were just before we started the adoption processes for the kids. Lately I daydream about re-doing my whole house, but I limit myself to one project at a time (or my lil ADHD, obsessive compulsive ass would have a bunch of materials piled up on the porch and absolutely no follow through).

BUT...

I'm allowed to daydream as much as I want. I walked up and down the aisles with all the lil paint sample blocks...lined up like a colorful army and standing at attention in their lil slots. A place for everything. Order made of the colorful chaos. (My life is colorful chaos). I like warm colors for the kitchen (gingerbread and oatmeal colors...orange) and cool colors for the bedroom (frosty plum), but my favorites are the greens (forest, teel, seafoam...any shade of green). I grabbed some colors to take with me, to have for later.

I walked down the curtain aisle. I like how they billow around me. I feel hidden in this aisle, and I have the liberating thought that nobody is expecting me to be anywhere right now and that NOBODY KNOWS WHERE I AM! I love to sneak off. I love leaving my cell phone off and hiding from the world. (You can't find me! Not in all these curtains!) But I don't fancy any of these curtains so I walk on down the aisle.

At the end of the aisle, I find a section I had always ignored before...the wallpaper books. Books and books of wallpaper swatches! I always assumed I had to settle for what the stores carried. Idk why I never thought of ordering what I want. I started flipping through these wallpaper books. I love the woodsy stuff! There was tan paper with small pinecones, paper that makes the walls look like a log cabin, paper with tiny leaves and bordered with herbs hanging down to dry. These witchy papers that fit my personality instead of me settling for whatever's in the store, easily available, most popular. I feel cheated that I've settled for this status quo shit for too long. I've never been high maintaince, but I'm getting older. Life is too short, and I want what I want. Everything from custom wallpaper,nurturing relationships, ridding myself of those who are a dead weight in my life. I tend to nurture the wrong people. No more wasting my time being there for people who don't give me the time of day when I'm downin.

So anyway when I "came to" in the wallpaper aisle, a lot of time had passed lol. I had kinda lost time. But this quote came to mind. I saw it the other day and can't remember where but it said: "Go ahead and jump. The chasm isn't as wide as you think." Jump. That's what we have to do to make changes in our lives. You have to be the one to jump. No more trying to push someone else (waste of energy), and no more sitting around waiting on things to just get better (waste of time).

Whoa. That was a lot of insight/wisdom revealed to me from that trip to Lowe's. Now I know how my dad can spend hours in there.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Magical Days

Kindergarten was out of school today because the new kids were coming to register so Raven and I had a day off together. I explained to her that it was going to be a magical day because we were gonna go do some fun stuff. She started being on the lookout for magical things to happen.

First we went to McDonald's for lunch (her choice, of course), and they accidentally put two toys in her happy meal. She quickly pointed this out: "It IS a magical day because there's TWO toys in my lunch." Then she noticed that they gave her TWO caramel dippin sauces for her apples. That was the next magical thing she talked about. The she says, "Thank you for telling me about these magical days because I'm really appreciating them." I swear that kid is reincarnated from idk who, but she talks like an adult.

Then she launched into this convo, "I like this caramel, but it is sticky. If you give a Raven some caramel, she will get sticky. Feeling sticky will remind her of her favorite maple syrup, and she'll want a pancake to go with it...." This continues until she can't remember anymore lines from the book.

Then she comes up with this, "Can I have a hamster?"
"I don't know," I said, "lemme think about it."
"Well I just want to sit him on my dresser, and when I get bored with him, I'll open his little door and let Lex eat him. He would make a tasty lunch for Lex."

Damn.Where does she come up with this stuff? I adopted my kids so they wouldn't act like me or my sister, and I'm sitting across the table from lil T and Z. LOL.

We go on to the movie (Alice in Wonderland), and it was fabulous....just a really beautiful, enchanting movie. (Though I want it to end differently and wish Alice would stay with the Hatter. I would have stayed with the Hatter. Also, so many of the characters remind me of people in my life, but I won't go into detail about that.)Raven liked the 3-D, but when the jabberwocky came flying, she jerked her glasses off her face in a hurry. I told her she could come sit on my lap anytime she got scared, and she climbed on my lap and stayed there. She really enjoyed the movie though.

Next we went girly shoppin and got summer clothes for her and Sully. She is very sweet in picking out things for Russ and tries to find characters that she has seen him notice on TV. Since he is fairly non-verbal, we don't really know what cartoons he likes. She picked him out some SpongeBob stuff. I picked out a tank top and some shoes, and she comes up and yells, "OH! That matches PERFECTLY!" Uh...thanks Diva. Then she finds these really big roses attached to ponytail holders and insisted that we get them. I got them, but the flower is as big as her whole head.

