They look at you, even show horses, with eyes wild
eyes not meant to look around
because ears look around for horse and eyes see around
but don't move
but they do in a trailer when they wonder
why have you put me in this small box that moves
and you looked at me like that, with large watery eyes
opened up from their usual almond shape
why so frightened?

I can't carry this for you
because this is yours, this fear of me
this is is something I sense but it is not familiar to me
it is not me that is causing it
what is it? what is your projection

a phantom and guilt perhaps
and knowing you did not do the right thing
but suspicion it is my fault you hurt me
silly little man
I can't fallow your thoughts that make no
sense
never did
but I will not hold this for you
This wild stare
and what it means
is yours
not mine

The hurtful one, gone
I am closer to finding that one
who is worthy
who is kind and capable
the books I've read, the five hundred years in therapy
pay off a little as I walk away from one
who can't, maybe doesn't know how
who looked at my pictures and liked only the "comer hither" look in some
and saw nothing else and that is all he can see but I am more than that
and he is gone and I am one little tiny step closer to the one who can love me

If I was then who I am today
I would have left the hopeless hurtful marriage and not
fallen for your words which tell me, over and over, you are too sensitive
you spend too much money, too
and I do,
but I would have left because still, no one deserves to be abused
I always think, I stay, no matter what they say or do
I don't pull out, no matter how much it hurts
but a month ago I did, when I hurt to badly
from a man, and he still wanted me to stay and I said no
I am not having fun anymore and it was over
and no I didn't need help with my script
and no, we aren't friends because we never hang out
and this must be the new me
because I will never be destroyed again by a man I pick out myself
I have changed

My favorite cat is very sick
I did, I spent, to find out what is wrong
to help him, my heart is breaking and I walk,
hike around Briones Park, even though I haven't hiked in over two months
and the hills are steep and the anxiety is great and I take quarter pills of clonozipan
along the way as I finally get the courage to call the vet for the lab results
just like last year when I walked three hours before I could stand to call and it was worse
and I know now and walked on, finished all those clonozipan and made it up the steepest hills
adrenaline driving me and I have no more money and I could mess around at the loan place
but finally I get the courage, as usual, at the end of the four hours, to call you
and there is the first shred of concern and then the deluge and you are hurling accusations
at me and this is the price I pay always for your help and I know I am not perfect
and I know I must live within my means but my cat,
I begin to cry and sit down on the mountain side, a child again
and you lash into me, for my huge problem with cruel words that make my psyche bleed and
you remind me so much of my X husband, as I sit and cry and hikers and joggers go by
and you make your point but that is not enough, you must drive the dagger deep
deep into my sternum and twist it around until I am reeling and bash my head
against granite and I know I will be reeling from this conversation for days and why,
why couldn't you ever have this passion against the people who hurt me, at this job,
in my marriage, why did they get such respect and peace when I am bashed against the rocks, blood in my eyes, salt water stings, tangled in seaweed and a wave crashes over me
please stop I beg you.  stop.  you don't have to be so cruel
which makes you angrier and the angriest you ever have been in my life has been
over money, why, such a Jew?  Like your mother, like my X.  This has taken on a meaning
as I drift away from the conversation as one does when pain is so intolerable that the body shuts it out and dissassociates, and I am up high floating now above the city below
an ironicly beautiful landscape and you lie, yes father, you lie and say you are
struggling in your million dollar home with season Opera tickets and trips all over the world
and I think, I feel so at home, just like my X, so much like my X.
And yet, I am changing and a  voice inside me, drunk now from being knocked in the head, I tell you to stop, that this is not the best way to talk about this as I did
to that guy I rejected who hurt me, and my boss, and I feel, I am changing
and I will fight for what I value, what I love
and on the way home, tears in my eyes, I buy the medication to keep my cat more comfortable and he responds and I think, this is worth it
I am worth it, and you father, may never change, but I can
and I can change most importantly, my opinion of you

