Rise and Rise and Rise Again.

It's been a while.
My freshman year of college has passed; the summer has ended; my sophomore year is close to halfway over.

Here are some of the things that have happened:

I was chosen to be the model for a two photoshoot series. One was about androgyny; the other was a nude photoshoot focusing on body image.

I got the Nexplanon birth control implant in January. Veeeery nice.

I finished the school year with a 3.7 GPA and was nominated by my writing teacher for the biggest writing scholarship in the school; I won a scholarship to attend the Laughing Heart Literary Festival & Writing Conference, which was a three-day event over the summer in Hot Springs, NC. There were a lot of big authors and poets from the Appalachian area. I was chosen to perform a poem I'd written at the closing event on the last day. It was wonderful!

When I was in Savannah over spring break, I got a dotwork band tattoo around my upper arm.

I worked over the summer at Southern Pine & RK Construction, a reclaimed antique lumber and custom design/construction place.

I was mostly in the metal shop using the drill press, angle grinder, band saw, metal grinding wheel, die grinder, welder, wire brush wheel, etc. Pretty easy to take off a finger with most of those. It's also pretty weird to watch hot sparks shower your boots and jeans and gloves and bare arms.

Aside from the metal shop, I was also straining & sanding wood, pulling nails, helping out with the building & installation of pieces in the new Perry Lane Hotel downtown, putting together a work studio, and doing most of the detailing for the antique motorcycle we'd refurbished for a client.

Jake came to visit for a week over the summer, which was wonderful. (He was here for Summer Solstice!) Went to the beach, to feed alligators, to the Wildlife Sanctuary, etc.

We've been together for around a year and two months now; our one year anniversary was fantastic - we went to a nice restaurant and got ice cream and just walked around as the sun set and gave each other their present. (and then fantastic sex).

It's such a wonderful experience to have someone you love who doesn't do things like play mind games, or hack your snapchat account when they accidentally send a message to you instead of the other person they were talking to about you, or starting to date someone else while still in a relationship with you, or ask your friend how you've been doing...two years after you've broken up. So mature.

It's nice to know that Jake don't expect me to be perfect and automatically agree with him - which we certainly don't. But if one of us has a problem or concern, open communication/being honest is important to both of us (especially since we half live together).

I've been taking kickboxing for a while now; one of my proudest moments was when my instructor warned me that hitting anyone with my uppercut would probably break their jaw.

I've also been spending several hours at a time in the little river in the Botanical Gardens looking for river glass, bits of pottery, and interesting rocks. I've had to start being very picky about what I take back with me, as I'm running out of room for it (I have three big jars full, plus several old prescription bottles full of the smallest pieces. SO beautiful in the sunlight!).

Bambi came to visit over fall break! We went shopping, ate pancakes, watched a lot of Total Drama Island, and just got to spend time together - something that I miss being able to do whenever we want.

I was a student volunteer for the Tibetan Monks' sand mandala while they were on campus, and having the last shift of the day, I was the one to follow the special steps for sweeping together and collecting the huge (incredible) mandala created by the students.

My suitemates are nice enough; we're able to keep things clean and well-stocked. It's pretty hilarious when your suitemate tells you about some weird guy they met on Tindr and had been talking for a while before he does a total 180 and says that his two year relationship just became exclusive - and then they show you a picture to see if you know him. Absolutely dying laughing together was a good way to get to know each other! [At least until you find out that your suitemate went on to become really good friends anyways - while also actively choosing to hide it from you so as to spare your feelings [though such a thing is not anyone else's decision to make], until you find out via hearing them loudly talking on the phone until you are shaking too badly to write and end up having a panic attack when you find out that said suitemate talks about you with said old toxic relationship that fucked you up for a long time (and clearly seeing that toxic actions from said person are still the same even after all this time) and you suddenly find yourself actually frightened].

Life continues to happen. The earth turns and time moves forward, whether we want it to or not. We're falling through space, clinging to the skin of this tiny world. We rise and rise and rise again. The best we can do is open our eyes and hold on to each other until the end of the line.

Soothe what you can, fight what you can't; if I can't move heaven, I will raise hell.

You, a lover?

Maybe. It was something tender,

but tender like a bruise.

Every look and

touch

that you threw my way

made me want to give you everything.

For a little while,

my heart beat

in the syllables

of your name; but

the heart is always

the last one

to leave the lost cause.

We define ourselves by the ways in which we orbit around others.

At the time, I hoped that

your fingers fit with mine

like a key in a lock instead of

two bullets in the chamber of a gun.

And the sad thing was that

there were several times when I should not have forgiven you

so easily, should have just walked away. But in those days,

you could have slit my throat and with my last

gasping

breath,

I’d apologize for bleeding on your shirt.