Finally we went to Lowe's because I had to indulge my tomboy side....and I got a power sander! Yea! I can't wait to play with that. We also got some windchimes and some spring flowers for Mama and the aunties. She wanted to do more things after all that. By that time we had been out running around for nearly seven hours so I told her it was time to come home because we had to pick the mister up a dinner. He's not real happy to come home to no food in the house while I'm out buying windchimes and power sanders, but then he is GROWN and won't starve. Maybe.

Just before we got to the house, Raven said, "You know I really like spending time with you." Ohhhh she melts me.

Later this evening, we got another magical surprise because Marshall came home! He was very skinny and starved because he had been missin for about two weeks. He "talked" to me nonstop...followed me all over the house meowing. He was even meowing at me while he ate....talkin with food in his mouth lol. When he went missing, I told Raven he had just run away. I was certain, though, that he was dead. Tybalt wants out every night, and Raven said that was because Tybalt went on a catty search for the Marshall daily.

I told the mister that Marshall's return was an Ostara/Easter miracle. He is my Jesus kee. The mister said it's more like Pet Cemetary. Pfffft.

I'm so thankful for this magical day :0).

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The new poem...that may signal the end of writer's block.

Ok so it's creepy and icky, but still it's progress. Oh and it's inspired by the shit swirlin in the air today (see previous blog).

Comforting Thoughts

He slides the suicidal thoughts on like gloves,
Well fitting and seemingly meant to be.
He pulls them on like boots,
Knowing that with them he can walk through anything.
He fastens them like armor around his chest.
They protect his heart.
He welds them like his sword.
Nothing can touch him.
Nothing can damage him
More than he plans to damage himself.
In that final decision
There is such ultimate power
(though some call it weakness).

The thoughts are like imaginary friends,
His only friends,
And he dances with them.
People and their realities
DEMAND TOO MUCH!
He caresses the thoughts
(Like a child’s favorite blanket.
Those without such a blanket never
Understand the comfort it provides.
He can’t make you understand
His comforting suicidal thoughts).
He reaches for them in the night
To make sure they are still there.
Because at least that means he’s not alone.
At least that means there’s a plan
(and those thoughts still the anxiety about the future).
Covered by the gloves, the boots, the sword,
The armor, the blanket, he walks by you everyday,
But you never notice
All of his gear.
And even if you could see it,
You’d never convince him to part with
His comforting thoughts.

Stuff swirlin in the air today

Things have been messed up for about a year now. Last summer a(nother) friend committed suicide, and I really haven't been able to get my head right since. I hadn't seen him in years, and he just popped back into my life around 2-2009. He came back into my life forcefully and wanted to talk ALL the time (sometimes 10 times a day). I'm on the road constantly, and I knew he was not feeling well much of the time so we talked as much as he wanted to. He became a huge part of my life. He was in my ear all the time....while I was driving, while I was workin in my herb garden, while I was walkin on the blvd. He was a constant presence. He was ill and had addictions. I tried to help him. I did what I could. I loved him. He blew his brains out anyway.

I never understood codependency before all this happened...how exhausting dealing with an addict can be. It wiped me out physically, emotionally, spiritually. I think I hit the verge of a breakdown after he died (I never fully understood how mental breakdowns happen either, but now I have a fairly good idea). I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, and my body started having issues. I had to go to about three doctors and get everything checked out. The last doctor I had to see was my ob/gyn....(periods had stopped due to stress/lack of eating/history of eating disorders makes this happen frequently). Sooo the advice that doctor gave me was to: "Just go home and relax. Take all the advice grandmother used to give you: a warm bath, warm milk, maybe some herbs near your pillow." She was using the term "grandmother" generally. I was sitting there thinkin about my schizophrenic grandmother who at one point insisted that we were all witches who could live on cigarette smoke, Oreos, and water. That's the advice MY grandmother gave me LOL.

This spring has been so hard. This is the time of the year he came back. All of this change-of-season stuff that is starting again is taking me back to last spring. Today was hard too. Last St. Patrick's day, I went out to party. He had been gone for like 10 days, and I hadn't heard from him. After the St. Pat's party, I came home and had an email from him. It was innocent stuff...just telling me that he was back and that he hated flying because he felt dirty being crammed in with all those other people. I didn't save a single email.

I got frustrated with him over the addiction. I had to cut him off. He was sapping too much of my time/energy. I didn't return his calls for about a month. Then one day he called and for whatever reason, I returned the call. He was surprised to hear from me. We had a really good 3-hour conversation. Around midnight I told him I needed to go, and he said he'd call me the next day. I never heard from him again, and I never attempted to call. He shot himself about a month later.

All this shit has just been swirlin around in the air today.