SEXKITTEN

8.8

Today is Leo's Birthday. I have celebrated him in one form or another this time every year, his birthday and what would've been our anniversary.  I still hope, and there is an inherent belief that we are destined to cross paths again.

Missing him hasn't waned. I expect him to walk into every coffee shop, restaurant, damn near everywhere I go. I still have a million things I want to tell him, ideas I want to share, plans I had for us, trips that I wanted us to take. I have a treasure chest filled with dreams of a life we planned that we haven't lived. 

Our puzzle is incomplete and my mind and heart has since we parted never quite came back to me. I am a body unanchored.  I believe that Leo knows where I am and how to find me. In my mad imaginings, I can feel him close and his eyes on me though he is nowhere to be found.

When I married Leo, I did plan to spend a lifetime with him. I saw the years stretched out before us with adventures untold, and imagined us into old age.  He must've seen us too because he captured us in a painting years ago. The old man and woman in their hats.  I am beginning to wonder if all my days left in this life will be spent searching for a ghost. Will I night after night wander back to an empty bed that still smells like him no matter where I lay my head? Will the missing parts of me find their way back to this body?

At the end of each day and with each sunrise, I remind myself that love is healing. I am healing.  It was Leo's love that healed me from a broken heart years ago. My heart is open and I am ready to fall hopelessly in love again. Perhaps one day, I'll have another story. Perhaps love will find me again. Perhaps joy and I will meet again on a winding road. Perhaps...I

Today I send birthday wishes into the universe and hope they find him well. I hope the wind whispers to him my name that in this life, I absolutely, truly loved him and our life together,  that knowing him has remained one of the highlights of my life, that I will forever hold him close in my heart and I hope we cross paths again if for nothing else, a gift to me, that I may complete the puzzle over a cup of coffee or a drink. A gift to take a step back in time.  I"m ready to embrace a future that is not filled with pain and suffering and missing. I'm reading to smile again.

 

TRUE FACE

I have a better understanding why I don't allow myself to connect with most people. It's has nothing to do with being shy or stuck up. I see, feel and know too much.  There are real aliens walking among us and contrary to commonly held belief, not all are advanced beings.

Some have called me obsessed with Leo. Perhaps. But when you meet another soul with whom you recognize and connect in this life, it's hard to let go.  It's not often that we come across people who can see us. It's ironic that Leo and I are both deemed crazy. That too is not a coincidence.

I've met few real connections. They often became lovers. It is where my deep lifelong bonds are formed even after the romance ends.  Besides my children, it's my romantic partners whom I've shown my true face. 

 

 

Searched for You

At this point, after all these years now, I've looked for you under every rock, around every corner, coffee shops, museums, sushi restaurants, parks, beaten trails, lakes, rivers, oceans, trees, the eyes of every stray cat, in the wind, the light of day and the darkest nights. In the glow of the moon lurking outside my window these past few nights, the everyday sun. I've looked for you everywhere my heart and instinct leads me.  You are nowhere to be found. 

I Saw You in the Distance

Two years ago now on December 31st, I saw you standing by the water. I stared at your back from the distance and kept staring for a good while.  You felt familiar.  I started walking towards you. I was only few feet away when you started walking away.

I was going to follow you, the color you wore was an open invitation, but you disappeared around the corner and was enveloped by the bushes.  I started to follow you, but changed my mind thinking myself a fool. 

I didn't see your face, but I knew it was you.  That night, I went into town looking for you again, but did not find you. 

 

Living Again

If healing is a desire to disappear into the vast universe, I'm close. I might be closer to my natural state of being than I realize. The moment I reconnect with myself, I will reconnect with everything else around me. I just need to get back to my source.

I cannot escape myself and I am no longer trying. My aloneness is as familiar to me now as the flesh on my bones. I've gone days when I don't speak to a single person who knows me. There are those I used to call, when they stopped answering the phone, I stopped calling. It's not that I don't care, but there's nothing worse than reaching out to someone who is not reaching back.  I've learned to live with broken pieces.  The void in my heart doesn't hurt anymore. What remains is a heaviness that sits with me with a familiarity that's almost soothing.

