you'd be waiting there whenever I am all alone...

I am going to be the change I want to see in the world.

I own my life, and I'm taking it back. I remember sitting on the plane on my way to Ireland last summer and thinking "This is mine. I own this. I have done this for myself." And I want to feel that way about every day, every moment of my life.

And with a little help from my girl, I'm going to figure it out. Amin mela lle, vanima. <3

you say that things change, my dear...

I keep waiting for this to go away.

I've hated myself and my life in waves since I was old enough to realize that I wasn't going to grow up to look like a model, that I was too unlucky to ever have things land in my lap, too stubborn to settle and too smart to pretend to be happy.

Usually, it goes away. Something iinally changes and I find a reason to smile, to pick up my feet a little. To look forward. I think that this is the first time in a really long time that I've felt so lost, hopeless and ugly for months without a break. And every single day it gets worse. Today it took me half an hour just to decide what to wear because nothing actually fit and everything made me look like a cow. I haven't felt right in my skin since last summer. But today I actually wanted to tear it all off. I actually disgust myself right now. Several times this week I've had to disappear to the bathroom just so no one would see me cry. I've sat, watching TV but not looking, tears pouring down my cheeks and the sound grazing past my ears. I'm spinning into this abyss that I can't get out of and I want to.. sleep forever.

I am so fucking alone. No one, nothing touches me. I live behind a mask and inside a bubble and I just.. function.

I can't function much longer. I can't... do this. I can't be alone forever. I thought I could be strong enough to face my future but... I can't.

go on and tear me apart

after all I'm still a jerk playing with matches
it's just that he's not around to play along
I'm still an ass hole playing with candles
Blowing out wishes blowing out dreams
Just sitting here and trying to decipher
what's written in Braille upon my skin...

let's see how fast this thing can go

In this same bar where you slammed down your hand
And said “Amanda, I'm in love”, no you're not,
You're just a sucker for the ones who use you.
And it doesn't matter what I say or do,
The stupid bastard's gonna have his way with you.

So don't cry Delilah.
You're still alive Delilah.
You need a ride Delilah,
Let's see how fast this thing can go.

<3

just leave me your stardust to remember you by....

I dreamed there was someone. Who held me. Who's heart beat in my ear, who's breath stirred against my cheek. Someone who brushed the hair out of my eyes and told me I was beautiful.

I wish I was beautiful. I wish I didn't need someone to tell me that before I could believe it. I try so hard to be independent and self sufficient and the strong woman my parents raised me to be. I'm smarter than this.

But the truth is I am jelly, ready to be moulded by anyone who has the courage to love me.

I dreamed there was someone with courage, someone who saw what I want to be, deep in my eyes, rather than who I am flawed and imperfect. I dreamed that I was that person who was loved. And it wasn't the arms or the warmth or the hands that I missed when I woke. It was that other me, the one who was beautiful.

If you'll be my star, I'll be your sky,
You can hide underneath me and come out at night,
When I turn jet black and you show off your light,
I live to let you shine, I live to let you shine,

But you can skyrocket away from me,
And never come back if you find another galaxy,
Far from here where there's more room to fly,
Just leave me your stardust to remember you by.

i thought i'd be

When asked to name the one person absent from her life that she missed the most, she responded, "The person I hoped I'd be by this point in my life." - onesentence.org

a hunger

i am reading Sexing the Cherry.

i am in love.

It's a short book but I haven't been able to read the whole thing yet because I'm just.. overwhelmed. I feel like it's feeding this hunger in my soul and I have to take a break when I get too full. How can someone else have the words that belong to my soul?

Every journey conceals another journey within its lines: the path not take and the forgotten angle. These are journeys I wish to record. Not the ones I made, but the ones I might have made, or perhaps did make in some other place or time. I could tell you the truth as you will fing it in diaries and maps and log-books. I could faithfully describe all that I saw and hear and give you a travel book. You could follow it then, tracing those travels with your finger, putting red flags where I went
For the Greeks, the hidden life demanded invisible ink. They wrote an ordinary letter and in between the lines set out another letter, written in milk. The document looked innocent enough until one who knew better sprinkled coal-dust over it. What they letter had been no longer mattered; what mattered was the life flaring up undetected... till now.
I discovered that my own life was written invisibly, was squashed between the facts, was flying without me like the Twelve Dancing Princesses who shot from their window every night and returned home every morning with torn dresses and worn-out slippers and remembered nothing.
I resolved to set a watch on myself like a jealous father, trying to catch myself disappearing through a door just noticed in the wall. I knew I was being adulterous; that what I loved was not going on at home. I was giving myself the slip and walking through this world like a shadow. The longer I eluded myself the more obsessed I became with the thought of discovery. Occasionally, in company, someone would snap their fingers in front of my face and ask, "Where are you?" For a long time I had no idea, but gradually I began to find evidence of the other life and gradually it appeared before me.
- Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson

