And you lie drunk

on the bed like some

sleeping seal on rocks

as dawn breaks through

the gums out the window

as i drink the red and

smoke the last cigarettes

what a moment it was

if you could hold time

that moment was sheer

brilliance and i loved you

then asleep but that was

the only time

Good thing this is in Stream of Consciousness and not Fiction because it's not Fiction. A year, I wish. I didn't just lose myself I gave her up. It's one thing to realize one day you're not you anymore it's quite another to watch it slip away day by day, seeing her go but not knowing how to get her back, how to convince her to stay. Can't beg someone to stay in hell. "You're here for the kid." Those words ring through my head still to this day. His kid mind you. Not ours, not mine. Let me repeat NOT MY CHILD. Not by birth not by marriage not by anything. And yes, I'm there for the kid, I was here there and everywhere for the kid but who the fuck was there for me? Not his father, not my father, just a fading me. I knew it was temporary, there wasn't a moment I didn't know it was temporary. "This too shall pass." Like a fucking kidney stone but still it will pass. That wasn't the question. The question was who will I be on the other side of this? What will be left of me? I left everything I loved not because I didn't love it because I knew if he knew he would do everything he could to take it so the answer is love nothing, not even yourself. Don't react. Don't move. Don't smile. Don't laugh. Don't speak. Just note it. Know that you heard what you heard, yes he just threatened to kill you. Say nothing. They call it gray rocking, I call it I'm dead inside. Sitting there in hell one day wondering "How the fuck did I get here?" "What used to make me happy?" Oh yeah! Writing. I used to write all the time. I bring the notepad out, I journal, I release, I see her again. She's been there, patiently waiting with me in hell, hiding herself away. I'm smiling because she's still there. I go home with a smile still painted across my face. "You're cheating aren't you?" Such a small mind to believe that anyone else but me could make me happy. From drugs to rehab straight back to drugs. OUT, OUT, OUT! I'm DONE I'm DONE I'm DONE! Gone. Not easily, not without police involvement, not without an order from the judge but gone. I'm still here for the kid. Now it's CPS. They think they can push my buttons, they have no fucking idea the hell I will reign down on them for this kid. No idea. I am the boat that will get him to the other side of this but this is no ordinary boat, no. I'm a cargo ship on steroids with a battering ram at the front of me cause I've gone through hell just to get more hell and now you're going to get my wrath. The whole fucking world can get this wrath. From chaos and court hearings to adopted I was there for the kid. Now I'm relearning to be there for me. To have that same fight, have that same fuck you mentality for myself. One word, one step, one day at a time I'm going to make sure she's never put on the back burner again. And she's going to write damnitt, she's going to write and smile to her heart's content and she's going to let the world think she's having affair after affair. The kid is safe now so watch the fuck out.

just jabbering gibberish (A - J)

Again, another awkward ambitious

arduous attempt at alphabetically

arranging atrociously ambiguously

absolutely asinine avoidable alliteration.

Because...? Basically bonafide belching,

bobbing, bumbling, bohemian beastie boy,

bereft bummer, bleeds blasé blues, begetting

bloviated boilerplate bildungsroman,

boasting bougainvillea background.

Civil, clever clover chomping, cheap

chipper cool cutthroat clueless clodhopper,

chafed centenary, codifies communication

cryptically, challenging capable, certifiably

cheerful college coed.

Divine dapper daredevil, deft, destitute,

doddering, dorky dude, dummkopf Dagwood

descendent, dagnabbit, demands daring

dedicated doodling, dubious, dynamite,

deaf dwarf, diehard doppelganger, Doctor

Demento double, declaring depraved

daffy dis(pense)able dufus Donald Duck

derailed democracy devastatingly defunct.

Eccentric, edified English exile,

effervescent, elementary, echinoderm

eating egghead, Earthling, excretes,

etches, ejaculates, effortless exceptional

emphatic effluvium enraging eminent,

eschatologically entranced, elongated

elasmobranchii, emerald eyed Ebenezer,

effectively experiments, emulates epochal

eczema epidemic, elevating, escalating,

exaggerating enmity, enduring exhausting

emphysema.

Freed fentanyl fueled, fickle figurative

flippant fiddler, fiendishly filmy, fishy,

fluke, flamboyantly frivolous, fictitious,

felonious, fallacious, fabulously fatalistic,

flabbergasted, fettered, flustered, facile,

faceless, feckless, financially forked,

foregone, forlorn futile fulsome, freckled

feverish, foo fighting, faulty, freezing,

fleeting famously failing forecaster, flubs

"FAKE" fundamental fibber fiat, fabricating

fiery fissile fractured fios faculties.

