Morning Constant

5:10 

every single morning he is out in the bitter air wearing a light grey jacket and slippers a size to big, watching the smoke escape his lips from the tip of the lit cigarette he holds between his two bony fingers. I make it a point to notice him every morning on my drive to work. I watch or him like the world would stop turning and fall apart if he wasnt out on his own personal smoke break. He is my constant, the one thing I can count on to show up and he doesnt even know it. I have never seen him outside of this context. I have never shook his hand never waived, never even asked for his name. He has never noticed me staring for the short second it takes me to pass his house. He has long wavy grey hair that falls upon his shoulders lightly. He is always looking up, always. I wonder what he sees in the sky, what he thinks when he puffs his smoke like a mighty dragon into the dusty air above his face. I dont know what his face looks like due the the way the porch light hits it, casting it into a shadow of nothingness. I  picture him with tired eyes and a runny nose. I want to know what hes thinking and what he sees when he is looking up. Is he talking to some higher power or contemplating his life? It doesnt really matter,  What matters is that he is my 5:10 morning constant. The one thing that makes me look forward to my work drive. The one stranger that reminds me to take the time to take it easy. To sit and contemplate the world when its mostly silent. Sometimes its the people who dont even know that they are making a difference to others that make one.

Soul Stealing Trenches

You 

gave your soul away once. It was locked away, and then you swallowed the key whole until it sank to the darkest pit of your round stomach, covered in stomach acid and slime. I could jump down your throat and go for a swim in the toxic trenches in search for the small golden key. However, I know that once I was down there covered in acid and slime you would regurgitate it and throw it out the car window on your way to your 9-5 job in the city. It would lay on the side walk for a curious stranger to pick up in confusion and toss away not knowing that it was important, not knowing what it could unlock. My point is, you were never unleashing your soul into my hands. You were never wearing it on your shirt sleeve for me to pick up and cradle with cautious, delicate fingertips. I could not find your soul in the window of your eyes which sunk deep behind your eyelids as we made love in between blue sheets of dishonesty and despair. It was gone, your face was blank as you watched me leave you like you once did your soul. You left it in some far away lock box in some other woman's closet for safe keeping because she told you it would be safe there in the dark. I left, I promise I did not take anything with me, as you did not give me a special thing to take except empty canisters of  future wishes and tear drops filled with your sorrow. I screamed out at night for the longing of your soul, for a peak of what could have draped its arms around me and drenched me in sunlight. When in reality I was drenched in the arms of your shadow, of the darkness you carried around in your pocket and handed me on one sunny day along with the air tight canisters of your future wishes that I wish I never accepted. Wishes were all that they were, wishes that you did not give your soul away so easily to a woman who did not know what to do with it. She locked it in that lock box and shoved it in her closet behind her cobwebs while handing you a golden key to give to your next hopeful lover. Sadly, that next hopeful lover was me. All I wanted was to set your damn soul free, but the only wishful thinking soul in this story was me.

-M.D.L

The sheep and the wolf.

Sometimes

I feel like a wolf and sometimes I feel like a sheep. There are days when there are heavy mixtures of both running through my veins. I am bold, and howl at the moon in the middle of the night stalking prey. However, I am also weak and fleeting, ready to run at the first sound that radiates within my eardrums. Its hard being both a sheep and a wolf. I often wonder if sometimes the two take on opposite roles within me, if sometimes the wolf is weak and vulnerable and the sheep is the one who stands its ground. I dont have many predators, just admires. Its hard to hate a wolf for hunting or sheep for being helpless, they both do what they can to keep me thriving, surviving. I battle the wolf and the sheep within my soul daily. There is this urge to run free, to growl at those wanting to caress my fur and tame my heart. Then there is an urge to stay still, cower down and convert to having an owner who can shave my fur and sell it for the highest penny. Do you have a sheep and wolf within your soul? Who takes over your mind when you have to make a heavy decision? Mine is both. Damn it is it both. Both the wolf and the sheep within me go to battle and there is bloodshed every. single. time. When a wolf hunts a sheep, often times the sheep will be so terrified that it will lead itself to its own death by accidentally running of a cliff or right into the teeth of the wolf. The wolf in me will camouflage itself behind a bush waiting for the sheep to come out. However, often if in a group, a sheep may be capable of stampeding a wolf and stomping it to death. I am often a sheep who stands alone and my strategy is to run from the wolf, pleading surrender.  They both have their strategies and I weigh them both heavily. "In this situation do I deserve to be a wolf or to be a sheep?" This is the question I ask myself often and hardly ever have an answer. To be sensitive or not sensitive. I think we all have versions of animals within our souls who battle. Its funny though, because often I find that the wolf and the sheep are both battling over the same cause, to survive, thrive and be happy the best they know how. Do not kill the sheep or the wolf that is inside your soul, because often you may need to be both and that is ultimately okay. Be the sheep and be the wolf.