there's gotta be something that would be worthwhile...

fuck...

fuck.

There is no light. There is no end.

I swear I am Atlantis. Not the Utopia. But swept away, drowned.

me and my girl, someone else's words

Far far, there's this little girl
she was praying for something to happen to her
everyday she writes words and more words
just to speak out the thoughts that keep floating inside
and she's strong when the dreams come cause they
take her, cover her, they are all over
the reality looks far now, but don't go...

Far far, there's this little girl
she was praying for something good to happen to her
from time to time there're colors and shapes
dazeling her eyes, tickeling her hands
they invent her a new world with
oil skies and aquarel rivers
but don't you run away already
please don't go...

And I watched, a rainbow above the world...

This, roughly, is the first part of the book I'm writing, an adaptation of Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Of bodies changed to other forms I tell;
You Gods, who have yourselves wrought every change,
Inspire my enterprise and lead my lay
In one continuous song from nature's first
Remote beginnings to our modern times.

In the beginning there was no light or earth or sky. There was only Chaos. The abyss. The absence of all. From this discord, the Gods created life.

From the abyss they tore the sky from her sisters, never again to touch. From the abyss they tore sea from earth. These sisters they would doom to always be touching, but always separate. The Heavens, she watched lonely from her place with only Gods - her sister's children - to comfort her as they created their own home in her breast.

From a union of sisters, Earth and Sea, Prometheus created mankind. Vain as the Gods were, they moulded from mud a creature in their own shape.

The world which was given to humans was a world of milk and honey. Without Strife, men lived as Gods upon the Earth.

Descent arrived. When Saturn fell he brought about a new age of man. An age of temptation and the beginnings of Strife.

Man himself brought about the next age. A bronze age - a race of war and wickedness.

And further still, the world of men fell. An age of iron saw father fight son. Friend was no longer safe from friend. Dissension and immorality plagued the Earth. As brother fought brother they tore their Great Mother apart. And Earth's sister - the seas and rivers - ran red with blood. From their place, safe in the Sky, the Gods watched this downfall, the ruin of their own creation. Something must be done, for the Earth which now bled was their own mother as well...

messenger n.: a person who delivers - a package or a message - from one person to another. see also: don't kill the messenger.

I've no business of my own. No agenda, no ideas worth anyone's mention. No, I am simply a messenger god. At least Mercury got a past - a story and a lively confrontation with his brother Apollo. Not me. I've always been Jupiter's messenger. Or at least I was, until Mercury got himself those winged sandals.

In any case, this was all before Mercury. And I was charged with a mission. To deliver a real message to mankind.

Over a cup of ambrosia, Jupiter turned to me and said, "Iris, something's really got to be done about all that racket bellow us." I agreed. I always agree. No one argues with a man with lightening. Jupiter remained quiet. He gazed out over the clouds, his brow furrowed as he watched the strife below. Years and years from this moment, man would sculpt Jupiter as such, a thoughtful God. But now, the only thing they carved was each other's flesh.

"Iris," he said finally, "I want you to see to it that the world is flooded."
"Flooded?" I asked. For clarity. Never to question his judgement. Messengers never ask questions.
"Yes. Have Zephyr lock up the north wind and release the rain from the south," he said. I nodded.
"And you," he fixed me with his gaze. Looking into Jupiter's eyes is like being in a lightening storm. You're drawn to its power but terrified by its danger. "You gather the waters and refill the clouds. Then go tell Neptune to release the rivers, streams and seas." I nodded again.

I popped over to tell Zephyr and Neptune of their brother's plans, and then set to my own part.

It was peaceful to watch the waves roll over the Earth. The houses and forests on her front were washed away. The animals and humans floated past, wolves and sheep side by side. Birds fell from the sky in sheer exhaustion.

