My Words My World

My family moved to Southern California in early July.
We moved on the pretense of help with our business and provided income for 6 months.
When we arrived all the promises proved to be lies. We were left stranded with one good friend to help.
The truth though is that one friend cannot fix your problems, we had to do everything we could to find a place to live.
We were lucky, we found a place… at the cost of every ounce of income we were bringing in each month.
Cost of living in California was/is so beyond our means that we have struggled each month since arriving in Santa Maria. Luckily we received help from the state, unluckily they have been slowly taking away the meager funds they were providing to us. Each month is more of a struggle and my family falls deeper into a state of fear and anxiety.
We decided that with all the promises left unfulfilled, we could not possibly remain here in “SoCal” for any longer. It was high time to move where we have wanted to be for over 4 years, North Carolina. About 2 months ago I began the search on Craigslist, trying to find homes that would accommodate us with the amenities we would need. I searched long and hard when I finally found a beautiful townhome in a small historic town 45 minutes northeast of Charlotte. I can barely think about this place without my eyes misting up and my heart fluttering in desire. I have never longed so deeply to be somewhere before, yet here I am.
We began making plans a few weeks prior, figuring costs to make the move, discussing the best options for getting our family across country in one piece. At this point we understood where the money was coming from and where it would go. We KNEW what would be in our hands, and what we would have to work with. Unfortunately, the truth is that it doesn’t matter if you’ve received the same check every two weeks for 45 years- anything can happen. Any chaos can be the stick in the spokes of your bike tire that makes you fall flat on your face.
This is where we are now. The money we KNEW would be here- hasn’t come. Payments that should have arrived still are not here, art that should have been completed has not been sent over for finishing touches, cards that should have been received are still in the process of “getting here” and none of it is really our fault- but we end up suffering.
We sit here wondering what we will do now… where we will turn. $1200 that we saved had to go our current landlord who refused to accept our security deposit as rent payment and also refuses to say whether or not any part of our security deposit will be returned. Our water has been shut off because of non-payment and a pocket so empty that not even the moths will linger.
We cannot stay, the landlord was already informed of our move. We cannot afford to search for a new home here, and do not wish to. We need to make $3500 in less than 16 days… and we- I- am simply lost.

If anyone could give me an answer, help me realize something that I’m not seeing.
I’m not one to look for handouts, I feel too proud too often to expect others to help in my situation…
yet I feel that maybe its time to start asking for help.

I’ve got my fingers crossed for North Carolina, and a God-sent miracle.

-Lisa

It’s been an interesting year. I’m okay to say goodbye to 2009… and welcome 2010 with open arms.
The past decade has been filled with too much loss and so many ups and downs of love.

I’m asking gently and politely for a decade of healing.

Goodbye to the 00’s and hello to the 10’s. Goodbye 2009… thank you for a beautiful son and much life experience,
but its time to move on. I’ll take my treasures and leave my pain with you if you don’t mind.

Best foot forward,

-Lisa

I didn’t mean to open this. I sat down to my computer and put the cursor over the icon for the internet. I’m not sure how I ended up with this open really. Maybe its a subconcious thought, a piece of me saying that it’s really time to stop moping around and start fixing my own problems.
I can’t say… and I wish I could.

Maybe I should just use these moments to explain how I feel. I’m worried that therapy won’t help me. Worried that all of my fear, pain and sorrow will have been leading to an untimely death, and not to some sort of revelation about my life and who I am. I’ve lost all concept of what it is that I love and adore. When I was younger I at least knew what pleased me. Now I’m a different person, and it’s harder to admit than I ever thought it would be.

I need to accept that I’ve grown and changed, and maybe not everything I loved has to change, but I know part of me has and so… things just can’t be the same. Maybe that’s why I’m depressed all the time. I keep hoping for a life that I understand- something familiar and comfortable, but it just doesn’t exist now. I have to work my way into a new life that is familiar and comfortable. I have to go with the flow and roll with the punches. But its so much easier said than done.

I was listening to ‘All you need is love’ (Beatles of course) and I couldn’t help but tear up. The lyrics that once sounded beautiful to my ears, now felt beautiful to my heart. “There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done, nothing you can sing that can’t be sung…”
Its sad but true… life has to stop being about “one-uping” other people- and just doing what makes you happy. Who cares what it is?! A good friend once said- “I could be the best butter churner in the world! But I’ll never know because I don’t want to go churn butter.” And I laughed when I first heard it, but now I just nod in affirmation of a very real truth.
I need to truly decide what I want. When I know what I want, then it doesn’t matter what I’m the best at- as long as I’m happy.

