Tuesday, November 24, 2009

break, me

please
just let me
go, and
let this in
this small, wonderful
this...
i have no idea
what i am
and if i do
the beauty
in your words
i could do
no more beauty
in this world.
i want to break
i want to breathe
i want to scream
i want to deal...
but here i am,
writing words that
will burn
with thanksgiving embers.
kiss kiss,
bang bang,
i wish
i was soft
so all this was
quiet.
my breath
my chest
my blood
will never be
the same.

k.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

breaking dishes

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

-dr. seuss

let's break it down a little, people.
brass tax. or tacks, depending on what you want to hang up.

the fourth and i dated for years. ten years, to be exact, on and off. he was my first everything. first love, first lover, first "oh shit... i would swallow fire for you" feeling in the pit of my stomach. people would ask me what it was i saw in someone who was such a loner, such a flighty, quiet, angry man. i would reply, "i just know."

i just knew.

i was wrong, of course, but that's what being young is all about. i would have, rather, i DID do anything i could to be with him. i bought a plane ticket to see him in california. i drove miles and miles from college to atlanta and orlando and ormond beach to breathe him in. i wrote letters and poetry and journal entries about how deep he ran and how i could never bear to lose him. i changed my hair color and took out my peircings (several times at that, ugh) and dressed differently all because he didn't want me to look as "alternative" as i did inherently.

we don't talk anymore. we don't talk, and my world went on and i survived because i realized i am always going to be the way i am. i can spend money on highlights and let the holes in my skin close up and wear gap khakis... but underneath everything is a broken girl who finds beauty in things like candles by winelight and how dusk makes leaves golden and how hurt and sadness are inspirations to me. i have always been this way, and i've come to find out, i really, really like it.

it took me ten years with this kid to understand that he was too chickenshit to tell me that it wasn't me he loved. maybe because he thought i was pretty, or his friends were telling him that i was a great catch and to never let me get away or he'd regret it. but deep down, he wasn't in love with who i was, and no amount of sacrifice on my end would ever change that.

it's a valiant thing to protect someone you love from heartache. to want to shield them from the things that burn bridges in our hearts. but it's more valiant to know when to let them go, because they deserve better than what you can offer them. the fourth would have kept me for the rest of his life had i stuck to all the changes. but inevitably, what happened was that i was so angry with him, all the time, towards the end of our hiccups of a relationship. i was angry with him, and i would get so heated at myself, and eventually end up destructing what i thought i wanted so badly, and it was because i just never seemed to be what he wanted.

i am a great girl, don't get me wrong. i'm smart and quickwitted and independent and artistic (and i could have done worse in the genetics dept, i'm not all that bad to look at i think)... alot of men would want a woman like me. but i'm not for everyone, and it hurt me so bad that i couldn't be what he wanted. i sacrificed and shed tears of loneliness because he just didn't understand me... but, it was never going to work. i could never change enough of what i was to light a spark in his heart, and i wasted years of my youth and ink in my pens trying to do it.

had he just told me back then, and let me fall to the floor, i would have picked myself back up and attended to my wounds. i deserved someone who would look at me the way i looked at him, and i think the worst part about him never loving me that way was him keeping quiet about it so that he could keep me, like my grandmothers ivory jewelry box on my dresser.

none of this is easy, and none of this was planned. it hurts on both ends, truly and deeply.

k.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

where the weather is perfect


equinox:
Either of two points on the celestial sphere
at which the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator.

these lines, this
highway in my head,
the birds are
loving their wings right now,
pushing for the moon.
clean air, in
my lungs,
this blood runs
more red than ever
before, in love
*and death
and hearts beating themselves
into night from someone
elses hand on top.

k.

ps: to my good friend mike, big kudos on this piece. i've been living inside it for quite awhile. :)

Saturday, November 14, 2009

l'etoile

“Human folly does not impede the turning of the stars.”

-tom robbins


another night passes.

k.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

our little mermaid purses

what would life be like if we had nothing to hide?

and don't skew this... i say "hide" the same way i mean "possess"- insomuch as we need the things no one can know about us to BE us. the world of celebrity today makes pornography of their daily lives. on twitter we can let the world know at all times where we are, what we are doing, and who we are doing it with. and it is a shame really. what would a life be like without secrets?

we couldn't conceal that we don't like certain christmas presents. my grandmother gives me something i hate every year. i mean, like i HATE it. i don't know why she actually goes and spends money on a red and purple paisley pashmina i gave to salvation army, or a two dollar chinatown purse she got at T.J. Maxx, to which in my knowledge i never remember expressing i wanted. ever. but every year, i write her thank you notes, thanking her to all ends for the shit she gave me, when all she really needed to do was cut me a check for the amount she spent on them.

or, or.... what about children? i teach kids. and if i told them what my life was really like in my down time when they asked me, they would all turn out to be bigger reprobates and whores than if i didn't give them a head start. "miss kathryne, what do you have to do to be a famous dancer or actor?" the appropriate thing to say is, "well, anything can be achieved with a proper work ethic and determination. just keep trying, little timmy." but the truth is, "kid, if you wanna be famous and make millions, you need to sleep your way to the top, marry someone with millions, and make sure the prenup has more holes in it than britney spears' diaphragm." but if i said that, what would their parents think? surely they aren't telling them the secrets they have in their own marriages. why should i have to be chastised?

