Please don’t take offense to what I will write, on the contrary fill your cup if you wish.

Life isn’t what everybody tells you it is. It’s downright revolting in fact. You make friends and they stop being your friends, you meet lovers and you cry more than you smile, you take charge and you don’t like the outcome. Nevertheless, these are the moments you wouldn’t change one bit.

In most of my teenage love affairs I’ve been called a sinner; I’ve been called a saint. I’ve been put upon a pedestal and have been quickly struck down to be dragged in the dirt. I can think of days where living my life was all I’ve wanted to do, I wouldn’t think of tomorrow. Years went by, another winter; another summer, misty memories of days that are no more. Lovers and friends have surrounded me and left me and I still feel a void I cannot fix. You learn with the years that you can’t stop rain from falling down; you can’t make the world go ‘round, stop the sun from burning holes into your eyes and most certainly you can’t stop an achy-breaky heart.

Story of my life? A battle versus nature and nurture was I born cute and vindictive or did society make me that way? I go back and forth debating. I am self-destructive, I turn solutions into problems. I am difficult, I am self-sufficient, I am an orchid, and I am a snake. Like it or not I am headstrong, arrogant and imposing. Yet, how can a looser ever win? I’ve had my doubts on love and I will always have my fears, I’ve had my battles and my wars as well, but a bottle has never stood in my way, until this day. Giving up and no longer arguing isn’t a sign of defeat for someone with silent anger. It’s simply the defeat of a foolish heart over a reasonable head. By description I should be Midas in reverse, but I stand. Maybe I’ve been living someone else’s life.

You meet this one guy, and the stars go blue, your mind reels in the many ideas your little girl’s soul had been fishing for. The breathless charm, the elusive smile, you can’t help it if your tenderness grow; you break your bones and your love grows.

Realize; life is a paradox and it doesn’t make much sense. You can bless the broken road that led you to his arms or you can close up to the cruelty, disappointments and stitches you carefully sowed back.

Some describe love as an open hearted perpetual bliss; I describe love as platinum shackles you chose to wear. I’ve never been the type to kneel down and pray, thinking that all of my writings were prayers in their own forms. It’s a defense mechanism “ be sure of who you are, be sure of what you want and don’t give yourself fully” with happiness there’s still a sickening feeling, an unfaltering incurable disease that eats away your heart, no, it doesn’t kill you; it opens up your eyes while the pain is gutting you open. Friend, foe or lover it all ends up the same way, one heart is a piñata it doesn’t matter what he sings, what he says or what he does. There’s just you and how much pain you can cause to yourself. It’s then you think you need to keep your mouth shut, clip your wings and barricade your mind.

No. You are who you are, as were Cleopatra, Delilah and Mata Hari. So you try and make another stand but it’s a heartfelt one…it goes like this

“Since I love you and that I was childish enough to envision our future; I thought it would be best that I had told you that alcohol scared me, because I’ve had horrible traumatizing experiences with it. I was hoping you’d understand and make an effort, because you say that you love me just as much. If we have to be together side by side and for the best, I think that if there’s something in me that should be bettered it’s your duty to tell me, assuming you want what’s best for me; the same way I only want what’s best for you. Please understand my apprehensions. When a man takes more than 3 glasses I panic. I’m not trying to change you fully. But I will not fight against a bottle. You say you love me, and I expect you to understand it. I loose too much if I loose you but it doesn’t mean I can’t afford to. It’s not because I love you that I shouldn’t tell you what I think. I’m waiting for you to just tell me that our relationship is not worth a fight against a battle that it’s worth much more”

And the heart wrenching answer is “(…) Look Emmanuelle, I hope you can make you mind so we can both move with our lives. My patience is running thin (…) I’m not going to stop drinking because you think it’s going to be trouble in the future when you don’t know that for sure. You want to stay together, fine, you don’t? Then don’t Emmanuelle. I’m sick of this; I know how to behave around you. You’re asking me to quit drinking and I don’t want to. I don’t want to talk about this anymore because I’ve been nice to you. Think all you want. Have your break. It’s on you Emmanuelle, you started this, so end it your way”

There. You chose between the bottle and me. No, it’s not on me because I told you what I wanted.

