Tag: life

Posted in poetry

Stubborn

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Stubborn

I wrote this poem a few weeks ago, but it didn’t seem right at the time, so I never posted it. I came back to it tonight and found that all it needed was a new title, a couple of word changes, and one line added in. It feels like a whole new poem now. So weird how that happens.

–Leanne

Posted in desire, dream, fear, heart, hope, introspection, invisibility, journal entry, life, loneliness, love, poetry, story, struggle, writing

Birthday Brunch

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Birthday Brunch

Regardless of my social ineptitude and longing for human connection, it was a delicious (and vegan) brunch at one of my favorite places. I woke up a little sad yesterday and that sadness followed me all morning and into the afternoon. Sometimes eating a roasted apple crepe with peanut butter and drinking a sunburnt white Russian on a sunshiny day does not negate whatever emotion nags in your heart. The sadness waned though in the afternoon, thanks to a massage, some quiet time with a book at a coffee shop, and a dinner out with my parents and brother. A bipolar birthday for sure.

Posted in introspection, poetry, struggle

Ghost

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Ghost There I was, the girl sitting alone at a table in Whole Foods, licking chocolate off my fingers, heart in my head, guitar in my ears, stars lost in cynical fear, convinced no one could see my existence under the florescent hue. So I licked away, sucking on every knuckle until I’d captured all the chocolate, hands cleansed of the transgression, no trace that it ever happened, no evidence that I’d been there at all. Tomorrow is my dead sister’s birthday, but you’d never know that.

Tonight is one of those nights that I could rant forever about what’s on my mind. Often though, I feel like I’ve already exhausted writing about my struggles. There are only so many times you can fill page after page with emotional drama, self-doubt, existential questioning, etc. There comes a point where you have to acknowledge it but figure out a way to channel everything you’d scribble in terribly written prose into something productive. I don’t want to dwell on struggle. I want to live today and love today. Everything is fleeting.

Happy birthday dear Becky.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in death, life, poetry

Never Again

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Never Again I do what I can to avoid that place, that head space when I needed an end to escape friendlessness, the torment not being able to feel my own breathing, a carcass driving aimless going nowhere, those days alone listening to song after song, wishing home felt like home, wishing my voice could rise, that invisible me could be seen. Those days may have died as I learned to dispose of emotion, crying out the suicide, leaving the drops of intention to dry in a trail behind. But the scar still haunts, still taunts at this heart, whispers no one else can hear or know to understand, to allow my hand to hold a little tighter, to feel their pulse against mine, to help me feel alive. I do what I can to avoid that place, incessant texts, aggressive pursuit of connection, random sex and make out sessions, singing as loud as scabbed lungs will allow, forcing your fingers in mine and pulling you close, begging you to stay so that I’m not alone, afraid, betrayed by the yesterdays when the threat of death was the only time I felt relevant. —Leanne Rebecca

Tonight I’m obsessed with the song “Scene Four – Don’t You Ever Forget About Me” by Sleeping with Sirens. I’m pretty sure my roommate hates me because I just played it about 7 times in a row:

Don’t you ever forget about me
When you toss and turn in your sleep
I hope it’s because you can’t stop thinking about
The reasons why you close your eyes
I haunt your dreams at night
So you can’t stop thinking about me
Don’t stop thinking about me

Do you really think you could see this through
Put on a smile and wear it for someone new
Don’t you do it
‘Cause I know I’m not the easiest one to love
But every ounce I have
I invest in you
But no one said love’s not for taking chances

Hitting home.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in desire, love, poetry

Geometry

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

We’ve aligned ourselves in a conundrum, standing in a circle that doesn’t connect, dancing round and round this game of heartache, tripping out of line, falling in passion's trap, waiting for the hand next door to pull us back into the flirtation of friendship, the guise of fitting together, sucked deep into the mystery of not quite chemistry, the him and the me and the him and the her and the us confused by timing, by equations we can’t solve. So we walk side by side at an impasse, frustrated by the same emotion, all in love but not with the right one.

I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately. One of my best friends just got engaged and we’ve been talking about how she knew that he was her partner for life. Her answer, simple and honestly vague, is that something deep inside her just knew.

There’s no common factor that can explain why sometimes we feel romantic chemistry and sometimes we don’t. There’s no trick to lining up that connection. I’ve always been someone that feels it right away and in my experience, no matter how much time I spend with a person doesn’t change whether or not that spark is there. I do believe that love is a decision, ultimately, but it’s foundation is built upon that invisible force that draws you to each other. It’s frustrating when chemistry just misses or when bad timing prevents the heart from sensing it. There are no set paths to falling in love and that exploration, that heartbreak, that discovery, that journey is why we write.

Posted in art, honesty, poetry, writing

Black Hole

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

Black Hole What do you write about when you’re listening to songs about love the week before Valentine’s day, holding on to how breathtaking the sunset was yesterday as the melancholy of another year is settling into the cracks of your skin? You can’t, because you can’t describe the way it feels, that numbness in your chest, that buzzing of nothingness that hums like florescent lights, tinting the surroundings a little sickly, a green and yellow hue that accentuates the purple veins in your skin, the only proof there’s blood still flowing, that you’re not invisible. You listen to the acoustic melodies of someone else’s beating heart and pretend it doesn’t bother you that no one’s ever told you they love you.

I couldn’t sleep last night. My brain raced and raced and finally at 6 am I decided to just get up and shower. Isn’t it strange how sometimes the things we want the most we just can’t have. I just wanted to sleep in on a Saturday, but some force out there in the universe had a different plan.

–Leanne Rebecca

Posted in art, poetry, writing

To Have You

Posted on by SHE'S IN PRISON

To Have You I swallow nostalgia with the mucus building up in the back of my throat, a ball of what once was scratching as if I’d tried to take a pill without water. Behind every blink I see flashes of friendship, come and gone, the days when I never feared lonely afternoons, when tomorrow was a hopeful word, when I didn’t want to run from today and expunge yesterdays with a worn out pencil eraser, a smeared memory not quite deleted. Those were the days of club dancing, sleeping until noon, pajama parties and vodka, when none of us really cared that we didn’t have boyfriends because we had each other. I swallow the nostalgia, the distance of our cities stuck at the back of my throat, a lump growing like a tumor as we get older and farther away from the days of not caring that we don’t have boyfriends.

Today is one of the rare afternoons on a weekday that I have nothing to do. It’s in those times that I tend to think too much, thinking about every aspect of my life, and not in a healthy way. I have a habit of looking too closely at the minutes of a day, wondering too much about why I’m doing what I’m doing and making a list of all the things that are missing. I envy the people that live so carefree, loving the moment and embracing alone time with love. I wonder if they’re acting.

I hope you catch some sunshine today!

–Leanne Rebecca