Tag: honesty

Posted in honesty, hope, poetry

Cynical

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Cynical I wished on eyelashes until my eyes had been cried bare, fantasies drained and replaced by a brittle heart, desiccated to sawdust, the shell of trust withered with each tear lost. An errant eyelash fell to my cheek this morning. I caressed it onto my fingertip and considered the magic once bestowed to its freedom, magic as betraying as the hope that someday those wishes would come true. I let the eyelash fall to the floor, without the whispers of tomorrow enchanting its flight, brushing its absence against my skirt, forgetting the wish were ever an option.

I used to wish the same thing every time I found an eyelash on my cheek. I’d pucker my lips and let a puff of air carry my wish to the wind, where it waited, caught in stasis, never rising to fruition. I whispered the same words in my head for years, believing that if I wanted it badly enough that some force would hear me and that the one thing I always wanted would manifest.

It’s not that I believe in magic or superstition or the power of wishing on a shooting star, but I believed that having that much faith in something for that long would carry me through, that if I never gave up that somehow planets would align.

I can’t say right now that my wish won’t come true since I don’t know what the future holds, but I’ve found it more and more difficult to place faith in unrequited fantasy. I don’t like letting my eyelashes fall to the floor unacknowledged, effusing cynicism and defeat as dust coats the lash on the fall to the ground.

I refuse to give up, but it’s hard not to.

Tonight I’m obsessed with the Breaking Benjamin song “Ashes of Eden” from their new album. I’ve been obsessed with it since the second I heard it. The lyrics haunt me and I’m overwhelmed with a sense of melancholy. I feel the emotion in his voice as deeply as my own. I encourage you to listen and let it wash over you. Close your eyes and sing.

Ashes Of Eden

Will the faithful be rewarded
When we come to the end
Will I miss the final warning
From the lie that I have lived
Is there anybody calling
I can see the soul within
And I am not worthy
I am not worthy of this

Are you with me after all
Why can’t I hear you
Are you with me through it all
Then why can’t I feel you
Stay with me, don’t let me go
Because there’s nothing left at all
Stay with me, don’t let me go
Until the Ashes of Eden fall

Will the darkness fall upon me
When the air is growing thin
Will the light begin to pull me
To its everlasting will
I can hear the voices haunting
There is nothing left to fear
And I am still calling
I am still calling to you

Are you with me after all
Why can’t I hear you
Are you with me through it all
Then why can’t I feel you
Stay with me, don’t let me go
Because there’s nothing left at all
Stay with me, don’t let me go
Until the Ashes of Eden fall

(Don’t let go)
Why can’t I hear you
Stay with me, don’t let me go
Because there’s nothing left at all
Stay with me, don’t let me go
Until the Ashes of Eden fall
Heaven above me, take my hand (Stay with me, don’t let me go)
Shine until there’s nothing left but you
Heaven above me, take my hand (Stay with me, don’t let me go)
Shine until there’s nothing left but you

Good night, friends.
Love,
Leanne Rebecca
Posted in honesty, journal entry, poetry

Recycled

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Recycled

I often tell people that my blog followers know more about me than anyone. I’ve never felt afraid to spill my secrets on here, mostly because I’ve only ever received support, never judgment. I like that I can write about my insecurities and struggles like I would in a journal entry, a freedom I’ve come to rely on, one that has helped me immensely in gaining confidence. I’ve started to appreciate my vulnerability as a strength and have realized that if I don’t have any fear to write about having an eating disorder or obsessions over boys on my blog, then there is no reason to hide that honesty from the people in my daily life.

I used to bottle my emotions. I never wanted to burden anyone around me with what I was feeling and my silence drove me over the edge. Few knew that I was spending my free time sobbing in my car, driving through a veil of water, alone and lost. I kept it all in until I didn’t know how to handle it anymore and I came to the conclusion that the only way to make the pain stop was to kill myself. This was 3 years ago, a time I never want to relive. I use music, writing, and an always jam-packed social life to make sure I never have to.