I lost my mind years ago, now I function in remnant of a self that barely exists. When you lose so much of yourself that are not recoverable, you have no choice but to adapt and become something else. The something else that I am becoming is a more hardened version of my former self, but still soft enough not to lose my humanity.  

My blank stare out the window may look innocent, but my imagination runs wild. My dreams are still alive and my plans are as robust as they've ever been which tells me that my life, no matter how it seems is still unfolding.

These years, I felt that you were stolen from me. We parted on our way to loving each other forever. Now I accept your absence as the reality of my journey even if I don't understand what happened. I have survived this long, I will keep on surviving. I know that one day I'll wake up and I'll be living again.

 

The Author

I am ok with letting go of that which no longer serves me. I have survived everything thus far. I have lived without a heart and made a new one constructed of pieces fused together with strength, grace and resilience. It is knowledgeable, wise, and foolish, but still feels. These five years took me to every gate that I had to fight through to stay alive. I've had to fight for my name, reputation, sanity, heart and humanity. I've had to fight to take back the life that was stolen from me. I've had to relinquish my hold on love, and yet, no amount of loneliness could break me. 

Indeed, I will love again. Why would I not? It might not look or feel like anything before, but every love deserves their own best version.

My dreams and visions of what I'm doing here are still alive. I was given them for a reason and they are mine to cultivate, breathe life into, and see to fruition. I have had moments when I wondered if the armour was still mine to wear in this lifetime. It is. It fits like a glove, and whenever I look in the mirror, a face stares back that tells me I must finish what I started.

I'm preparing my horse for battle. I will not and cannot surrender. It is not my way. I will give my head to the sword before I relinquish my crown, fight to the very end of days than accept a version of me that does not travel her road to glory, even if in the end I stand alone.

My life was not given to me to be taken by anyone and make their own who have no concept of my suffering and who never went through my training.

I am ok with letting go of that which does not serve me. There is an entire universe that's mine with stars and galaxies, rivers and oceans, trees, sunsets and sunrises. I stand in the back drop of them all.

Indeed, these last five years have been unlike no other. They have carved me into everything and nothing that I've been before. I feel like an entirely new species.

I know how the story ends. I've been the author all along.

Flesh, Bones & Bondage

How did it happen? Help me understand, because I am haunted by a sense of aloneness so deep I cannot give it name. You and I shared a bond as timeless as the depth of the ocean and vast as the entire universe. The oldest living beings, we were here long before the universe came into being, before light and rivers and trees, before dinosaurs walked the earth, before birds knew they could sing, and lifetimes before the footprints of any other human walked this earth. We are constructed from the same breath, vision, from the same flesh, bones and bondage.

Have you found it plausible that someone other than I could sit at your side? No. I have seen no evidence of such a possibility. Something went wrong somewhere that must be corrected to put things back into proper balance and on course. That you were made flesh of my flesh, it's plausible that you've been searching for me too. I ask the empty space in my bed night after night, what circumstances could make you leave my side? I've asked the night a thousand times, will it find you and bring you back to me. It doesn't answer because it doesn't know.

I don't have to be alone. I am a desirable woman. With one lopsided smile and a tempest glance, I can lure men to my bed if I want. I haven't wanted to; my aloneness is both wretched and comforting. But how I long to look into your eyes, taste your lips, crawl naked into your arms and rest my head upon your  chest. How I long to give myself to you, to watch you peel every shred of clothing from my body, your lips leaving traces of fire on my flesh, your fucking scent filling my lungs as I devour all that is you. I long to scream your name in the middle of the night so loudly I am embarrassed and blushing come morning when I walk past the neighbor who looks at me knowingly.

Days have turned to weeks, months and years and I'm still searching for something I cannot find.  I feel as if I've been wandering for centuries in this man made wilderness bearing wounds for which I do not have enough understanding to heal. There is nothing more haunting than a lost soul that cannot find its way home. The nights are cold no matter how warm the weather.

