How Is Your Heart?

during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
whores
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment

and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.

-charles bukowski

tattoo schemes

1)highly considering getting something similar to this across my back. it's something i think about every day: choosing to do the absurd and the daring despite every obstacle.

2) Aly and i decided last summer while looking at a river to both get the word boundless imprinted on our skin.  i want mine under the above scene, and in typewriter font.

My favorite feeling, the one i always strive for.

3)still in the works but something including the anahata heart center symbol, a key, and lotus flowers. all of which are very symbolic for who i am.

schemin' sure is fun.

a notable quotable from a dotable lover

''be careful out there, extraordinary people attract extraordinary things''

for the record i wish the following sorts of adoration upon everyone:

-back rubs even when you aren't in need of them
-a song written for you that takes months and months because he is worried about it not being perfect enough
-little notes left all over your room in obscure places so it takes you a while to find them all
-traveling 5 miles each way without a car to see you, even if it's just for a few hours
-doesn't blink an eye at waiting patiently and loyally while you take off 2,000 miles to the east coast for a crazy, independent college adventure
-taking time to just lay with you, talk with you, look at you, be with you
-making you middle of the night tacos and bringing you juice, yogurt and fruit in the morning (just the way you love it most)
-knowing instantly how you are feeling
-doing yoga with you in the front yard
-buying you a new walkman when your beloved one breaks after 10 years of use

...i could go on and on and on. i am so ridiculously fortunate. i attribute finding this beautiful soul to my trust that love exists; the world is shifting and that love is what leads the way.  go out and find it, create it, cultivate it. it is yours for the having and the sharing.

yours, truly

i saw my face in a photo from the year before this one
and it stopped me dead

i saw the naivety the fears of cancer the longing the entanglement the
hot air ballon dreams
the high school mindset the veganism the tension in my shoulders the thoughts stored in my cheeks like a squirrels nuts
the loss the drowning the infallible belief that we all deserve better the stubborn Irish blood the streaks of summer the
waiting

i took a photo today of my face
and all i see is the

honesty

new thing

i started up a photography blog after a few requests. these are honest shots and i don't believe in censoring naked bodies. check it out if you would like

www.smokeless-fire.blogspot.com

listity list list

-home from a week of volunteering at a camp for kids with cancer and their siblings. my brother and i started going as campers when i was 11 and i've been every summer since. i was a scared little shy-as-can-be girl then and was fortunate enough to make friends with people that are still in my life now --> people with such bravery and strength and incredible influence on me. this year i was able to stand back and look at how much we have all grown. i also got to play in a pool of jello, learn fart jokes, eat cookies and play with 6 year olds all week. which was the best. oh! and a newly acquired skill: i can turn a styrofoam cup inside out. bam.
i am so grateful for the whole experience.

-moving across the country sure can sneak up on you fast. i have somewhere around two months left in this city. it is taking a lot of willpower to not freak out. everyone keeps telling me that getting there is the hard part, and that it will get easier, and that missing people will go away. Adam tells me that there is no reason to fear, because love has no concept of distance. i am taking it to heart. i know i have a higher calling and that an independent adventure is necessary.

-i am desperately inspired by Annie Leibovitz and Ryan McGinley.

- i believe that world is shifting towards a higher vibration and a more enlightened age. endings are only beginnings.

- old school Regina Spektor is the best. like, Soviet Kitch old. 


i wish the best to you all.

a 9 page note

i love you like teachers love summer
like toilets love the plumber.
i love you more than a whisper louder than a shout without a hint of a trace of a flutter of a doubt
your mom is making me oatmeal
and that makes me feels rather old school and
loved in a motherly way
i don't want to be a mother
yet
but someday maybe our ninos  (ninas?) will run around naked with curly heads and the ability to say,
'hey! i can think for myself'
brains in action not gathering dust on the shelf
i graduated but didn't wear the cap
which could be a metaphor
i don't what for but i do
know that you are my morning walk for a dog whose got to pee
my 'S' following an apostrophe
that feeling in the corner of my toes that grows and knows and throws my
heart for a rollercoaster
spin
they kind where you know you're strapped in
and will pull up safe
                          safe
i don't know about faith but i know about
believing in you
it's true that you are the mate to my soul
which is not the romantic equivalent to a touch down goal
and i'm not a mormon princess waiting for my biblical prince
what we have is bigger, beyond even what we can see,
i am convinced
that i reflect in you and you reflect in me
and we never worry and we never fight
because we understand the beauty of right
and wrong not having meaning at all
and life is a series of busting down walls
built by fear and small
spirited people who have never felt
the magnitude of love rippling out from between us with the power to
melt
away something bad
          something sad
          something taking a turn of transformation
                                                      innovation
                                                      jubilation
wings of migration
art might be dying dying dead
but dead is not an ending
so why the shame?
it only means beginnings and the chance to build a new
frame
from which to stand and scream to the world
be alive while you are alive!
be unblinking and then
paint a stroke with every action you take and make
and soon you've got a mural
                                 a mosaic
                                 a collage
a perpetual expression of the inside
why hide?
we are as afraid of each other as we are of
ourselves
and hell is not a place, it's the inability to move
ideas bodies minds habits diets souls
eyes
that long for the opportunity to prove
that they may see upside down but they flip it around
and there's so much more to flip than this
familiar town
and i got sidetracked but what i'm trying to say is thank you
for the courage that you braid in my hair
and thank you for the honesty, the care
the bus fare you pay to see my eager face
for showing me that it's not a race,
it takes a shit ton of grace
and it's a path that we walk every step of every day
we walk it together, love
stride by stride side by side
into the rising suns
and the settings too
the universe is good to us
and always will be
it crossed our desires
our wires
under a bright and wise moon
and if we're ever apart it's only so we can meet again soon
enough and as soon as we are able
love will inevitably be brought to the table

6/7

-Adam told me my hair looks like an Irish goddess. i'm never changing it ever.
-i was raised to be talked with and not talked at; as a friend and not as a child. that has gotten me far.
-life without a car is difficult in a city full of cars, but i am happy to be going against the grain. plus my conscience is considerably lighter not throwing $70 at a gas tank which would in turn support a war that was started on a lie; so on and so forth.
-i am now a lucid dreamer!
-facebook=masturbation
-the day where i don't have to see/touch/serve stupid people cupcakes will be a glorious day
- i fall instantly in love with anyone who can talk to me about astrology
-i am surrounded by powerful, strong, badass women in my life
-deodorant has high levels of aluminum which gets into the blood stream and has been linked to breast cancer and other serious diseases. i'd rather smell like a human than have cancer, folks. who decided that our own smell is bad anyway?
psh.
-also, i hate cologne, but maybe if they made it camping scented i could be persuaded.

goodnight, everyone. best on your adventures.

pacification

people with mouthfuls of propriety stop me and say ,'your boyfriend has crazy hair '

it was blowing in the wind of the swings of the amusement park
as i traced the cracks of your thumb with my finger. i love you because you are
the only one not too cool to
drape your laugh across the sky as if you might never have the chance to again.


those people who really care about hair and lawns and college education and having kids
about being tidy and standardized. they are complacent and

i bet they've never really laughed.

late skate