Free thoughts in free verse

It was something you said.

It was the way you said it.

It was that you said it at all.

It was something you didn't say.

It was the way you didn't say it.

It was the way you walked away.

It was that in the moment after a slow, spine-tingling build, you let me drop, naked and covered in my own sweat and newfound shame for letting you have me without having all of me (even the bad bits, the misfits, the misplaced and misused good intentions).

It was in the moments that you sweet talked me into glorious submission, my mind set only on the thing in front of us because it was passion, it was rage, it was closeness, understanding, warmth. It was warmth.

It was the thought of being in someone's arms whose arms were in mine.

It was being in the moment and forgetting about all the moments that come after this.

It was the way we fought, quarreled like Street Fighters. You, Dhalsim, with the ability to stretch out your arms and push me away with a hard blow, and me, Blanka, with the ability to use my rage to hurt anyone who gets too close to hurt me. 

It was the way that despite our bitter and unexpected fighting, I wanted to get close and want still to be closer.

It's my inability to have just a taste and not eat the whole dish. I want your entire dish, even if it's a bit meatier than I'm accustomed to.

If I have any fault in my pursuit, it is not that I don't own my faults or that I can't account for them; it is that I want more from people than I know with what to do.

My defense to being hurt is to hurt. Even if I don't understand the fight, my dukes go up in a plea of self-preservation.

I don't want to hurt or be hurt anymore.

I'm tired from this battle.

The worst part is: nobody won.

It's the way that I don't know what to do next.

It's the way I'm drunk on your words, the promise of your touch, the warmth of your body and mine burning together in my bed.

It's the way that I never know if you'll be kind or aloof when we speak.

It's the way that you keep me at a distance that makes me want to run distances.

What does it take to break down the barriers?

What does it take to not only make amends, but to make them strong?

How do you strengthen what's been badly wounded? Can you? Can we? I want to, please.

I want you.

It's the way that I hate you, and the way that I don't. Not at all. Even when I do, it doesn't feel like I expect it to.

How can I make amends strongly with you?

I'm sorry. ❤️ 

Come back inside.

Kiss me on the head and it'll all be alright.

Where We Go from Here, a poem

Just before I left for Ireland, one of my very close friends wrote this poem to give me inspiration. And every day, it fills me with hope and, as he intended, inspiration to dream of the impossible becoming possible.

Where We Go from Here
for a good friend
By Viet-Dung Nguyen

When you asked me about life I likened it to the rise of balloons and the cascade of waterfalls. Then you, sensitive spirit that you are, thought of defying gravity and assured me that evaporation happens—the water will rise, eventually higher and higher. So may we cross the Niagaras in life bravely, as daredevils on a tightrope who know to keep focusing forward, who know that if we ever were to fall the mist may be enough to lift us up.

that's one rosy heap of trash.

It is hard to offend me. It is hard to really hurt my feelings. And I've found that as I've gotten older, it has gotten easier for me to lick the wound and move on. But when someone close to me throws me under the bus, it really rips me up. I know we will all fail one another- I have certainly failed many in my life- and I've had to learn to apologize. I've had to learn how to empathize. It's easier to be less shitty when you put yourself in someone else's shoes. I have also learned that just because I have learned doesn't mean everyone else has. Someone recently said to me "Amanda, I think you think everyone is like you, or should be". That idea has been swarming my head. He was speaking of one particular conversation in which I said I don't understand the negative nancies of the world, the "fml" people. I don't understand why people "fuck" their whole lives because something doesn't go their way. He was, of course, one of those negative... neds, and I'm afraid I made him feel as if his feelings were insignificant. I have known pain in my life, and I know what it feels like to be made small in that experience. So, I extended his observation into my deeper human experience. I think, in many ways, it perplexes me that people are they way they are. I know we are all different by design (and thankfully so!), but a lot of things, to me, seem like common sense. Why not move on and be happy? Why not let life have a rosy tint even if the picture is a pile of garbage? That conversation is haunting me now as I contemplate the butthurt feelings I have toward a close friend of mine who did, indeed, offend my dainty little feelings. Do I hold her insensitivity over her head? Not because I'm petty or because I'm bitter, but because I want to offer her the opportunity to empathize, to stand in my shoes and change the climate. We gotta move on and be good to one another. We have to say we're sorry, and mean it. We have to deal with one another in compassion and openness, with the WILLINGNESS to be wrong.

I don't expect an apology, but I've said my piece and it's in your hands. We can move on when you're ready to walk in my size 9 shoes.

it's all going to change.

Right now, I am sitting in a coffee shop drinking cinnamon tea, listening to Little People in my headphones in an attempt to block out the open mic hip hop madness surrounding me. The hollows of my body vibrate with the bass lines, my ears catch the words "fuck" and "fuckin'" every few seconds. My friend Logan sits across from me reading on his tablet. Engrossed in our own tasks, we do not talk, but instead nod with the beat and carry on. There's energy here. The smell of coffee beans roasting is overwhelming. The table top hosts congealing rings of coffee from guests gone before me. I am wearing an over-sized sweater and cut-off jeans. My friend GA hugs me. The moment is electric, pulsing with the sadness and ecstasy of finality. Any moment now, I'll miss this. I'll realize that my purpose here at this place in time is coming to a close. It's going to pass, and I'll be somewhere else with new people. I'll have new adventures, and I'll have to grow.