Rest in my laughter

"A tornado flew around my room before you came

Excuse the mess it made, it usually doesn't rain

In Southern California, much like Arizona"

Alarm off no wait alarm to snooze. Ten more minutes

"A tornado flew around my room before you"

Alarm off. Get up. Change my clothes. wash my face. put something on my face. do something with this hair. 

Go downstairs. Make coffee. Make lunch. make breakfast.

Get in the car. clock in. sit down for report. 

Read through the sheet. Act like nothing bothers you. nothing bothers anyone here. Then wait you see something huge and the words “What the fuck?!?” spew out. 

I have these stories jumbled in my head.

I force them in sometimes so they don’t tumble out to the floor. 

They will either bore them or frighten them and silence ensues. 

Kids yelling Kids screaming. Kids saying Fuck you. 

little hands doing grown up things. 

little minds not so little here. 

though most of the stories make me laugh. and when you bring them to the surface for others to hear there is no laughter. 

But when you work my job, laughter is what saves you. bow down to laughter. behave in front of it or it disowns you.

I’ve been swung at, I’ve been cursed at by a 6 year old, I’ve been grabbed at, my chest has been grabbed. though I haven’t been bitten, yet. Though my clothes have been ripped. 

I’ve been a support system….a safe ground. I smile to find and hide in your pocket forever. I’ve been a friend for 8 hours. I’ve secretly cried on the inside when they told me their story. 

I’ve asked them, if you could combine two animals what would it be and what would you call it?

I’ve asked them, you have two months to travel all paid for where do you go?

I’ve asked them, you are stranded on an island what two items that you can buy on amazon would you pick?

I haven’t asked…how long did it take you to make those scars on your arms? I haven’t asked how did you escape from that last mental hospital? I haven’t asked what did you think about last night in those super fucking cold rooms?

Instead I make them think and tink around their mind to find that someone here is willing to be their friend. and not have to bend over backwards. 

Performance performance performance appraisal. one year down in the pin. at work I try to do my best in any situation even if this might not be my vocation. Someone mentioned that I appeared unprofessional but over all I was professional. I get it. I’m too funny for work. I get it I’m too laid back for kids who talk to doctors all day. that see shadows in their room. that think the only way to survive is to die. I get it my humor isn't wanted. I get it having my mom die and falling into thoughts of suicide means I can’t be professional and having my degrees in Psych doesn’t mean a thing. I get it. 

though Laughter, I want to laugh. I want to laugh like a giraffe does, isn’t that a funny picture? I want to laugh like the golden cafe did when the Israelites were anxious for Moses to come down. I want to practice a level of care that isn't obnoxious, that doesn’t make you anxious, that isn’t being an actress or actor like that other doctors, I want to be a blank canvas for those who are anxious, obnoxious, actress or actors 

The factor is, what are you going to do when they reach the boiling point reactor. You gotta be the butt joint to hinge the joint from rage to a page of chronic laughter.

Being harmonic with not their demonic side but the laughter thats inside. 

When the page turner comes around in report and nothing makes sense to how they are acting…you gotta say What the fuck is going on…If I have to spit and spat like donald duck to make one of them laugh then I can pass that on as a success that I did my best.  

Trauma doesn't understand healing

4:09am. I’ve woken up between 3am and 4am for years now. It’s my fears and tears still trickling in. Somehow now I can’t shake it off. In October it will be 9 years. When I was living on the coastline in the sunshine there was this timeline that has forever impacted me. It sometimes prevents me to make contact with the most simplest interactions. 

4:09am. My brother woke me up. 4:09am my brother woke me up on October 31st, 2007. It wasn’t to prepare for all those early trick or treaters. But it definitely felt like a trick, like weighted bricks on my back ready to somehow attack me to the point that I wake up now between 3am and 4am every night. 

She would make me one of my favorite desserts. Combining egg whites with cake batter to make me angel food cake. Hearing her chatter in the kitchen to some best friend for hours. Outside in the sunshine I would be picking flowers for her...to say I was sorry for splattering the batter all over the floor. 