The Earth sighed with relief as her sister's embrace healed her wounds.

Above me, I could feel the Heavens growing heavy, itching to join her sisters. Jupiter would never let that happen. That would mean the end of us as well as the mortals.

Finally, the Seas calmed and I let the clouds run dry. Helios, on his chariot, drove past to warm the Earth's surface and help pull her from her sister's arms. And I watched, a rainbow above the world, just below the Heavens. I watched as the Earth, my mother, emerged a blank slate, ready for mankind to ruin all over again.

Next is Deucalion and Pyrrha, but I still have to work on that part a lot.

sexing the cherry

There are very few things that make me happier than new books. They make me feel less lonely.

I ordered just ordered these from Chapters on Monday, and they're here already! Huzzah!

My new philosophy: When life throws you lemons, buy books instead.

Wait, no...

When life throws you debt, embrace it and buy more books.

I got Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson who wrote Weight and who I therefore love. I can't wait to read it. I also bought two of the same book by accident... I totally pulled a Fae. Hmm.

love isn't just for lovers

I'm in love with the world through the eyes of a girl...

I want to tell you about my girl.

When we're driving and singing along to songs we both love, her voice eclipses mine. I don't have a horrible singing voice, I'm even halfway decent. But she has that quality that goes beyond just hitting the right notes. That broadway quality. She loves music like I love music, like it's a part of her soul. I can't picture her without music playing, because it always is. Her life has a soundtrack.

Her eyes sparkle when we go into the art store. Genuinely. Like a kid in a candy store. Like I've only seen one other time, when we were in London together. Her hands move like she's ready to use that brush, those pastels. Like art is hunger, that's what I see.

She becomes a part of a book like she lives in a song. She breathes it. Like I do. The only other person I've met who reads exactly like I read. From inside, not from outside.

She's the most talented person I've ever known, and I'm certain that she could be a singer, an artist, a writer... anything at all that she wanted to be. She understands what I mean when I tell her that I feel older than I am, she understands what it's like to see more, because she sees it too.

She has beautiful eyes that are always lined in thick black. I used to think that she uses it to hide something, but I think after years of it it's as much a part of her as her skin. My girl is a chameleon. She dyes her hair every month or so, never satisfied. Restless, she tells me she cut it short. Hours later, she wishes it was long again. Black. Blonde. Red. My girl has calico hair that would awkward on almost anyone else. But on her... it fits.

She says she hates herself, and yet she's the only person I've ever met who's consistently herself. I never doubt the authenticity of how she acts, what she wears, what she says. She just is. As if there's no other way she could be but her way. This was the first thing she taught me. She's always been my anchor to reality.

The second thing she taught me is unconditional love. I like to challenge people's love. I've pushed her so many times. But she doesn't push back. She sits, waits and takes it. She's the one person I know would love me at my worst and at my best. She's the one person who I know has only my interests at heart. My girl would bend over backwards to keep from hurting someone, to keep everyone happy. It's so pure and so right - something that I haven't been able to do since I was little, since my barriers came up. And I hate when people use this against her instead of being greatful for it.

If you watch her, my Faerie, when things are quiet... you can see a flash of pain dance over her expression, when she thinks no one is looking. More than anything I want to take that pain away. My girl doesn't cry in front of people. She cries alone and feels alone. Or else she's numb.

My girl is car rides and goodbyes and rain and international flights. She's ice cream and laughter and corn on the cob and grocery stores and nights sleeping on cushions on the floor. She's feeling infinite. She's inspiration. My girl is "imagine." She's Romeo and Juliet and Judas and Johnny Depp. She's a geek and she's Freaks and Geeks and she's fantasy games and video games and Zelda and comic books and she's Batman. She's six feet under. She's Delilah. She's my Konstantine. She's music boxes and unicorns and greeting cards and sparkles in a jar and icing and colours and cake for breakfast. She's London. She's a horseback rider in Killarney. She's drunk and she's sober and she's halfway in between. And she's nice enough to pull over so I can throw up. And laugh, but only when I'm ready too. She's jokes and teasing me and sentences that never make it. She's blue eyes and grey skies and black clothes and fucking depressing movies. She's late nights and twinkies and crying to computer screens. She's my black rose. She's beautiful.

