"One day, and I know you'll be patient enough I'll explain, but for now.. I promise, you don't need someone like me to bring you down, cause that's all I'll ever do."


How could I have put my heart and soul into something and it cuts me loose just like that? I do a labor of love, just to help individuals who need it most to succeed and I'm just let go like a sandbag from an air balloon. My frustration does not come from the people that tell me I waste my time, you're too nice, you've become a dependence. My frustration is fueled by whether or not I should accept the fact that I'm merely a stepping stone, not blasting off on my own spaceship. I'm like a floating buoy in the ocean that guides lost ships in the churning ocean, but I'm anchored, while they take heed of my light and move on. People come to me all the time, from all walks of life, because there's a lack of individuals who are willing to understand. Like recently someone told me, "I'm sorry I pull you out all the time to vent, but you know what I'm trying to say. You and I both are the under-appreciated laborers who keep everything together. No one sees that." I've been growing a sense of apathy within me all my life because I recognize many situations to be something I'm all too familiar with. But the things, the people in my life are handpicked in a way that I place how much effort I put into them, which in effect, determines how they affect me. I know I have a philosophy that life is about compromise, and lots of times things will come down to just you. You can keep adding to the equation but it equals nada, at least nothing in your own hands that you can grasp. Things like these just lead me to more questions, leaning towards the answer that I may be right. I pray to see a greater meaning, not this, please, just not this.

"I did not inherit the fear of those in authority. In fact, my observation of people's condescension, use of authority, and misuse of power helped shape my politics at a young age. I identified with the underdog, was angry at the bully, fought against the misuse of power. But I did inherit their fear of taking risks, of doing anything big, of trying anything new. I have trouble with paper forms; I've never been able to write a grant proposal; I have no credit cards. I sometimes seek invisibility as a form of safety."

-Bernice Mennis

I'll be with you even though we're apart, but your road is yours to tread. And so it goes..

I've been listening to the same song for the past hour. Eventually I'll turn it off or skip to a new song, but for now it's just fine. Finding the perfect song to listen to at the right moment is having it complement the beating of your heart, the ticking of your mind. The flow of the rhyme mimics the voice of your soul, it says it more perfectly than you could have ever conveyed it. Finding the perfect song is like finding the perfect person. This person is just what you were craving for, and your bodies and souls are in sync. But eventually, the same song is on repeat long enough that both people's sync become individually out of touch with it. But that's just what comes with time. Now the two must find the rhythm again and it takes a bit of shuffling. People are like playlists on random that you can't modify. This isn't Pandora, you can't just dislike something and never see it again or like it so it keeps reappearing. Life is a lot about chance accompanied with correlation. I think people get so sad about relationships because they couldn't change the playlist they were listening to, but they really wanted to because the songs playing before were so incredible, so similar to their own. Sometimes you have to embrace the songs in the playlist you find unusual or offensive, it's just something to keep you sharp and on your toes. Maybe if you listen long enough you'll grow to like it, or not. Life is about compromise, not a pot of prizes to choose from. What matters is that you know that this is still the playlist that contains the songs you love, it's just a little far in the past or far in the future, or just in the middle, never to come back. In that case, you can always stop listening.

The lucky ones that by the fortunate chance of finding each other, hold on through the good songs and the bad songs and the weird songs. Each song that's left an impression in their mind, heart, and soul is a string that ties them together. Even when they get really out of sync or get distracted by other playlists, these strings, no matter the length, essentially keep them together. It's a choice whether to return to the other side of the tug or to just let it be hard proof that there are things out there that can flow with you in harmony.

I'll come back to this

It's funny, this feeling of enjoyment or this feeling of pain or anything. I never get caught up in the moment because nothing lasts forever. And it's funny, I guess, because people attempt to extend the expiration date, or even worse, expect it to maintain. Why is that? They say insanity is the process of repetition, expecting a different outcome. But from experience, shouldn't we get it by now? I'm not sure what to think of this, this futile process. Does this define us as humans, faith in the slim chance of breakthroughs? Or is it our downfall? I don't know.

But I'll come back to this, again and again.

I get so stupid when I'm drunk.

Alcohol and guarine and taurine and caffeine and.. and.. and...

it hits me to the dome.

