How to Leave the One You Love

Take your pillow back.

The one you slept on when you stayed the night.

Give him his pajama pants back.

The ones you wore at school when you got home sick.

He was your home at one time, wasn’t he?

 

Don’t let him kiss you or put his fingers on the back of your neck.

Like he would do when he was sorry but had too much pride to say it aloud.

Hold his dog instead of him when your laying in his bed.

Like you would do when his attention was solely on the television screen.

It was never really on you, was it?

 

Scratch out the letters of your name that are written on the wall in sharpie.

The hearts and doodles all over the house were drawn out of love.

Write him a letter that reminisces on the memories spent and time wasted.

The scars and bruises living in your skin were left out of hate.

Did you love or hate him?

 

Offer to wash his bed clothes because you know it smells like togetherness.

Wonder if he will function without you apart of him.

Mop his floors because you have spilt buckets of salt through the years.

Wonder if he will be okay.

Why do you care so much?

 

Turn the music up so loud that it drowns out his madness and yours.

That is the only thing you had in common.

Turn on the lights so steals away the darkness.

That is where you have lived for so long.

Are you ready to go?

 

Don’t be afraid to cry, but don’t let it make you weak.

Think of swimming for once, instead of drowning.

Don’t be rash or daring, but don’t cower at the words.

Stand with your spine for once, instead of your heart.

Aren’t you tired?

 

Press your lips to his cheek and wrap around him one more time.

Finally, detach yourself from that love.

Walk to the screen door and push it open with out looking back.

“I Love You, But Good-Bye.”

Leave.

 

Something I wrote out of pure toxicity. It’s important to know that love does not conquer all. There are so many things that play into the beauty of a healthy relationship, and if love is your only reason, then hopefully you know that sometimes that just isn’t enough.

 

 

 

A Dance To Remember

Lately I’ve been wanting to find my rhyming voice again, so I wrote this. This Poem means a lot to me and I’m actually really proud of it. I hope you all enjoy. I haven’t really figured out the title yet, so the title of the blog “A Dance To Remember” is going to be my cliche temporary title. If you have any ideas, feel free to let me know.

I’m a little terrified. I must admit.
Stay still, let me take a photograph of this.

Kiss me like you mean it one last time.
I just fixed my make-up, don’t make me cry.

Pull away and hold me close.
Let’s dance the only way we know.

Spin me around, dip me down to the floor.
I don’t want to love you anymore.

My heart is breaking at your every touch.
I can’t help but wonder how you do this so much.

All eyes are on me, can they smell my fear ?
You call me beautiful as you lose hold of a tear.

I trail my fingers down your fair skin
Knowing with a sick feeling that I will never touch it again.

You ask me what’s wrong and I say I’m fine.
I’m dying to have one last good night.

History dances circles around us like secrets and sin.
We laugh under our breath, whispering “remember when..”

Those were the days that aren’t now.
Our laugh are too quiet, our screams too loud.

I watch and think about what you will do
When I kiss someone else and love someone new.

I can hear your accusation like static in my head.
All of it are things that have previously been said.

You will find a way to hurt me again, I’m sure.
I don’t believe your intentions have ever been pure.

So much time has passed yet nothing has changed.
Maybe it’s time I turned another page.

We both knew this wasn’t forever, no matter how much we claimed
I’m scared if we continue, we will drive each other insane.

But, for now let’s dance and love for the last time.
Tomorrow, my Darling, I will say good-bye.

 

 

End of the World

This is an old poem that I wrote that really resonates with my current feelings.