How could I have loved you so much,

I ask myself later,

since it always seemed like

you were expecting not me,

but ⅚ths of a mirror image of yourself.

I guess that’s why

I convinced myself

that you were bettering me,

when all you were doing

was assuming yourself right before anything else;

even when you were laying in bed

with a girl that you no longer

wanted to kiss,

(yet you’d still wear

the heat of her body)

and let her doubt herself

until all her thoughts became

“Maybe this time, maybe next time, maybe, maybe, maybe…”

Back then, I’d take the poison that needs sucking out;

any excuse to get

your lips on me.

So you’d kiss me once, hard,

and call it our bloodletting.

My most profound wish came true and was invalidated in the same breath. (The truth).

But I guess it’s hard to let go, even if what you’re holding

is full of thorns.

Maybe especially then.

For a while, your name was

a bone splinter inside my mouth. 

Forgive my perplexity at the time,

as I no longer knew what to think after you told me

that we should stop seeing each other

            (not once, but three times);

“For our own good.

“Because a relationship between North Carolina and Savannah is too

far,

and too hard for both of us.”

I believed you when you assured me that we were still friends, still just as

close.

I hadn’t assumed that “just friends” still meant

that you could and would fuck me whenever we saw

each other, still ask for those pictures taken in

a darkened bedroom,

still write me those words that sometimes bordered on frightening when I’d look back, after the moments of fervor.

You’re delicate. But I’m not afraid to break you.

I won’t ask what you want anymore, you understand that?

It won’t be cute and it won’t be sweet.

Write it out. You have to beg.

I’d pull your fingers away if I was there

So I could force my cock inside you.

Later on, it was how you told me that

you still wanted me like I wanted you, if only it weren’t for

the distance,

distance,

distance…

Later on, it was how you used Them

always as your excuse, (as though They were

a helpless soul and your duty to shelter).

(As long as I’m reminding myself of things,

I’m a good person,

worthy of love, of respect-

both from myself and others).

You told me not to mourn

a love

that I hadn’t even known was dead.

You told me to move on

after you had peeled yourself away so slowly,

as though you were wearily plucking my eyelashes,

one

            by

                        one.

You only left me a bewildered jumble of uncertainties. 

I suppose that I may have looked like crumbled stone from the outside,

but there’s a cherry-red smolder in my bones, (turn out the lights;

you’ll see).

Back then, one good gust of wind, and

I’d have razed this place to the ground.

-          I could already taste the ashes.

By all means, one day I’ll ferment

the heartache you left me

into nostalgia. Time will do with us

what it wants.

One thing you taught me:

Do not look for healing

at the feet of

those who broke you.

Maybe you thought that you’d absolve yourself

of any impact or mistake

when you asked to explain.

(I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so charmingly deluded).

But honey,

the joke’s on your meaningless gesture

because I absolved myself

the moment that I didn’t

commit suicide

on my 18th

birthday.

(I fought to live only because

I’m too stubborn to die quietly).

Bullet in my gut, blood staining my teeth, I lived

with my mind as my own hell

for years; (hell is languidly being abandoned by those I love).

I tore myself apart and spat in death’s face

to survive the last year, and somehow

I walked away with a smile.

It’s that they told me later that they hadn’t wanted to go about it like this at all, that they’d wanted to tell me months ago, but were convinced not to.

It’s that this was what I’d been conflicted about earlier, when you convinced me not to tell them, only to tell them later yourself.

It’s that this scenario is what drove a wedge between them and I in the first place, back in the beginning of the end of the summer.

It’s that the whole experience has become a twisted-up pile of torn apart words.

(It’s that we’d promised never to let a stupid thing like a boy come between us).

I wrote a letter, years ago,

And left my words folded up on their pillow;

"About what you said.

I’m not going to wake up and see you.

I’m already awake.

I already see you.

I’m not going anywhere."

(How uneasy, being fraught with the guilt of breaking your own oaths, even more so when they were just as profound for yourself as you made them).

Memory is fickle but some actions cannot be undone. 

For a while,

the thought of you was like spun sugar on my tongue.

And still, part of me feels terribly stupid for

playing that role

of being happy with only

the superficial few layers of love

and never anything deeper.

But I learned from you, and I know better now.

Know better than to change myself

in search of the approval of someone I love;

better than to let someone be

manipulative and condescending

under the guise of “for your own good;”

better than to be with someone who listened to me open up

about my fears and doubts,

never offering anything of their own.

I know that I am iron and sinew, all spitfire and bite. I know myself in the grip of  fighting tape around my knuckles and the snap of a bowstring. I know myself in holding tight the people I love and letting them hold me tight in return.

This is how I want to feel;

not used up,

but well-loved.

            (Some time ago,

I sat by myself, and finished

reading Saga).