Wild: Songs I shouldn't like--

Murder, Murder - Jekyll/Hyde Musical (Wildhorn)
Dangerous Game - Jekyll/Hyde Musical (Wildhorn)

Springtime for Hitler - The Producers

Tomorrow belongs to me - Cabaret

The sun on the meadow is summery warm
The stag in the forest runs free
But gathered together to greet the storm
Tomorrow belongs to me

The branch on the linden is leafy and green
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea (Gold to the sea)
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen
Tomorrow belongs to me

Now Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign
Your children have waited to see
The morning will come
When the world is mine
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me

[ADDITIONAL VERSE]
The babe in his cradle is closing his eyes
The blossom embraces the bee
But soon says the whisper, arise, arise
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me

Wild: Repost from FB

Here's the biggest secret in the world:
I care for you.

I meant this to be
an ultimatum
like in the Movies.

Big dramatic music
Well-built sets that, preferably, do not fall apart when kicked
(though either would be fine)
Beautiful actress with tears that don't stain perfect makeup
Man beats the chest that's photoshopped on

I meant this to be
an ultimatum
like in the movies.

It isn't.

I still care.

To tell you this, I was going to

pull my hair with my hands
the hair I'm too wild to cut
and stomp my too-white foot and say,

When you see me on the street
and come, and speak to me
you say,

'How are you today?'

And I say, 'Fine, you?'

And you say, 'Fine. How's life?'

But we're liars.

You aren't fine.
I'm not fine.

The people on the street aren't fine
the people in the boats aren't fine
the people in the movies aren't fine
the people on the stage aren't fine.

I wanted to say,
Stop lying to me, and I'll stop lying to you
we will give the street of not-fine pause.

I wanted to say,
Tell me you're a warrior
with your sword in hand
tell me you have troubles
tell me you're falling apart.

I wanted to say,
Tell me that your life is over
tell me why it's wrong or broken
tell me every single word
you didn't want to say.

I wanted to say,
Crumple up into my arms
and weep away your troubles
Drop your sword on a sidewalk in the city
leave dramatic music with the off switch of the radio.

I wanted to say,
Caring is so easy. I've done it since birth.
Can't you even try?

When you pass somebody
with eyes all rimmed in red, why don't you stop?
Why do we accept that lie?

You and I
when we have this little conversation
where nothing is real, like the qualms of book characters
we aren't the only ones lying.

We aren't the only ones
fighting
weeping
screaming
pounding at the walls or scrunching our eyes shut.

Nobody here is fine.

Why do you lie to me?

I'm not like them.

I want to know.

I want to plunge my hand
in the web of your troubles
wipe it away
like a spider web

I went to open an umbrella
on the raincloud
that hangs on your head

I want to unknot your hair
from the bedpost
when your little brother tied it there

I want to be like the noble who
when he heard a Sappho song
from a boy with a too-clear voice
said,
I must learn it or die.

Wont you sing?
Won't you sing?


Don't tell me you're fine.
Never lie to me again.

I care.

I care, and I will listen.
I see you, and I care.

Don't tell me you are older
don't tell me you are more experienced
don't tell me it's too complicated
don't tell me I can't help.

I don't know everything.

My opinions, in fact, will irk you tremendously
once you learn my heart
and how will I do better
with nothing but my eyes to teach me?

Sing for me.
Sing for me.

You sing and sing and sing
and I will close my eyes and listen
because I care.

Sing for me.
Sing for me.

Sing for me and then
I'll sing for you.

I make it stop.

Oh, nothing will change?
That's right.

But if you're alone
if we're both lying
all we have to lose is 'Fine.'

And I care.


I lean forward on my keyboard
picture your faces, reading this
because my heart knows you will read
and turn away
and ignore
and think
disquieting thoughts

and nothing will change.

Prove me wrong.
Sing for me.

The biggest secret in my world
is the one carved on my arm:
I care.

I care.

I care.











Now sing for me.











Yes, I meant that to be a
revelation
an ultimatum

but I'm far too cowardly
to tell that to your faces
the faces I haven't seen since July in most cases
the faces that make plans when I ask them to greet me
yes, those faces, you know who you are:

I forgive and I forget
I heal and I offer
and all I ask is a song or a story
all I ask is your heart in my hands.

you refuse me, day by day
minute by minute
pulse by pulse.

Cowards!




Yes, I meant this to be a
revelation
an ultimatum

but you're busy
and I'm cowardly
I have no
comely nature
to lure your truth to the cage of my heart.







Someday you will see this, need this
that's the lie I cling to now
someday you will know this, want this
and I will be waiting then.

Waiting.

Just like now.
































Sing, and sing, and sing
for me
Because I'll always
care
Because I'll always
listen.









The biggest secret in the world:
I care.

Wild: Scarring

Scars:
 they open again
doesn't matter how long they've been closed
or how you've changed
doesn't matter how charming you are now, how American or modern
how different you have striven to make yourself

if a picture is trapped in the head of a person, a group of people, even a whole town
that is the picture that will stay
that is the picture that they've saved

one
where you are a virus, one
where you are the shared side-glances of, Oh, it's her, one
 where where people become archaeologists, too ready to pick the bones in your conversation

that one
scars.

it welts, it bruises
but you've learned to smile through it, learned
that their picture of you isn't true now.

You are a different person now,
you are a person who is modern and smiling, humorous and clever
you have new clothes and your new goal is to be just like Penelope Garcia,
and you've written at a newspaper, learned new skills, met Whovians
you have seen the greatest city in the world, the city of the angels
you have survived the waves against your brow, your limb--

you are still scarred.

Worn.
Used.
Discarded.

Their picture will stay, though
even after you've died
it's glued, it's stuck, it's there already
so give it up.

Accept the scar.








Don't tell them how it hurts, don't
complain about how it's unfair
your words are wasted on a scar;
the skin's already warped.

Smile, pat her hand, and say,
Go anyway, and waste no words
go anyway, and have great company

pat your scar
look at a cloudy sky in an angry, small-minded town;
 in short,
survive. 

Wild: Terror

Motionless.
Bloody fingers.
No fingernails, bandaged fingertips.

Trapped.

A forest.

Screaming.

A party, going on above my head, so far above my head.

Dark.
Dark.
Dark.

Silence,
Too much.

Sobbing.
No air.
No air.
No air.

Can't breathe.
Raw throat.


It opens.
It opens.
The lid, they lift it--

White wood.
Etchings in the side.
Quenyian etchings.
Poetry.
It could be beautiful but I freeze when I see it.

They will use it
again
again
and again
to control me,
to distract me,
to harm me

because I fear it
because I have shown that I fear it
because they fucking can.


And now, years later
I wake up and look at healed fingers
I wake up and breathe the too-clean air
I wake up in her arms and she murmurs, "It's okay. You're safe."
I know she's right.

The things that truly terrify us
never truly leave.

Wild:

I have limitations now,
as surely mortals must:

I cannot bend leaves into crisp dollar bills
I cannot make the oceans slave to my iron whim
My anger cannot fuel the thunderstorms;
my whistle cannot part blankets of fog on your roads.

When I wave my hand in anger,
your blood won't freeze inside your veins--
if I murmur Immevesteria, time will soldier on, oblivious

I don't need secrets to be clever,
don't need powers to be magic,
don't need a crown to be a Queen.

If I keep my shoulders back,
my sharp chin high,
my movements slow

if my voice is soft and gentle
if my cries become commanding
it isn't for a legion
or for River Country's intrigue--

it's for her.

Her.


I don't need secrets to be clever,
for I've told her every one.

I don't need powers to be magic;
she's the only spell I need.

I don't need a crown for to be Queen
with her fingers in my hair.


Keep your races, fangs and talons
keep your laws and sharp traditions
keep the drops of my blood on your handkerchief---
but no cry will draw me hence.

I need not charm to become charming,
need not beauty for a beauty to see--


I have limitations now,
as surely mortals must.




As surely mortals must.























And it's worth it.

Wild: time

Sometimes people have forgotten you
and they remember
and you talk

but you're different now
they're tracking a thing that isn't corporeal
and
before you can open your mouth,
touch them to prove
that who they seek
is dead, is gone, is ghostly as shadows at sun-down

they find you

and they whimper
and their eyes open widely
and you say,

I'm sorry.



If you are a new you
and they are a new they
your apology might mean something.

But you remember,
and you smile.
They remember,
and they smile.

Your conversation, lives
move on
you make more plans,
you swap more stories--



they're still different.







You're still sorry. 

Wild: CLOP

So Katie made a friend, and introduced her to me
by tumblr, the fertile land of fandom for nerds
and it appears we like all the same stuff.

We played this stupid, horrible game I can't stop playing--
where you try to make a Unicorn run, actually--
called CLOP.

Game made me freaking crazy.

They were so kind.
We were just hanging in Ashley's living room,
doing tumblr, facebook, clop, laughing at youtube
and I realized that I could breathe.

Remembered the feeling of breathing is the best thing in the world.

Even with everything at home as stressful, as difficult as it is
I can do it if I have friends like that.

I'd never have gotten to where I am now without the people I have in my life.
Schultz, when she forced me to think like an "American" during highschool;
for keeping me humble and not acting like a fucking Queen all the time (harhar).
Finley, for looking at me like I were going out of style, for writing me stupid notes in Giant
Hannah Nathan, for laughing it off when I said the wrong thing,
for fairy-wing-wearing flocking trips and howling at the moon
Katie, for pulling me out of the throng and letting me rescue her---just once--
Johnny, for dancing backstage like our feet were on fire.
Dominic, for letting me answer his qualms with a smile, for letting me help.




Really, my life has been very stressful lately. I'm not throwing a pity party, mind you. I'm letting it go, trying to learn, adapt.







But I'm not a Canadian right now. I'm not American, either. I'm just.... me. It's been awhile. A long while, in fact. I think I could grow to like me, the way I'm supposed to be. There's nothing to call me back.










After mad-tumblr-party, Katie and I drove back to her apartment. I thought she'd take me home, but she didn't; we talked, we shook our heads to whatever c.d. she had in the drive, danced a little. We went inside. Katie murmured in disappointment that she couldn't keep doing the driving around thing because she didn't have the money for gas; I took note of it and reminded myself to buy her a gas card or two when she's not feeling so well. Good friends deserve adventures, after all.

"I don't feel like dancing anymore. I'm tired. Welcome to my life. Anyways, I'm going to bed," she announced cheerfully, walking towards the ugly chair in the corner and plucking the Prisoner of Azkaban off its cushions.