She nicknamed me precious and called me the icing on her cake. Once in awhile I would let her dress me in pink and think thats what I wanted…though all that would happen would be a bellyache growing inside me. I was her little girl, her only girl. I wasn’t allowed to like girls. 

4:09am I woke up to my brother saying “It’s time.” He couldn’t utter the words, for saying She’s dead, she died, it happened, forms an instant stutter in your mouth like peanut butter incrusted on your lips. You dip into this mood that forms an eternal feeling of feeling like your unveiling your deepest self every time someone asks “Where does your mom live?” “What does she do for a living?"

After dinner, my dad asked me if I was willing to give my mom a shower. A tower of the most uncomfortable feelings surrounded me. The cancer spread from her breast to her hip to her lungs to her brain. I wasn’t trained for this. I didn’t understand this. 16 and showering the vomit from your mother’s body. Her mind was losing control. only to show me tell me with a smile on her face before I showered her, “It’s like you’re my mother now.” 

When trauma sets in with a warning or not, the impact is an attack for your entire life. Cutting in like a serrated knife and trying to gain friction to get away from the affliction and constriction. 

Oh, Momma there is always this drama in my life. I’ve been in a coma, this comatose state. I let depression hit me like a freight train that I couldn’t tame for years. I got my diploma like I said. I forgot your aroma and the sound of your voice. I make choices sometimes that hurt the ones around me only to ground me so no one gets too close. I break down and bring down, let down because trauma…doesn’t understand healing. 

When I was 16, 4 in the morning was her last breath on Halloween. Trauma. Tragic trauma. It has made me strong and create these bonds with certain humans. It has made me frustrate and deflate others. I’m tragically imperfect and I don’t need your verdict to know. But yes this is me, this is my circuit. I try to rewire and resurface myself because trauma doesn’t understand healing. Healing understands feelings even the most unappealing feelings. So yes I am selfish because one day you will die too and I don’t know if I will be able to handle it.  

Monster shell

You make me nauseous

I try to cut my anger in half

Prevent the wrinkles in my eyes

dye my clothes to black

mourn the lost of you

There should be a school for fathers

There should be a test

There should be a limit to

how many children you can have.

But then I wouldn’t be here…

I thought you knew me

I thought you knew every

freckle that surfaced my skin. 

inch to inch of what bones I broke

You told me your thoughts of suicide

As I reminisced about you

throwing a glass vase at my mom

shattered to the wall. 

The time you slammed the gate, hinges crumbling off. 

Bottles and bottles of beer

you crushed against the rock

outside like a fuming dragon

Are you waiting to be slain?

Put out of your misery?

The sanctuary that accepts you,

does it know of you?

I’m not sure who is trying to take your soul?

But your monsters live wild next to your heart.

Detest me and record my cry.

I will die before I become like you.

26 seems no different than 16

When mom died and I lied to myself

of my age. School, dinner, dishes, and

taking care of you. 

Brother my dear, coked out next to me.

Don’t touch me, Don’t know me,

Because the monster living wild next to me is you. 

I don’t fear you. I don’t curse you. 

But I know you. 

My flesh is your flesh weathered in. 

Buried in my finger nails, DNA springs back and forth.

My flesh my monster,

You taught me how to live with depression. 

How to love with pain

Accept me, you say you don’t

Love me, you say you do

But I accept you like your god teaches. 

A monster is monster but I will tame you. 

RED flag

Dating. debating to date. to be dating. You first have to debate what form of dating you are going to part take in. We have tinder my heart so hard, okcupid stupid, dish the manyfish, HowAboutWe...don't do this, Meanwhile at the meanwhile, rockys I thought I was dancing cool, meet up and greet up, lez go out or probably not because dot dot dot...