“… but you can learn how to be you in time… it’s easy”

Lurking behind shadowed corners, its patience has no bounds.
Salivating at the very thought of my screams,
the beast cannot be coaxed away.
I know the sweet stench, its hot breath churning down my back.
Body wracked with convulsive fear,
I have no hope of escape.
Unforgiving talons dig mercilessly, my mind reeling in agony.
Pinning me beneath its heavy weight,
I drown in the pain of my own monster.

- Written for a small writing group I’m a member of (blessedly).
It took me some time to get it out, to even think of what I really wanted to discuss under the specific topic.
But per usual, sometime after 10pm my wheels began turning away.
Funny how sometimes it feels like you spend hours, maybe even days just thinking-
and when you sit down to write you’re lucky if you walk away with a page.

What is it about an aching heart that makes you hungry? Is it the emptiness of the cavern, yawning wide and longing to be filled? Is it the need for some modicum of comfort from something that can’t look down its nose at you? Maybe the desire for a taste of sweetness literally- when a figurative one is simply out of the question… does it really matter?

The chest tightens, leaving a sickening pang in the gut each time you try to breathe. The mind is everywhere, looking for answers, spending agonizing minutes debating between fight and flight. And even after these seemingly unbearable horrors, the body keeps it coming. No one ever really mentions how dry you feel inside, the way your mouth feels parched and your eyes seem to shrivel after hours of crying. No one really stops to tell you about trying to hold your head up high as you contemplate the pure destruction of life as you know it. I guess those are lessons better learned through experience.

There are forms of release, insignificant ways to make the pain abate. You sit over the bowl of home made soup, the kind grandma lovingly taught you to make, the kind you pour your heart and soul into- and each bite you take is a moronic mixture of loving betrayal. Go and hide in the bedroom, that’s where you wail into the pillow for what seems like an eternity and find nothing but sopping wet fabric and the smell of sour salt. Mechanisms of the past seem worthy now, the ones that honestly changed the emotions inside- problem is you’ve got responsibilities now, being selfish is no longer allowed. So you pace the floor, wringing your cold hands together and trying not to vomit on the carpet you just vacuumed this morning. Then it hits- a memory of substance. Being able to say it all, do it all… no opinion worth a shit and the sensation of floating free.

The words are the key, the motion of the pen scratching lovingly against the paper, so like the caress of a fumbling lover. The food doesn’t heal- that’s the honest truth. Crying will only take you so far. Mistakes of the past should stay where they belong. There is only one salvation for you…

Write it Lisa.
Write and be free.

Its different here
and I am at a loss.
The air smells like sea salt and rotting meat.
There is no question or doubt-
I would prefer car exhaust and gas fumes.

Its as if the land here is trying to be tropical and sweet.
Unbelievably bright flowers,
palm trees on each street…
all of it a bold faced lie.

I find no beauty here.
At first, before my heart turned cold
and my eyes were shrouded in gray…
the mountains held serenity-
the ocean a peaceful strength.
Now… it could all be waste.

My only friend here is the wind.
Like a true companion it followed me,
sensing loss.
And it sings to me in the night
under the pale yellow moon.
Making music of this alien landscape that I detest so much.

Without the whisper of its twilight breeze,
I fear- no… I know,
insanity would overcome.
I owe my only joys in this barren hole-
to the wind.

Whilst browsing the internet I recently came upon a website called Writersmarket.com.
I perused their bookstore, and had a great find in Writer’s Market 2010.
This book is the end all be all for aspiring writers who want to know how to get published.
It has detailed listings of Book Publishers, Literary Agents, Small Presses, Consumer Magazines, Trade Journals, Screenwriting, Playwriting and Global Contests and Awards. It also has two great sections in the front, one entitled ‘The Basics’ and the other ‘Beyond the Basics’, which help layout the right steps one must take to be published and most importantly how to keep a great attitude while going through the motions.

Well, I ordered this book of course… and proceeded to wait 21 days for its arrival. After 21 days I was mildly upset as one could imagine. I phoned the customer service line and spoke to a very kind elderly woman who helped me to understand that because I was receiving a large book it could take up to 30 days to reach me. Knowing that it would get me nowhere to kick and scream like a child, I politely hung up the phone and dealt with my disappointment.

I sat around my house dreaming of this book’s arrival for another 27 days. I kept wondering if I had been bamboozled- if my perfect book would ever show. After hitting a point of extreme frustration I called customer service one more time. When the young lady from Ohio answered the line and heard the seething anger in my voice, she must have thought better than to question me too much- because she simply offered to send me a new book through UPS, free of shipping charge.