I got the flu in mid January and it's nearly Spring and still I cough
but I decided to force myself to go out
and get on Bart and go to Berkeley
and I saw things
stared at an ad for "American Idol" on the platform
for an unseemly amount of time trying to figure out which
human representation had been more photo-shopped
Fascinated, coming out into another land other than work home bed

Standing on the Bart platform, with no evil smells like the New York City subway and a breeze
and a polite voice telling me when the train would come
And at the next station an ad for the Jewish Museum and a young Ethiopian Jewish man
has an exhibit there and I felt good, that yes, there is such awfulness in Israel
but even there, like here, some can rise

And then Berkeley and my favorite cafe,
and it so reminds me of Columbia University, only cleaner
but it doesn't hurt about my X anymore
but it reminded me of my cat who was dieing in July and
he didn't want me near him too much because
dieing things like small spaces and not too much attention
so I left him in the closet curled up as cancer worked it's inevitable devastation

And I was coughing and tired, an invalid at the end of the day
but I made it to the Shattuck Cinemas to watch "Lincoln" and they have
a bar, and couches in the theater and you can take drink in if you're over 21
and that was our idea, in my days as a theater manager, we'd
talk about ways to bring more people in and we suggested couches and alcohol
and our manager laughed and thought we were crazy
but here is crazy and people walk in and love it
I sat in the back and took up a whole two seat couch selfishly and
listened to people come in and say how nice it was

Today I was an invalid again and could hardly get up
but the memory, it was worth it
I am slightly more alive again

"...it is our own wish to be soothed that is the root of the attraction."
I read in the yellow pages, the spine of the paperback cracking and that is underlined
for the second time because I bought my first copy of this book in 1988
and I felt behind the times
Still, I am a "woman who loves too much"

My first copy became so thrashed I put duct tape on it from my grip kit
film school and obsessions with unavailable guys, boys, and all kind of things
I did, drugs and two on one *** to try to make him love me back until a social worker asked me to buy the book and read it

I remember going over to University Village and walking to the back of the store
where the self help books were and there was one copy and I paid 4.95 in a kind
of glazed over way like I'd bought photocopied readers for classes.
Dutifully, sure that this in some way would benefit me although
I wouldn't really know how and then I read it and I was never the same.

"This book says it comes from your family" I remember telling my mother
on my land line with the long cord connected to the answering machine...
and I read that book nearly every day and my life got better and I made a film and got accepted to a New York City graduate film school and I threw it away
when my very serious boyfriend made fun of it
which was a mistake, because if I had kept it I never would have married him, I think.
I still remember it sitting there on a pile of newspapers in a milk crate,duct tape on the spine in the basement garbage room that was so cold with winter's air
and I felt like I was abandoning something alive and now I think that something was me

Anxiety goes up, impulse control goes down and here I am again
I went to a store, some store, I don't even remember which one or where but some
book store this time with desperation to find that book again and there was one copy
and I bought it some years ago and every time some nasty thing happens
there appears in my life some dude
who torments me and who I chase
who I try to extract caring from

Because it is the struggle I know so well
And it's 2013 and yes I am reading it again as if for the first time
And I find, it is my own wish to be soothed.
To have someone tell me, everything will be OK
This, too shall pass
And of course I know this, know this, ingrained and wired in my brain is
it has to come from somewhere else
when really, the only one who can truly soothe me, is me

