Heroes and Thieves

I remember those sticky California nights when the angels would grace my window
And soothe my beating heart to bed tonight, with stories about David and Solomon
Hoping one day I too would be as brave and fearless as the many heroes before me.
And while my grandmother sang praises and my mother’s prayers filled the room
With hands so tight the sweat stained my sheets with her sacred brand of holy water,
Her own sacred spells sending me off into the wonders of my imagination—the night
The dark blanket covered over me like wool as Disney’s lies slid under and into my mind
And just like every other foolish girl, I kept my fingers crossed waiting for some Prince
That same he who’d come into my chambers and rescue a love-torn me. Save me sweet.
On nights like these when the wind gently danced across the window pane of my heart
And the sky blew into my fantasies the simplest love poisoned potion promising forever
I drafted the sketch of the same he—that same you—who might someday rob me away.

But greater days and greater pains fell upon me as high school hit me like concrete
While the fall never quite broke and my lungs begged for the oxygen I’d granted away
To candied cigarettes and tightly rolled brown paper filled with half-empty promises
and crowded smoke.
You crept into my space like a hero intending to save me—or was it to learn me?
Either way, you had earned me gained me, and maybe even loved me. Saved me and
broke me.
You breathed me in and took me, off into the night on a magic carpet ride
Under the sea and beneath the tide, into your castle and we waltzed on, into the tower
awaiting your kiss, away with the dragons and into your midst.
And forever and always I was yours.
Thoroughly and naively prepared to run away into the darkness of your energy
The shadows of your word, the cool air of your touch, the deception of your eyes.
Wholly and willing yours. So much so I cast away myself to breathe you, exhaled my
sanity to see you, pushed away my mind to know you
Half as well as you could clearly see me. And as I gave you my dying breath
Like a thief in the night you ran off with my heart, my soul, and all.
Broken, yet not quite defeated, I rose. Searched through the maze and lost my fate.

Six years too late, I heard wedding bells in the distant with some stranger in my dress:
The thief in the tux.
And while my tears cried oceans, river, and planets full, I heard you whisper faintly,
“I do.”
My hands, shaking, my mind, breaking, my heart, begging.
Begging that somehow this dream, this prophecy might fail and come envious sunrise
You’d carry into the sky, hold me too tight, and promise me forever it’s alright.
And I pinched every pore until the unbearable truth saw through:
A hero or a thief? No more difference in sight than I’ll see tonight.
So take my heart and with my dreams, you’ll break it.
But if ever that ring should sit too heavy and your mind tempts you back to simpler times
Look into your locket and hope that there you still might find it:
A heart broken too soon, a dream rising by noon.

Mr or Ms Fantastic

So I was talking to one of the cast members who told me he wrote a list of what he was looking for and handed it out to his friends and now he has been with that person for over 20 years. So here are my requirements for Mr. OR Ms. Fantastic (because “Mr. Right” is just not good enough)

Someone with a super chill personality. I don’t want any more crazies. I can’t take it.

Someone who can live the Bohemian life with me. I’m not all that into “belonging” to anyone. I want my freedom. I want to know I can go out, have a damn good time and not have to worry about (s)he worrying. I want to know (s)he is having a good time too. I want to flirt with whoever I want and I want the person I am dating to be secure enough to know that no matter what (s)he is the person I’m going home with. Also I never want to get married. It's just not on my to-do list and I want her/him to be okay with that.

Someone intelligent. I’m tired of dumbing myself down. And my kind of intelligent. I don’t know science and math and I don’t want to. Someone who knows literature and art and theatre. Well. Also a gender person would be AMAZING because I could talk about gender ALL NIGHT.

Someone fun. Someone who goes out and can be the life of the party. Someone who can have fun no matter where they are.

Someone confident. No more insecure people.

Someone who can dance. And dance well with me because I’ve met good dancers who just have terrible dancing chemistry when it comes to me.

Someone with a decent sex drive. But on that note, I don’t want to have sex every night. I want nights that we just stay up all night talking. About nothing and everything.

Someone I can talk to for hours and just get lost in the conversation. Like not even be able to tell anyone what we were talking about because I was just that lost in the moment.

Someone in the arts but no writers and no drummers. Too much noise (drummers). Too much competition and emotions and feelings (writers).

Someone funny. I know that’s dumb to add because most people make me laugh but I just can’t imagine my life without someone who can cheer up. I need that.

Someone who is a “text” person. I love reading. And I love talking about style and choices and I need someone to argue with me and talk with me about this kind of stuff.

