One of these days...

I'll remember that this blog is here and requires updating. With more than poems, that is. Hell, I don't even know if this thing is ever read. Someone leave me a comment and let me know! 

Oh, how things have changed over the past year or so. J and I are no longer together, there was a rather messy relationship/breakup with a friend of mine, I just started a new job at a bank after having waited tables, left waiting tables for retail, left retail for a doctor's office, was laid off from said office, back to waiting tables, and now, finally, out of the restaurant business again.

I've been talked into writing a book, so I am now attempting to continue with the story I had posted on here ages ago. God help me.

That's about it in a nutshell... There's not a whole lot else going on. Well, there is, but not much worth telling. 

So, until next time...

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Writing

Pen and paper collide
And then the words come
Sharing feelings with the world
That you only wish you could say aloud.
Love and hatred and pain and joy
Build up until simple syllables
Flow so roughly before that clean
White sheet is covered in black.
So many times
Hands will cramp
Before a work of literary art
Is finally completed.

Oops.

It's been a little over a year. My bad... Honestly, since I'm never sure who reads this, I think I might just stick to poetry/stories in here. I'll stick personal stuff elsewhere. No offense.

So how about a poem?

(Note: This was written probably about 3 months ago. No, it's not about anything/anyone in particular)

Whispered apologies
Melting in the chill of the silence
Memories of you breaking through
Every safe place I hide
Seeking out the open vulnerabilities
Like wounds that have yet to heal
Pieces missing in myself
Leaving holes in the shape
Of your hands and smile
Your heart
Harsh words leaving bruises
Harder than fists ever could
And tears that quietly beg for another chance
While we both pray for this nightmare to end

Choosing Your Vowel

It sounds odd, I know, but I read about it in another blog, www.spousebuzz.com.

Choose your vowel: Bitter or Better?

This was my day: Squirt woke up around 8:45 this morning, which is perfectly fine. So we get up, I make her breakfast, and we're just relaxing and getting into the waking up bit.

I ask my grandmother if she'll take me to work. She says, "No. Find your own way." (Back story: Yesterday she and I had a bit of a fight. I caught an attitude with her, she resorted to name calling. I went to apologize, she walked away and slammed a door. I gave up.)

So I pull up the schedules of the FredBus and start looking through it to get to work. I dress and leave the house at 915 to walk to the stop at Taskforce Dr, except there's no sign. So I call the Fred headquarters, and the guy that answers tells me there is a stop there, and he'll let the driver know that someone will be waiting. Bus never comes. So I walk the rest of the way to the mall (note: my house to the mall via Taskforce Dr = roughly 1.5 miles). I call headquarters again, and am told that the stop is in front of the mall. So I wait. The bus comes, the bus drives right by.

Ok.

Turns out, the stop is not in front of the mall, but off to the side in front of Guitar Center. So I wait another hour. And call work to tell them I'll be late.

I got to work 30 minutes late. On the plus side: I wasn't in trouble, since I called and explained the situation. And I think I walked at least 4,000 of the suggested 5,000 steps you're supposed to take everyday, going from my house, to Taskforce Dr, to mall, from bus stop in Central Park to work, then while at work, work to bus stop, then bus stop nearer my house (I'm figuring out how this whole public trans. thing works - I found a closer stop) to home. And that's not even counting the walking I did at home. What I wouldn't give for a pedometer...

Anyway, Bitter or Better. Granted, grandmother is a *****. She's Bitter, capital B. But, I got a lot of exercise (granted in 90 degree heat). And I'm learning the system.

I'm choosing Better.

All right then.

Yesterday, I had a new experience.

I rode the public transit system - Known as the Fred Bus here in Fredericksburg.

In the 12 years or so of my living here, I've never taken advantage of the fact that this area has a public transit, mainly because if I've ever needed a ride somewhere, I've always had someone who could give me a lift, or I've had my own vehicle to get me from point A to point B.

It was definitely interesting. I went from Central Park to downtown. I had to ask the driver what I was supposed to do in order to get downtown - Do I switch buses? Stay on the same one? Do I need to pay another fare?

It turned out that the bus I was on was switching routes from the Central Park area to downtown, so all I needed to do was sit tight. Being my first time, the driver (I wish I had gotten his name, he was incredibly helpful) said I didn't need to pay an extra $.25 when switching routes. He even took me closer to my destination than the actual stop.

All in all, it was pretty nifty.

Just blowing off some creative steam...

(Story time!)

I sat on the picnic blanket and watched as Joey bounded off towards the woods that surrounded our little clearing. I knew he had missed this place for the past hundred years or so. Heck, I missed this place, and I'm not even I a wood nymph.
I stood up and wandered over to the stream and tried to remember how Joey and I had met. It's not often a wood nymph and a water sprite come into contact. It's even less often that they don't immediately try to kill each other. Somehow he and I got past that, although, over a century later, damned if I can recall it.
The water swirled unnaturally, clear in some parts and diamond blue in others. I lowered my hand to let a finger trail just across the surface, relishing the familiar feel of home as the cool liquid caressed that small pad of skin. I could hear the water singing to me, just as I'm sure the trees were singing to Joey. A million whispering voices, singing to me of love and life, of births and deaths, of memories and hopes. I took off my shoes and stepped into the stream, walking to the middle until I found the deepest point. With the waters rushing around my shins and the chorus whispering to me, I called upon the memory of my powers until I felt myself drop beneath the surface.
The current carried me away, and I let it, reveling in the happiness of the moment. Reveling, that is, until an all-too familiar voice said my name.
"Carra." Funny how some people can make a word almost visibly drip disdain.
I sighed. I hadn't even been in the water twelve seconds before the king's favourite toadie found me.
"Hello, Piquine. Tell my uncle not to worry, I'll be out of his realm soon enough. I just needed to refresh myself."
"Right, Carra. Tell him yourself. You've been summoned. Actually, he's been summoning you for the past 75 years, but you've never bothered answering him."
"Does it matter that I've been on land for the past hundred or so?"
"No," Piquine says, giving me his best you're-wasting-my-time look.

Fabulous. I just love family reunions. Hopefully I'll live through it.