And I love her more than I've loved any other person. In a completely straight way. It would be easier if we were gay. But I don't think love is just for lovers. I'm pretty sure that no one will ever get me the way she does, and I don't even want anyone else to. I'm okay as long as I have my girl.

Amin mela lle, vanima Faerie. My words are all I have to give you, but they're yours, melamin.

a toast...

To all the ones who hated me the most, a toast. You really had me going for second.

I'm jealous. I'll admit it. I'm jealous of my friends from high school living in Europe right now (my work visa expires soon...). I'm jealous of the people who actually get what they want, sometimes. I'm jealous of the people who get to screw me over and still live their happy lives. I'm jealous of anything that's free.

I'm also jealous of the bird that flies and the fish that swims. But no matter how much I wish it, I'll never be them either.

If there is one thing I've learned from being me it's to never give someone else the power to control my getting what I want. Because I'll always lose. Whatever I do get, I fight for tooth and nail.

Am I the poster girl for some suburban sickness? Better keep a healthy distance.

no day but today

I randomly remembered today that almost two years ago I wrote a letter to myself, sealed it and stuck it in a box. To open at least a year later. This is what it said:

"Dear Me,

It's a lot like looking in the mirror and not liking what you see. When reexamining my life, I tend to find it empty and useless - and nothing at all like I want it to be. I know the feelings well. For years I've hated the way I look. Now, on top of that, I hate the way I live.

This marks the beginning of a deliberate effort to change my life - to take things into my own hands and to let myself and my life be changed by my own action and the actions of others.

If I can read this in a year, and clearly state at least three huge changes in my life - I will force myself to be content.

My plan for this year is to keep myself so busy that I have no time to feel lonely or inadequate. To leave no room for overthinking!

I will take the dangerous step outside my comfort zone. I will accomplish things. Something. Anything.

Because I'm tired of this and the way its always been. And I'm tired of doing nothing about it. So here we go. One foot forward, one step up.

I want to find the things that make me see the things that make me wonderful. Drown the things that make me fail. Celebrate the things that make me different.

I want to live prepared to die. I want to do extraordinary things because the ordinary is boring and I'm so fucking tired of being me.

So, me... if you (I?) have made any steps in this seemingly right direction... please pat me (yourself?) on the back for me (you?).

There is no day but today.

Love, Me. At the age of 19, August the 10th, 2006."

Still looking for the things that make me see the things that make me wonderful. But I have been ridiculously busy, I did step outside of my comfort zone and I have accomplished things. Maybe. So, pat pat, me. And maybe I should write another.

And all others, who love, and who will love, must they die too?

Euripides' Phaedra was a puppet of the Gods, overcome by Aphrodite's need for revenge on Hippolytus, given no choice but to love him madly and to kill herself to escape that love which would ruin her honour. Seneca's Phaedra is a spoiled princess who wants the world to move around her desire for her stepson, Hippolytus, who is willing to ruin the honour ruin her own honour and that of her entire household to satisfy that need. And who kills herself when she is denied what she wants.

How can one woman be both?

And in each, Hippolytus is both a staunch unblemished servant of Artemis and a hater of woman. Strange that while the woman changes, the man remains the same.

Seneca's Phaedra is the weakness of women, who give in to their desire. Seneca hates women. In Euripides, Hippolytus' hatred of women is something the audience is supposed to find ridiculous.

I like the Greeks far more than the Romans. At least a woman's weakness isn't inherent in the Greek.

"The tide of love, at its full surge, is not withstandable." (Eur. Hippolytus 443) I like that idea, in the Greek, as well, that love is undeniable, that it has power over mortals and Gods alike.

shadows

Last night I fell asleep pretending I was someone else. Not so different - I almost always do.

This morning I realized that, more worrisome, I spend all day pretending I'm someone else. And it's only subconciously, in the middle of the night, that I face the real me. And that's when I realize how much I really hate myself.

I wake up with long cuts all over my arms, my stomach, my legs. Even though I have no finger nails anymore. Even though I don't remember scratching or even being itchy.

Guess my subconscious isn't as strong as my mind during the day. Because I spend all day avoiding doing the exact same thing. And at night, I can't control it at all.

I hate this skin. I don't belong in it. All that's left is to pretend.

...take a look at my body, look at my hands... there's so much here that I don't understand..