Since then, I’ve made it my mission to be honest with myself about my emotional health and also honest with the people around me. I don’t hide my struggles. In fact, I embrace them. I’m not afraid anymore to text a good friend and say, “hey, I’m struggling. Are you free?” What I’ve learned is astonishing. The more that I open up, the more the people around me feel comfortable to open up. It turns out that we are all fighting battles and most of us are holding them in. Now that I know the importance of talking through my insecurities, aches, and irrationalities, it’s become my mission to help the people around me open up too.

One of my best friends said recently that he wasn’t sure why, but whenever he hung out with just me, he felt comfortable talking about what was bothering him. I think it’s because we trust each other, a trust that was built upon a mutual understanding that we could be straight with one another. I will always have your back if you have mine, an unspoken agreement that started with honesty about what was below the surface.

My point with all this is that if I didn’t have poetry or this amazing community on here to help me work through all this, I’d still be that girl that hides how I’m feeling, invisible because I was too scared to let anyone see me. I thought, if I just hide my flaws, then I’ll be safe. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’m the safest when I expose my quirks, even the embarrassing ones, like having no self control in how often I text boys I have crushes on or that I like “16 year old girl” music. I want people to see ME, to know ME, to appreciate ME, because there is no other version of ME that should ever exist.

Thank you for sticking with me. You have my back and I promise, I have yours.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in desire, love, poetry

If We’d Never Met

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

If We’d Never Met I thought about you this week, flashback tripped by a song you told me to listen to months ago. I wonder if I purged these memories, cleansed of you and your ghost, would I lose the strength built in their wake. Could I trade this newfound backbone for a life without the ache buried in the rings of my frame, forgetting the moment my heart sped, falling faster than the warning of the break? Would I give up discovering the complexity of love, a depth unlocked as my desire awakened hearing my voice for the first time, vulnerable, flawed, scared, alive in exchange for freedom? —Leanne Rebecca

I looked at the clock around 9:45 tonight and thought, man, I’m going to get to bed early, finally get a decent amount of sleep to kickstart my Monday without watering eyes and sluggish limbs. But then the itch began, the compulsion tingling behind my forehead, radiating to my fingertips, the cusp of a poem aching to spill out. So here we are, an hour later, an hour of sleep lost to creative whims.

Good night, my friends.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in friendship, love, poetry

Nothing Weird About It

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Nothing Weird About It They made fun of me— that I liked punk music, drawn towards androgynous men with eyeliner and tattoos, that I never outgrew the teenage emo stage. They called me names— derogatory jabs to bring me down, politically, socially, morally incorrect pet names, mongoloid, useless and naive. They teamed up to abuse me— attacking my secret vulnerability, extreme ticklishness, backing me into the corner of the room, physically pinning me down, outnumbered. They ignored my texts called me out flipped me off berated my diet told me I was weird. A gravitational field pulled me towards them— the sarcastic ones, friends gifting vulgarity as if “fuck you” had replaced the words “I love you.” I’d never trade any of it. —Leanne Rebecca

There’s no magic formula to finding best friends. They manifest from unlikely places and often the people you may have felt hesitant to let into your world end up being the ones that mean the most. Once you find them though, you never let them go.

Tonight I’m feeling thankful.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in love, poetry

Heart in Her Head

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

The Heart in Her Head She covered up her heart with polka dots and sarcasm, playing at make believe under guise of changing the subject, diverting attention with sideways sunshine, casting her confidence with wide eyes, shoulders back, and sass to match his sight line. She covered up her heart beating louder than whatever she managed to play off with elementary flirtation— I make fun of you on the playground because I like you. He skipped over her heart because he couldn’t see it, couldn’t hear the falter in its electricity. She made sure of that, driving them away with words before their ears hit her chest and heard the magnets beneath her clothes tearing at the muscle beating, the pull stronger than logic, the heart bigger than her brain, the force that explained all the words, even the ones meant to pretend she didn’t feel a thing. —Leanne Rebecca

I haven’t posted two poems in one day since maybe the first month of She’s in Prison, over 2 years ago. I guess the inspiration is flowing tonight. I couldn’t help myself. I’ve never been one to have self control and though I could have waited to post this until tomorrow, I needed to get it out now.