Gamesomeness goads gawky, gingerly,

goofily graceful, grandiloquent gent, gallant,

genteel, geico, guppy gecko, gabbling gaffes,

gagging, gamboling, gestating, gesticulating,

garlic, gnashing, gobbling, gyrating,

gruesomely grinning, grappling, gnomadic

giggly, grubby, gastrointestinally grumpy

gewgaw gazing gesticulating guy,

geographically generically germane,

gungho, grave gremlin, grumbling, guiding,

guaranteeing, guerilla gripped gatling guns

ginning gumpshun.

Hello! Herewith halfway harmless hazmat,

haphazard haggard, hectored, hastily,

hurriedly, harriedly hammered, handsomely

hackneyed, heathen, hellbent hillbilly, hirsute,

hidden hippie, huffy humanoid, hexed, heady,

Hellenistic, holistic, hermetic, hedonistic

heterosexual Homo sapiens historical heirloom,

homeless, hopeful, holy, hee haw heretical hobo.

Indefatigable, iconographic, iconic, idealistic,

idyllic, inimitable, idiosyncratic, ineffable,

irreverently issuing idiotic, indifferent, inert,

ineffectual, ingeniously iniquitous, immaterial,

insignificant, indubitable, inexplicable, ignoble

itches, ineffectually illustriously illuminating

immovable infused ichthyosaurus implanted

inside igneous intrusions immensely

imperturbable improbable.

Jovial jabbering jinxed January jokester

just jimmying jabberwocky

justifying jangling jarring juvenile jibberish

jubilantly jousting jittering

jazzy jawbreaking jumble

justifying, jostling, Jesus;

junior jowly janissary joyful Jekyll

joined jumbo Jewess jolly Jane;

jammed jello junket jiggled

jeopardized jingled jugs.

He did it without asking.

We were married at the time - it seemed like a nice thing for him to do.

“I’ve registered your new phone with a service that will locate it for you if it’s ever lost or stolen”, he announced one evening at dinner nonchalantly, tossing his blonde hair. He was so handsome when he was sober. I smiled and thanked him, grateful that he had been so thoughtful. There were plenty of occasions when he wasn’t - like the countless times he humiliated me in public, drunken and disorderly, disrespectful and contentious. “I can never be wrong.” He told me once, red-faced with eyes bulging during a heated discussion about his substance abuse. There are more stories than I can count that start with him and a drink in his hand and end with me in tears, but this is not a story about those days and nights. It is the story of a god-damned cellphone.

For the sake of conservative tradition and my Christian upbringing, I tried to stay with my man, I really did. Despite his drinking, despite his lack of employment, despite the fact that he played video games day-in and day-out while I went to work and returned home, despite the fact that he said “you’re welcome” after having sex with me, despite the fact that he had begun to phyisically threaten me - for years, ten to be exact, I stayed.

Then I couldn’t stay anymore. It was as simple as that, so I left.

I told him I no longer wanted to live with him, that I wanted a out, and even though I had been telling him for years that I was desperately unhappy, somehow only when I uttered the sentence “I’m moving out“ did he realize that I was serious.

I suppose it‘s the fault of American pop culture, that he believed he could slack in every single way as a husband, hell as an adult person, for ten years and then show a modicum of effort and suddenly be accepted back into my life with open arms. There were countless messages and calls begging me to return on that new cellphone of mine, but I stayed resolute. I was done. I tried to move on with my life. I lived with friends while still paying his rent in our old apartment, which was in my name - I needed to keep my credit intact, and I knew if I left things to him it wouldn’t be. I was trying to put my life back together piece by piece after a decade of being an unwilling mother to a fully-grown alcoholic, unemployed husband, but he refused to let me go.

I was out with a friend one night, when a message from my Ex flashed across the screen. I hadn’t blocked him, because I was trying to keep things civil for the divorce. “Where are you?” he asked. I didn’t answer - it was none of his business. Five minutes later an alert flashed on the screen of that expensive new phone. He was tracking me. Back when he announced that he had registered my phone, he failed to mention that it was attached to HIS email address. He prided himself on his hacker skills and often boasted of them at parties. My phone sent him my exact location. My friend suggested we leave to avoid a confrontation, so we did, but this only led to more tracking. Out of dumb stubbornness, I didn’t want to get rid of the phone. I had paid for it - it was expensive, and I didn’t want his obsessive behavior to force me to hide. I’m a writer and fairly allergic to technology, but I did everything I could to remove his ability to track my every move. I thought I had been successful because the alerts stopped. I went on with my life, progressing towards the divorce. Out of the blue, he told me that he was going on vacation and suggested that I come over to the apartment to get some of my things while he was gone. He specifically mentioned that I should get my files off of ’his‘ laptop, which had been ‘ours’ before I moved out. “It’s easy,” he said “you can just email yourself the files and then delete them.”

