Bloody Cage...

       I recently had a hard day. A day full of anxiety and worry. Worry about being invisible to the eyes of the ones who “matter”. Worries about never being someone who’s “beauty” can be found and always just being here. I wish I knew how it started so I could know how to defend myself from, what today seems like, weak attempts at finding a way to have my ego stroked. A pitiful way to secure the thought that I would some day be touched by approving eyes.

       I love to be alone. Alone in my room. Alone at my desk. Alone in my head. Alone in my life. I am never fully alone in my room, or my head for that matter because there are other people filling what I am thinking of while in there. Friends, lovers, parents, siblings, bosses, co-workers, and on and on and on. I am never alone at my desk because each time I sink into a thought process that could help me escape the mundane that I sadly call my existence, the phone rings or some idiot with too much fucking cologne on comes in to fill out an application with out a goddamn pen. I asked my boss if I could start a new routine for ignorant ass applicants. When requesting a pen, politely offer them a push pin. Explain ever so kindly that I assume they had planned on using their blood to fill it out, and that's why they didn't bring a pen, and that we at, (my job that will go unnamed), are always here to help with peoples dreams.

I will now make an attempt to return to my calmer state of mind and write what I needed to say without reading back over this in a year and realizing how stupid it was to have stayed at said job for so long.

I am alone in life, as there is no one here to never let me down. I’m alone in my dreams because I find it hard to share them with others. A good friend of mine told me to read his blog today. I read it once and felt hurt after I made that mistake. I didn’t want to know something about someone that I loved that way. I want people that love me to talk with me about their lives. I guess it’s selfish to be hurt that someone didn’t want to talk to me. I don’t really know why it effects me that way or how to stop it from doing so. I guess to just keep my distance. The problem is, is that I do that – keep my distance. He snuck in. So since I found out some information that I thought was rather personal when I read his blog the once, I hadn’t read it since. Just seemed to make more sense to me to keep from getting my feelings hurt. He spoke of a line in one of his favorite poems that he thought I would like. It is a line about dreams and having people tread softly because they are on them. I realized I don’t invest my dreams in anyone. I have learned that this will only lead to things, that were understood to be sacred, falling in to crushed rubble at my feet, and my feet alone. It always turns out that the few people I let in, eventually want out. It’s inevitable I guess, seeing as I don’t want to be in here some days. It was a blinding experience though, realizing how sheltered I keep the heart that lives on my sleeve. I wish I was an artist, once again…

I have this beautiful image of a young woman with deeply saddened eyes but an upright mouth standing all alone in the dark. Nothing around her but a space that obviously lacks light. Not just dark. A space that is supposed to have light that just can’t seem to find it’s way in. On her right shoulder which is sitting higher than her left is a cage. A cage that would have held an indoor, singing, bird in the early 1900’s. On her floor length black dress, lays a long, red, satin ribbon that touches the floor on the side. The cage is holding a heart. A bruised heart. The once silver cage stained with what used to be the heart’s ability to bleed. This is what is in my mind and I have no way of laying this on paper in picture form, to get it out…so I write.

My heart is so out of my reach but still so guarded about things that I never really know until someone accidentally brings it to my attention. How is this so?

I try my best to sit in the corner of my life giving no option for someone to sneak up behind me to hurt me or to heal me. I just need to be. Just – be. It’s harder than it seems. I am constantly caught off guard, and how this happens with all thousand of my guards up at what feels like all times -I don't know, but I am constantly attacked and knocked down. Whether it be with disappointment or love, I am always under attack. I’ll never be beautiful. I’ll never be spectacular. I’ll never be an artist, or a dancer, or a millionaire. I’ll always just be me. Most days, Me, is something that I am proud of. Never over the top, but never hiding in the shadows from who I am either. On hard days, days like the recent day, I fall. I fall down and I fall deep. It feels like it will never end and then the sun rises and it’s a little better than it was before. Nothing happens, just a new day and it’s easier to breathe… how is this so?