It’s not the end of the world
Is the worst thing to say to someone like me.
It will be okay, just give it time.
Is that supposed to save me?
The world is your oyster, they say
Enjoy it.
But how can I enjoy something that you’ll just swallow up.
How can I enjoy something that will rot.
How can i enjoy something that carries such a repugnant smell.
The world burns my nostrils
The world makes my eyes water.
They water so much that my cheeks have grown raw.
So raw that it burns to put on make up every day.
Thus why I barely wear it anymore.
And the world comes and asks me why.
Why do I hate it so much.
What did it ever do to me.
And every time I stare at myself naked in front of a mirror,
I think to myself that the world gave me this mind.
I think to myself that the world cut into my flesh as if it were a canvas and my blood was the paint.
I think to myself that the world told me I was fat.
I was worthless
I was pitiful.
But somehow the world still has the nerve
To smile in my face and ask of me to ravish it.
The world gives me people to love, and then reveals that they are truly stone.
Granite.
And I have carved them out so beautifully
Just so they can dismantle me
By thus proving that I am alone.
The world presents itself with promises
Swearing that if I try, I can do anything.
That love will always be there.
That suffering will never last.
The world tells me that I’m allowed to be happy.
But supplies nothing to be happy about.
The world does nothing but take, and take, until there is nothing left but the coping methods..
And I don’t even want those anymore.
The world tells me that I am allowed to love,
But I get ridiculed and left behind
Feeling !unappreciated, and worthless.
And I could sit there and tell my “friends” and my doctors how I feel
And all they tell me is that it’s not the end of the world.
They tell me to take medications
But my medications just make it worse.
They tell to sleep and eat like a normal person, but what is a normal person in this world.
They try to find diagnostics, and use statistics against me. They hear me but they are not listening.
It’s not the end of the world.
They tell me that I am sick.
They label me with this and that, so many problems, can I even be fixed.
They threaten me with hospitals
And swear that they will make it better
But I have lived this way for so long
I have come to realize that there is no better.
So do not tell me that it’s not the end of the world.
Because one day the world will implode in on itself.
And we will all turn to stone.
Our flesh will melt from our bones
And we will scream at the top of our lungs
The end of the world
Is every moment.
Every day.
The end of the world is now.
And you can’t tell me otherwise.

Broken Arm

This week we had a guest artist in our class. Mrs. Steele is a wonderful photographer, journalist, oral historian, and professor. She gave us the assignment to interview someone in our community, record it, transcribe it, and then write a creative nonfiction story based off that interview. Well, here it is.

Nell Forbes, a sixty-six-year-old woman from Magnolia, Mississippi, has one of the most beautiful, terrorized souls that I have come across. She’s a loving mother of four and grandmother of ten, but she has carried her scars from a very young age. She had her daughter in 1969 and spent the next decade suffering and doing her to best to be a good mother.
…………….
It’s six-thirty in the morning when I walk up the ramp to her glass trailer door. She’s sitting in a recliner with her legs crossed and the nail of her index finger between her teeth. Ronnie Forbes, her husband of thirty-six years, is sitting next her and staring at the television. Our eyes meet and she waves me in. Upon entrance, she stands from her chair and gives me a one-armed hug.
“Hey baby, I wasn’t expecting you this early.” I smile at her, knowing full well by the make up on her face and the hairspray in her short, blonde hair that she was prepared. “Where are you wanting to do it at? In the bedroom? The kitchen? Bay, turn off that T.V. so we can do it in the kitchen.” Her husband does as he’s told with a vague roll of his eyes. He looks up at me and smiles.
“There’s some apples in the ‘frigerator if your hungry. I can make you something hot if you want.”
“No Sir but thank you.” He nods his head and stands from his recliner. “Bay, I’m gonna go to town.”
“Alright.”
“Love ya.” He gives her three quick kisses before making his way outside. Mrs. Forbes and I sit at the kitchen table. With a deep breath comes the scent of cleaning supplies; I look around and notice that not a single thing is out of place.
She goes on to tell me about her parent’s split, and how her father kidnapped her and her siblings from school just to throw her into her aunt’s home. She speaks about an older man and getting pregnant at fifteen. She would later marry an abusive drunk.
“One night my husband beat me. I was two weeks from having my son. He jerked the telephone cord out of the wall and left me. My daughter decided to climb up in a cabinet while I was washing my hair, and she fell and broke her arm. I won’t ever forget it. I was terrified. I broke and run to a neighbor’s house. Then I realized that I had left her at the house, and I turned around and run back. My hair was wet and dripping. The neighbors helped me get her to the hospital and she had to have surgery. I was there all night by myself. Well, until later when my husband’s brother showed up to stay with me. My husband come back. It was probably the next day, but I can’t remember for sure. Anyway, I would up having my son early. He still didn’t change.” My heart breaks as I hear the sniffle in her voice. I reach out and touch her hand.
I think about the love she must have for her children, and how despite all the times she was shoved aside, she put her all into her kids. It kind of just hits me as she goes on about the abuse and how she got out of it and remarried. Her eyes light up at the mention of her children. This woman loves with everything in her because no one loved her.