"Good night," I said obediently, a smile twitching at my lips.

But she didn't leave. She started reading. Katie started reading and I oddly found myself riveted to the story woven into my heart strings. I channeled the words, I saw it carry through in my head, and Katie read. And read. And read. A few times she'd pause, we'd discuss time-travel (for who better than Whovians to question J.K.'s handle of time?), plot holes, childhood moments, experiences....

I was so happy. Thought made the blood rush to my cheeks and the words poured from my tongue like raindrops.


We didn't finish the book. We got very close, but just stopped. Discussion pulled us away from the story. Katie went to bed.


When we woke this afternoon, a little after noon in fact, Katie was leaving for lunch with her mam. She was moving towards the door; the last of J.K.'s magic wrestled my tongue from silence.

"Thank you," I said abruptly.

"Mer?" She said, wheeling around to face me again, the keys jangling against her hand.

"Thank you," I repeated with a sheepish sort of smile. My heart exploded in my chest.

"For? What're you thanking me for?"

"Reading," I said, after a moment.

"Oh," she replied, blinking, her eyes twinkling with what an idiot I was and how much it amused her. "No problem."



So I got my stuff and walked to McDonald's, bought a soda (I was really low), and now I'm doing this. Playing CLOP, writing my story, tumblring. Trying to sneak a ride home from my Facebook friends.


I want to get home, though. I've Harry Potter books to read....









God, thank you for giving me friends. Thank you that they are good, kind people. Thank you, that they are safe, and will hopefully make it through their obstacles safely, as I have with mine.



 

Wild: American Girl

Today, I watched some wedding shows
painted a sunflower onto my cards
played with my dogs

ignored the silence

Fin invited me out,
and now I'm at Ben's, tumblring

in my mad hatter outfit.

My Mom's getting married in a week from today,
one week.

Today I decided that I'm not having a pity party for myself anymore
I need to let the past go,
especially if I'm to have any sort of a future.

I need to close my eyes, and hope.
 
It gets harder every time,
because I see how heavy Adult's shoulders are
you know, from living.

I am going to throw myself into life, now
stop breathing, stop resting, and live.

Maybe do the American Clubbing thing
that sounds reasonably fun
and probably dieting, dieting sounds important

prettier girls have an easier time of it
so I can fool them into thinking I am, if I'm a little thinner, maybe


oh, right.

Wild: Meteors

when the yellow-hooked moon is smiling
in the too-cold touch of night

someday

I will be sprawled on top of a
lover
my head on their chest

and I will hear
their beating heart

will be sprawled, as lovers sprawl

someday

and my love will
put
her hands to my cheeks
and tilt my face where her face looks
our eyes
meeting
the same stars, meteors

sharing the same dream

someday

and we will know,
we'll know

we'll just fucking know.

Wild:

air carries the scent of cigarette smoke,
i look up toward the road--
i wish it was your face I saw
beneath the sweating sky

Wild: the distraction I'd kill for

Something I wrote for fun today: 


The instant I glimpsed you
I desired you.
I was helpless against beauty
And helpless against curiosity.

Your smile and your voice, they sing
In my angry heart and groaning brain
They sing and sing
And I picture my fingers
In your hair
Tracing over your thin, white neck
Fingertips grazing your dark-hair.

Oh, I don’t love you.
Not even a little am I looking for love,
Not now, not how I feel right now

But you would be a good
Distraction
And you would sate my contact hunger

Isn’t that the
Important thing?

I could make you whimper, moan
I could make you
forget
the touch of men

If you lingered in my arms
forgot the moon-less sky that’s clouded
With smoke from the wild-fires.

Sate my curiosity
And I will dream you on my bed
Faery magic as I blow
Silver on your sharp-edged jaw

My love, my dear, my darling---
Please,
Be my
Distraction?

Wild: YESS

Finally, progress on the Revel Music scene--
a genre of music I literally did not figure out until ten minutes ago
from a lucky click to an old favorite I didn't know the name of
but recognized straight off--

ironically, the genre
is called
Psycho.

Wild: Damn Goodreads. Why? WHY?

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/682933.Enchanted

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10215963-stopping-time-and-old-habits

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/186437.Yarrow

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1295728.The_Quickening

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6041009-faeries-gone-wild

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12700342-the-peculiars

And all of these books became my love children. Period.

I intend to buy them--maybe with my Schuster's money, if I don't get hired before. lawgha;lhg

I want to fall in love again
with faeries, with magic, with words that mean nothing
looks that mean everything
I want to twist smoke with my fingertips,
wear dresses that're out of style---

I will not rejoin the South country's revels---
No, it's safer to buy books. 

Wild: the energetic girl

I can sleep until the sun sets
when I've seen it rise
and I could run a mile
if somebody could freeze time.

You cannot be impressed with me
for never needing sleep
I'm waiting for your voice to sound
in my silent ears.

I'm waiting for your touch, you see
to nudge me from the silent dreams
that play behind my eyelids
while I wait for life to start.

I do my duty full and well
I play my cards, obedient:
day or not is not a problem
when any hour will do.

Exuberance:
that is the price
of friendship;
one I am most willing to pay.

Wild: So over everything

I'm going to kill someone. Kill. Murder. Eliminate.
I'm three inches from killing everyone in a near-me vicinity 
fuck diabetes
fuck stress and money and life
fuck not having enough friends, fuck not being appreciated for being an individual
God Damn it
Kill

just

everyone

so
angry


so
fucking
angry

kill everyone.
murder
eliminate
immorally exterminate
I swear to god I will go Dalek on all of you
stupid, stupid pancreas
stupid, stupid insulin
stupid, stupid robots who can't say my name right

AOGT;EARWLHG;AHTG
So
pissed.


soooooo
past patience
soooo
over being nice and understanding.....


So.
Over.
Everything.

Wild: American secrets

Weithiau, rwy'n teimlo'n unig
Dim ond sibrwd o deimlad
ben un o fy llygaid glas
ond mae'n ddigon i wyrdd nhw -

Rwy'n gwenu drwy fy mhoen gyfrinach
canys mi fod yn ferch rhyfelwr
a rhyw ddydd ....

Byddant yn fy ngweld i pwy ydw.

Rwy'n gwybod eu bod yn gwneud hynny.


Rhaid iddynt.

Wild: Nightmares

Last night, I dreamt of Sedition
I woke again and again and the pain rattled in me
like it did when it were real, were here
My God, why, why
can't I just forget my agony?

Wasn't once enough?

I get out of bed mid-afternoon, exhausted from a lack of sleep:
I'll never again be felled by fear.

I get up, shower, get dressed, become sociable with everyone
read sections from my storybooks
smile, hum tunes from brave

I learn to forget the shaking of my hands, the temptation to shut down
to stare off into the distance with what my friend Katie would call Empty eyes
no, not again.

I will not be felled by fear,
not I
the warrior-heart, the wild-girl
I will smile and be grace
I will live with a force to part smoke.


Tonight, I will sleep.

And maybe soon, friends.







We wild Americans quite love our hope.

Wild: Home

I miss people
who don't miss me.

I look at my quiet cellphone
my quiet facebook
the inboxes that don't have new emails, since I'm American now
I'm sitting in ben's basement again
waiting for people who never noticed me
to miss me--

God,
why did I come home,
again?

Wild: East Bluff and Parfrey's Glen

I climbed this today. They call it the East Bluff. Not everyone--in fact, just me, Schiffy, and Finley--braved it; the rest took the stairs!

I will never let being afraid stop me. Never.

I threw myself up on rocks, slipped on a few. Pulled until my arms hurt, kept going through the top--until I reached the trail, drowning in sweat, shivering from the tightness of limbs, smiling like a crazy woman.

Felt like Ezio Auditore.

I ran and climbed everywhere, everywhere on that trail today. It was fucking beautiful.

Then we went to Parfrey's Glen.

The trail was nearly destroyed by flooding, and my group was tired (even though more than half of them had taken stairs). That didn't stop me, the wild one. Channeling the stream that sang through the silence, getting into my blood like an antidote for sanity, I ran and ran and ran. I leapt over rocks, threw myself into the water, clung to the cliffs that bore faces. I was a heathen, sun-drunk, feeling like a human and loving it. I lost sight of my companions, but kept on, faster, faster, passing two, three groups who'd come before us....

Faster. Faster. More channeling. I'm running now, well off the remainder of the beaten trails, climbing the rocks that were noticeably larger than I was, laughing, murmuring old phrases to the stream that sparkled like liquid glass. When I reached the end, I was actually confused. I didn't remember the trail being so short...

There's a couple there, normal-sized and sparkling like giants in my native lands. I smile like a wild child and they grin back. The woman has a long walking stick, sweat on her neck, a braid wrapped in a bronze holding thing. The man has a beard and a cut-off pair of dress pants--yes, dress pants. They raise their eyebrows--

Okay, that was pretty justified, since I started rolling around in the water. I'd made it! Well, well before the other people. I couldn't even hear them calling after me anymore. I'd made it and channeling had made me so happy I could be sick and--oh, oh. Not deep enough to swim but deep enough to flay my limbs and breathe.

And then I stood. "I lost my group," I said, my blushing lips drawn with water drops, shaking my somehow-still-braided hair. "I lost them all the way, I lost them!" The slightest creep of an Irish accent is on the edge of my sentences, like it always does when I'm tremendously happy. The woman grins at me like we're sharing a secret, and my heart is beating too rapidly to offer her kindness.

She said, "Hide! We'll tell them we haven't seen you."

The man grins, pats her on the back, gives me a wee salute--and I'm off, two seconds, literally running up the cliff face, throwing myself up the limbs of stone that are higher than canyon, stone, and sky, higher than my hopes for the future, higher than the heart that had climbed into my throat.

I stare down at the world and wait for them--my group--watching the couple gallivant to my illusion. And then I sing. Quietly. Half to myself.

My skin was the touch of the moon on the water
my hair's still the light of the high summer sun.
My eyes are the blue of your breath in winter--
you've known all along, this is where you belong.

I can imagine my words forming callouses on the stone, etching themselves into time. Maybe they'll survive when the rest of us are gone, maybe they'll hang like ghosts to cool the tourists from the hot-sun.....


I'm drunk on the climbing.