Right now, your world is in square one, which is “Square unfair”

You go for a 2 hour long jog during the night, hoping you won’t get mugged on the way, but who cares? They’ll just exchange you for a bottle of gin anyway; no maybe Whiskey…or Vodka. You think you need support; you call that one guy, the one that you never fully let go of. The one you can call your first love , your friend and confidant, the one who still has feelings for you but, good riddance, is with somebody else; except he’s no support at all, to you he ‘s cold and detached at the moment.

Someone just chose a bottle over you. And the man who hasn’t let go of you for the past 4 years knows it, then again, says none of the comforting soothing words you’d like to hear, or think he should say.

Your legs are jelly, your head hurts, you’re out of breath and your muscles burn, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. If you stop running, if you don’t hear the stomping of your feet against the pavement, if you heart stops beating as fast, then maybe you’ll remember, maybe you’ll remember that 30 minutes ago your self esteem crashed . 30 minutes ago he was your boyfriend; he was the diamond ring on your finger and the crest-pro smile on your face. Now he’s the bastard you’re disappointed in. The bastard who maybe, wasn’t worth it.

You’re back at square one, XXX has a girlfriend but he loves you and CPO has a bottle that he chose over you.

So what’s the sinking feeling?

The fact that you saw it coming? That you didn’t get a mature compromise? The fact that life has thrown you so many curves and you still don’t know how to swerve? That this side of the coin was less shiny? That he didn’t choose you? That you didn’t get love? No, the sinking feeling is the fact that you literally just fell in a dent on the sidewalk. Deciding you’ve had enough, you get mad, you get strong. You wipe your hands, shake it off and head for home.

Its dark, your family didn’t wait up. You can’t share your problems and you’re in above your head. You leave him? You stay with? You take your Zyprexa pills and start noticing that the world is no longer Goliath, you are no longer David.

You’re a candle in the hurricane. Alone and helpless; you know that feeling, you feel like you’ve lost your fight But you remember your sister said

“ When push comes to shove, you taste what you’re made of , you might bend till you break ‘cause it’s all you can take , but every time you get up and get back in the race one more small piece of you starts to fall in place”

Besides, he made his choice.

You slip under your covers and know that you’ll wake up in tear drops falling down like the rain. This is how a heart breaks.

My dearest piece of heart …niece, goddaughter…. I guess

I spent countless nights, pen in hand, stressing over a way to start my letter to you…in french? In English? …something I should have done the day you were born; not 7 months later. When will you get it? All comes in time to those who learn to wait (funny to hear that from me; the overly impatient)

You don’t know me, but I’ve learned to care for you, to love you and be a part of your life anyway I could. One day, you will understand this letter, I’m sure, and the tears, smiles, sadness, respect and pride of your family history. But my dear, as you start reading this keep these things in mind: Love, Forgive but don’t forget, and you are not in anyway responsible of anything. See as I’m writing you this I’m only 17.

Though I am the youngest one; I’ve learned quickly to be the rational one, the strong one…and I hate it…I probably still do, who knows? I’ve often wished to live and let be for a little while. To let my eyes see everything and nothing in their time. I’ve picked up every piece that has ever fallen behind in your mother’s family. I realized I had eaten my words for too long and nothing had changed…Until you were born.

[I’m scoffing one of my sarcastic scoffs, your aunt my dear is the most sarcastic woman you will find] I do not mind, no, not at all. Who’d have guessed I’d ever learn to let the walls around me burn? Darling, I don’t know if I’ll ever see you, but I can tell you…you‘re Beautiful. Although all I see of you are pictures I can tell you have a lovely smile and a fiery temper, but that’s all the women in our family.