Good night loves.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in poetry, writing

Terrible Idea

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Terrible Idea There wasn’t an objective at the start, just desire— just pieces misaligned and confused by too many rhymes. I didn’t know whether or not it was a terrible idea, whether or not the pieces would come together, but I had to try. I took a leap of faith, jumped into the air before I knew what type of landing I’d fall to. Turns out the pieces cracked further when I hit the ground, a conflict of concrete and bone, and a lot of words that hurt.

This was not the poem that I set out to write tonight. In fact I’m feeling a little blocked.

This might be a no no to admit, but I’m not even sure what it’s about, not really. It’s a mashup of several story lines, as if all my demons of the past 3 years are fighting for attention but none of them are winning. This isn’t supposed to be a sad poem, just a reflection.

Our lives are composed of the intertwining of faith and falling. No matter where you are in that process, I hope you are at peace.

Love,

Leanne Rebecca

Posted in honesty, poetry

Glory One Day

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Glory One Day The oppression formed a mushroom cloud around my entire body, trapping years of everything I couldn’t say in smog laden prison. I suffocated from the inside out, suppressed by the need to control every breath, every swallow, obsessing like a hypochondriac, everything was wrong and nothing. I needed your permission to open my soul to the world outside of me, to not feel consumed by the ashes of regrets and stop fighting just stop and find the glory of staring mistakes in the eye, owning their weight with faith that one day I’ll learn to let them fade, lifted by release.

This weekend I saw Paramore, one of my favorite bands, play at the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis. I was moved to literal tears by the set and turned to my friend and said, “it’s crazy how much I relate to their music.” My friend looked me in the eye and said, “Leanne, it’s not crazy because we all feel that way.”

We all go through struggles, many of them more similar to the stranger sitting next to you than you might realize. We all go through cycles of making mistakes, growing, learning, and discovering glory on the other side of the darkness we never thought we’d find our way out of. Stay strong my friends and don’t be so hard on yourselves.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in art, poetry

Warning

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Warning There’s an explosive in my vagina at the ready to detonate, controlling the words I say, the who’s I manipulate, the culprit of the mistakes I didn’t mean to make. There’s an explosive in my vagina, implanted and yelling like a second brain, demanding and taunting, ravaging self-restraint until the regrets pile up like beer bottles at a party.

Back in college, in the one and only poetry class I ever took, my teacher looked us all in the eye and said, “If you’ve never written a poem about sex, you should.” I questioned whether or not it was a good idea to post this poem on here, but for the sake of being real, I decided to go for it. I wrote this in the afternoon while having a casual conversation with my roommate about going to the gynecologist.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in poetry

Overload

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

She told him the truth to stop the conversations in her head, expelling the catalyst before it sparked and exploded, leaving bits of brain stuck to her bedroom wall. She coughed into her hand, choking up the seed that had implanted in her grace, violating her sophistication like a hijacker, a virus. He accepted the gift, the honesty wrapped up in a ticking package, listening with the guise of patience, imperceptibly backpedaling away to dispose of the bomb dropped in his lap. Their eyes locked, both pulsating with intensity, sapphires reflecting the depth of the burden she’d bestowed on his conscience, truths too intense for his heart to bear, her fight, not his. She recognized his reticence, reaching her hand back out as though comforting a child, a gentle expression of assurance. She thought for a second he wouldn’t let her take it back.

Have you ever had someone tell you a secret you wish you didn’t have to carry? When it comes to my friends, I would rather they unload their heaviest burdens on me and let me support them rather than have them hold those secrets alone. On the flip side though, that often means I’m very honest with opening up about my struggles and I wonder if sometimes I share too much. I never want to be a burden.

