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.