The rest of my group rounds the bend, looking quite concerned--and by that I mean, Finley and Schiffy. My faithful assistant assassins. Chippered from running, in an attempt to keep up--but I knew the lands better'n they did. They didn't stand a chance. Ben next. I feel them talking, feel their too-quiet words pass over my flesh--and I whistle the hunger games' Whistle. See Finley's head snap left and right and finally up, say something to the other two--and they all just stand there.

They stare in shock. How had I gotten up there so fast, so high? How had I? How had I?

I wave. They wave back--and they climb up after me, to my surprise. A rather interested Schiffy is first, then a panting-like-a-dog Finley, and a grinning-like-he-has-a-secret Ben.

I want to keep going--literally, I want to scour the waterfall--but Amanda trips when I keep on when they finally catch up (Riley, Amanda, Megan). We go home.



I run the trail back. I sprint. Past the couple who greets me a second time as I explain in a rush I must keep my lead, past the stone faces that are waiting to gobble me down. Past the sky and sun and stars and clouds and everything, past the need to breathe the not-enough air in my tired lungs, past the soreness in my limbs--

I run, I run, I run, and run, run, run again. I don't stop. The stream song wallows under my veins like a promise.

Home.

Run. Run. Run.

Suddenly, I stop, realizing I've reached the halfway mark and there's no one here.

Finley, two minutes later, comes out of the trees at a full sprint, pulls me into his arms, and kisses me, pulling on my braids. The clear-as-glass blue slips from my eyes as I push him into the stream.

fuck.

He said, "too much, huh?"

I said nothing, I stared. I said, "I want to run. Wait for them?"

And ran. But he ran after me, calling me, apologizing to me for kissing me (despite the whole 'broken-up' thing).....His eyes were on top of me like he wanted the making of me, right then. Finley loves me, I remember, I realize--for I'd forgotten. I'd made myself forget, because the temptation is still there; though my stream won't let me voice it.

I run faster, veering onto a secret sidepath and throwing my head to the stream to drink. It's dirty and it probably has dead mosquito eggs and cold and I don't care. I throw my head back and howl, I lose one of the braids from my hair.

Perfect.









Now I'm at Ben's, and they still stare at me like I'm holding a secret. What they don't know is that I've no secrets left to give them, none that they've earned. My secret isn't so complicated.

It's called......









Wild.

Wild: Exile

You know what's funny about reading books that involve theft, crime, conning?
We read them and say,
'Oh, I could do that.'
Smile to ourselves, like our true capacity for cleverness, for self-serving action of questionable legality, is the greatest secret we keep from the world
and most people forget it
they grow up
they become honest, lose the silver-edges to their tongues, 
shake the grace from their bodies.

The difference between you and me is,
I actually have done those things.
I actually was good at them.

Somedays I wake up and it's like a hunger,
a hunger to be dark and clever and grace again.

But I can't. I can't, I can't, I can't.






















Exile.

Wild: Remebering Canada

When I was young,
they taught me I was beautiful
again, again, again
as many times as raindrops

so I'd believe I had been, always: 

But I hadn't been.

But I wasn't, always.

They kneaded me like sweet new dough,
they sculpted me like stone--
they forced beauty into my crevices,
pressed it in-between my teeth
laced it into my corset--

they shoved it deep inside my body
again, again, again
until my toes curled
until my body shook
until screams tore from my lips,
drenching me in perfumed sweat: 

A Queen has no recourse. 

Wild: the salt on my skin

Remember when I was in New York, and I wrote that no other place could make me that happy?

I lied through my teeth.

I always forget about how much I love beaches. Real--real beaches, not lakes or lagoons or rivers or sullen streams; rains that run in rivulets down the dirty city streets but real, real beaches. Beaches where the sun tries to defeat your will for moving, where the sand forces grace into even the most lopsided of people. Where the stores all sell that strange mix of wild and mystical, balanced and free and slightly angry and young.

 The view here is not the outrageously beautiful forest of buildings I swore could make the sky bleed, but the water--everywhere and in everything, providing for the people, stretching farther than the human eye can see. The waves that are a spectrum just like the people are--angry and hostile, ready to sweep you from your feet,  ready to take the air from your precious lungs, or soft and gentle on your feet, sitting like the breath of an angel. Some waves carry crabs or jellyfish. Some carry pieces of a shattered life. Others whisper their feelings in your blood like the pounding of drums in the jungle. Others still offer their hearts to you--just them. Just for now, right now, because that's all they have.

Every time the sound of a wave crashing on the shore greets you, you are hearing the end of a life and a journey. They have wound their way to you, pulled to the moon, and now must die. No matter their nature or personality, no matter how they were when living, they must end. They must crash.

Waves are so much like people it hurts me to breathe. It makes me understand, a little, what the Doctor must feel like; watching his companions die. After all, the man is nine hundred years old. For every wave I've seen or heard, he's lost a friend, a partner, a piece of his heart.....

My poor Doctor. My poor, poor Timelord.

But it's a beautiful thing to hear dying, those waves, to see and to touch. While I'm here I can let them go gracefully, let them offer their council to me, listen. I get the feeling--and when it comes to Oceans, I am always feeling, always channeling, even more than usual--that they want me to listen. People...don't.

Listen.

To waves, to other people, to desire or fact; people are always ignoring something, aren't they?

The view from our fifth-floor penthouse suite (!!!) is endless and powerful. Angry and eternal. Empires might rise an fall, rulers might be assassinated, ships might sink, metal might rust, but this ocean will be here as long as we live. As long as the waves are pulled to the moon.

Oh, my Ocean. My Ocean.

In New York City, I was happy because I could make a place there so easily. It would be easy to forge myself one because New York is filled with crevices for wyrms like me to crawl into--! People go there to disappear, to wait to figure themselves out. I was happy there, and I would be happy there for a month. It'd be a fun adventure to find a niche, and then I'd be bored. Bored, bored, bored.

I'd lose myself there. The part of myself that the water wakes is one I will not lose, will not lose, will not lose, cannot lose. I must never forget or cloud who I am for the sake of easy living or fitting in--and coming home; for all water, all oceans, are home to me, will be always--makes me realize that's what I've been doing.

I can't keep doing this. I can change myself drastically, but it simply must be in the direction of what the water wakes. How I felt when we crossed that bridge over the narrow strip of land that lead me here....

But the Ocean wiped my heart. I felt it before I saw it amidst the thick lining of trees--but I suddenly felt clear and light and free and—

Blue.

I felt..... Blue. Not Blue like sad, like the vernacular meaning Blue has, but my Blue, the real Blue, the Blue that settles into my blood; that makes the magic tremble in my wilting fingertips.

Blue. Blue. Blue.

Safe.

Safe. 





God, the Sun! The Sun here! Everywhere in this state, the heat is simply barbaric!

I fucking love it.

Heat, humidity, they're my secret love-children.  I close my eyes and breathe it in, it's so hot, and I love it. My skin screams in agony, but it's wearing sunscreen and thus may can it. Words like 'perfect' and 'safe' are the ones tied in bows around my savage heart, and I am at peace for it.

Oh, the children here. So soft and gentle and they smile and nudge at each other while I sing songs--everything from Little Mermaid monologues to Rose Ballads--with bows in their curled hair or a shovel in their little pudgy hands. The dear, dear things! They are so pure and wonderful that sometimes I must stop and stare at one, must crinkle my face into that secret smile one saves for the perfect moments in life.

The women here aren't bad, either. Oh, judgmental, and their conversation dull, but pretty, beautiful--they travel in packs like wolves, sneering at my thighs. Well, fuck them.

The men are flirts. They believe in their own legend, let us say, enough to approach Juliette twenty times a day. She always smiles and laughs and makes promises, but they are not true smiles, laughs, or oaths. Some of them are beautiful, with sun-rings in their long-hair and hats on their sweating-heads. They move with an easy grace from surfing or skate-boarding. Tattoos promise messages on their skin. They wear bongs around their necks in little pendants, and miraculously no one says a thing.

I can't look at them enough in-between poor Finley's text messages. How am I? Do I miss home? What's it like here? Am I making any new friends? Criminal minds is on; they've changed the controls for the third Assassin's creed game slightly and it annoys him. What am I thinking about my trip? Do I miss him? Have I decided anything about us?

I've done the right thing with him. I have, letting him have his own summer, doing the single dance awhile. For me more than him, I confess this--for Finley is absolutely sure that he will never stop loving me, that I am his perfect, wild-driven savage-moon-girl (or whatever he thinks I am, I haven't really asked)..... but I did do the right thing. I did.

I'm still so confused, because I keep stopping to think about it. I was hoping solace would offer me an answer; I plead and wrote my seals in the sand and thus far there has been silence..... but I have Faith. In the Atlantic, in my God. In myself.

God, in myself.... I'm so proud to write that and have it be true!

I'm so happy here. I'm....so..... happy. I can barely breathe from the weight of it; like I'm carrying a golden cow upon my shoulders.

I bought a rainbow armband here. It was the first thing I bought for myself--a rainbow armband. The first thing I wanted; isn't that silly? A leather bracelet for Finley with a dull bronze star--old and just a little bit wild. It feels, when I channel it, like the Finley my Finley will be someday--the one I love too much to defame him by describing it.

May my hope become his prophecy; for my Finley could be the warrior he is named to be if he could look up from his armor. He will, someday. I know.... I know he will.

For Katie I stole a box of matches; I filled a little perfume bottle with ocean-water and just the smallest bit of sediment; I'm remembering how this feels so I can channel it for her when I'm near. I'm also looking for red coral, but can't find any, which is frustrating--I might just have to go with something else I've seen, something that channels like her.

I've also been collecting shells--only the ones that want to come, naturally--from the beach. Broken, bright, dull, small, big; there's always room in Payton's purse. Only for the ones that need a new place. Some ask me to throw them back, and I do; flinging them to the dying-waves as far as can be flung by a farm-girl from Wisconsin with a little prayer for their safety.

For my mother I have gathered a great many such pieces; especially ones with holes in them. I intend to buy fishline and beads in Greenville, when we return (too soon! Too soon will we return!) from Johann's  fabrics and fashion her a pendant.....

one that we Savages'd be proud to wear.

I'm looking for the children of course, but nothing's come across as quite right yet--I'm making a Disney  Sketchbook for Brooke, and I think Kayrene will want something from Urban outfitters, maybe a little armband for Kamden (though I doubt highly he'd desire one with a rainbow)..... a bracelet for Taylor, I think. Something that channels nicely and strongly and simply; her senses for that aren't so good I suspect and any excuse to get her smiling and happy is a good one.