The Fire


Make-Up, Horses, and Bright Red Hair

When I was younger, I would get into my grandma’s make-up drawer. I’d cover my face with her way-to-dark foundation because back then I thought it was meant to make you tanner. I’d then cover my cheeks with bright pink blush until I looked like a piece of bubble gum. My lips and teeth would be a dark brown, and my eyelids would be electric blue. By god, did I feel beautiful. My grandma would laugh at me and take pictures of me with her pink motorola  flip phone while I strutted my stuff all through the house. Later she’d scrub my face raw and hold me in the recliner while I cried myself to sleep. I didn’t want the make-up to come off.

I used to be a pageant queen back then. I won every single one I was in. I can only really remember the last one though. My aunt did my hair for it, and I hated it. I threw a tantrum over my hair, and I just knew I wasn’t going to win. I placed third, and little me was not okay with being third. The newspaper had a picture of first, second, and me, and my hair wasn’t the mess. Mascara was running down my face in streams. Mama said I threw my trophy out the car window. I was never in another pageant. I was okay with it. In my head, if I didn’t win, then that must mean I wasn’t beautiful anymore.

Pageants were out, Capri pants and horses were in. My uncle was a cowboy, and he tended to a rich man’s horses. I’d go to the barn all the time and ride them, feed them, and sometimes just talked to them because my uncle said they liked that. One day I got a Shetland pony named Sparkle, and my brother tried to help me train it. One day Sparkle bucked me off, and I cried like I was dying. I never rode another horse. I wasn’t strong enough.

I lost confidence in myself. I gained a lot of weight, started getting depressed, and spent a lot of time alone. I was smart, but that was about it. I wasn’t pretty. I wasn’t strong. I was just a nerd.

Then Junior High came around, and I started wearing make-up again, maybe to much eyeliner, but my foundation almost matched my face. I lost a lot of weight, but I was also doing some really stupid things. I got diagnosed with depression. I died my hair a bright red, I wore all black, listened to screamo metal, and wrote poetry about death,but hey, I was cool and pretty now.

I hung out with the wrong crowd for a while, but I learned a lot about myself through those years. You’re going to change a lot over the course of life. We go through phases, and spend so much time trying to figure out who we are, but the truth is that we change, every day. Sometimes our failures bring us to a new chapter of our lives, and sometimes those chapter aren’t so well written, but no matter who you are, or what phase of your life you’re in at the moment, you’re strong. You’re beautiful. You’re smart. You’re worth it keep moving, because you’re heading somewhere.

I Blame The World

Sometimes, the world just was it out for you. I know I shouldn’t say that, but it’s true. Sometimes the world just gets angry and needs someone to take it out on. It’s horrible because you start to question what you could have possibly done to make her (the world) so vengeful. Maybe she is heartbroken, and you happened to have waltz into one of her tears. Now you’re drowning, and there honestly seems to be no way out.

Now, I guess I have conjured up this idea because I need to blame something. I don’t want to blame you. Despite the fact that I should and that I need to, which everyone has been very vocal about, I just can’t find it in my self to hate you. Do you remember when I used to write you letters? Or that leather bracelet I gave you and you wore until it fell apart? That piece of toast I drew on your wall because you were sad and I wanted you to be able to look at something and smile? All of this was before we fell in love. Part of me wishes we could go back to then. The other part of me isn’t ready to let you go yet.

