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