I've also been thinking about something for Sean. He hasn't been my friend very long but he is patient and kind and my heart loves him. He feels more like an uncle, an older brother, than a friend..... I admire him.

It's funny, isn't it? All this money I have, they tell me 'go buy yourself something nice', but all I can think about are the people I love so much. The people who made sure I kept myself breathing long enough to be here....


I love this beach. I love this beach. I love this beach.


What else.....

I lost my meter for a minute today and was frightened, but we found it--I'd left it in the cooler. I was very high (as high as five hundred and twelve, I'm ashamed to say) and very low (forty-seven) today. Because of the Ocean.

Fun fact: Three days after I'm at the Ocean, those three days being control-hell for my diabetes; my bloodsugar will be absolutely and totally perfect. However, it does take three days. *Sighs* We're staying four....

Grandma told me in an aside today (she and I went "shelling" at nine in the morning, which was way too late so I knew something was going to be up) that Wendy isn't who she used to be because of her illness. She used to be a strong, confident business woman; now she's addle-brained, easily offended...

Grandma wants me and her out of here. Now. She wants me to hop a plane when I come back to Greenville and go home, and stay there for eternity, period.

I told her I couldn't do that. If I complete this summer's internship at the Daily Reflector, they will offer the same internship to me next summer, for a longer duration and with actual pay. For the same thing. John's already been told--as have I--by the editors, my bosses essentially; that I am talented, patient, professional, that they are tremendously impressed....

No, I won't pass up that opportunity. Especially not after my Uncle John all but begged me to remain; because I respect that man so much it sits like a scent on my skin. He can tell, Grandma says. She's talked to him....

Oh, I worry a great deal for her meddling. Partially because it stresses her out; more because I'm expected to help her. It's an unspoken agreement we have, really; that I am the politically talented accessory to her charade of control. Always it's been me, though her dislike for some (if not all) of my habits is nothing if not impressive.

I didn't tell her that Juliette needs a sister, that Wendy needs a daughter and a comforting person, that John needs someone on his side. I don't say that.

Today I went boogey-boarding on a rainbow-covered boogey-board (Grandma asks me quite seriously if I really do like rainbows; if I know what they mean, and I feign ignorance with a wink at Juliette, who giggles; and Gram lets it go). The waves in the Atlantic aren't soft and gentle like the ones in Clearwater. I like that they're wild but they exhausted me so! My limbs are languorous with the feel of the water on my flesh even now, hours later....

There are beach-waves in my hair. The highlights I had done--balanced, as so recommended by my best friend--are soaked with sea salt and sun and summer; and I look almost beautiful. I could pass for beautiful.

My eyes are blue-gold-grey; and they flicker with green when reflected with (a) racism (in the not-good way) or (b) waves (for the simple fact is that they're green).

Sleeping on the fifth-floor balcony tonight, on a cot. The last thing I see will be waves tonight. The last thing I smell will be the scent of salty brine. The last thing I hear will be the song of waves against my earlobes......


Oh, my Ocean. My Ocean.....

Juliette and I decided that I'm going to call my mom (when we get back to Greenville) and get a tattoo. Of my moon. On my ankle. The bandages would be off in time for the wedding, she says.....

I'll call m'mom and ask. I'd love my moon......










But somehow I don't feel like a moon? But why?

Wild:

Been writing in Gallifreyan a lot today
things like "I miss the river"
things like "My heart longs for your hearts"
things like "I miss the sound of your voices"

I think I miss the stability, if not the silence, in Fort
which surprises me
it's so funny to realize I'll read this later and feel angry at myself
feel stupid--how could I ever miss home with ____ going on?

But the people I love are there, waiting for me
the people who know me and not the well-behaved person I've been trying to be
the real me
the me I hate so much it makes me sick there

all the irony, no?

but all I want right now is an Xbox or a Nientendo or some Who
Some Criminal Minds, Being Human, Lost Girl
my books, oh God, my books, I actually made a list of random quotes swimming over my eyeballs yesterday
that's my life at home

and it isn't a full one,
but I can make it better.

It'll be hard. There's no mistaking that. I can't forget that.




I also think I can do it.
After what I've already done, already seen, am to do, am to see, this Summer....
I can rule my own life, for God's sake
I can try.

I won't let myself be buried again
not one limb, not one finger, not one strand of too-long hair
no earth for me.

I will be a Wild and dangerous thing......

Wild: A Slow day for the Dead

I'd write that things were happening,
but happening they are not
I'm reading about rituals
on a slow day for the Dead.

It's not polite to moan, to mew
that day is slow and fading;
my rusted blue-eyes flicker
on a slow day for the Dead.

The Heat is heavy on the air
my pale lungs breathe in the sun
I fiddle with my moonstone
on a slow day for the Dead.

The trees outside are still and numb
The office full of bowing heads
The click of fingers on the keys;
 a slow day for the Dead.

A slow day for all the dead
Death for the day is slowed
The old ones go on living;
it's a slow day for the Dead.

A slow day for the Dead.

Wild: Savage Daughter

So last night my mom texted me. Said she was hurt by the things I'd told her had been said--for I keep no secrets for my mother. I have, but I no longer will, and have acted to live on the grounds of that promise.
Basically my family, on my mother's side, thinks we're all heathens. Blahblahblah, too many children, blahblahblah, naked in the woods, blahblah. Gossip gossip. Well she was upset. She's like, "They won't even come to the wedding will they? Payton, they hate me..."

And I thought and thought and thought about it. She kept going and going. More and more upset. And then I replied, "I am my mother's savage daughter. The ones who run barefoot, cursing sharp stones. I am my mother's savage daughter--I will not cut my hair. I will not lower my voice."

Went on a rant about how--if my mother and I were Savages--I was proud that we were savages. She should be proud because I am, and it's much harder for me with Wendy telling me that my hair's too long (no seriously, we did have that conversation) or that I'm too loud (also: seriously had this conversation); and I am very Proud to be who I am.

She called me today--she feels much better, blahblah. I said exactly the right thing, and she is proud--proud of me.

Today she posted the whole lyrics to the song on her Facebook, tagged Taylor and I (poor Taylor probably has no idea what's going on).

I just heard my aunt in the other room. She got a  call from Juliette, who thought that Craig and her had a fight or something (?). Wendy called first my Grandma, then Jojo, both of whom confessed they had no idea what it meant or where it came from. My smile grew with every new call. After the fourth one, I walked in to her bedroom, smiled and said, "No? Don't know it? It's a song."

"A song?" repeated Wendy, confused. "Why would she do a stupid thing like that?"

And I looked her dead in the eye and said, "It must be a heathen thing." And then I pulled my hairtie--it ripped--and let down my hair. My beautiful, not-one-colored mane of sun.

She cleared her throat and continued with her phone conversation, eying me nervously as I carried my basket of laundry to the laundry room, singing---I am my Mother's savage daughter, the one who runs barefoot, cursing sharp stones.....





I feel like I can fly.

Wild: Fuck

That awkward moment when you're having a great day and suddenly you get swept by heat and everything hurts and you want to die, because your site ripped out the previous night
#Goodbye, evening

Wild: Tick, Tock, goes the Clock--

Even for the Doctor.

So I'm leaving soon. For the Paper, to start work. Uncle John says I'm to begin work on the obituaries, which is frightening, not fascinating. Death isn't unsettling to me, but private. John was quite adamant that the obituaries are important because, "Everybody wants to see who dies." He also says I'll be working with the common funeral homes, maybe doing some interviews, looking at some documents, compiling things.

It sends a chill in my heart, but I know my Uncle. John would retain no one beneath his employ whose quality was not to his liking, and he would not have me exempt from that role for my relation. Short order, he wants to see if I have moxy. Wants to see if I may earn the opportunities with which he presents me; a challenge I mean to accept.

This idea entertains me enough to smile, balancing the tricky order between respect for the dead and excitement.

Not to mention I've no idea what the women wear at the Daily Reflector. Is it subtle? Individually-based? I'm tempted to throw on something Penelope-Garcia like, but that seems inappropriate, especially for Obituaries.

For now I'm settling on my hair pulled back (oh, shudder, but Wendy insists). Also, a printed green dress that's covered in little white flowers, my moonstone--because Rose or not, I'll always see my face on the moon. The one I drew on my ankle is gone but I drew another on my foot two days ago. It's getting rather out of hand. Maybe I should really, seriously consider that tattoo.....

I feel naked without the visual reassurance that once I was someone worth listening to. That once people bowed when I passed them. I feel like if I cannot see it, my heart will forget this beautiful, new-found resolution and leave me in the figurative mud--a shame, since it'd soil this new dress. Mum'd be livid, I would, if I came home covered in even figurative mud.

I'm ranting. It's because I'm so nervous, really.

I must learn to simultaneously control the wild and the balance in me. I feel like I'm one of the chorus people from Jekyll and Hyde, explaining the premise:
There's a face that we wear
In the cold light of day -
It's society's mask,
It's society's way,
And the truth is
That it's all a façade!

There's a face that we hide
Till the nighttime appears,
And what's hiding inside,
Behind all of our fears,
Is our true self,
Locked inside the façade!

Every day
People, in their own sweet way,
Like to add a coat of paint,
And be what they ain't!

That's how our little -
Game is played,
Livin' like a masquerade
Actin' a bizarre charade -
While playing the saint!

But I can do it. I'll be both, for to be one is a lie, an illusion: I am quite sick of illusion. Sick of it. Sick of lying to the people around me, even about myself. My pledge for this new life, the life I will so carefully construct around myself, is that I will not lie, will not deceive anyone, especially not myself. I will be decisive and swift in my judgment, but not set in stone. I will be the Eliac of Balance I have earned my way to be.


I will be.....Amazing. 


Wish me luck, world.

Wild: The Heathen

The people here do gossip
For the Witch who lives on dead-end street
They whisper when she passes and they shudder when she sighs,
because they know the truth.

That long ago I killed a man
His battered blood was on my hands
I took a knife and carved the organs
From his beaten chest.

His shallow breathing did depart
Into my hands did go his heart
It rests now as a pendant
On my dull and heathen bones.

From his shining golden head
I wove the promises of the dead
I made fine hats and pretty rugs
And sold them in the market-town.

From the sinews of his flesh
I made a sort of empty-nest
I lured all the sparrows here
To croon in the nest of the man-flesh.

From the veins I poured his blood
Into vials like a flood
I corked the bottles good and hard
And sold his blood as wine in-town.

His bright blue eyes I took for jelly
For sweet new eyes are good for selling:
Is that jam as sweet, as sweet
As his living eyes on my body?

