Random Blurb

I sat there and watched you for a while, talking. Words were falling from your lips and dripping onto the table in front of us as if your mouth were a leaky faucet of rainbow paint. They slid amongst our steak fries and mashed potatoes, pooling around the menus and our frosted glasses. They looked sweet. I didn't want to find out if they tasted that way too, so I crammed a fry in my mouth before it could get contaminated.
You were saying things, but I barely heard them over the rushing river noises of my disbelief. It was you. It was me. We were really sitting here across from each other. I wasn't crying. I wasn't even hurting. And you... Well, you were somehow still you after all, even though you had changed.
Somewhere the things you were saying started to register, and I was amazed. It was everything -everything- I had ever wanted to hear from you, right there in front of me. It should have looked like a pile of gold, but instead it looked like raw sugar with no substance and far too many calories for my taste. I should have wanted you to open your mouth wider, to let the words pour out, but instead I wanted to reach across the table, press my palm against your moist lips, shake my head, and smile. Maybe a soft smile, barely touching the corners of my mouth, as sincere and as sad as I could muster.
But I held it in, let you talk, let my ego swell a little despite itself. It felt good to know that you missed me.
Later, I let you kiss me. I let me taste you on my lips, on my tongue, on my heart, but the craving I had once had for you was gone. The fire that used to burn where we met, the electrical current in my veins and nerves gone. And I pulled away from you feeling a little empty, as if you had sucked away any last doubt, stubbornly clinging to me as a frail piece of cotton.
A test, and one I had passed. You were gone, and it felt strange, but... It was. It was and you were gone.
I think all that time this was the feeling I had tried so badly to pretend I had, never knowing that it was feeling nothing that was the trick all along.
I think all that time this is what I wanted.

Brain Barf #1

Before we start I suppose I should explain what a brain barf is.
It's not a novel concept. People call them all sorts of things, from brain drain to just simple writing exercises. Basically, it's just me, writing about whatever I happen to be thinking about at the time. It could be just some random thoughts, it could be a story, it might even be a little paragraph that makes no sense at all...
The point of a brain barf is just to let myself write without worrying about quality or plot, or even coherency. It has been through little editing, aside from basic spelling and grammar, so what you're seeing here is essentially my naked thoughts, without censor, without edit.
So, here's brain barf number one.
~*~*~

I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't feel like writing. I'm pretty sure I'm only doing it to fill the silence, so I don't have to talk to my dad.

I know he's ashamed of me. He's over there wondering what I'll ever amount to. He's over there wondering if I'll ever accomplish anything worthwhile.

Or maybe I'm just putting my own thoughts into his head.

But, in any case, perhaps this will be a good exercise for me, to write when I don't want to. I haven't done a good brain barf in a long long time...

For some reason I have gotten into this ridiculous mentality that everything I write must be high quality or I shouldn't even bother to start. It's been causing all sorts of problems, mainly with the fact that you can't just pick at a few keys or scribble a few words and just spin a flawless piece of writing.
Why do I expect myself to?

I just hate looking at bad work. I hate looking at something and knowing it's another failure, another bad idea, another badly written piece of scrap paper. I feel the same about my drawings, about anything really. Maybe that's why I often have a hard time working, getting things done. I'm so scared of it being sub par, of being less than perfect, that I would rather just not create it at all.

Why am I so terrified of making mistakes? Why is it that the very thought of doing something wrong is so stressful, so utterly abhorrent that I would avoid those very things that make me happy in order to evade it?

I suspect it is for the same reason that I do not ask for help, even as I am drowning.

It's because I don't want others to see. I don't want them to know that I'm flawed. I have spent so much effort to build this robotic outer shell, smooth and perfect, to fool others into believing that I am exactly as I appear.

Unshakable, unbreakable, impervious.

Why?

I am here to make mistakes. Everyone else makes mistakes. It's not wrong to make a mistake, it's only wrong to refuse to correct it.

Why must it always be me against the world, isolated in my own mission to create a pretty glass compartment for myself, so people can pass by, ooh and awe, but I remain forever trapped inside. Perfect, unmarked, beautiful... But untouched is untouched, body and soul. I have learned nothing.

I understand these things. All of them. And yet... I cannot manage to break free of my inhibitions.

Often I dream of standing, climbing high so everyone can see me, and dancing. Dancing without end, my feet hardly touching the ground. It would not matter if the dance was beautiful, rhythmic, or even put to music. It could be the worst dance of all history, as geeky and awful as they come...