Since the books arrival I have immersed myself in all of its glorious information. Skipping back and forth through its pages, finding all of the answers to questions that I’ve kept buried in my mind since early high school. Even after 48 days of stress and anxiousness, Writer’s Market 2010 has been a savior for my writing career. I now better understand the proper procedures of querying and manuscript (ms) submitting, the names of over 10 publishing houses that are currently looking for horror, thriller and fantasy submissions and a score of agents in and around my area that would be willing to keep email correspondence with me concerning my future career as a published writer.

For any aspiring writer out there, fiction or non, reporter or columnist, I highly recommend Writer’s Market 2010 or Writer’s Market 2010 Deluxe Edition- which comes with a one year free subscription to the Writer’s Market website, Writersmarket.com. Just make sure that when you order this gem that you select 7-10 day shipping with UPS… for sanity’s sake.

I wrote this story for a DeviantArt Halloween contest. It had a 250 word limit, so I did my best to incorporate the right details in the right places.

She became a collector. Only the most special things making it into her congregation, certain criteria needing to be met. There was a connection she had to feel, a merging of souls. Night and day she tended to her collection, cleaning it, loving it. Nothing was more important to Ashley than her toys.
As this went on Ashley’s parents began to wonder if she was mentally ill and being worried, arranged for a psychiatric evaluation on the eve of Halloween. The doctor simply said, “Obvious case of Autism, I recommend drug therapy.”
Ashley’s parents were overjoyed at the thought of having a normal little girl. They quickly okayed the treatments, never once asking Ashley for permission. Knowing she would never cooperate, the drug was crushed and secretly put into her lovingly home cooked meals.
It was a crisp Autumn night when her father brought the prescription home. When her mother crushed a pill under her chef’s knife, sprinkling the dust into Ashley’s dessert. Smiling at their cunning, her father called out, “Ashley, dinner time!”
Quietly she came into the kitchen, arms wrapped around her favorite plush toy, the one she called ‘Fella’. Standing in the doorway she lifted the small body, “Mother… look! He’s my doctor for Halloween.” Cradling the costumed toy, Ashley peered over its head at her parents.
“Fella told me about the medicine…” she sighed. “And now we have to fix you- before you fix me.” Ashley growled, stalking toward her parents, “You can’t take my toys.”

Hope you all enjoyed.

-Lisa

The sun set hours ago and the streets are dark. I always notice how the shadows linger in the alley, like slick predators they mingle behind cardboard boxes and behemoth dumpsters. The sound of my heels echos like the ringing slam of duel hammers as I sprint away from the dread the alleyway brings.
I come to a panting stop against a wet brick wall. Reaching out to the side I slide my fingers into the cool handle of a diamond plate door. This is my sanctuary. Once I enter here, I become a new woman, a far cry from the library rat who bathes in the must of old and tattered novels.
I turn and press myself against the door, the texture like a caravan of roving fingers titillating my skin. I knock once, twice, and call out my name. I hear the click of a lock, the sliding deadbolt grinding in its hole. I have faith in this place, this dungeon, to take away the simple sins of the mundane and give me what I most desire.
I squeeze my body through the crevasse of the open door and into the waiting brutish arms of security. Running his rough hands down my sides and over my hips, he searches for pieces of the outside. A two fingered dip into the front of my leather corset gets him my cell phone and he smiles, “You know better than that darlin’, even a succulent pear like you can’t bring the world in.”
I shrug coyly at him gently biting my lip and saunter off into the darkness. The long hall is littered with broken light, fragments of neon and victorian scarlet. Voices call out from behind closed doors, whispered monetary transactions, shrieks of viral pleasure, the moaning of pure lust.
This is the other side of my looking glass. Debauchery perfectly packaged and topped with a fine silk ribbon. There is no place on the outside like this, no asylum for those like me. Those that live as puppets, appeasing the masses with lying smiles. Here in this crypt we reign, we are the supreme power. For this is where the vapid souls of the Outerworld come to us for answers, to give them the one thing they truly desire…

Something that I wrote for a contest. The submission had to be between 50 and 500 words and include a list of ten words/topics. Can you guess which ten they are?

We lay down the blanket,
ironically out of season
with its frosted snowmen
and twinkling lights.

The sun shines on the grass,
reflecting jade and gold
into her warm rich chocolate eyes-
reflexively making me smile.

I sit with him laughing,
marveling at the carefree
innocent disposition of his
gurgling words.

The wind dances past,
tickling the sweetest places
trapped inside memories
that never chill me.

Here we are together,
her feet flying as she shrieks
in unison with his cooing contentment,
my softly scratching pen,

and our perfect moment.