Call me teacher, call me friend, It’s the best I can do. I don’t know when I’ll hold you, see you smile, hear you say my name or some horribly embarrassing nickname you’d dub me and that, surely, I’d love . But I know that if you call my name it’ll echo on the walls around your heart and you’ll find me. Kit Kat named you Angelie, Marie Elisabeth Angelie …I think it’s a wonderful name, I think you’d like to know we all have a Marie or an Elisabeth in this family, me, your mother, and your grandma ha! Even your grandpa (yes odd I know but let it be our secret) So Dark eyed Angelie,

May you grow a heart of gold,

May you see the stars and the moon.

Because only then will things be alright

Don’t be afraid of the world, I wasn’t.

May life judge tenderly of you

I already love you

I’ll wait for the day to see you

I’ll be there to hold you for the first time

I’ll tell you

I was never that far

Tell you your grandpa is a Good man

Just a little too proud

And you are one of the few who make him cry

Dark eyed Angelie

There are so many things that I’d like to say to you

But I don’t know how

Tell you about your grandma

The brown eyed beauty, a queen at heart

Believe me she’d annoy you but you’d love her

See, Dark eyed Angeline

Be a fool; be convinced and just too cool

Bring smiles around you

But keep your ground

Open your heart

Open your mind

But don’t give your soul

Someone one day told me to count my blessings

Before they were all gone,

I guess I just didn’t’ know how

And I was all wrong…

Angel, I’ll keep you locked in my head until we meet. And I don’t know if you’ll see me there, but when its darkness and no one cares I will hear you. That, dearest niece, is the only advice I can give you. And as you grow up I’m sure you’ll be a darling child. I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do, about you. There are much more many things that I’d like to say to you, but, I don’t know how…So smile; my wonder wall….Believe me,

I sing you songs that echo in your head and in my heart…. that’s where you are.

 

Sometimes you wake up and wish you could change the world…but you think: I’m one person I can’t possibly do it! Well I’m going to tell you: You Can.

Who here reading this has ever heard of Darfur? You’ve heard of Vietnam of Kosovo of Haiti even! But Darfur? I tell you I thought Haiti was bad but I found people who are seeing it worst than my country and it’s with all my heart and soul that I’m asking you to help, please. Darfur has humanitarian catastrophe of 200,000-400,000 or more dead and 2,500,000 refugees.

A friend of mine on MySpace http://www.myspace.com/jocelynplease is standing up for a reason, for something right she’s letting her voice be heard. And I am standing up with her and all my other fellow Alpha Kitties. Aristotle said that “Changes in all things is sweet” …how about YOU help the fate of a country? A country which you know their story, a country where they only ask for one thing: and that’s answering 3 questions and signing your name under it.

You’re reading this post , in front of your computer with a star bucks or a fruit all the while someone near Libya is putting praying never knowing when it’s the last time he’ll pray! Because they get raped, they get killed, they get abused, they suffer from famines and the United States wants a reason to help aside from the Big brother Policies or the fact they are part of the Big 4’s of the world.

The senate is not going to help unless we give them a reason to… I am sure you can do this…and I am begging you to do it.

Gandhi said: You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

The link will take you to a three minute survey that will be sent as a letter to the Senate.

Hopefully, you will help us get the attention we need…that Darfur needs.

10,000 letters, we barely have 2,000.

So go ahead click: http://www.lifenets.net/dev/?q=node/15&refid=545

Visit Jocee’s Page

Visit Atoosa’s Page

We have less than 10 days.

Obviously, we need help. Obviously we need YOUR help. They need your help

It‘ll make you feel good, it’ll make the people of Darfur feel good

If you can’t, have a soul and copy paste this code under anything you have for at least 5 days …that’s all I’m asking. It’s safe

Trust me. Save a life.

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Love!

Emmanuelle

“I’m an Alpha Kitty

I’ll change the world one step at the time

Because I can and because I should! Because trying is better than not doing anything”

A reporter interviewing A.J. Muste, who during the Vietnam War stood in front of the White House night after night with a candle, one rainy night asked,”Mr. Muste, do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night with a candle?” Muste replied, “Oh, I don’t do it to change the country, I do it so the country won’t change me.”

So what will you do?

 

Careful, Dark mood breaking contents.

