January 2010: Things fall apart. Everything is coming undone. It’s making me sick. Nervous. Afraid. I’ve taken to crying in the shower cause I think I won’t be heard.

I kept it moving. Ninety miles and hour on a gerbil wheel. I hadn’t stopped, not even when I lost everything. I take that back. I didn’t lose a thing. I sent it back. I walked away with my head held high, proud ass bitch.

But yea, I did lose something. I lost my way. I had gone off the path in 2007, but I was so burnt out it was all the same. I had been going through the motions. It had gotten so I no longer had to think. That’s not life. That’s death on two feet.

But those two feet, they didn’t stop until they couldn’t go on. Everything began to crumble and I couldn’t hold it together anymore. I didn’t want to break up during the holidays. I couldn’t deal with that. Instead we got a Christmas tree that withered before our very eyes.

It had been a long time coming, the break up to a relationship I held together with scotch tape. It had been over for nearly as long as it had been good. But I refused, literally refused, to deal with reality. And I’m good at that. Being single-minded and all. Ahh, single-minded, a euphemism for OCD get out my way, y’all.

January 2010: I finally broke. I was in the shower crying when I saw the gerbil. He was laying beside the wheel, which had come to a full stop. The gerbil had X’d out eyes, just like in cartoons. And as he lay there, near death, I saw something that broke my heart. His tiny paw firmly gripped the wheel. He couldn’t let go of the thing that was his demise. And it broke my heart to see what attachment to self destruction really means.

Not that that stopped me. That’s when I took up drinking. I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol for five years, though I can’t say that being sober did me any favors. I had begun drinking a glass of wine here and there throughout the autumn, but when the fall came I stepped my game up to hard liquor to numb everything.

I remember after one particularly gruesome scene, I slunk into the kitchen and stole back to the bedroom with a bottle of Jack Daniels. And I did shots straight outta the bottle, chest convulsing silently. I couldn’t cry freely. He couldn’t deal with it. Though I get it. Back then, I would fall apart like I was two years old.

So I choked on my sobs as I ran shots down my throat and this feeling of Janis swept over me, and I knew what that meant. I fell asleep to bad dreams and I awoke to tears and more shots. And I slunk back into the kitchen with the bottle, returning it like nothing ever happened.

I took up drinking. Martinis until he left. Then martinis after he left, until one night I felt cracked out. This wasn’t drunk. This was high. I had been in so much pain I couldn’t tell how bad the medicine was. Til I started to get better, then I switched to red wine. White wine. Rose. Didn’t matter. Just pour it. I was getting used to hangovers anyway.

It had gotten so drinking was the thing I organized in my life. Who would I see, where would we dine, two or three glasses was fine, four or five times a week. It got so the feeling of drunk was the best thing for me.

I was numb. I was happy. Because nothing mattered anymore. It was all just a bad joke. Or maybe it was a good joke. I was a fun drunk. Never angry or moody, just happy not to feel the misery of my life.

This went on for two years. I know this to be so because tonight I realized, I don’t go out drinking anymore. I don’t feel that need to erase, to obliterate, to forget what I stand before. I’m not scared of the past. Though yea, I get a lil nervous about the present. But not enough so that I need to remove myself from my life. Not so much so that I lose days of energy dispelled over long and lonely nights.

I thought about what this was. Where did the page turn? Back in December, some heavy ish went down. And it caught me out there, hard. I wrote about it, just to get it all out. Though I don’t really have any answers for what happened. Only the clear understanding that I have to let go of anything that hurts.

But it’s more than that. It is finding something I’ve always wanted but never understood. It’s the only thing that matters to me, the one thing I could never hold. Love. In the biggest possible sense. The force, the energy of life, the power to heal all wounds.

A good education will teach you to question education.

At LAX and security just told dude in front of me he can’t bring his water through
and dude replied, “Oh, Homie don’t play that?” #Flawless

I view Richard Pryor as more of a father figure than anything else.

Not trying to take away anything on this beautiful day,
but Martin Luther King day is everyday if you know what the fuck is up.

At CCC and there’s some dude taking SHOTS of hot sauce to chase his chicken.
I feel like a boy amongst men—not sure if this is rad or fucked.

“You go to the camera store so much you deserve your face on the wall.”
—Mom

I Love Kevin Hayes

A Complex Crime

New York is something awful, something monstrous.
I like to walk the streets, lost,
but I recognize that New York is the world’s greatest lie.
—Federico Garcia Lorca

And New York is the most beautiful city in the world? It is not far from it.
No urban night is like the night there…
Squares after squares of flame, set up and cut into the aether.
Here is our poetry, for we have pulled down the stars to our will.
—Ezra Pound

A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe and 50 times:
It is a beautiful catastrophe.
—Le Corbusier

The present in New York is so powerful that the past is lost.
—John Jay Chapman

One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.
—Georgia O’Keefe

It couldn’t have happened anywhere but in little old New York.
—O. Henry

Gargoyle Man

i didn’t make it, sugar
playin by the rules

There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don’t you?
—Rumi

]]> http://missrosen.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/what-you-seek-is-seeking-you/feed/ 0 missrosen palm_tree http://missrosen.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/revoultion-graffiti-cairo/ http://missrosen.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/revoultion-graffiti-cairo/#comments Sun, 29 Jan 2012 13:05:22 +0000 Miss Rosen http://missrosen.wordpress.com/?p=10779 ]]>

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
—John Bradshaw, inscription on his tombstone

I don’t care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.
—Che Guevara

Insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws.
—Leon Trotsky

When liberty comes with hands dabbled in blood
it is hard to shake hands with her.
—Oscar Wilde

Revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionary’s life.
When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime.
—Angela Davis

The measure of the moral worth of a man is his happiness.
The better the man, the more happiness.
Happiness is the synonym of well-bring.

Do not have an attitude; open yourself and focus yourself and express yourself.
Reject external form that fails to express internal reality.

We can see through others only when we see through ourselves.

To understand your fear is the beginning of really seeing.

The question: I’m loved?

All quotes from Striking Thoughts by Bruce Lee

The figure on the Nine of Wands has definitely been through tough times.
This fighter has seen some battles. He’s hurt, but he’s not down.
When we have had a bad experience, we feel weary and battle-scarred.
Even if we aren’t hurt physically, our psyches are wounded.
Our openness, innocence and trust are gone, replaced by wary defensiveness.

The Nine of Wands can be a warning that you must proceed carefully.
Keep a watchful eye because there is the possibility that you will be hurt.
If you have already been burned, you know what this man is feeling.
Life’s lessons can be hard sometimes, especially when hopes have been dashed.
It is natural to feel defensive at such times, but try to avoid becoming bitter.
Your experience has wounded you, but it has strengthened you as well.

Strength is the other aspect of the Nine of Wands. This fighter is tough!
He has the physical stamina and the inner drive to persist despite all setbacks.
This card tells you to keep going no matter what.
Even if everyone and everything seems to be against you right now,
don’t give up. Within you are the hidden reserves you need to prevail.