There are pockets of memories missing, but I am learning what will become of me each day through dreams that come to me in the middle of the night.

Where my body resides may not be home. There is so much hostility towards me here, so much hatred I do not understand. Despite having lived in Chicago for thirty years, I worked, schooled, built a family here, but I have never felt more alone in a city where almost every one I know in my adult years lives. What I do know is that I am trying to find home.

For the past few months I've been waking up in places I once lived in another time, in another place. In my dreams, I travel to far away places, some are familiar and some I've never been before.

I awake in London often to birds and trees outside my window and the sound of the ocean in the near distance. At first I think I'm in Jamaica from the smell of the air, but soon realize that I am not. I am me, but different. I am of another time. I am smiling. I am happy.

Sometimes I open my eyes on a deserted Island. I don't know how I got there. I am exiled. You once told me that you felt that you were imprisoned in a past life. I think we both were together and apart. I am certain that I have been in a MatriX prison these last five years. I can see you but cannot reach you.  All the powers in the world have both been working to get us together and keep us apart. I am beginning to understand why.

I already know how the story ends.

Kindred Spirits

It's been a reflective week for me. My niece is getting married in Jamaica and all of my sisters and most of my extended family went home for her wedding. Due to certain life situations, I am the only one who is not there.

As I reflect on the last few days, I realize how deep my aloneness runs. Throughout my life, I've connected strongly with few people. My deepest bonds are often formed with those whom I become intimately involved based on the fact that they have access to my personal space, body, mind, and all that I am. Beyond feeling human pain, suffering, and being empathetic to those I come across, I live with enough physical and emotional distance to keep me sane and whole. I've had no choice. Human emotions and energies are sometimes unbearable, and being of an introverted nature this works well for me.

I've collected a few women friends and acquaintances over the years that gave me just enough emotional and psychological engagement and comradeship to satisfy whatever need I have. Those relationships are valuable. Calling someone 'friend' is not a sentiment that I take lightly.

Reflecting on the fact that I am the only one of my sisters not in Jamaica comes with a stark realization of how disconnected I have become from everyone and everything that felt familiar in the last five years. This is not altogether surprising; I've been a wandering soul my whole life. I'm just trying to figure out if I have internal work to do on myself.

I left home at 17 and have been on my own ever since. I'm not a stranger to being a lone wolf. It's been a lifelong endeavor. I'm used to feeling like a single human in a room full of people, and it's never bothered me. I have the ability to see people who thought they were invisible to human eyes and communicate with them instead.

I've contemplated what, or if anything I should do about these disconnections. Should I try harder at being connected? Should I reach out more even if no one is reaching back? I will certainly attempt to keep in close contact with my family. Dr. Maya Angelou is correct, 'Ain't none of us can make it out here alone.' But there's not much that I can do, beyond trying. If relationships don't flow naturally, I become anxious, uncomfortable and abandon them. I've been called crazy, awkward, odd, eccentric for most of my adult life and it's true. I am very much aware, and have accepted all of that without ever perceiving being different as a negative. I've seen enough human frailty, insecurities, and ugliness to never want to be like everyone else nor have I ever desired to change anything about myself to 'fit into' any specific gang or groups. My individuality has always been enough. I'm rooted in self-awareness, and acceptance and have been loved enough for who I am to have never feel inadequate about any aspects of my person hood.

Despite my perceived eccentricity or perhaps because of it, I am a highly accomplished woman. I can take up space in any room, blend in, camouflage and adapt at will to any environment into which I am thrust no matter how hostile. I know because it happened and I survived them, an ability that has made me damn near indestructible.

There's nothing wrong with me. If anything, I'm an extraordinary divine being who many will never understand, and I am ok with being misunderstood. I am not for everyone. Those who do not get me, are not meant to _ it is not their purpose.

I am glad that my family are together. I'm glad for the strong bond they hold. I am not resentful, jealous or angry nor do I feel necessarily left out. I feel alone.