I hadn’t been in our apartment since the night I had told him, tears streaming down my face, that I could no longer live with him. I was apprehensive, but the season was changing and I needed warmer clothes. I was paying rent at my friend’s apartment as well as paying his rent in our old place and money was tight, so I welcomed the chance to retrieve my old clothes instead of having to buy new ones.

I will never forget walking into our old apartment.

It stank. Nothing had been cleaned or washed since I left all those months ago. Every trash can was full and there was not a single clean surface to be found, except for the coffee table in the living room. It was pristine. Only one item sat upon it in the midst of all the filth - the laptop. Taped to the top of the laptop was a pink note in his sloppy handwriting, “Don’t forget to get your files!”

It felt like a trap. It was.

I opened the laptop with trepidation - it seemed as if nothing had changed, but something inside of me told me to check the hidden files. This was an old trick of his that I knew from his propensity to hide porn on his compter in college. I unhid the files and was shocked to find a file called “Paige - tracking”. He actually called it that. I opened the file and found hundreds upon hundreds of screenshots of my location - at all bours of the day and night - EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. since I had left him up until the day he left on his vacation. I was stunned and resolved in that instant to get a new phone, damn the cost. I called a friend who understands technology far better than I do, and when I told her what I had found on his laptop, she yelled through the phone that I needed to immediately stop what I was doing. She gave me the name of a file extension and asked me to search the computer for it - I searched and found the program immediately. He had installed a key-stroke recording virus on the computer to record every move I made. If I had logged into my email as he had suggested, or logged into Facebook, or entered any other important passwords, he would have had them all via this program and I never would have known.

I looked further into the computer and found photos and videos of myself that I felt he no longer had the right to possess. I was not his property, and neither were my private images. I deleted the image and video files and, thanks to my friend’s advice, placed the files I needed to keep on a memory stick with the understanding that they might be infected with viruses as well and would need to be examined and potentially cleaned before I could access them. I was unsurprised to find new drug paraphernalia in the apartment, despite his claims that he had gotten clean. I gathered my things and, significantly shaken and upset, headed home. That day, I got a new phone and deactivated the old one, leaving it in a drawer, fearful of it as if it were a live thing that had betrayed me.

A few days later, he showed up at my doorstep.

“I see you found the files on my computer,” he said with a sneer of superiority. “Guess I won‘t be able to track you anymore. New phone, huh?”... I started to close the door, but he stopped it with his foot. “I ALSO saw” he said dramatically, pausing for effect, “that you tried to delete our videos and your pictures. That’s cute.” He flicked a small USB drive at me through the slit of the open door. “Here’s your copy.”

Obsession has many forms and is often portrayed as a romantic attribute, but obsession and possession are very closely related. My Ex was obsessed with me because he felt that he POSESSED me. I am not an object to be owned and tracked and retrieved. I am a human being, who has the right to remove herself from a situation in which she is not happy and does not feel safe. No person deserves to be treated in the way I was, but it happens every day, predominately to women of every age, race and religion. My Ex should have been trying to find his identity, his humanity, his sense of decency instead of my damn phone. Whoever needs to hear this: You Are Not Property! Marriage does not equal ownership. You are not a phone.

#Obsession #posession #findmyphone #stalking #technology #divorce

you remind me of someone i knew

someone i know

lips just the right shape and color

glancing at me from behind your hair

trying to hold back your smile

i catch you looking at me

hands strong like his

same shoes

but you don’t smell like him

there are no butterflies in my stomach

my perpetual urge to smile isn’t there

time doesn’t stop when i see you

i can talk without stuttering

your name isn’t his

my body isn’t reacting

i know i won’t daydream about you

nightdream about you

i won’t look for you in random places

hoping i bump into you

i’ll look for him

waiting

wishing

longing

to feel him in my arms again

HE walks towards me

HE isn’t supposed to be here

the footsteps grow louder by the second

heavier along the hot gravel

focus on the wind in your hair

the suns rays that linger

this will pass

KEEP SCREAMING

keep moving

thankful for the woman and her dog

seperat.e .d

i’m still breathing

iWould change my actions

iWould affect others how they affect me

iWould tell those who matter most how i really feel

my thoughts consume me

they are not always pleasant

i could write a million poems

and none would rid me of my emotions

constant opposition with myself

my thoughts do not align

i overindulge, i obsess

energetic to a fault

unless im depressed

iWould get angry

an emotion that's lacking

a crucial ingredient for growth

iWould be unapolegetically honest

open to love in all forms

iWould never cry again

iWould do what i want like nobody or nothing else mattered

but it does

and they do,

and my life is as much yours as it is mine

i consistently desire what i can't have

that is my ammo

i can’t hear you very well

we’re speaking the same language

but the words aren’t coming across

i look up, notice the wispy clouds in the sky

you look up, notice the sky between the clouds

two bodies

2 spirits

no resemblence to the other

tell me Other Half,

who in the world speaks the language that unlocks my heart?