Then once you find someone who matched and attached to your sweet one liners...the "You seem pretty cool, wanna?" "You and I botih like beer, wanna?" "Wanna see where this goes" oh, and here's my number and if we happen to slumber next to each other...I might change your name...instead of something like Emily tinder...you are rewarded with your own God given last name. 

I've been on my fair share of tinder my heart so hard dates. Which leads me to

Red fuckin Flags, those warnings you should see, the flag to signal all the crazies...

Baby, I see you and you cute but you came drunk as skunk dunkin your dinner in your beer...Tearing me apart because what I waste of beer. 

Red Flags, alright...you're gay, right? I'm not your gateway, right? And you are mighty fine slayin it with your knowledge and your looks. When did you come out? oh, last month...wait, how old are you? oooooo shit.

Red Flags,you really downplayed how many cats you have. 2 does not equal 10. 

Red Flags, Why haven't I met your friends? Baby gurl, I'm def not one to be locked up blocked behind close doors. I'm not quiet and I'm no one's secret. Cause then you aren't gonna frequent this shining beacon no more. 

Virtual dating is not the most intellectual stimulating activity. If I want to go on a date with you I'm not going to put out bait for you. I'll deflate that ego and just be straight with you...we ain't soulmates just yet and we aren't playmates this early in the game. So let me translate this for you. Don't formulate a plan to hold back on your crazy. I will find that red flag. Decorate it any way you know how. I will find that red flag like capture the flag. We on that same team? Blue or red.

I hope you aren’t team red because all of those crazies you are bringing out the woodshed show me you aren’t in tip top shape in handling the lost of your exes. Sending them home in an uber Lexus. Cause fact is We all have red flags don't put the cat in the bag and tag it for later cause I'll just see you later miss Red fuxking flag 

Red flag 

always known

always known, though there wasn’t ever a right tone in the atmosphere. I always found a bone in my gut making it hard to investigate and dedicate my time. I underestimated my hesitation to this portion of my life.

Did I perpetuate to meditate on this vast matter about myself?

Gender norms, gender stereotypes, never been fond of. 

Bonding material objects with a certain human being that will never be an object? Detect that defect and connect it to be a neglect of disconnecting a mind from fucking clothes, colors, and vocations. 

I suppose.....there are some pros with some clothes because they can transpose you to something else. Be something else. Want something else. 

My heart wasn’t troubled but it certainly doubled in size when a delicate element which was in me that was only probed when talking about hair, make-up, and dresses would make me explode. I’m no specialist and certainly no perfectionist. But why do I have to wear things that make me feel uncomfortable. Why do I have to go and be competitive to mask all these anti-feminist tasks?

And then I thought Its not just what I want to wear its who I want to kiss. 

The first time I kissed a girl I was high and in a jacuzzi. I was 14 or 15. She was my best friend at the time. I had no attraction to her. I didn’t hear any wind chymes or some poetic rhyme. It wasn’t even sublime and nothing close to being prime. 

It actually kinda sucked. 

Tucking it into my sheets to beat it dead. I fed a lion ready to roar. Ready to be born for my own benefit. 

Then there was this night that I never fight to forget. 

She kissed my thumb and I went numb. I had become some sort of fixated figure in the room. I consumed no substance that would diminished my fear and neither did she. 

Come to my room and lay on my bed with me. I laid there paralyzed in thoughts that I no longer fought. Every chance she got to touch my skin and I could feel myself shaking with experience. 

Curious existence fled from my head and I was no more. 

She seized a battle in my soul that I had no idea was hidden so far deep in me that I couldn’t see what light was. I didn’t know what light was. 

A different she, a completely different she…tindered kind of she…tinder. swiping on tinder she. 

She was breath-taking to me. Wanting it to last longer, I called into my second job. An hour date turned into a four hours. Feeding off the excitement I kissed her in the street for everyone to see. Because to me those tiny seconds of when our lips matched together for the better, I wanted everybody to know that I was kissing her. 

