Random Poems

I was cleaning my room today (yes it does happen) when i came across a notebook that contained some old poems i'd written. a few i liked enough to read a second time, despite their melancholy tone. these are the ones that i'm passing along today because I feel like putting up another post yet I am lacking the creativity to come up with fresh material.

getting old~ beautiful lies

i miss him and his beautiful lies
his mesmerising tales
of made up woes
and how sweetly he'd hold me
when he confided.

i miss the way he could find
all that was wrong with the world
keep a captivated audience,
then dismiss it all-
like blowing an eyelash from the tip of a finger-
and chase it with a beer.

i miss the man he swallowed.
the one who brought me here,
the one who would never
let these things happen to me.
he smells of death
no longer sweet sleep.
i miss him.

sorry for the mood on that one, i just liked a few of the lines...
next...

why my quilting doesn't solve the problems of the world

mapping out
fat scraps
and must have finds,
as though piecing together
this puzzle could some how solve
the fragments
that i see
in my window.
simple math,
mistakes fixed with a
snip or scribble.
in the end
the pieces add up to
less than i had imagined.
colors are off,
patterns collide.
i know why
i've only been
concealing to comfort
from the puzzle-
unbalanced equation-
outside.
another tool of avoidance-
this one just slightly
more vibrant.

the funniest part is that in the same note book on the next page is a to-do list entitled "things to stop putting off." one item is crossed out with the little amendment: "too late"

My Dating Conundrum

Frankly i'm glad it's not my job to update this blog frequently because i have been terrible. I have been wanting to, but my desire for the computer has greatly decreased since my cohabitation with my parents began. It may have something to do with the speed of my parents' internet connection but it more likely has to do with the fact that there are several people sharing one computer and i don't have the patience required for waiting around for it.
Enough excuses, though my reason for this post is somewhat related. I decided to break the silence so to speak because of a recent ironic observation in my own life. My dating life stinks, and no that is not the observation because that is too obvious. I mean i've been on one date in the last four or five months, and i had to force myself to go on that one. Not that the guy wasn't great or that i didn't enjoy myself, I just have been really blah about it. So lately i've tried to be more proactive about it, in the least exerting way. I have tried to get back on the lovely dating website to make myself get excited about a man. This is when i had my epiphany.
The men i was looking at fit in three categories: 1. why did this person email me? how is it possible that he could think we would get along? 2. this guy is... okay... i could probably make myself like him... and want to stab a fork in my eye a month later 3. wow. there is no way that guy would date me, but i am going to stare at his picture for an extra ten seconds... minutes..
Enter the epiphany. First let me state that i don't think that i would be that bad of a significant other. I'm giving and loyal, almost to a fault. I'm a hard worker and an easy laugher, pretty trusting and pretty chill. However, the people who would date me, i don't particularly want to date (and yes i mean the redneck, die hard hunters, and the service men from Mountain Home [been there, done that] and people that don't try to mask their illiteracy on the website, and anyone who has a topless picture of themselves flexing in front of a mirror, call me picky). And the people who i am interested in i would totally lose respect for if they dated someone like me. Please refer back to the part where i compliment myself at the beginning of this paragraph. However i am a single mom, and if you're a hot doctor you want a hot young wife (and i've just entered my first year of being 29, where i will remain until i'm not single). Or if you're a world traveler you want someone who can leave at a moments notice. And that's fine, i'd rather have Cecily than that life anyway. Or the fact that i just bought a house and i really don't want to have to move again for a very long time. But a responsible guy would probably have a house of his own that he may not want to give up. I realize that's pretty selfish but hey, it's my first house and i want to live somewhere for more than a year or two. Or lifestyles, i mean really. i can't cook. i'm ADD at it. Just today i burnt Cecily's brownies for her easy bake oven. So i am in this relationship and i get home from teaching at four and he gets home from work later than that and i'm chilling on the couch eating ice cream from the carton saying 'hey babe, what's for dinner?' Ew.
So using my inherent powers of rationalization i've decided that it is probably for the better that i stay away from the dating world, at least the online one. Although, with those powers of rationalization is the reality that i will still peek, just in case. And hope that a hot uncle of a students will show up at school someday, just for a shameless bout of flirtation.

when bandaids, ice packs and kisses aren't enough

Divorce is difficult.