Someone who can play sports with me. And sports that I like. I hate football and I hate Frisby. I will not play them. Volleyball and soccer are preferable. There is nothing sexier than playing a game of Volleyball with someone for hours and then grabbing a beer and just talking about life. That’s just so sexy to me (swoon).

Someone I can bring around my friends and just becomes part of the group. I love my friends. And my friends are like my family. And if my friends don’t like you, I don’t either.

Someone who stands up to me. I can be pretty intimidating and I almost daring people to fight back and most people don’t. I want someone who’s not scared of me.

Someone who speaks another language. I really love languages and I wish I had time to learn them all. And I want someone who can push me to do that. I want to live in a household where English is rarely spoken and unfortunately I’m losing a lot of my Spanish and Italian because I have no one to practice with.

Someone young at heart. I am really playful and a little kid. I love kids movies. And I would finger paint if I had time. And color. I love playgrounds and if it wasn’t creepy I’d still go.

Deal breaker: Someone religious. I’m just not and I don’t understand religion for the most part. It’s something that I can’t get into. I respect people who are super religious but I can’t be with someone who is.

Deal breaker: Someone who is super conservative. I am SUPER liberal to the point where I should probably tied to a tree singing folk tales. I’m a major hippie and I just can’t hold back a lot of my political beliefs. Like I’m a socialist. I hate capitalism. I think education, shelter, and food is human right. I think everyone should get the same paycheck no matter what they are doing and the only difference should be the amount of hours put in. I’m a hippie.

Under Pressure

God, if you’re listening, your daughter is dying.
The walls have broken down and the demons came dancing.
The wind came too fast and my patience is breaking.
I’m standing on the verge of my sanity, breathing insanity
Swirling through memories and drowning in nightmares.
These nights don’t end and the days burn deep into my skin
And as the whole world goes waltzing along, my heart keeps breaking
Trying to understand these challenges you gave me.
Grace me with your presence, come down and talk to me
Reassure me from the blade, walk me out of the kitchens
Out of the closets and out of the madness.

God, if you’re there, your daughter is crying.
The floor keeps on falling and the angels keep mocking.
The ceiling is rising and my head is pounding.
I’m standing on the verge of the sun, perfectly ready to burn
Watching my sticky skin curl up into the bones, the circulation of nonsense.
These nights scream with the horror of what I just can’t forget
And the days come laughing as I am barely standing
Trying to balance what’s happened and what’s coming.
Bless with some dream, bless with everything
To guide me, to help me fight all of these fiends
Back to the eternal flames of my regret.

God, if you love me, your daughter is breaking.
Breaking the pattern and breaking into the dawn
Breaking into heaven so please hear me out.
This weight on my shoulders has knocked me down
Hard against the solid concrete floors of heaven to lay at your feet
Begging for mercy, begging for grace, begging for redemption.
So God, if you know me, come sit with me a while
Whisper in my ear and calm me down
Because I’m dangling by threads planning too soon
Of an end I can’t take, a dream from a younger tune.

Pretty

Bruises and cuts, angels and demons, angles and memories
Of days when the crown danced on my hair and the throne
Called my name so clear that the whole world stopped
And stared.
In an instant I was waltzing with princes and thieves
Chanting some trance while the sirens crept in
Stealing souls and tasting hearts so deep in madness
That love itself fell into our waters and poisoned our smiles
Leaked through our blood and into the candy exchange of spit
And stranger wonders than that.
Oh, the good times that plagued me, destroyed me, and made me
Formed into me a goddess , lifting me off the ground and into
The universe of my arrogance, the planets of my insecurity.

To be pretty
To look into the glass sculpture against the wall,
mesmerized.
To dance on the shallow clouds of confidence
And never once fall.
To seduce the vampires with just one tilt of my head
Falling into the ocean of opportunity and chance
And to dance on the planets this brittle heart used to own.

Give me, grant me, send me the good times back.
This shell of a corpse with scrapes and dents can’t hold me
Know me and use me. Can’t bend me and break me
Into the Aphrodite I once knew. And loved.
To the world and earth I used to breathe, I used to believe.
This air’s too heavy, this room too neat.
Slam me against the ground and send me back in time
When the angels and demons knew me by name
by voice, by walk, by stance, by grace.

Oh to be her, to be she, to be the girl I used to be
I yearn to be. To exhale hell only inhaling heaven.
To know the night and every star in sky waits for me
And with every sunrise another heartbreak, another beautiful mistake.

What I wouldn’t sacrifice, what I wouldn’t trade
To be me, just once and forever all in the same
To sleep with traitors and rise with servants
To enchant, to amuse, to pretend
to be alive and to be free.