Oh….

Long ago, I killed a man
His battered blood was on my hands
I took a knife and carved the organs
From his beaten chest.

His lips I left alone, they say
Their brows heavy with dismay:
Why would she only leave the lips?
Why the too-thin of his lips?

Could she taste his kisses
From their night-meets in the moon?

But they are fools.

I left his lips, his lips, his lips
His lips I left untouched
To remind us all, my loves
That secrets have their cost in blood,
That dead men do not lie.

That dead men do not lie.

That dead man broke my heart, they say:
On that, they are correct.

He took my heart and I took his
His bloody, beaten heart:
It rests now as a pendant
On my dull and heathen bones….

Wild: Being "Payton" Again

There's a moon drawn on my ankle
and long-braids in my hair
blood-red on my bottom-lip:
Hot sunlight makes the white skin Gold.

My bare feet'r tipped with sea-green paint
my eyes are blue as glass:
if I move--with a grace--that is effortless,
 will the women breathe my name?

This world, this moon, is possible--
if I run with wolves, if I fly at crow-wing length,
if I howl at the night-sky
no land will dare to hold me
and no land I'll dare to hold.

I am now a wild-girl
the savage from the northern lands,
whose voice sings from the heathen-speech
the savage from t'northern-lands
exiled for love.

Exiled for love
From home, from friend and country-wood,
my two feet carried me here.

I am a wild, moon-trenched girl
dancing in your summer-sun.

Wild: back to Greenville, kiddies

The things we want to lose, to take our rest from, are not meant to follow us. They are meant to leave us in safety and security.

The journeys we make in life where we want to change don't happen so we can forget that past, merely come to pain with it. Somehow, somewhere, it finds you again, and you feel the pain and have to be happy anyways. That's the hardest part. If you can do that, you can change, you're ready for that change.

I still can.

I was hanging out with Juliette and her friend Kat today. I went into my room to slip Pajamas on and I was walking to the door--the hallways are nice but they echo sound. No secrets in this house. I heard Kat's twangy voice, "....she's so weird. What the fuck do they do in Canada, anyway?"

"She's family," Juliette insisted. "She's always so like nice and everything."

"Her taste in music is DISGUSTING, too, know what I mean? She doesn't even like one direction! And it's like, whenever she fucking speaks it's shit that nobody even wants to know. It's like, what, you can't hold a normal conversation?"

"But she's pretty, though?" My faithful cousin, clinging to shreds. Why did I ever think I could fit in here?

"Pretty! You're joking. She wears antiques that are older than my grandmother. Worse, she likes them! No wonder she's single. Where did she go, anyway?"

I quietly opened the door and walked inside. I set Juliette's laptop on her bed and for a moment there's silence; I walked in like a queen.

"There's no need to say good-night," I said, my words thick. "I'm sure you have other words to use in conjunction with me." I glance at the weed on my cousin's bed. "Make sure to get rid of the smell this time, will you?"

I turned and left. It shouldn't hurt me this much when people I thought like me don't. It really shouldn't, that's life, you know? It makes me worried. What if that's why Juliette's other friends and I haven't met?

So I'm going to have a fling. A careless, angry, heartless fling where we end with fighting. I don't care who it is or if I like them, but I....

I want something I can hold on to when I feel like this. I do sometimes. I've been incredibly happy for nine days now and it's been a complete blessing, but pain catches up with me.... just like I said in the introduction to this post.

Yeah, see what I did there?


Don't worry, people-who-aren't-reading-this-shit-anyway. I have every intention of getting around it. I won't chicken out this soon, I've barely been here a week and this is just one tiny chip in my teacup.

Goodnight.

Wild: Blue-eyed girl

The Roses always told me that when my eyes are happy, they turn blue.
I don't think I've ever been happy like this since January, though....
They're pale. They're so pale they look like glass, really, with green twinges.
Wendy even asked if I had changed my eyeshadow--I laughed and said I'd changed my life....

I love this city.

I love the big spectrum of people--old and young and stylish and frumpy and energetic and slow and fat and skinny and beautiful and modest and religious and sarcastic--to start. I love the buildings that pierce the sky so much, I'm worried it'll bleed in that cute, Wisconsin-born-girl sort of way. I love the men's style, which is distinct. Men don't all dress alike here, unlike at home.
I love the advertisements that are everywhere, especially when you don't expect them. I love the televisions in the taxi's backseat that show flashes of funny little commercials and recommendations for shoe shopping.

Recommendations are everywhere. To a hundred people, their way is best. Because this city is so big, I think they're all right, too. Just because there's a good pizza joint on Forty-second doesn't mean there isn't one that's just as good (if not better) on ninth.

Oh, I went to Rockefeller Plaza today. The Top of the Rock, they call it.

It stopped my heart. I channeled it, maybe I shouldn't have, but I wasn't overwhelmed. Overwhelmed, with channeling, is for the Eliac--no, my heart is my own. I took video of the edges, too, on my shitty little cellular phone. I took picture after picture after picture--I bought two disposable cameras and I only have nine left!

The top of the world. I touched it, it was there, and it felt my feet on its back. I spent all day looking for the tallest building-tips I could find and thinking, today I looked down on that. Today when I waved my hand on the top of the Rock, it was on top of this building. I wondered what it would be like to clean the windows....

Oh, God, the Top of the Rock. When I'm in a car, I lean forward and pretend I'm flying....Fuck if I wasn't a fledgling before I flew from Top of Rock. Wendy and Juliette have so little patience sometimes. Yes, it's their ToM, but regardless.....

They were here for a miracle, and they did much more complaining than I would've liked. We ate dinner at this Sea Grill (that's really the name, the Sea Grill), in the outdoor section I assume is open seasonally; as it sits on top of the skating rink that Katie mentioned when I told her where I was by text.

I rode a train earlier today. I liked it and I want to add it in here before I forget: it was clean, not dirty or grungy. I always assumed trains would be just as angry and edgy on the inside as they were out, but I was wrong. That said, I'm never eating any food from them again. Moving on.

For dinner--the Sea Grill, again, sorry about the Rant--I had Crab cakes. Two of them, big ones. Smothered in something that was mustard-y but wasn't, with a plain garnish that curled my toes.

I took one bite and I looked up at the top of the building I'd just seen the heavens from and I closed my eyes and I cried. Tears. Legitimate tears. I took big bites of the fucking deliciousness and I waved my hands to myself like I were praying, trying to choke the words out, the gratitude that was so deep and heavy I couldn't manage a single word. The Waiter actually thought I was having heatstroke and kept having water brought to me--oh, the irony, for it's water I missed most just then--but really I just couldn't speak. I was so happy I couldn't speak.

My eyes, when I saw them, weren't blue. They were pale, almost green-white, with flimmers of blue. Like my fingernails. Rimmed in forest green.....

I barely paid attention. There was so much to see, constantly to see, to touch, to smell and whatever else. The people everywhere--I can't even begin. I don't know where to start. Oh, there were things that grabbed me, but that's just because I liked them, not that they were any more noticeable than anything else present. Shops where they sold recycled clothes, where vintage was the mainstream, where Van Gogh had unwittingly decorated the t-shirts....... A Hollister whose whole outside was television screens, showing live feed from whatever ocean they're so fucking fond of.

A fountain I'd seen a picture of on tumblr, that Karen Gillian and Matt Smith had been sitting at (I squealed like a tiny child, and people stared for a second).

The outside of these buildings are like the crevices of my heart, because they're balanced. They're what they were chosen to be, nothing more or less. Some are exquisitely complicated, others are brown-brick and fuck off with your architecture, thank you. I can smell the smoke and the smog and the sweat of the people. I can taste the cologne of the man muttering to himself about cab fares and pulling at the collar of his stained, red shirt. I can see the woman who is well over forty, possibly even fifty, and still looking like a rockstar. I can see the man with broken sunglasses, jangling his cup.

I belong here. There's no question, there's no doubt. It's like I left a big coat of judgment at the door of a Party--- that's what being in this city is like. Like endless streaks of lightning. Like every dream you've ever had or even don't remember having gathered your preferences, put them in a pile, and UPS'd them here, first class.

The lights in the sky at night make the streets like day. I'm waiting for the Gargoyles to fly overhead....surely, if a place like New York can be real, they simply must be. Goliath owes me a date.

We went into a place called Free People and I policed the clearance, bought myself a new shirt. The woman there was so amused by my blithering idiocy regarding my "wisconsin girl" city shit she gave me a discount, opened me an account on their website, and everything. She didn't do that for the person ahead of me, either.

It goes to show that character, that kindness, can matter. Even in a place like this. Even in a city like New York.

Times Square. I was there. I saw things and we went into Disney store.... I'll let my pictures talk for me. My fingers are so happy to hold on to the things I felt today that I'm too lazy to offer them to the nobody that reads this.

I saw at least one fine, beautiful pair of boots, but none of them fit what I wanted. What I was looking for.

Oh, the women here are beautiful, little blog. I took pictures of a few when they weren't looking--but only the ones that were so beautiful they made my heart stop. I could be happy here, I could make friends here, as easily as breathing. As easily as sleep is tempting my eyelids here....

Blisters on my feet, snarls in my hair from the wind, one-hundred degree heat and a barely-controlled bloodsugar, you say?

I say, best day of my life.

I say, I'm coming back.

I say, Fort Atkinson can't keep me there. When I inherit that money come my twenty-first I'm back here, I'm bringing Katie and maybe Finley and whoever else and I'm going to be there with them. The people I love. The people who loved me when I felt like I was nothing--four days ago? Five?

Katie told me today that Fort was a little empty without me. Rather than saying, I know, that's what my summer would've been like, I said I missed her.

I do miss her. I miss her so much I doodled her and finley last night, when we were still in Greenville. No matter how tremendously happy I am--and by God, am I happy, am I alive and well and flourishing for once in my fucking life--I still miss them. I want them there because I love them just as much as I love a city that accepts me.

Realizing that was the most important thought of all.......









New York, New York, New York!

Home.

Wild: Days two and three

I woke up at eleven yesterday, tested my bloodsugar. Then Wendy, Juliette and I hand Pedicures. Wendy (after looking at my nails and face with distaste) also insisted I got my eyebrows waxed and my fingernails fixed.  The man who did this to me was highly sympathetic with my shy, quiet responses, to which I said, over and over again, "I trust you. You're good at your job."