I realize there is nothing particularly prophetic in that statement, but it is none the less true. And perhaps for idiots like me it’s even more difficult when you try over and over to make it work with the same man because it doesn’t make any sense that you should care about someone so much and not be able to make it work. But sometimes you can’t. and I know that I try not to believe that , as I have protested in other posts, but if the work to keep it alive and to stay in love is not put in, it’s doomed. And the work has to be put in by two people. I always thought I could love enough for two people, but I can’t. I used to think it was just david’s way of loving, but with his new girl I realize it was just that he didn’t love me.

So almost exactly four years after our divorce, david left for the last time. We get along because, well because we do. And so that has made things somewhat easier. But he left only four months ago and has since moved in with his new girl. I want him to be happy, and that is the honest truth. There is a part of me that wants him to be so happy he forgets about me and our little girl and I can run away from this. My flight instinct is very much intact. And I also believe that I am very much done staying in love with him. Yet when he said he wouldn’t appear at a function we were both invited to because he didn’t think I would be comfortable seeing him with the new girl, the sudden pit in my stomach revealed the truth in his statement. I didn't like that. i realized there are just too many emotions associated with even the tiniest part of the obscure relationship between us.

To briefly add to this scenario without delving into self pity, shortly after he left lost my job. And as a result lost the house I was renting. I couldn’t find another job and I couldn’t find a new place to live that would allow me the flexibility to commute to all the districts I had my applications in. in short I found myself unemployed and back at my parents house crowded by boxes and half filled hopes and dying expectations.

And that’s where this post really starts to hit home for me. The betrayal, loneliness, confusion, helplessness, the inability to understand the intensity of the emotions that swirl around in a cloud that is sometimes so dark it’s hard to see. Then the next moment they are opaque, then they disappear which is even more confusing. I think of these things and I think of my little girl. It tears my heart in two knowing that all these grown up feelings are being compressed into such a tiny little body. That when she starts to cry and can’t stop, when she needs to be touching me whenever we are together. Her requests for things I know she doesn’t want but she knows she doesn’t have. the emotions are so real and so encompassing they seem to be beating her from the inside out, finding any outlet to escape her. I hold her, hug her, tell her how amazing she is and what a lucky mommy I am.

But there are no bandaids, no ice packs, and no amount of kisses can fix what has been done to her.

This helpless feeling kills me. I know that I am a good mother, I know that I have done what others may not have to stay that kind of mother. And I know there are things I can do to be a better mother. But there is nothing I can do to keep her from feeling this way. My tools of kisses and soothing words can only be accompanied by patience and helping her cope. I can’t make it go away. How can I be so powerless for her? I’ve always dreamed of being a mother. My sisters had aspirations, and drive and intelligence that I could not compare to. But I knew that motherhood was my truest and deepest desire and that was a happiness for me. I’m very lucky to have the daughter that I have, but I didn’t plan on being a mother like this. Maybe I’m just being given what I can handle, but I have to protest. I cannot handle my little girl being packed so tight with emotions that are too big for body and too old for her age.

I’m sorry for the mood of the post. I don’t think I ever would have written it if it weren’t for a post from Jo who let it be okay to say that things aren’t perfect on blogs. That could be the most truth ever posted. :)

just your average jo

they say parenting is a thankless job...