the thing is, we all have things we need for ourselves. a bubble bath, a secret crush, a mystery about our lives that no one else can touch. most times, that's all we have in this world. everything else can come crashing down around us. but not our glass boxes. they remain glistening and finger-print free. a shred of sanity in our overexposed lives.

and if you think you don't have any secrets, well, fuck you and the horse you trotted in on. i'll burn your pedestal and punch you in the face. every person in the world has a secret, no matter if it's calling your girlfriend the same name you called the girlfriend beforehand or the fact that you stole those glasses from a streetmarket in san francisco when no one was looking.

i know. i may not know what your hiding, but i know it's something, and i commend you.

conceal away, people.

k.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

p.s., thanks for the flowers


a bloom, a
long-stemmed
anomaly,
petals rigid and
raised,
slender stalk, its
fragrance-
fever under skin.

i wish there
would have been
candles, or
quiet, or
something to soft
the relics of
someone elses past.

but.

there was the
bitterroot flower,
so shyly waving
it's petals
into the night.

i think that's
candle enough.




i'm so glad i'm off for the next couple of days. i have every intention of dwelling in the great and letting go of the mundane. ah. i love fall. it's so beautiful here, in my life. ;)

k.




there was

Friday, November 6, 2009

my eyes are up HERE


tell me you wouldn't be just as happy as them to have one of these. if you say you wouldn't, you're a filthy, pathetic liar.
k.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

truth... again?!?!

the paradoxical theory of change.

my topic of internal discussion today has been settling over time, creating a little village in my head, whilst it's properties decorate the insides of their houses and the tree-lined streets with season-oriented christmas lights. and while i may not exactly know where this dickens village of my mind originated, i do know that i didn't know that there was actually a theory to back it up.

thank you, reference.com. wikipedia, you can suck it.

so for the last couple of years, really, since i've been out of college and away from where i grew up, i have been outside looking introspectively in, watching this painful process of growth, although i never really labeled it that to begin with. when i was at home, i was who everybody else wanted me to be... i was a yuppie; i was an honor roll student; i had money; i played golf and tennis; i was a debutante; i was chaste. upon college, a little part of me pushed the envelope... i got a nose ring; i bought a ticket to california during the first semester back my freshman year to visit my then-boyfriend; i got a tattoo; i locked myself in the studio at night and danced to rock music instead of classical. of course, i was still a dean's list student, i still pulled my hair back in a tight bun for daily ballet classes, and i still obeyed my curfew when i went home to visit my parents, who were growing alarmingly suspicious of these almost non-existent rebellions. i pushed further when i graduated and moved to atlanta. i cut off all my hair, moved in with a boyfriend, and added to my tattoo collection fullfold. the waves of evolution grew stronger as i strived to become closer to who i really thought i was.

which of course, leads us to the question. i was pushing for change. change all around me, from who i used to be to who i wanted to be, to how people perceived me and my image. i look at it now, and what i had become was a caricature of what was inside me. i was so hell-bent on proving that i was this strong, independent, tough woman that i had completely glossed over who i really was. and when i would start over each time, in san francisco, on tour, in boston, in new york... i had less and less a grasp on who i was because the girl i'd become didn't have the support of her environment around her anymore. in proving i was strong, i had become weak with resistance to deny everything i wasn't.

that's a paradox like a motherfucker right there. i wish i would have known all this had a name. maybe it would have made it easier for me to identify with.

so here it is, for you to see. maybe you're going through it right now and needed to find a name for it, too.

Briefly stated, it is this: that change occurs when one becomes what he is, not when he tries to become what he is not. Change does not take place through a coercive attempt by the individual or by another person to change him, but it does take place if one takes the time and effort to be what he is -- to be fully invested in his current positions. By rejecting the role of change agent, we make meaningful and orderly change possible.

The Gestalt therapist rejects the role of "changer," for his strategy is to encourage, even insist, that the patient be where and what he is. He believes change does not take place by "trying," coercion, or persuasion, or by insight, interpretation, or any other such means. Rather, change can occur when the patient abandons, at least for the moment, what he would like to become and attempts to be what he is. The premise is that one must stand in one place in order to have firm footing to move and that it is difficult or impossible to move without that footing.

The person seeking change by coming to therapy is in conflict with at least two warring intrapsychic factions. He is constantly moving between what he "should be" and what he thinks he "is," never fully identifying with either. The Gestalt therapist asks the person to invest himself fully in his roles, one at a time. Whichever role he begins with, the patient soon shifts to another. The Gestalt therapist asks simply that he be what he is at the moment.


and what all of this really boils down to, which i hate to say because i hate hate hate that everything in life seems to be based on this... TRUTH. you have to be honest about who you are. admit your faults while seeing the strengths, and finding beauty in them both.

why does everything have to be about honesty? is this life's karma repaying me for a lifetime of lying to people, from my parents to my teachers to myself? i mean, can't we just all glide through life allowing people to think we're from australia or that i'm famous for writing several novels under a different pen name? i know, i know. spiritual health and a clear conscience and all that bullshit.

all i'm saying is, the paradoxical theory of change applies to us only as long as we stop seeking out what we think we are. and the only way we can do that is if we cut out the bullshit.

and that being said, i wouldn't mind if i didn't find out exactly who i am. i thought that was the meaning of life. which is paradoxical in itself. oi.

chew on that, trebec.