I think he wasn't used to hearing it. He brightened, picked out a pretty color for my toenails and made my fingernails shimmer iridescently. My eyebrows are honestly perfect, and it didn't even hurt because he was so careful. I think he's used to being bossed around and taken for granted, and maybe I was supposed to act like that to, but I don't do that. I'm gentle. I believe firmly in equality and kindness. I don't care if you work third-shift at a Gas station and have four bastards or if you own half of New York. You're a person, with feelings, with dreams and hopes and illogical fears, and that is how I'll treat you.

*Shrugs* I value, too much, the human heart, some say.

They're wrong, though. No matter who you are, you appreciate being noticed and loved for who you really are, and I do as second nature. That guy did ten times better a job on me than my aunt and cousin, just because I was kindly to him, and he had a motivation for wanting me to look nice. He was so starved for basic human interaction.....

Then we went to lunch. I'm rather obsessed with the chicken salad and seafoody-things around here, I'm having a lot of that. The chicken salad at home is downright disappointing but beautiful here.

The sky is beautiful here, and the trees, too. It reminds me of home, which makes it easier to breathe sometimes. When we got home, I tumblred for a few hours. Then Juliette and I went out for a little while to the Downtown area (read: real ghetto, fascinating and fun) to a little store she wanted me to see. She didn't normally go there, she said.

Yeah, it's a Craft store called Sojourn. My nose and eyes are assailed with things I know from the Roses: talismans, amulets, herbs like Yarrow and Ochre, clothes that would stop your heart because they were so beautiful, books and books on Craft, the knives, the wands, the perfumes, everything. I'm so happy I have to "wipe my eyes" a suspicious number of times. Here are the legends from the Norseman's lands, the books on the Dryads and the Naiads, the legends from Ancient Greece, tucked in a corner near Dragon's blood incense....

I buy perfume that smells like the one I wore at the Roses: tangy and bitter like blood but it warms your body and you lean it a little better, even if you wrinkle your nose (later I buy sensual Amber from Bath and Body works and combine the two, and good God, the hotness!). The bottles are small. I buy two.

I'm walking back and cradling them like they were my precious precious babies (read: they are) when I catch sight of a green Talisman I'm unfamiliar with. I bring it to the counter and ask the cashier (read: gorgeous, with flowing brown hair and she's dressed like a Druid) what it's for, because I like the way it channeled.

She studies me with curious eyes, then, in a soft voice that rubs you at the edges, intones, "It's a Talisman of Balance. For the soul." Her long hands fiddle with a wave bracelet.

Juliette and I speak at the same time. Her words are, "Who would ever buy that?"

I say, "I'll take it."

Then I catch a book in the corner of my eye I have to pick up.... just for a moment.

Understand, I'm not a practitioner. These books that explain rituals by my light in the low-hung heat of Summer, these books that ask for blood and wax and sacrifice, are not the magic I was taught. James, my teacher when I Was a Rose,  expressly forbade any and all Pagan or Wicca related magic to be taught to me. It wasn't, he explained, that I would lack the Talent, but rather that I would throw myself into it and specialize.

Specialize is (if not exclusively perhaps) a Rose term; it's the Magic that an Eliac adapts once their true White Knight is found.  You Specialize in whatever magic best suits your heart, personality, all that stuff.

So I know absolutely nothing about their type of magic, the Pagans, the Wicca, other than that it isn't as exclusively dark as it's made out to be by popular society, and that there's a touch to nature involved that is replicated in few other places and religions. I've always wanted to learn but I lack the Coven and my soul is in no place to go looking for new adventures and..... I think James is right. I'd twist it, manipulate it, for my own devices. I'd lose the purpose to find myself, and I'm not sure what part of myself I'd find.

This book in on the Faerie myths and how they are tied to common Fairy tales. There are a few rituals in the pages, I sense them whispering in my ear.

Snow White (as a Nymph) is painted on the Cover, long fingers curled around a bright, red apple. The letters on the Title cover sparkles.

Make that moment eternity.

We left and I'd spent money and Juliette said, "Yeah, I thought you'd like it there."

"Why?"

She considers this as we climb into her red jeep. Muse flies over the Radio and I grin in recognition.

"I dunno," she said. "There's incense and those weird necklaces you're always wearing and books.... like witch stuff."

We went to bath and body works, because they had Honeysuckle lotion for a limited time, and I also bought some amber, which I mixed with my new scent from Sojourn.

Then, we hung out with Kat. Short for Katherine. She has waist-length dark hair and a long, pale face with cat-like features. She's thin and bony like a faery. Her voice is twangy because she moved here from New York and the accent hasn't faded yet.

She's fucking beautiful. Three seconds and, despite myself, despite the men plastered to her side, I'm fascinated.

I talk to her all night, and the next day we spend time with her and we end up cuddling and she asks me if I wanted to touch the tattoo of an elephant behind her ear. I change her flat tire when it happens, because she's too small to lift it and she smiles and--

Flirting. Humans. I'd forgotten how much fun they could be.

Today was fun too, I got a nice trim for my hair and everything, but they straightened it. That freaked me out because to me, my hair is a symbol of who I want to be/who I am. Wild, a little mousy, wavy, but not too much--and they straightened it. I freaked out for like ten minutes.

I'm so happy here. I feel so pretty and alive and I can breathe. It's so nice to wake up and not feel like I'm worthless, like there's a world out there that appreciates me for who I am---

and here, for the very first time in my life anywhere but Schuster's, they do.


*Shakes head with a grin* I still miss Katie, though. Still miss Finley. What I don't know how to communicate is that when I return, I won't be the same person. I'm already not the same person. I can breathe and I sense myself and my purpose in life again. I can keep my head up high, and I feel confident. I feel like I really, honestly belong here, and I've been here two days.

I'm leaving for New York tomorrow. I'll have adventures and then I'll come back, and I'll live here until August and I'll flirt with the pretty girl friends Juliette has and I'll be....

Amazing.

Wild: The first day (yesterday)

People live their lives without too much conscious thought. They do, they act, they eat and sleep and breathe. They want something, they pursue it. They dislike something and avoid it.

I can’t live that way.

My mind swells up and it won’t hold still. Shadows become half-read Norse Myths, the smile of a stranger makes a secret past, the moon on the water is a power to vanquish evil. People who only graze the surface of the consequence of that knowledge, that my mind is hungry for magic, dismiss me. They say, I am enveloped in a bubble, it is not a real bubble, who am I to question the world, why should I think myself superior?

I don’t think myself superior, but anybody can question the world, and I do.

Fort Atkinson is a mindless, racist, sexist, judgmental and clique-based little town. If you weren’t raised in the pram there, forget it. Katie told me that Fort “isn’t much into acceptance”, and the woman hit the nail dead on the head (no pun intended).

It was killing me. I lost who I was when I came to Fort--the semi-graceful girl who had braids in her ratted hair, who wore shoes that didn’t fit and Jeans with holes in them and quoted Sappho--and I left me behind so I would fit in. I made my soul so tired by trying to fit in with the people here, to give up anything they asked, so they would accept me.

They didn’t accept me. I was always a little off, because the Roses were my life then. The Roses, my people’s well-being, was more important than so-and-so’s party to me. I had a future, a secure place, an unquestioned position of respect and honor, and I let that be an excuse for my shyness. I let shyness become an excuse for being afraid to talk to people who didn’t know me for the crown perched on my brow…..

And it was killing me. The air in Fort is filled with self-loathing you didn’t have before you came, anger you had buried safely, a lack of acceptance for anyone different than you. You choke on it. It fills your life like water fills the lungs of drown victims, and there is no reward for it. Amalgamation is accepted, expected, ruthlessly pursued.

You have one window to pass a judgment, and if you fuck it up, you won’t get another one. Period. For example, let’s say you’re involved in something that consumes your entire life. You don’t know how to deal with people, and your words and phrases are old. The ideas that offer themselves to you aren’t normal. You’re painfully shy around people who don’t know to hail you as a Queen of a Roleplaying group, because that’s the only time you feel beautiful, the only time you feel real.

Better let it go, fucker. You read aloud in English class. You’re screwed, because you like education. Or you don’t smoke. Or you don’t drink. Or your hair is the wrong color. Or you wear a Velvet dress when you walk to McDonald’s for a McChicken. Or you think that the best answer to Bieber fever is a fucking shotgun.

It was killing me. The stigma I have in that city is absolutely horrendous, totally unfair, and I can’t escape it. I’ve tried to show people that I’m honestly the same as they are, that I like the same things, think the same ways. I’m witty and bright and charming when I want to be, mostly without thinking about it. I was wilting there. I was a leaf after a draught and I was falling into the gutter, I was a chigger in the leg of a fat guy.

I fell in love. It rescued me. It killed me. It destroyed everything I had and my world fell apart and then I really had nothing, and I cried myself to sleep so often. My eyes were always green, but I’d do mental exercises to keep them grey for company.

Now I’m gone.

Today I put the braids back in my hair, like when I lived in Monona. I wore a moonstone around my neck and stared out the plane window, murmuring the names of the people who matter most to me: Katie, Finley. Like a mantra, I murmured those names to myself, quietly, so you couldn’t hear unless you were listening for it. I was nervous and scared and those two kept me alive, and I owed them everything.

I always will.

When we land, in Raleigh, Wendy, John, Juliette and I go to Cheesecake Factory. I ordered BBQ Salmon with Garlic mashed potatoes, and Juliette takes me for a brief walk around the mall. We discuss what it’s like in Fort, why I’m not happy there (which I honestly tried to avoid in conversation, but she told me I deserved to talk about myself because I so rarely do), and then we went into this place--a bar, really--called Red Monkey. It’s decorated like a wild version of Velvet Lips, only, less classy. There are boys my age inside, drinking up a storm (they don’t check ID there, Juliette explains), and one (complete with Jersey hair), looks at my thighs like he wishes he were closer to them and says, “Thirsty, ladies? Refreshment’s on me.” I smile, say, “We’re just walking out, Sweetie,” because I was thinking about River Song. He says, “Walking out! But you just got here!” And without thinking I said, “Bad Luck for you!”

His man-friends are so proud I’ve humiliated their brethren that they invite she and I to a party, which we decline, since Juliette lives in GreenVille, which is a considerable distance away from where we are.

He thought I was pretty. Me.

We get to my family’s amazing house there (truly: amazing), and Juliette says her friends want to meet me. I change into a Doctor who t-shirt and shorts, throw on a few pieces of antique Jewelry, throw my braids into a pony tail, and we leave.