If my purpose is to be a wandering soul, to live among the others so be it. There are more odd ones like me out here, once in a while, I come across them. They have always recognized me as a kindred spirit.

If I Never See You Again

I miss you everyday, but today more than usual. I stopped by a restaurant for Sushi and as I sat alone that Thursday evening, I remembered how years ago on other Thursday evenings was when we had our date night, I would rush home from work to take us out to dinner. We often walked to the Sushi restaurant around the corner from where we lived.

As I sat alone thinking about you, I took a step back in time. I could see you clearly sitting across from me telling me stories about your day, your paintings and the characters in MAN that were so familiar, they lived with us. You always had such colorful stories that you told in such a way that always made me laugh.

You are a beautiful, precious memory that I carry with me every where I go. I've been trying to find you again, to tell you that I loved you. To thank you for being a loving, caring partner and husband. For sticking with me through all the years I was working and pursuing a PhD. I know it wasn't easy for you. I want to thank you for loving me the way you did. No matter how stressful my days were at work, I looked forward to coming home to you. It was seldom that I got home and you weren't standing in front of the door waiting for me, you and our cat.

You once asked me if I thought of you when we were apart, and was hurt when I said I think about work whenever I was at work. You told me that you thought about me every second of every day. That you missed me whenever you were away from me. I knew that because that's how you loved me. What I now know in the way I rushed home to be with you every day, is that there was never a moment in my days that I didn't want to come home to you. You were my anchor, my happy place, my person.

I never saw you the way saw yourself. I never thought you were crazy even though you kept telling me so. You must've been confused by my refusal to be scared away even though you kept trying to leave me. I wouldn't go and you kept coming back. I just knew that you were different and mine.

I remember a time when you left over a disagreement. I don't know where you ran off to, but I called you and told you that I was scared of something and didn't want to be alone. I wasn't scared of anything. I just couldn't sleep without you beside me. It took several hours, but you drove for hours that night to come back to me. I heard you get off the elevator and waited for you to open the door. I have a lasting image of you standing there looking at me before I walked into your arms.

You called yourself a monster, I loved the beast in you. I made a fire of your self-hate and burned them. You told me that life had killed the smile in you, and yet you smiled for me all the time. You may not have been able to see yourself, but I could see you.

If I never see you again, I want you to know that I loved you passionately. We had our moments, but I was happy with you. If I never see you again, I want you to know that I missed you every second of every day that we've been apart. If I never see you again, I won't forget you.

For years, I wasn't able to write about you despite having a million things I wanted to say. You may never read these words, but I'm sending them to the universe and perhaps one day you'll find them and recognize them as yours.

When we parted, all of our doors were left open. I've been standing in our doorway so long I've turned to stone _ and have become more of a ghostly haunting, an apparition guarding a time and place where no one lives anymore. In a way, this is my attempt to close some of these open doors and get back to a life that feels like living.

I want to love again, kiss again, laugh again, lay naked in a man's arms again, and look forward to coming home to someone who loves me again. If I never see you again, I hope the universe brings you this message of love from my heart to yours. I hope you're well. I hope that you remember being loved by me. If given a chance, with all your madness and mine, I would marry you all over again.

I am Old & New

It's been an endless five years: one that took from me all that I loved and holds familiar. Of all the things and people I've lost, I miss me the most. I have tried to find the old me in the mirror's reflection. The woman who stares back is neither a stranger or a familiar. She reflects both old and new, a composite of time long gone and yet to come. It's a peculiar thing to be of the past, present and future in the same moment. My features are the same, a face that many have stared at, not quite sure what they see. My eyes are of darkness and light and there's a certain thing that they do, that no one who bore witness ever talks about. There's a scar beneath my chin that few know about. An injury I received when in childhood, a little bad girl in a red dress not listening to my mother when she told me to stop swinging between the rails on our verandah. I can still feel the impact of my face colliding with the tiled floor, my screams piercing the afternoon as blood spilled from my crushed lips. That scar is responsible for why one side of my mouth smiles more than the other.