I contradict, I know. But you know, they don't leave any room for growth or mistakes or mistakes or anything. Then they wonder why I don't say shit. Then they beg and deplore my attitude of confidence, little do they know. So I come at them like missiles, blow by blow I tell 'em.  I'm just like you, I may not go through the same shit, the same divorce, the same abuse, the same dangerous love, the same insecurities, but it's all the same. Except I see the future, I have that peek. I acknowledge the narrow door that's slightly open, but most importantly, I acknowledge the importance of opening it and getting through it. The shit within me that's a constant battle is something good. They say, "We're just trying to understand you." Well then get that I was trying to maintain what society is supposed to make of me, but it's not what I really want at all. It's that steel door that you can't melt that hides the deformities, but the steel door is a deformity in itself. Your deformities is the qualities you try to conform yourself into. What I'm trying to get at is fuck those conformities, what really matters to me is what everyone else claims are the deformities. That's what I've been trying to make, what's real is what pains you, and ultimately that pains me. Why am I pained by what drives me? What drives me is what sets me apart from you and you and you and you.. Almost a year ago, better yet what I was four months ago, is something I can barely recognize. You asked me of my beliefs, and I told you the contrite. I'm sorry, that's not me. It's like my whole life I've been working for that degree, that invite that says, yes you made it Jess, this is it. But what I've been working for my whole life, that kind of acceptance, isn't what I'm looking for anymore.

I hear her say things like I need him to tell me that I'm what he needs. I hear him call me princess, you're my princess, I'll give you everything. Fuck that, I'm not that. Hearing those things make me cringe, but at the same time I'm so patient because I'm nonqualititatve. I'm alright with that and I recognize that I'm not on the same step that you're on, I'm okay with that!!! Nonqualititative, you say, what's that? Think of someone that was just paralyzed and had to use a wheelchair for the first time. They see a ramp and they gotta make themselves up the ramp, but they're not used to it so their strength only takes them so far that their weight brings them back a couple inches, a couple feet. Me, I'm not inching the ramp anymore, I'm on stairs. I was on crutches, but now I'm healing and I gotta make myself up step-by step. I'm on the second level or I'm on the first. I'm on the tenth or I regress back to the eighth. The top is a light that's barely visible, but it's enough to attract me to get to it.

As much as this sounds go goddamn miserable, damn Jess you're so pessimistic. But how? I'm trying to be better and you're taking it as Jess, you think too much. So what, just because I don't have to go through as much bullshit to see what's real, that doesn't make me qualified to feel the way I feel, to think the way I think? I'm tired, I'm exhausted in questioning why I feel the way I do. As the days progress, I've become more and more receptive to the way I've discovered my own epiphanies. And I know God, this is one of the deadliest sins, pride is one of the deadliest sins. But I come to your house every Sunday and tell you, "Don't worry about me, it's them you have to worry about." I'm trying to be an instrument, but who's oil do I use to tune me up, theirs, Yours, or mine?

Oil and Water

I’ve lived my whole life with the notion that I should repel from anything I don’t believe in, anything corrupt, anything superficial, and anything that connects itself with demoralization. At too young of an age, I realized the degrading power of sex and vowed never to accept advances with shallow intentions. Of course there are slip-ups, but I certainly have kept to it for the majority of my lifetime. I remember the first time that I came face-to-face with torments from girls with low self-esteem, and to watch them mature into the real bad bitches that held a knife to my face if I accidentally glanced at them for more than a split second. I never enjoyed the feeling of that frozen fear and doubting my own character, so I never try to tower over individuals to make them feel inferior. I remember countless, sleepless days attempting to ease the pain of my best friend, who swore to take her own life away due to the actions of some stupid, stupid boy. She taught me to never let a guy play me for a fool. I remember when my mom first told me that in that beautiful wedding portrait we have up in our house, “Those aren’t tears of joy.” From then on I knew that I would never settle, even if I had to walk to the ends of the earth and find nothing.

And find nothing.. The list of oppositions is still growing, and it made me understand that people idealize the wrong things. After a while I’ve come to realize how lonely it is to take a step back and acknowledge what’s really going on. Then I start to question whether it is a blessing or a curse to have been born with a little more willpower to live in this world, but follow a different map, a map that leads to roads barely touched. I live my life anxiously. I can’t say I’m waiting because I’m growing every day. But I live anxiously pacing through where and what I think is right, and as I keep walking, I see less and less people around me. I look back, and it’s tempting to regress and just follow. I keep what I believe in close to me, hoping that if I find my own way, I’ll see why I’m like this. Little do I know, the Big Guy up there doesn’t even know anymore than I do.