I’m sitting in my tub, laptop in hand, and I find no courage to use it. It all, for some reason, feels just like yesterday that I did not give a care in the world and took her for granted. She was my world and I never told her. Now that I think about it, I should have told her everything I ever thought about. But all I can do is write, it’s a little late now.  Nevertheless, while hoping for another chance I’ll write…

What can I do if you’re not here? I’ve tried searching for you, and from time to time I thought I found you, but it was never you. At nighttime I’d look at my life and what it would have been if you had stayed. I know I have to let you go and live my own. That’s what hard with stories like ours; the type that‘s already done before it begun; memories strangle me, souvenirs suffocate me, but I use them to survive, I need them to carry on. Perhaps I’ve cried enough.

You said “One day I’ll see you, someplace it’ll continue” You promised we’d see each other again that “neither the heavens nor the stars would keep us apart”

Now that I think about it, I should have told you. So whilst I’m sitting, hoping that you’ll come back to us … I carve:

“We were partners in crime; there was none closer then you and I. You were the one who was going to make me who I should have been. Mother told me so, but no one will ever know. It hurts inside to not know when I’ll see you again. Today or tomorrow?  It’s killing me to live in the past with so many regrets. You swore; neither the stars nor the skies would maintain us apart. And while I am waiting for your arrival, I’ll tell the wind to carry this to you soul “our memories keep me from living but often, I need them to survive”

Since she left I read Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton and all kinds of other gloomy stuff. Girl Interrupted; that book that got made into a movie with Winona Ryder. And Angelina Jolie, whose name and role as Lara Croft is too close for comfort. Too much like her, “super-heroine-saving-the-day” kind of shit. And wouldn’t she be upset to know how I’ve been cursing, (even though most of it is just in my mind…and when I do say it out loud there isn’t anyone to hear it…so does it matter??!?)

God I miss her.

It’s hard to lead a life where she has no part… It’s her silhouette just a faint sickening, “beating my heart down-putting it trough a shredder-erasing my smiles” kind of shadow that follows me wherever I go. She’s become an inconvenient truth; what everyone avoids, what everyone has given up upon, and I try hard not to remember but it slaps me rigid every time I look in the mirror. She’s a shadow. Mine.

The first cut was deliberate, desperate.

I needed to prove to myself that I was real - only a real person would bleed. Right?

And if it wasn’t blood that came out of my veins for being so weak, so heartless… then maybe I really was crazy…maybe these kids would after all be speaking the truth… Maybe I wasn’t even here. Maybe I was a weirdo… Maybe she never even left. Or she’d come running and realize I need her, maybe mom and dad would know that I need her.

The second time was horrific, lurid.

As soon as the knife was in my hand I knew it was the end…princesses didn’t have cuts on their arms, princesses didn’t cry, but God! … I needed to prove myself that fairy tales weren’t real. That, Snow White was poisoned, Sleeping Beauty couldn’t care less, and Cinderella was dreamingly sarcastic. Yet, it wasn’t red enough, it didn’t hurt enough, and it wasn’t fair. I’d only been “alive” such a short time, and now I was “dead”. Still standing, still breathing, still bleeding, but lifeless.  Carelessly wiping the red away and inaccurately settling into bed.

I didn’t think until later about how funny it is (- you know, funny-strange – kind of way.) That I could be bleeding and still be alive and dead, all at the same time…but I’m getting get used to it. Of course now, it’s not that strange. It feels kind of normal, actually.

The third time was spontaneous, toxic.

I was sitting in my tub, like now.  Listening to Billie Holiday’s “don’t threaten me with love”… Dried tears lost somewhere on my cheeks , fresh ones dying on my lips…I was alive and  thinking about the way that life is so short and so fast and the whole thing is kind of a blur.

I was hating everything and everyone and it hurt too much and not enough and I needed to rip the pain out of me before it ate me. So I sliced a way out.

Inside my thigh.

But the pain didn’t leave

I keep doing it now, but I have to avoid my cat because he’d smell the blood on me and that’s not the point. I’m not waiting for something to stop me. And I don’t want to die. I’m just trying to make a space big enough so that the pain can get out. It’s clawing at me. I think it wants to go. It’s just up to me to give it a way out.