Do you know where love comes from?

For the longest

time I thought love was something to be received.

Something that you scavengly look for in dark corners, bright book stores, and coffee shops. I thought you would happen upon love if you properly looked in the correct places where it hid.

You would find it grab it by the neck and stuff it in your pocket to carry home. I was wrong. Damn, was I wrong.

Love is something you radiate out of your pours, your smile, your very fucking being.

If they would have told me growing up that love was free, I would have spent a lot more time being me.

You dont have to capture something that you already carry within.

-M.D.L

You will be OKAY.

And he told me

I would be okay. The truth was that I knew I would be. I had experienced gut wrenching, heart aching pain before. I knew I would end up okay eventually but right then; right in that moment I was utterly not okay. Its the little moments that murder you, that leave you heaving, bleeding out at someones feet while they whisper fortunes about your future in your ear. Its the small little stabs with sharp words that make you question your ability to be that four letter word. Okay. He stabbed me over and over with spews of words that formed sentences and still had the assiduity to tell me that okay was something I would be. I didn't know that attempted murder made anyone feel okay, even if you made it out alive.

Forgive Yourself

He

never told her sorry.
There was no apology, no remorse for the gut wrenching pain he caused.
She didn't need there to be.
Her strength to walk away was her own apology to herself.
Her apology for allowing herself to settle for anything less than she deserved.
Sometimes the only apology you need is the one you forgot to give.
The one to you.
Forgive yourself often.
Forgive the scenarios you put yourself through, for you are only human.

-M.D.L

Why Blog?

I didn't

always see myself creating a blog. I never saw myself waging a war within my head on if  I should be honest about what I write on my blog or if I should make everything up. I am also not very tech savvy so I didn't think it would grab anyone's attention either. I thought one day that maybe I should put my blog on hold, you know write on it when I have a two year old or something catchy that grabs peoples attention like marriage. I don't have that, I cant tell you about the time my child got his/her first tooth, I cant tell you about my wedding day because it hasn't happened yet. All I have to offer is real moments in my life that I cant seem to grasp sometimes. I can tell you all about breakups, about staying up until 3 in the morning studying my ass off. I can tell you all about finding the love of my life, about losing that love, about crying, about laughing so hard my stomach hurts,and about friendships. I can tell you about down to earth,real life stuff that is happening probably to you too right now. I have said a thousand times on this blog that life is not a fairy tale. I don't want to lie to you and tell you about fairies and unicorns, I want to be real. I want to be open and relate to the bad and good things that are happening to you right now. Otherwise what would my blog be for? If I had a child with a first tooth I would most likely write about the lack of sleep I was getting because all my child does is scream. I would tell you about how parenting is hard, even though we already know that. If it was the day of my wedding I would probably tell you how I am falling apart because I cant believe this is happening and I am ruining my make up with tears.About how I am so scared my dress wont fit and how I know he is the one. I would tell you that I am terrified of divorce and of tripping down the isle, that is why I am wearing tennis shoes instead of heels. I am not a fan of blogs that portray their lives as perfect, that portray all the good and none of the bad because to me you have to have both. We are human and we are not perfect, without a breakdown their would be no happiness. My life is messy, complicated, and sometimes confusing and I take pride in not pretending that it is anything different. If you like the sappy blogs filled with nothing but happiness then let me tell you that you must have typed in the wrong URL and I hope you find that blog. I wanted honesty for once because I got sick of the internet being so perfect, of all these people portraying their "perfect life" that we all know is not always so glamorous because we are all going through hell someday's, we all have days that dont always work out.  I love to write, it is my passion and I LOVE when something I write touches someones soul in some profound, way that they can relate. I thank everyone who reads my blog and supports me in my writings. I hope that you are able to find peace, understanding, or just feel less alone when reading my tangents. I write because its my therapy, its my way of coping and it makes me happy. Do what makes you happy, even if it sounds crazy. Its important to be happy and embrace the crazy thing  that we call life.