But it would be my dance. My dance. Not a dance built to impress, nor one painted to make me seem pretty. Just a dance to be all my own and no one else's. Someday I will find that dance. I will find it and I will dance it until there is no one in the world that hasn't seen. I'll shout my stories from the tops of my vocals, the good, the bad, the cliché and trite. I will scream them and dance and dance and dance...

There will be no one who does not know of my dance.

And I will not be ashamed. I will show the world my face, tell them that I am the dancer, and I will accept it with glee, the simple credit of creation being far more than enough to make up for the nay sayers.

Their jeers will not reach my ears. Their rants, their screams, their laughter, will be far far away, past my reach of caring.

And in that moment, that one single moment, as my feet fly freely on the air, and my arms sway wildly through the clouds, and my heart swings free of its strings... It is in that moment that I will truly be myself.

The Epic List of Things and Feelings Cori Loves (Part 1):

#1: Laying in bed or on the couch, wrapped in a blanket with a book and some sort of hot drink on a cold day, and listening to the rain on the roof or watching the snow fall while you read.

#2: Coming into a warm building after standing in the freezing cold and feeling your skin slowly thaw out.

#3: That first blast of A/C every time you walk into a store in the summer.

#4: The first time you wear shorts after a long, cold winter and step onto the warm grass with completely bare feet and take a deep breath of sunny air.

#5: Snuggling into your pillow and finally allowing yourself to drift off when you've been fighting to stay awake all day.

#6: Laying on hot concrete and letting the sun hit your back after you've been swimming.

#7: That exact moment when you're looking at a picture, listening to a song, watching a movie, or just sitting there, and suddenly you're so full of words and images you can't stand to not create something.

#8: Sniffing and having all the congestion from a long cold suddenly be gone as your nose is crammed full with all the smells you've been missing.

#9: Having charcoal/pencil/paint/clay/any other art medium smeared on your face, hands, or arms.

#10: Holding someone in your arms, or the other way around, and realizing that,“Oh yeah, that's right! Of all the places to go, of all the things to see, of all the people to meet, this is exactly where I wanted to be, all this time...”

You Know That Feeling?

When you're inside a fog you can never see much but what's immediately around you. And you don't really care about the things you can't see, especially if you're not even aware you've been immersed in a massive bank of opaque air. All you care about is getting to what you see as being in front of you.

Isn't it strange that once you get out of the fog, whether it be by yourself, or if it lifts on it's own, you look back and can't see anything you saw while you were in it? You can't understand what you were thinking, what you were doing, what on EARTH you were trying to get to, but suddenly the world around you seems so much clearer...

That's how it feels to fall out of love.

It seems that all this time I've been some sort of flat, cardboard replica of what girls are supposed to be like when they're in love, nothing but a colorful compliment to their partner's elbow. Two years of allowing my colors to bleed out and fade away, like a piece of construction paper left to bleach in the sun for too long. Two years of being content to sit, imprisoned, in the cold shade when there's golden sunshine and freedom waiting outside it.

For the few months I've been all by myself, facing the world alone, standing with my feet firmly planted to the ground again, I suddenly remember what it was I wanted out of my best love. And it wasn't that. For the few months I've BEEN MYSELF I've never been so happy. I didn't even realize I was missing, but now that I'm back I realize that I was nothing without me.

I mean, sure, life has it's problems. There's homework, moving out, preparing for my future, working on my writing so I can get published and live my dreams... I get stressed and depressed just like any other normal human being, but it's the strangest thing...

Even when I'm down, I always have that undercurrent of something sweet and happy. It's the strangest thing. My lowest points now blow my highest points for the past five years of my life straight out of the water. So far out of the water that I would allow myself to use a cliche like that in my writing!

I love it. I love this feeling of being colored in again, my inner child scribbling outside the lines in wacky shades, while my inner artist adds a magical flourish. My inner romantic throws in a few roses, restoring all the faith I had lost in an eternal and perfect love. So many other aspects of my heart and my mind, and my soul contribute to this rebirth and before I know it all the bleached out colors are back and brighter than ever...

Sure, pastels are nice. They're soft and romantic. But there's a whole other rainbow out there!

I'm rediscovering who I am, what I want, what I deserve and I love it.

I'm not in love anymore and I love it.