Plath talks becoming essential like the blade of a knife. Sexton talks forgetting who she is. And I’m envious, because I can never forget, even for a minute, what I’m missing. Who I am. Even when I’m remembering what it was like to live with a sister, I can’t forget that none of it was real enough to last. I wonder if someone else in this world feels like that. I don’t know how to stop wondering, the more I think about it, the worse it gets. I think all the wondering is just feeding the pain, and it’s sitting right underneath my skin, lurking like a monster.

And I know how to take care of monsters. That’s what the dagger is for.

Since you guys are a part of my life i thought I’d share this part of it. So you could really know how I’m doing and be with me every step of the way. So this is a letter i sent to someone who owns my heart for the simple fact that…wow…that, I am …>sorry.

 
I have so many wishes for today, and this is my greatest confession yet. I’m not an angel, I don’t have wings, I’m arrogant, I’m possessive, I have too much pride for my own good and I’m bitter. But I’m in love, only I don’t deserve him, I’m on all fours for every mistake I’ve ever made, I had you once kicked you to the curb twice and you’ve gone. My tears, my pride not even whipped cream and yogurt can help me now. I’m ready to step down and to put aside my pride I’m ready to let you in with all it takes they say that time heals everything you’re one thing I don’t want to forget I don’t want to loose, the One thing I want . I’m hoping you’ll read this somehow and understand I regret all I said all I did because my heart ACHES for yours. I don’t know if you are going to read this, but all games and pride aside. Out in the open, please, make me whole again…?

 

This is my last try at reaching out, and after this message I won’t bother you again. All my hopes go on it hoping you will see the honesty behind it. I agree I have been the most ridiculous hurtful bitch. Only because, you wounded my pride enough to bring the bitch out of me. Only because (as I told you) I care so much about you I’d say “Love”. I remember you once told me you weren’t perfect and I said neither was I. You said you wanted it (us) to work. And so did I, against all odds and wrongs. Granted you have tried, and I have tried and it flunked ONCE because I didn’t put much of myself in it, because I… we were hurt, because I was stupid.

 

I wanted to thank you for being the more mature, better, bigger person, and excuse myself for being such a cold hard bitch. I wanted to tell you I realized I can’t do much without you (I know that’s coming on strong) and that you’re the missing part in most of my days. STP arrêtons de nous faire du mal. Soyons sensé, par ce que je ne peux pas continuer comme ça. I want you to forgive me and everything I have said or done. I’ve disappointed you I agree maybe I’ve hurt you and I apologize, things won’t be the same I know . But I’ll give it my best, Please let’s just start over.

 

The best explanation, on the significance of all this is: I was stuck in a moment that wasn’t meant to last and I was scared because suddenly it was clear how much you meant to me, it still is and it freaks me out…it freaked me out so I took an “exit” at the first occasion I had, now I know I don’t want that. I mean, I don’t want to miss you a little…I suppose, a Little too much, a little too often and a little more each day. I just don’t want to have to miss you, at all. Gods!! I’m not good at this…writing letters…this is actually my first letter…And I so don’t want to say it but isn’t this what it is? I think you’re worth everything…even my totally pathetic attempt of an apology (ergo this note) Yes I think you’re worth everything and nothing is worth hurting you. I just want you to listen to me…well, read me. I’m not asking for a lifetime I’m just asking for a chance.

 

I want to call you, talk to you, say “baby” again, I want to smile and cry and laugh, I want to argue with you about anything and everything, I don’t want to fake it or force it…writing this is taking so much out of me because I’m taking the risk of putting my heart out on the open to you I’m taking a risk and I’ll take any leap and any road if I know it’ll lead me back to you.

 

I’m not playing a game. I don’t want to. I just want you and even if I ignore it, put it aside, try to get rid of it, it’s still you. I’m putting the last dot on this e-mail hoping I’ve touched something inside you that’s neither pity nor annoyance. If you don’t call or answer back at least I know one thing; I got a real reason to crumble.