In my past I have had to work on being comfortable saying I’m gay. Not that I’m not loud and proud. However I would hear my fathers voice in my head. It’s a decision, Brenna. It’s a decision. my heart would  always come to a collision because I would see this vision of me standing up there saying I do and misunderstanding why my father isn’t there. 

 

Though, I’m gonna keep searching for that girl who feeds me excitement when I kiss her in the streets and not tucking it into my sheets to beat it dead but instead I’m gonna be playing beneath underneath the sheets with her and make her some sort of fixated figure in my room.  

First love

The first. The first that bursted through the seams and beamed some kind of light into me. 

Soul searching and researching your body lines. I would be lying if I didn't find him attracted and contracted love for him. 

First love...I never bowed down or found myself controlled by something higher but it felt dyer to be by his side. 

The first time he laid next to me naked and stripped from his walls I cried for the beauty that someone felt safe to be held by me. 

The first time he asked me to be real was the first time he asked me to quit smoking. He felt like my nicotine so I did. 

The first love that broke every wall down that got me to shovel through the anger for my dad...the first love that asked me to move or else he would move to me. 

He broke. We broke. He held my broken heart until I fell asleep. 

I hated you. I hated that I trusted you. I hated that you took a piece of me forever. 

Forever you will be the reason why I moved back to Here.

Forever I see you and forever you see me. Forever I will never forget you. 

Now...he didn't turn me gay. He didn't flip me to the other side. He didn't make me think all men are evil. There wasn't some kind damsel in distress retrievel. 

He lead me in being comfortable with my sexuality. 

And it ain't heterosexuality. 

It took him 3 1/2 years to apologize. To recognize that a conversation was needed...it weeded out my insecurities. It belittled all the lies I told myself. 

I looked at him and smiled and cried and I saw how much we meant to each other. 

In some sort of happy ending, some sort of indie rom com that actually leaves you sad. In some sort of alternative Disney princess...he asked me to build shelves in his new home with his wife. 

Is this the walk of life? The way of life? 

Your ex boyfriend who broke your gay heart just asked you to build shelves in his home for his wife. 

Welcome to my first love.  

The False She

She's the one that flirts with you and you think it's just playful banter, thee enchanter. Like wine into the decanter she unloads on you like a best friend. Testing every limitation of the brain, oh detain me and chain me because I'm falling for her like cocaine stained on my nose. 

The circles you will be running will frustrate

you to no end and there is no stopping for a breath when she circles into your world.

 

When you fall in love with her..

Prepare to call it the dance of death. 

It could seem like a chance on romance to enhance your experience. 

Or it very could be a repeat of the story Macbeth. 

When you fall in love with her...

Whenever you’re about to you know?

Have sex…It’s really not sex..

Because between the decks of your bodies there is no latex. 

No outward objects are flexing or projecting fluids onto another. 

When you fall in love with a straight girl..i mean when you fall in love with her,

You respect everything she says and say give it time. 

It might be a longtime, it might a life time…it might be only at bedtime. Cuddling. Naked. Only cuddling.

When you fall in love with her…

Make sure to compliment her on everything her ex-boyfriend...I mean now her boyfriend?... doesn’t.

Recommend and attend doing cute stuff with her because you 

have this amazing connection. 

To you she is like perfection, you to her is like an uncontrollable infection…

Seizing her mind like no one has before. becoming obsessed 

to a point of sickness the thickness of emotions laid on…

All because I listened...

All the while she lays there next to him, she said she worked late she said she grabbed a drink with friends. She said she got caught up. She said she smoked too much. 

She said I was the only one and he was only her best friend. 

She said I would be the only girl she would be into. She said she said...

She was fucking him the entire time. 

So don't coat me with your lies. Don't try me out like all the deceits you emerge yourself in. Just shut the fuck up. 

I was your secret, I was your girl experience. Your tarred heart covered in feathers to disguise what laid beneath your rib cage. 

Stop texting me once a month, I changed your name to a spider web emoji. 

Catch your flies somewhere else.