and in some ways perhaps that's true. and in those ways being a custodial parent is even more thankless. today cecily told me that her daddy was cooler than the fair. high praise. i on the other hand was not. i understood though, if the fair happened every day i'd get tired of it, too.
on the subject of my little one i thought i would address her seemingly tireless endeavor to find out who she really is. as a young child she asked her daddy where we came from. monkeys he told her. simple enough.
later the main competition was whether she was a rock star or a princess. i would call her a goober and she would insist that she wasn't. she was either a princess or a rockstar and you couldn't tell from one moment to the next which one she was. and heaven forbid you got it wrong! sometimes i convinced her that she was both, at the same time. although that seems like it would be easy enough, it didn't always satisfy her.
then it became vastly more complex! we kept rock star and princess, but also added ballerina and astronaut. and there were combinations! sometimes even she would get frustrated that she didn't know which one she was. i would try to be the diplomatic mother and tell her she could be whatever she wanted to be because of how smart, and kind, and wonderful she was. didn't fly.
my favorite was the stage when she started adopting names. she asked if i knew she was a cecily when she was born. i told her that actually we didn't and that we had to decide between several names. i listed them for her and she decided she liked leila. so for a while her full name was cecily gwen leila leisten. although if you catch her in the wrong mood she doesn't want to be anything but cecily.
we are now somewhere inbetween those two stages. she wants to be addressed as princess sometimes, it seems to be the favorite. but other times she wants to be hermione from harry potter. i like that one, honestly. i mean she's brilliant! she wanted to paint a picture for her bedroom wall (when she has one that is, still at the 'rents) and wanted to write hermione on it. she forgot about it while she was painting though so i think we're okay. she has been combining the last two and has become princess hermione as well. whatever works, kid.
while sometimes this can get a little unnerving, just because i never know who she is going to be, i'm very proud of her efforts to understand herself and what she wants to be. i think it takes a lot of skill as a person to put yourself through all of that self examiation and come out on top like she always does. i'm hoping it gives her a head start in her teenage years, or even in her twenties when she's trying to find herself. i'll send her a huge painting for her wall that will say: "i am rockstar, astronaut, ballerina princess hermione cecily gwen leila leisten and i can be whatever i want!"
i ♥ my little girl.

poem post #2

i'm doing two today because i have one that relates to the celebration that today is: moving in with my parents. again.

shame

i'm 28.
eating at my
parents' house
should not be
a nightly
ritual.

yet here i am
knee deep
in spring greens
and chicken
waiting for
their program
to start
on tv.




~happy moving day to me!

poem post #1

as i mentioned in the previous post, i'm trying to write more. my skill has fallen, but practice makes... better, right? i've always had a problem with being to flowery, being too wordy, etc. so here are two poems telling the same story; one where i'm really wordy and one that's a little more direct.

listening

rich words fall
like variable pearls
dripping from your ruby tongue
my heart expands
from collar bone
to belly button
and the heavy warmth
sprouts wings
making a home in every
corner of me.
my cheeks stretch and warm.
the waterfall of words abruptly
stops.
your mouth open as though another pearl
might fall out,
you look at me
as though I’m the one with
gemstones cascading from my lips.
my cheeks flush,
the winged warmth does
flips in my gut.
sound escapes you.
i anticipate the flutter of opalescent gems-
but it’s simpler
plain, even
And yet more eloquent.

-gag- the romantic element of it makes me want to puke, but it's what comes out on the first go round. here's the second:

Lane change

even in passing conversations-
like now when we’re driving-
he uses more syllables
in one word
than I do in a sentence.
my pulse races and my brain reels
trying to keep up with him.

it’s a weird turn on.

he says something amusing-
i’m concentrating on my driving-
so I simply grin.
he stops-
mid multisyllabic word-

“wow, your smile is amazing”

i blush, check my mirrors to distract myself
and he continues prattling on.
i signal and switch lanes.
…i think i just fell in love.



*i prefer the second.. my old age has made me less of a romantic :)

A Sister’s Confidence In Me (I’m posting some old ones today…)