Yeah: her friends fucking adore me. They think I’m hilarious with my “Canadian” voice and my “fucking weird” jokes. They realize I’m different, but they don’t rub my face into it like I were some drunken chit who’ll commit a school shooting or something. Their behavior is normal for my age group, and I join in. I act like I were at a Revel and they have nothing but compliments for me; even when they’re too drunk to be making it up they’re still saying nice things.

I know it isn’t in my head.

But look at me today! I had sea food for two of three meals today. I wore clothes that made me feel pretty, got hit on, flirted with some of Juliette’s female friends (quite unfair when they’re not so clear-headed XD), and felt like I belong there. Uncle John is telling me that whatever I want to do in New York we’ll do, no question…..

I’m going to sleep. It’s nearly three in the morning here, which is two in Fort.


But all I can think……


My eyes. They’re blue.

Wild: Deep breath

You might wish a little
to be carried off somewhere....
-Sappho


I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm getting on a plane and going to Raleigh, North Carolina, to intern at a Newspaper. Any section I want. It's paid intern, and free room and board, why the fuck not? I mean to work hard. Okay, yes, I'm staying with my crazy cousin. And yes, she parties really hard.

But they do have unlimited wifi and I'm the only one who uses it--how could I ever, ever say no to that?

For a week in the middle, I'm going to New York. Seeing things, touching things, learning to live. Fighting. Going to see Brave and probably Wicked or Phantom, just to be touristy, wearing my new clothes that make my mother's toenails curl. The things that make me look different. The things I'm proud to own.

But holy fuck, fuck, fuck, am I going to miss the people I love here. Katie and Finley. Finley and Katie. Maybe even Morgan or Mallory, or Sam, even though we haven't hung much. Schultz, even if we haven't spoken in like two months (Schultz if you still do the blog thing, Finley's taken up guardianship of the Fox).

I'm going to miss those people. I'm going to miss those two, because they're my heart. Even in the face of this mega, epic adventure, promises to see me again when I get back, I know that I'm going to come back a different person. I'm leaving who I am, right now, behind me forever. I need to change.

I'm seeing ghosts here. Roses who won't look me in the eye when I pass them or murmur 'Ithil,' or press two fingers to their lips and then off their foreheads to prove they comprehend that I am of the Ordainment. *Bites lip* I'm sure that Brontus will look after the Kingdom while I'm away, and if not him and Henri and Dyrim, then Katie. That's a comfort, I suppose.

I loved my people when I ruled them. I know it even more, because I don't rule them anymore. I'm going to mess them, sharing their troubles with me at the Revels, flirting and brushing silver hair from my face. Taking off priceless gems from around my neck at the end of every night. Knowing that I belonged....

Sacrifices.

Sacrifices for my future, for my real life. It's so hard for me to look at it that way, but I can't seriously expect to fall in love if I'm like this, can I? Miserable and trapped and suffocating? Wilting like a summer flower in the autumn chill?

I must find my own light, moon or not. I must find my own White Knight, Queen or not. *Clenches eyes* I need to learn to make myself happy.

Wild:

Hung out with Mallory yesterday. Her angry heart is wild and she's unsure and I want to comfort her.

Old Payton, I think, would have waited, been patient, looked for the right way to do things. I'll say what's on my mind, instead. I'll give her what she needs and tell her she needs it, I'll let her fight for herself.

Please, God, Let it work.

Wild: New fucking Revelation, you assholes

I'm not sure why I even have this blog. I put all my Rose feels on the other one anyway, no one reads this but me. I guess it's a comfort to know that when there are mornings like this, words keep me grounded. Words stop me from screaming at the River until I go hoarse, tearing out the silver locks of hair I have left.

Fuck this.

I broke up with Finley. I did. Me. Told him everything and I was so angry I actually lost my American Accent. Again.

I could go on about it, I could give you the exact words if I wanted to, make it pretty. I don't want to make it pretty, though, because it wasn't--it just hurt. Necessary, and it hurt.

I'm not a Rose anymore. Yes, that's the second thing on my list of Fuck-my-life right now. I gave up a world that has supported, loved, nourished, taught me since I was little more than a child. Yes, okay, they put me through some really hard, painful shit. Physical, emotional, mind-washing? Undoubtedly. Do I regret it? No. I miss it like hell. That's how good a job they did and I want--no, I need--to wrap my fucking head around that. I don't have a lot of self worth, and that made me think that--what they--that that was okay.

Yeah, it wasn't. It'll leave a scar on me.

But I miss it. I'm lonely, because I'm not surrounded by people. I'm sad, because those people did need me to guide them and they don't have me anymore. They have my replacement, who doesn't want to be my replacement. Really, it's none of my concern. They won't allow me back in. Brontus--my warrior--will not allow me to even consider walking back until my Human life is stable, until I could again attempt balance and take up the throne.

In his heart, he believes I will return to rule.

I'm not going to. I'm glad I can't get back in (hypothetically, I haven't actually tried) to that world, because it isn't what I need.

The people who I knew in high school, especially the Theater people (with the exception of Katie Gundlach and Hannah Nathan and possibly, if she plays her cards right, Morgan Gorman apparently), are never going to get over the stigma that is attached to my name. Ever. Hannah's grad party proved it to me once and for all; no matter how bright-eyed and bushy tailed and normal I am around them, they'll find a way to make what I'm saying perverse. It hurts me, it hurt me then, it hurts me now, and I've cried a lot over it, but there's nothing I can do. I can't make them understand I'm a living, breathing person, not even to Schulz.

That said, if the summer play comes along, I'll still do it. I'll still try out and get picked over again, because I love it. I love plays, and acting. The people involved might be assholes, but that's what I love, and that's what I'll do. If I got my Poems published, if I turned down a real show for my paintings, I can act if I love it. Angela told the group of people at that play that I shouldn't act, and she can fuck off. I'm not in it for money, I don't think I'll be a movie star, I'm not auditioning for commercials. I'm there because I love it and you can't make me stop.

Moving on.

The city of Fort Atkinson is creeping into my blood like a poison. When I moved here I was really pretty sure of myself and solid, life petitioned to fuck me up, and it worked. Okay, yeah, I let it happen. I let people think I was quiet because I was shy and nobody here bothered to correct it. When I walk down the street in a crushed velvet dress and a bow-tie around my neck and white streaks in my hair, people stare here. They're angry. They're racist. They're about as intolerant as the Nazi party. They have a beautiful River walk, which I will miss immensely.

They're poisoning me.

I. Am. A. Good. Person. I'm not different from other people my age. Yes, things have happened to me that haven't happened to them, but I am just like other teenagers. I want to dance and sing and be fucking crazy. I was at Revels, and they never saw it. I was--will be, too, come fall--at Schuster's, where I have, from the get-go, been accepted for exactly who I am and how talented I am at learning things.

Pause. You are now subject to a mini-rant.

Schuster's. I got interviewed there, they accepted me. There was never an assumption that I was odd, but I acted THE EXACT SAME FUCKING WAY I do the rest of the time. The other Spooks who were new? They called me Mama because I was so good at it they didn't believe I was new there. I did make up and costuming for other people; I googled how to do new patterns of Clown faces or lion masks or Dog wrinkles on somebody. Gore. It came naturally, not because I'd seen it (Roses) but because my heart knew what to do. I am the Golden child there. With Schultz and the people around her, even if they're mostly good people and whatever, they automatically assume I'm weird.

They cling to each other's arms. They turn and walk away from me when I talk to them.

At Schuster's, it was never like that. My second year there I had some trouble, because I was stupid and brought Taylor and she ranted about me. Well, she isn't coming back this year, because Kelly isn't. Finley is. Katie is. My Kingdom, returned. I belong in that forest. I belong with the screaming people who howl at the moon who signal.

I remember at Haunted Hallway when I howled, to tell them (the other people there) that yeah, it was over, no more groups. Mostly for Finley (who was at one end of the hallway) and Katie (who was, by cowinkydink, at the other). Schultz was like, "WHAT are you howling for?" Wearily. Like I were some kid she were babysitting. I know that mostly she didn't even want to hear the answer. It isn't even her fault, it's just an idea. She's trying to do better now, but that's not the point of this:

Schuster's never did that, and so, I belong there.

I belong there. I'm happy there. People who haven't learned my stigma like me, For me. Period.  I also learned that it wasn't in my head; I am talented when I'm not afraid to speak because everyone will judge my ass for it.

With me so far? Because that sentence was really, really hard for me to come to terms with....

I am a completely different person than I was in High School. I have gone through tremendous and complete changes. If I treat you with contempt now, Schultz-Theater-awesome, it isn't because I think I'm better than you, more talented or devoted than you, it's because you treated me like I was nothing in a place where everybody should be explored and tolerated, like at My Schuster's. Period. Yes, that might be unfair, but I'm tired of being fair. You can change my mind. I won't be a Fort-Atkinson native and pass judgment that's eternal and unchanging, that's wrong and I was NOT raised here. That's not how my heart, my mind, works.

I'm tired of hiding how awesome I am.

I'm not arrogant for thinking that. Christ, look at me.

I have ruled a Kingdom.
I have survived torture.
If not Torture, High School. All the fucking awards for surviving High School.
I have a lighter covered in Gallifreyan that I use to light Incense when I write my poetry and paint pictures of mermaids and read from e.e. Cummings and my dear Sappho and Holly Black and Melissa Marr and Anne Rice--the people who make me understand my own heart better than anyone has here. Ever. At all.
I'm a diabetic. I live it every day and it's hard, but I do it.
I lived through heartbreak, every day. When times were good, I laughed off being ostracized, I made it okay and funny and people shifted awkwardly. When times were bad, it cut me to the core, it made me afraid to get out of bed every morning because I knew that the city mostly hates me and is full of rude, judgmental people who don't actually know a single, fucking thing about me. When times were bad I made my own eyes green, because I was just too afraid to show anyone here who I am. I deserve all the medals for living through that, for pushing myself through it, for as long as I have. Why? Because I shouldn't have had to. I shouldn't have to now, either.

I could go on about myself (you know it, I'm a rambler bitches), but this isn't the point.

Now, what I'm going to do.

I'm not cutting my hair. I'm growing it out, still. I'm braiding seaweed into it and shells and crystals and I'm going to be a wild savage girl. The kind I can't be here. Because this city would likely burn me at the stake, anyway, legalities be damned (gasp, the language of Satan). Doubly so since I didn't vote for Scott Walker. I'm, like, the first on the burninator list (and you know they have one).