I’m of the mindset that we should always support those that we care about, no matter what. The best of friends should never give up on one another, no matter how heavy our honesty weighs. I encourage you to tell your friends you love them and make sure they truly know it, not because you told them, but because you were there to carry them on your shoulders when they couldn’t walk.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in art, poetry, writing

Scars

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Scars It’s been enough years that the emotions have died in time. I remember the day like I would a news story— facts blocked in a reel, a non-biased documentary framing a girl and her brush with death, her fear and loss of childhood. I grew up in acceptance of new routine, ignoring diminished dignity moving past the stages of self-pity, and learned not to question misfortune. No one would know the stories behind these scars, would know about the scars at all, scars hidden under t-shirts, the only evidence I’m slightly broken.

I write about this once a year and once a year only. Fourteen years ago today I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I remember that day in chunks: when my pediatrician told us to drive to the hospital, when the nurse weighed me and commented that I was skin and bones, when I had to pee so badly as they were admitting me that I almost went in my pants, the first shot they gave me, the first shot I gave myself, sobbing in my mom’s arms in my dark hospital room, convinced that I’d never be able to eat pizza again.

Type 1 diabetes isn’t one of those diseases that people know you have. Aside from insulin pumps and hordes of empty juice boxes, we’re undetectable. I don’t hide my condition, but I don’t bring it up either. It’s a part of me now, locked into every moment of every day, burned into my routine, into my history, and into my future.

This is my confessional. Sometimes I’m still embarrassed to bring out my insulin pump at the dinner table, even with my closest friends. It’s been fourteen years and I still struggle with dosing food correctly. I don’t like to admit when I don’t feel well and I cancel doctor’s appointments when I’ve had trouble controlling my blood sugars just so my doctor won’t find out that I’m “failing” at being a good diabetic.

I’m not shy about my disease. I always welcome conversation and questions and will share my stories to anyone that cares to ask. It’s a strange dichotomy: being an open book that’s shoved inside a backpack.

Thanks for listening to my D-Day story. I guarantee next March 26th will reveal another chapter.

-Leanne Rebecca

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Posted in art, poetry, writing

Photograph

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Photograph She nurtured the outside with as much sweat as she could, building her image with layers of lies to the point of almost believing, her ego stacked on new muscle, new clothes, a new haircut. She flaunted the addiction with calculated precision, presenting an edited version of self, tight skinny jeans to evoke jealousy, manipulating the perceptions around to see only what she wanted. They accepted the picture she showed them, unaware, uncaring what ticked inside, because a girl like that, so beautiful, so outgoing could never feel invisible beneath her designer t-shirts.

My friend Katie took this picture of me. I didn’t know she was taking it at the time, otherwise I probably would have made a silly face or looked away. There’s something about candid pictures that are the best because they expose a side of us we so frequently hide from the world.

Tonight’s song is “Fly” by Sleeping with Sirens. Loving their new album.

What are you most afraid for people to see? For me, it’s fear.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in art, poetry, rhyme, writing

The Not Quite

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

The Not Quite I only thought about it for one hour a day, in the hours of bedtime tea, my reflection staring back at me while brushing my teeth before the siphoning of light as night’s shadows settled in my eyes. Only in that time did I feel like the not quite, drifting to sleep in the lullabies that haunted the air in my lungs, analyzing too intensely the songs sung in the daylight. Only in that hour did I give permission to disclose this expression, my secret anxieties to flood my sheets as pinot noir pinked my cheeks, a rush of heat in a kiss of honesty. Only then did I question everything, the not quite searching for a reason, deciphering the origins of these lesions, falling into dreams gripped by a heart stripped to its vulnerability.

Uncharacteristic rhyme tonight. There’s something about this poem that I really love. I almost didn’t write one, just thought maybe I’d let the TV drown out thinking until falling asleep, but I couldn’t just ignore my inner poet fighting to come out. She didn’t want to be ignored and I’m so glad I listened.

Good night!

–Leanne Rebecca