I had the wonderful opportunity to stay with my sister and her family for a week. Granted it was a babysitting gig, but when the kids just spend the day playing, there’s not much I have to do other than break up fights and know how to staunch bleeding. Plus my mom came with me so we had better odds. And because my mom was with me that means I got to go a couple places with my sister, including to the guest speaker at the writers conference she was attending. My sister is a serious writer. She devotes time to it, scheduling a babysitter on a regular basis so she can have some writing time. She’s working on a few novels. I mean this chic is legit! I also like to write, I did it a lot growing up, mostly poetry. I found a love for short stories and personal essays in college, but also had my ego smashed by a less than supportive graduate student that taught the writing class I took. *grumble*
Back to my sister. When she took me to this conference she wanted me to meet the women in her writing group. They all write young adult fiction and one has published a few books. I was enjoying basking in my sisters shadow, following, her from place to place, and then she introduced me. “this is my sister Amanda, she’s a teacher and a writer.” Excuse me?! A writer? I wanted to deny it, but any attempts that I made were squashed by my sister’s insistence.
So. I’m a writer?
This idea stayed with me for a few weeks and I realized how happy it made me, and how much I had been longing to write again, but just didn’t see the point. I picked up a pen and started writing. Poems for now, since they were what I was most comfortable with when I wrote before, but I hope to get back to writing stories again. And because you read my blog, and I’m assuming you do since you are reading this, you will be exposed to my rebirth in writing. I will be posting the occasional piece on here from time to time just to feel justified in both writing and in keeping a blog, because let’s be honest, I don’t have much to write about. I’m a country song right now, lost my home, my job, my partner. I just have to have someone die and I’ll be right on course! Sorry. Morbid humor. But you have been warned, so consider yourself as such.

ONLINE DATING WARFARE

I have ventured into the world of online dating, something mentioned in a previous post. And since I have been in that world for a little while I thought I should send an update.
It should be known that I was told that you meet the one you end up within the first few weeks, which both fascinated and frightened me. Especially when I saw the people that match.com lined up for me. What the hell did I put in my profile that matched me with these men?? However it made the sorting process a bit easier for me. if they are wearing camo, or have any pictures where they are holding a dead animal or fish I can skip right over them. I realize I am in Idaho, but it frightens me a little that men would think that a picture of a bleeding carcass with vacant, staring eyes next to an eager, grinning boy who is supposed to be the I-am-the-provider-and- can-kill-things man would somehow appeal to the female population. I don’t know maybe I’m the weird one.
I am also lucky because I have a built in filter: a child. I just scroll on down to see what interests them in a woman and if they don’t want to deal with a mommy I greedily put them in my discard pile. It’s their loss honestly. My kid is the coolest!!
Now there is the age issue. I understand that I have my own filters that say I want people between this number and this number, but I feel like I should not be presented to anyone who isn’t in my age bracket even if I am in theirs. So all you creepy sixty year old men who want to find someone between 20 and 30 just stop! No one wants you! You need to be loaded for that to work and I would think that if you were rich enough to convince a young attractive woman to waste her time on you, I’m sure the golddiggers would be knocking at your door and you wouldn’t need to be on match.com. grr…
So within the first two weeks I did meet someone, a few actually. It really is an ego booster! All of a sudden you have someone every day who is saying they’d like to meet you or are interested, or if nothing else a wink (which are creepy and what the dirty old men often use). And the activity always picks up on the weekend. Suddenly all the single people in the valley are getting worried that they will spend another weekend alone and pathetic, or even worse a third wheel… again. Suddenly one in the morning on Thursday night is the perfect time to meet the one you were meant to be with (which I must say, this whole online dating thing has made me see the complete bullshit behind that idea).
At any rate I started dating someone and am still dating him… for the time being. But the crazy is calling me again! Something about the idea of seeing a page full of information that allows you to make a tentative life plan with someone you’ve never met. Today I might be satisfied with being the girlfriend of an engineer, but what if I want to watch a really intense season of football? I’m going to need to date that meathead with the “other” occupation. And what if there is a time in my life when I want to be really healthy? I could jumpstart it with that vegan kayaking enthusiast.. and that guy with the marketing job that travels all over the world, well he could be downright boring as long as he took me to Europe. And I will want to pop out another kid, that really hot guy with no income may have the perfect set of genes to have a truly adorable baby. *sigh* decisions, decisions…