I'm also getting green streaks in it. Not punk ones, seaweed colored ones. I want to be a muted beauty. I want to be a beauty, that isn't pretty, and knows it, accepts it. A woman of layers, like in The Second Mrs. Giocanda.

I'm moving out of my Parent's house by the end of next summer, and I'm moving to Madison. Seriously. I'm finding a roommate, I'm finding a good job there after I get one here, and I'm going there. I'm going to spend my time finding a new--family--and live my life. Live it. Hard. I'm not going to be well-behaved and quiet, I haven't been for ages but none of you have noticed so hey, what the fuck, why not write it out.

I'm leaving most of my books, too. Just the ones I really love, are coming, because I can't hide behind them anymore. I can't. I had to here, I had to build up armor, but I can't spend my time living in them anymore. It's the real world that's mine now.

I'm....staying single for awhile. I want, not need, a White Knight--yes, I still believe that, and yes, I will consider searching for mine--but when I find someone, I want her to understand me and I want to understand her, too. Or Him, if I can get my hands to not tremble whenever I'm alone with a guy, if I can stop remembering---

 You know, spectrum. Whatever. I want and deserve to be happy with my love life, and I haven't been. Love shouldn't make me feel like I'm being punished for it, and every love I've had has done just that. Still Love. Still mine.

But I can't live like that. I think you have to, while you're a Fort Resident, but I'm.... I'm not like these people. If I get galled by being called weird and different here, I have to remember that I am weird and different--but only here. A person who likes Ben Criss because he sounds like the Iron-Willed King and talks like he's from the 1800's is bound to seem weird to people who only give a shit about the Kardashians and think Stephanie Meyer is the greatest Literary Genius ever, right?

Part of it is....Balance. Another firm, unshakable belief of mine. If I want them to look and accept me for who I am, I should probably value them for who they are, too. I thought I'd been doing that all along, and I probably have been, but it isn't likely fair I'm frustrated. There's probably a reason they treat me this way..... even if I disagree with it, it's a reason, to them.


So. That's my life. If anybody reads this and in a year from now will have their shit ready to run, too, call me.



Payton. Not Eliac, The Moon, Victoria Winters, Josette DePrie, The Mermaid Queen, Pete, Mama, Just Payton....



Out.

Wild: Quoting Jeannine Hall Gailey

Wild:

I was cleaning my computer today, and I found this.


 me:  Hey.

 Leona:  Hola gorgeous.

 me:  How's it going?

 Leona:  Reading rose emails
Confused
Rereading

 me:  Well.... about that.
I....
I talked to Ryan today.
He smashed his splinter bottle.

 Sent at 9:22 PM on Wednesday

 me:  We had a discussion.
I had .... a bit of a break down... but I'm okay.
I feel.... better.
More like myself.
More like myself than I have since....
I can't remember when.
Sighs And I love you.

 Leona:  Still

 me:  What's confusing about the emails?

 Leona:  Though everything thing

 me:  It isn't going to change. I'm sorry. I'm okay with you not changing, but it won't.
I can't change that. Not only do I not want to try, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't if I did.
You make me happy.
Happier than anyone else has.

 Sent at 9:26 PM on Wednesday

 me:  I'm not going to hit you with any more of me. It's not what you want, and if you're making me happy, then what right do I have to harm you or hinder your wishehs?
*wishes
Breath
So.
Emails.
What's going on?

 Sent at 9:27 PM on Wednesday

 Leona:  I like being "hit with you"
It's a different bit of you
You know, you, I love
sigh
You say I make you happy?
Everyone else is telling you how damn unhappy I make you

 me:  You do make me happy.
That doesn't mean you can't hurt me.
In fact, the ones we love most are often the ones that harm us most also.
Sappho said it, and now I understand.
And if they say that, and don't understand the worth of every moment I'm with you, then they haven't loved, not really.
they can't understand  how every time I look at you, the guilt and the pain he left me goes away, and I'm who I'm supposed to be--who I Feel like after he spoke to me today.
He... he let me go.
Pats hand, nods slowly, not looking at her I believe he's surrendering.

 Sent at 9:34 PM on Wednesday

 Leona:  closes eyes turning away This-  I don't have words right now

 me:  I'm surprised as well. But I had... a lot to say today.
He forgives me.
I....the hole. You're always talking about it, how I have it.
I feel... better.
I think it was him..
Holding on to me in a way I couldn't let go of, couldn't forgive myself for.
I haven't felt half-dead once since I spoke to him--and normally, I... I do. Feel that way.
I find myself surprised to be breathing, because thinking about anything hurts.
I don't feel that way now.
...I don't think I will again.
It's a miracle. I've been Thanking God.

 Leona:  ... forgive the past.

 me:  I'm trying. I think I have a chance.
Not that it matters.
You're safe.
I did it.
You're safe.
Look, look at the forum--he's even changed my picture back.
 Sent at 9:39 PM on Wednesday

 Leona:  He even posted your conversation

 me:  .....He did?
I'm... sorry... if that hurt you.
I asked him to.
I hope it's all right.
I thought you would perhaps want to know?

 Sent at 9:40 PM on Wednesday
 me:  ...and he edited. A lot.

We were in a parking lot, for God's sake.

 Sent at 9:42 PM on Wednesday
 me:  I'm sorry.
I could take it down?
Could you say something please?
I'm worried.

 Leona:  He told me he edited it
That there was much more... crying and empty eyes

 me:  Nods slowly Yes.... I couldn't help it.
 Leona:  Telling me how people will make us fight for sport
Just to see our hearts break
Just to see you weak

 me:  As I Said.
The only weakness I have....
...is the one I never, ever want to lose.
Ah, shit.
But I won't pressure you.
When your life changes, when you need to go.... I... I'll understand.

 Leona:  Dear god
I'm not leaving

 me:  Not today and not tomorrow. But years from now?
You told me.
You told me you were, do you remember that?
"I'm not a constant."
I feel like those words are etched for my skull.
and I don't care.
I have now.
I have now and that's all that matters.

 Leona:  I'm not a constant. It's true.

 me:  Don't....
Tell me that today.
I've had enough... of that... today.
Please.

 Sent at 9:49 PM on Wednesday

 me:  ...All I asked him to do was to tell him about the conversation he'd posted.

 Leona:  I can't there for you the way you're there for me. But damn it if you you think for one minute that I wouldn't die for you, that I don't love you, that I don't care about you, and want to know you, see you-
Then your faith in me is a lie. I will do what I can to change that,

 me:  I know better.
Some days I don't want to.
It'd be so much easier to let you go if you didn't love me at all.
I've spent years from everyone who really knows me hearing that. I wish I could explain that better.
I wish I had a box filled with the happiness you give me.
That way when the light in there blinds me and I start crying when you aren't paying attention, I could just hand it back
and you'd look at me, and I'd look at you, and you'd know.
Can't do it.
There isn't a big, pretty enough box.
Nah. Only person who can hold this is me.
Shakes head
I have more faith in you than anyone, Katie Gundlach.
Including, I'm sorry, myself.

 Leona:  sighs I know, I know.
But the... lack of love of self.

 me:  I used to much more.
I think.... I think I Can learn again.

 Leona:  Love thyself.
I pray so

 me:  ....In that email I didn't ask him for (I'm assuming it came in an email) what did he say?
And why'd you turn away?

 Sent at 9:56 PM on Wednesday


 Leona:  Your life is changing because of me and I don't know if it's for better or worse

 me:  Oh.
Well, that's an easy enough question to clear up.

 Leona:  I am your weakness. You've told me.
This weakness... it is what has allowed you to get hurt
People... No, Roses, taking advantage of you.

 Sent at 9:59 PM on Wednesday

 Leona:  They don't think I make you happy, they think I make you a poor ruler. A- A weakling. So unlike yourself.
And still this piece of me, this huge piece of me sees you as more yourself then ever before.

 me:  I'm... different?
How?

 Sent at 10:01 PM on Wednesday

 me:  As for them.... they're right. I'm weak. I'm also stronger than I've ever been. I'm also fighting harder than I ever have. And I don't care what they think. I'm happy.
You're right. I wasn't yesterday, thsi morning, whatever.
But I am now.
They say, "Tomorrow's a new day."
Fuck that.
No, not a new day.
A moon. My moon. And it's bright like day, and for the first time on seeing it, I see it. I'm not looking for vampires....
I.... I'm thinking of you.
With this love in me, there is no grading system. I wi-can-am--the greatest ruler they've ever seen.
And with you at my side?
I believe that.

 Sent at 10:04 PM on Wednesday

 Leona:  That's what I needed to hear.
That's what they need to hear.
The people.

 me:  And so they will.
I serve the people.

 Sent at 10:07 PM on Wednesday

 me:  And--and--I notice you negated to answer my charmingly self-serving question.
Different?

 Sent at 10:08 PM on Wednesday
 Leona:  \
You are.
Not bad, not good, different,
I can't describe it.

 me:  Oh.
I feel I shouldn't apologize for being myself.
But your answer confuses me.

 Leona:  Don't appologize.
Ever.

 me:  Shoves Is that an order?

 Sent at 10:16 PM on Wednesday

 Leona:  No. I no longer want you taking orders,
And that one is an order
I don't want to be your superior, your ruler. That;s not how love works.
Although I'd like less shoving.
winks

 me:  Giggles
I'll work on that.

 Leona:  Thanks darling

 me:  What did he say, btw?

 Sent at 10:21 PM on Wednesday

 me:  He went over my head to send it.
So it had to have been good.

 Sent at 10:25 PM on Wednesday

 Leona:  You told him to inrom me right?
Inform*
He did
And did a lot of, wow, I've seen a side of her no one has seen. Thank you I think.
But still you suck

 me:  Tilts head
Those sentences don't go together.

 Sent at 10:28 PM on Wednesday

 Leona:  He doesn't like me, as he sould
And the weakness in you, the hurt in your eyes, he hates that too
Blames me
But thanks me
I think he's torn

 me:  Yes.... torn is a good word for that man.
Further, Torn will be a good word for that man for a very long time.

 Sent at 10:31 PM on Wednesday

 me:  I could see?

 Sent at 10:33 PM on Wednesday

 me:  Also... about this hat...
Generally, after you pay the ransom, you generally take the kidnap victim home with you, not leave the poor fellow company.
Now he has a bracelet and an enchanted ring, pining.
Poor, fluffy grey plume.

Sometimes I smile at these. Friends. Friends are good....