I've been able to hold on to certain aspects of myself, but there are pieces missing that will never come back. The sadness in my eyes are deep, but morphing into a spark of hope in a future that is still unfolding like light being born out of darkness.

Some pieces of me have transformed and become one with the new. Others have been abandoned along the way. If I were to go back and collect them, I would hold them, walk with them, talk with them, cry with them, but I'm not sure I would have space for them. I need to regain my trust in this world, in humans and in myself again. My intuition has always been my greatest asset. A gift from the gods to guide me through this life. Its imperative that I reconnect with it, and myself.

I've been to the ends of the world and back. I've been to death's door, the darkest corners, of the universe, the depth of the sea and I emerge from all these places more estranged, less flesh and bones and more something else. I was not born for this planet; of that I am certain. I am not sure what I am doing here if not looking for you to finish what we started. I've replayed the scene in my mind a million times over of you walking through that fucking door, and I can't seem to close it until you do.

HORIZON

I can see beyond the horizon again where hope lingers in wait for me. I have planted new seeds and watched them grow in hopes that giving new life would help me feel something beyond this numbness. With each passing day, the woman I used to be grows dim. I've given up hope of returning to her, though I protect her remnants like priceless jewels. There are many aspects of her life worth guarding; her memories are golden, her love for her two sons, the men she loved, family, friends and the passions she chased.

Sometimes terror visits me in the middle of the night. A ghostly haunting that at first I fought against, forcing it into surrender and eventually calling it friend. I've watched death become a warming presence that lays beside me and watches me with curiosity. It doesn't know what to do with me.

I've gotten quite good at transforming pain into grace. I've turned the unrelenting ache of missing into a quiet song to which I alone know the words, and heartache into a lopsided smile that can fool anyone. I've dug myself out of graves, refusing to give up a fight I didn't start, and let someone else win the prize and life that is my birth right.

I am grateful to have been born beautiful. Daughter of the Sun, the glow that emanates from my belly kept the lights on even in my darkest days. One cannot tell by looking at me how relentless the force fought to break and leave me for dead. I still look, dress and present myself like a lady, not from conceit, but from being born with a knowing of self-worth. No matter the struggle, my eyes never stopped smiling which gives me a sense of peace and pleasantry I don't always feel.

I was never normal, and I'm happy for it. Being odd has it's benefits. Oddness allows one to adapt, to bend, to flow, to become one with their circumstance so they may learn it's ways, outsmart and overcome it.

Indeed, one becomes a different kind of animal when all they've ever been gets stripped away and they have to fight to hold onto a life that's barely worth living while in their season of transformation.

I like the new me. My new skin has old scars, but I like the way they look when I stand and look at the world. I wear with pride and a badge of honor the tattoos of the demons and dragons I've slayed, of the street that was home, and the underworld from which I escaped.

I still stand apart from most, but that's not going to change. That's how I was made. Not only did my heart survive the storms of the last five years, I am layers upon layers more, with an unbelievable story of which I am ready to tell. I like the new me.

These days, when I lift my eyes to the horizon, my heart skips a beat alerting me of a new dawn. I may not have all of my pieces, but I can do amazing things with my mind. I'm going to make it through to the other side.

Thy Kingdom Come

Five human years that feels like an eternity, I've been in the Matrix, trying to find my way home.This MatriX was built to keep me hidden and safe. But I got lost and became a wanderer without a place to call home.

Time moves at a rapid pace here. Most days I look in the mirror at a face I do not recognize, except for my eyes. They burn bright red with determination and dance with amusement at a joke I do not understand. 

Some mornings I open my eyes to a world in which I've grown old, and all the people that I have ever loved is long gone. I have two sons, sisters, friends, and lovers, but they exist in a different realm. Though I can feel them, they're not close enough to touch. I am alone most times. It's not my preferred state of living, but I've gotten used to going to bed alone.