moments of hope for our future

i know that my last post denied it, but there is no point in that now. david and i have called it quits. For the last time, all you sarcastic children out there who rolled your eyes! But this is not the main purpose of this post (however, the world of online dating may be a subject for several future posts!).
The purpose of this post relates to my students. I have one student, we will call him Drake for the sake of the story. Drake has been one of the lovely children that has perpetuated my fake prejudice against blonde adolescent males under 5'2". He loves to be out of his seat when he shouldn't be, loves to say really disrupting remarks when i'm talking which then takes me a few minutes before i can get the class on track. He likes to do bizarre things with desks, which include riding them like a motorcycle, using them as a dance floor and my personal least favorite, humping them. His mother heard about the last one, it hasn't happened since. However, like any 13 year old boy he loves to find opportunities to be inappropriate in ways he doesn't completely understand. In spite of all that I really actually love this kid.
So now that we all have a clear view of him in our head- picture him in class being obnoxious. When the conversation turns towards Cecily, which the kids know i have a weakness for off task discussion when it comes to her the kids try to keep the conversation going they by asking about david, and ask "isn't he your boyfriend?" to which i replied, since i was still reeling from it myself, that i was single as of the day before (easter, mind you. EASTER. in a hospital after i visited his grandpa. yeah. classy). i laughed it off, well because honestly, the whole situation is so awful it can only be hilarious at this point, so the class laughed with me and still tease me about it when they get a chance (seriously, they will just yell easter! at me while walking down the hall. gotta love middle schoolers).
We continued on with class after a minute and it seemed like an uneventful class. i didn't wallow in pity and we got some work done. After class everyone left and my next period class shuffled in. i didn't notice Drake leaving, but i saw him coming back into the room. My first reaction was something akin to fear, i never know what this kid will do. Drake simply walked up to me at my desk, gave me a big hug, and walked out the door. No comment, no calling attention to himself. Simply a moment of pure concern for someone else and doing all that a little 13 year old boy could do about it.
So here is my testimonial: our future is in good hands. Moments like these are priceless indicators of the compassion and caring nature of our future generation. So the next time you see some obnoxious kids at the mall (as they are wont to be), or children that seem to have no sense doing some activity that seems to ensure bodily harm, please remember that in those insane little bodies is a kind and generous soul. And if they knew you needed one, would give you a big heart-melting hug in an instant. i just hope they can say the same about us.

Why Instant Messaging Scares the Crap Out of Me

So I recently joined an online dating service. If you know me and my relationship situation don't freak out, it was out of curiosity and he's as interested in the craziness as I am. However I was faced with a fear that I have avoided since high school... instant messaging. In high school it was cool because you would do it late at night when you weren't allowed to be on the phone and you would say things that you would never say out loud and you felt rebellious. K, that was my experience. I was a little sheltered and dorky.
Now that I have gained a small level maturity I no longer feel the need to say risque things and giggle about it with my friends. I can text and do that. No really, haven't you ever texted someone sitting in the same room something that you can't say out loud? If you say you haven't you're lying. What I think terrifies me about instant messaging is the word instant. I go on facebook to stalk people without ever having to talk to them and suddenly I get a little message and I have to get back to that person immediately no matter how boring, uninteresting, or creepy their conversation is. Which brings us full circle to the dating site. There are perfect strangers who, let's be frank, are trying to get into your pants, writing to you. And you have to respond instantly! And you have to be open minded because you're on a dating website. That whole "those who live in glass houses" sort of thing. So I can't say "leave me alone you creep!" because I'm actually on the website, I'm asking for creeps. So what do you do? So far I have just ignored them. I'm sure that they have sent out a warning to all other prospectives saying "stay away, she doesn't return IM's." Which is fine because if you can instant message a stranger at 11:30 at night and say "hey girl.." I'm probably not the one for you and neither are half the girls on the dating site.
And don't knock me for being on a dating website at 11:30 at night, boredom hits, okay? and I have to clean out all of those emails about winking. Please please don't get me started on the winking. It's pointless and, again, creepy. So I clean out my dating site emails and bam, an IM. It's enough to make me quit the dating website world, which is probably why I won't. Seriously, it's real entertainment. And maybe a nice little boost for your ego. "Hey gurrl.."