I can’t blame cancer either. I mean, if cancer was personified I would probably beat it with a steel pipe, but I can’t do that. I can’t really put my finger on cancer, yet along point at it. I can’t blame cystic fibrosis either, for the same reason. I’m sure cancer and CF didn’t get together one day and decide over tea that “hey, let’s kill Savannah’s friends a week apart.” No, I don’t imagine they know each other that well.

So I come back to you, and I want to scream and cry, but I feel like I’ve done too much of that already. I want to say I never want to talk to you again, but I would be lying. I want to say I don’t love you anymore, but that’s just not true. I can apologize to everyone that disappoints, but all of these tragic events have made me miss you more. I guess part of me wants to hold on to something.

I don’t blame you. I don’t blame cancer or cystic fibrosis. The world just has it out for me right now. Maybe I’m naïve, but that’s what I want to believe. I’m tired of asking you why you had to do this to me, so I will just blame the leaves and the grass and the air. I’ll get angry at the pink and purple sky. It’s easier to blame one thing for my problems rather than multiple different things. The world put all three of you here, so I feel justified. I can handle being mad at the world. That’s an easier pill to swallow than grieving… or being mad at you.

Lost Friends

A couple days a go I found out that a friend of mine, who had been fighting cancer for quite a while, had passed away at only seventeen. Another friend that will never know life without homework, or get to see something so spectacular that it changes everything. Another friend who will never get married, who will never grow old. I have lost five friends now, some I was closer to than others, but the pain still explodes in my chest at the thought of them. Three to depression. One to a rainy night and bad tires. Now, one to cancer.

The thing that is messing me up the most is that the last thing I said to her was “stay strong”. Are you kidding me? I’m a writer. I had every capability to type out something extraordinary, but instead, I chose to be generic. I chose to tell her something that hundreds of people had already told her. Granted, we hadn’t talked in a while, but this was the girl I used to face-time everyday for an entire summer. This was the sweetheart that just wanted to love and be loved. Just like that, she is gone. Knowing that I will never be able to randomly message her and talk about god only knows what is killing me. She was a beautiful soul, and I hate the world for taking another one of the few flowers left amongst all of this ash.

I’ve been trying to ignore it. Telling everyone that I’m tired because I’m still getting over being sick when really, I’ve spent the last couple nights staring around the room, crying, and trying to find that one memory that defines she and I’s relationship. I’m struggling, and I think that is why I don’t want to talk about it. The first thing people ask me when I lose someone is if we were close. They want to know about the person. Well, she and I weren’t the type of friends that didn’t talk about the personal things. There was this state of awareness that we had both been through a lot, but talking about it wasn’t our thing. Instead, we talked about gummy bears, boys, and music. We sought distractions in one another, and I think that might be why I’m trying to distract myself from the fact that she is dead.

Either way, I hope she knows that I am grieving, and that I’m screaming on the inside, because people like her don’t deserve to suffer like that. I wish I had said more to her, but once again, life, and the end of it, has left me speechless.

Paradox on Fate

I believe in fate. Maybe we are all meant to be exactly where we are and every moment that we live is life-changing. Maybe we are each fated to certain events, decisions, people. I believe that if it is meant to happen then it will happen. There are a lot of people who stress and overwhelm themselves with things they cannot change, but if they leave it to fate, maybe it wouldn’t be so rough on their mental health.

It is going to happen, whatever it is, one way or another, and we can’t change it because we have no clue what we would be changing. I believe in fate because once it happens, it’s irreversible. We have no idea or true warning, and I feel that if the universe had any other intentions for our lives other than what we make out of it, then we would have reset buttons and time machines.