I had love, a life partner, a husband I'm trying to find again.  I came close to reconnecting with him a few times; saw him through the mirrored veil of time in different forms, but we still missed each other. The desire to connect will not go away. If the past is to be trusted, the future is set in stone. I will see him again, and again, and again in every lifetime. 

I don't remember how it all happened that I ended up here alone.  A catastrophic event occurred that I wasn't supposed to survive, but I did. The dental records and bones they collected at the scene were not mine. The body they buried was not mine. There's a ghost version of me out there that must die.

There are things that those who tried to destroy me do not know. I am not disposable, and I will not remain exiled, invisible and silent forever. That is not my destiny. I am the key to the kingdom. 

 

 

Elevate

 

 

Writing Project: 100 words/ 100 days

Day: /100. 10.3.21

Title: Elevate

Words:

 

This writing Project is coming to an end. I wrote little in the month of September but will continue after the project has ended. I have several works to keep me occupied. Writing is good for the soul and this time has certainly been good for me.

 

It may not seem like it, but I am getting closer to my own understanding in this isolated space.  I've been telling myself that I need clarity and understanding to make informed decisions, and while that is true,  perhaps the best thing is to unclench my fists and allow things to flow_ to come and go _allow love to find me again and free space to elevate.  I'm working on  laying to rest the traumas of the last several years that hinders rather than set me free. I've looked them in the mirror and call them by name. And though I still struggle at times,  I'm proud of the storms that I  walked through with no one to hold my hands but my loyal cat. On many, many days and nights, she was enough as I stumble my way through some darkness. I'm perpetually amazed by the human condition to adapt to whatever conditions present themselves. In this space, I've allowed myself to be vulnerable_ expressing my need for companionship, not just with anyone_ but genuine soul connections, both in love and friendships. I'm not ashamed of the tears, my frustrations, that I needed consideration, resources and support and experienced moments when I was not ok without feeling that something was wrong with me.

 

As I go about my days, I'm convinced that the love I'm looking for is looking for me too and the right people, those who love and support me are not far away. I am convinced that even in what sometimes feel like aloneness, I'm not really alone.

Nostalgia and Deja Vu

Writing Project: 100 words/100 days
Day 89/100. 9.27.21
Title: Nostalgia and Deja Vu
Words: 205

I am sitting in a park enjoying one of the few lingering days of summer. People are out walking their dogs, children are playing in the swings and slides, people are shopping, and I am enjoying being surrounded by the trees, the small water fountain and the sounds of life in full bloom, real and deceptive at the same time considering that fall has officially began and the transition, even though it was not apparent on a day like this, fall was in full swing. As if by magic, one day we’ll notice that the colors have changed from green to any combination of colors. The branches will shake the leaves loose in preparation for the looming winter months, and these same trees, immaculately clothed will be standing naked in the harshest weather. The changing seasons can teach us much about life, serving as a perfect reminder that sometimes the best thing to do is to unclench our fists and let things fall. I looked around at the people, closed my eyes and absorbed the feel and sounds, and welcomed whatever came to me. I allowed myself the spiritual connection to that place deep within that takes us all the way back to nostalgia and deja vu_ to that which is both old and new.

Evenings with Sophy

Writing Project: 100 words/100 days
Day 84/100. 9.22.21
Title: Evenings with Sophy
Words: 173

I've been spending some of my evenings at a hotel down the street from where I live. I find the ambience a welcoming place to read which I've started doing again in addition to writing, working out, taking myself out to dinners and movies. I’ve been working to consistently get back into a routine of doing things that feeds my spirit. I'm glad that throughout my life all of my habits have been healthy. If drugs, alcohol and reckless sex were my vises, I reckon I would be on a self-destructive path. I do things that allow me space to sit with myself and escape into worlds of adventure. I've been escaping into strange worlds all my life and know how to get myself back. I don't care what anyone thinks of the woman who shows up alone and read by the fire. Sometimes out of curiosity, I wait, not quite sure exactly what or for whom I wait except something inside tells me to _ I know only that some energies linger.