9.

1.  I take pills.

2.  I like them, a lot.

3.  I like to fart.

4.  I dated my cousin.

5.  I didn't write back to my ex-boyfriend (not the cousin), and 2 weeks later, he killed himself.

6.  The day he hung himself, I went walking, and felt God was trying to show me something.  He showed me a telephone pole that looked like it was being strangled by wires.  I missed the significance, completely.  

7.  Until that time, I thought I was Jesus.  

8.  After my ex-boyfriend killed himself, I realized I couldn't save anyone, not even myself. 

9.  I don't have the strength to publish this yet. 

Not for Nothing

He was the last lil' bit.

The last lick, the last morsel, the last bite left on the plate that I just couldn't get rid of.  

But you came along and you wiped it clean.  

You replaced that last piece with something else.  

Something non-addictive.  

Something substantial.  

Something that replenishes.

Something that doesn't deplete.  

A ray of light, from miles away.  

"The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray."

2

There are two kinds of people in the world: 

those who simplify everyone into two kinds of people, and those who don't.  

Since You're Gone

I'm on a tightrope and I keep falling off.  I don't understand why, but I keep finding myself back on the tightrope.  Sometimes I fall off, sometimes I jump off.  But I always end up back on it.  And my heart feels just like the guitar chords from the Cars' "Since You're Gone."

Even now, as I'm thinking this, and picturing it, I'm irritated to have to write it (visual of me, in bed, sighing, frustrated, in the dark, headphones on.) 

Why?

Cuz it feels so pointless.

This afternoon I was driving down Rand Road and remembered one night, pulling over onto the meridian of this stretch of road, to cry, and cry, at about 2 or 3 am, because I had just left him, and he had said something about not being able to have a lot of time for me, for some reason, something he said he was going to be doing.

In a nutshell, here's my beef with god.  I find this man who I fall in love with and live with; we go to a church that tells us that in order to be obedient to god, we cannot live together.  I move out, then we break up.  Then a year later he kills himself.  Turns out us living together - a.k.a. me, keeping a 24 hour watch on him - was the only thing keeping him alive.  

Do you see why I'm bitter as fuck?

Own It.

Revel in your own destruction.

Revel in your rebellion.

Because if the ship is going to be sinking, you may as well be singing.

We trademarked that permission.  That's for YOUR enjoyment.  

Too Late

It's a strange thing, seeing opportunities that have passed you by.

Do you ever notice, when you're with someone you know is fantastic, that you sometimes totally shit allllllll over it?  Like, it seems with your every move, you are holding your middle finger up right in their face?  And when they don't seem to have seen that, you kick them in the balls?  (Or, shins, if they have no balls?)

Or is it just me?

I seem to be confronted with all these ghosts of opportunities past, that I was either too stupid to appreciate at the time, or too afraid, or both.  Now, when time has passed, and I'm more wise, it's too late.

I know there's always a silver lining, that the grass is always greener, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone, and any other random cliche that applies.  And cliches happen, I know this too.  And I know that there's going to be something headed my way that will make me look back and say "See, Jess?  THIS is why THAT didn't work out."  That's happened before, and I know it will happen again.  But I cannot help but to wonder: Did I throw away something that was really worth grabbing with both hands?  

And why, why, why does this seem to happen, again, and again, and again?  

Why on earth would a person shrink away from being loved?

I can think of only 2 reasons:

1. They doubt the authenticity of the source.

2.  They disbelieve they are worthy.  

Clean

There's a mess on my brain. 

There's paint all over the inner ground of it, after you slip right through its translucent sky.

But someone's taken a rag, wet with solvent, and dabbed out the stains.

With each thought of you, the rag blots you away just before you settle.