But I also don’t believe in fate. Maybe we live and do a bunch of unnecessary shit just die. Maybe we are all just completely accidental and a total coincidence. I believe that nothing we do matters what so ever. We meet a guy or girl. We marry them. We get a dog. The dog dies. Our wife or husband dies. We die. Maybe the only thing fated in life in death, everything before that is just whatever happens, happens. We don’t know. it’s irreversible and it only happened because we allowed it to. Maybe it is all without purpose but believing that all the bad things that happen to us won’t necessarily lead to something better, or that those wonderful moments with the person you love might just fade away, is kind of depressing.

You can call me indecisive, but what is wrong with me believing in fate, and the lack of if I can explain them both. Fate is a beautiful thing, maybe everything is already planned for us, and no matter what choice we make, it will be the right one because fate has already decided our choice. There is no right or wrong, because whatever we do, rather it is morally correct or not, it’s fated. On the other hand, the lack of fate and reason for living, leaves us to make our own happiness that will just lead to death anyway. We are kind of left with a “what does it matter” view on life, so we do what ever the hell we want because it doesn’t matter anyway.

Yeah, I believe in both, but at the end of day I really just believe in doing you, whatever that may be. Rather you do it because of fate, or because you feel there is no purpose to do otherwise, just do it. I just hope that what you do makes you happy, because life, fated or not, shouldn’t be sad.

10 Ways to Chill Out

Learning to handle stress is very stressful. I start to worry about things and try to calm down, but I can’t and wind up even more frustrated. I honestly don’t know how to control myself sometimes, but I have been working very hard and am finding new ways to distract myself from stress.

  1. One thing that I have been finding helpful is yoga. Stretching out my tense muscles really helps me with reaching a calm state of mind.
  2. Taking longer showers. Some studies may show that long showers indicate loneliness, but I have found that the hot water relaxes me and the humid air helps me with good breathing.
  3. Reading. I know this is a more obvious one, but you may be surprised how much a good book will help you destress. Books allow us to escape and enter another world that has nothing to do with us.
  4. Walking. This is another obvious one, but walking is very beneficial. As it turns out, committing to healthier life choices and exercising  habits can do wonders for your mental health and ability to fight stress.
  5. Don’t spill tea. Stop gossiping. If you spend your time talking about other people’s problems and what they are doing, you lose time for yourself. Also keeping up with other people and what they are doing can be exhausting. Focus on yourself instead.
  6. Drink tea. Try rewarding yourself with a cup of non-caffeinated tea with just a little sweetener if needed. Many herbal teas have great relaxing ingredients. Caffeine and sugar can make you a little jittery though, so read into your tea before you drink it and don’t over do the sugar. Here are some of the best teas to help with stress: Chamomile, Lavender, Lemon Balm, Passion Flower, Valerian, Golden Root, Ashwagandha, Tulsi, Catnip, and Ginseng.
  7. Aromatherapy. Get a diffuser and try filling your room with relaxing scents. The smells can be used as a stimulant for your mood. Many essential oils will tell you if they can be used in this way, but just in case, I advise these scents: Lavender, Rose, Vetiver, Bergamot, Roman chamomile, Neroli, Frankincense, Sandalwood, Ylang ylang, Orange or orange blossom, Geranium.
  8. Don’t Procrastinate. A lot of our stress as students comes from our work load, but procrastination can really get you spiraling. It is important to get your work done as soon as possible instead of waiting until the last minute because waiting will lead to stressing and perhaps lessen the quality of your work.
  9. Breathing. Even something as simple as breathing can help you with relieving stress. When you are caught up in a moment, and you catch yourself over doing it, sit down and focus on your breathing. This can relieve the tenseness in you muscles and chest as well as control  your heart rate.
  10. Do what you love. It doesn’t matter what you write, draw, sing, or dance. Do it, but make sure you don’t treat it as an assignment. When relieving stress, we have to center ourselves and remember what makes us happy. Do what you love because you love it, not because you have to. This will really help find yourself in a hectic moment, and with that you will have the confidence to keep pushing.