They all look so young and lively and free on the Berkeley campus
walking and smiling and dancing swing and exercising and studying in internet
cafes and along the college walk there are clubs: pre-dental society,
women engineers, others, worn signs that stay out all year long in California and wear well
like the Clinton/Gore bumper sticker still visible and affixed to the stop sign off Telegraph and I wonder when there will be an avenue called "Internet"
And along the walls of Cafe Mediterraneum are highlights of the sixties, photographed by the dead owner of the place and there are still students studying and wierdos and old people reading books but there is no inspiration here anymore
From my generation, the eighties there are no pictures, and none from the seventies either and from the nineties and this decade has come and gone without notice on the walls
because youth by itself does not renew and innovate and the pressures of culture are too strong to re-invent and
it's not like there's nothing wrong, nothing that needs to be changed in our world today if anything things are worse
but now youth is only thinking about youth and buying low and selling high and there is no more idealism, no more desire to rectify anything, only to establish oneself as part of the middle class or above and have a house and 2.5 children
when the world is quickly being destroyed now just not by war, or an atomic bomb
that would be obvious because it would be loud and white and then there would be darkness and drops of rain and devestation
but I think I want to drop an intellectual bomb on these young people and tell them to wake up and try to change the world again and stop watching Reality TV and
do something that will help the world and put your picture on the wall of the Mediteraneum because you are trying to help the collective good and not just feather your own nest and not just worship the rich and exploitive entrepeneurs and try to emulate them as we were told to do in the eighties because that is just selfish meaninglessness that can't keep being replicated in this world, because it can't withstand it
our land and water can't withstand this lifestyle and the dollar store selling cutesie things made in China are coming from child labor and blood money and this dollar store is on Telegraph and no one cares or notices not even the young,
as slave labor continues to produce goods, just not here, where you can see it
and even if you care about animals, you can think of two million cats and dogs torchured and skinned alive for their fur in China and you , Berkeley are wearing it onn your fur trimmed coats
There is an eeries silence on Telegraph now where there should be the aliveness of debate and not just to get ahead, but to give a voice to the voiceless and alleviate the real and obvious suffering in the world
So youth, you are not so young and fresh you are a dissapointment
you are cowardly, pondering your own navel
and submissive and I expect more
THIS IS NOT ENOUGH
change is frightening, but it is
the only thing
that will save us

abandonment, wired for
panic
how can I explain if but
if you ever wonder why women chase men they don't like
or keep them around when they are hurting them
I explain that
it's the panic of abandonment because to feel nothing
nothing, is worse than pain
any pain of the relationship
because abandonment is more life threatening
to a child,
who is not a child but now an adult with a child inside
and the child panics and the woman
chases the man who hurts her
like an addict chases down a drug

Rejected, contract not renewed
and I hate these people but the rejection still hurts
because no one likes rejection, really even from people we hate and disrespect
which gets lost now because I'm still there and am surrounded by them and
I think I know why this all happened, because I don't fit into the principal's kingdom
where you must have only one drama director and not one and then another one
out there who was just forced out through seniority because she might cause TROUBLE
and it's true I don't fit in because I have gone to excellent schools, even an Ivy, and
I've traveled the world and learned an obscure language and I have so much more
experiences than most of those people could ever imagine having or even wanting

But it's still like the wind has been knocked out of me and now I'm feeling down, so down
and scared, waiting for my next plan--will I be accepted there and what is wrong with
me that I--
must stop these thoughts because they lead me down my dark alley
there was Craig last, who I befriended and tried to love and he could never love
me back and I thought if only I can get him to love me I will feel better and like
I'm Ok in spite of being rejected
and now it's Drew. and I don't like Drew and he kind of likes me
and yet I chase him and spend time with him and I'm not even enjoying
it and he is unpleasant and never says anything nice about me and never smiles
and  is happiest staring at his turtles as they awake from hybernation
and planning his cross country trip that will take all summer combing the country for any national parks he hasn't yet seen
and i yearn for his love and when I've had an awful frustrating time
with him, I ask him when we can get together next because
next time will be better and he looks at me with a stare
and at school a girl comes in at lunch and flirts with him and
i can't stand to be in the same room because its so inappropriate
and his boss struts in wearing high heels and onoe foot in a brace and flirts
and she is married and she gives me resentful, knowing looks
and i don't even like him but this
punch to the gut, this fear now, this not knowing if I'll be accepted back
into the school to get a new credential, the school I left to take this miserable
job. this is driving me crazy like I'm hanging onto a vine, suspended off of a cliff
with water and rocks a thousand feet below and I'm so scared, and every
day cold be another blow and I have only fear and
I must wait and I must build myself up again so I don't chase
Drew, who will only make me feel worse, because he is rude and pushy
as all my friends say and yet I ask to get together with him again.
And I must learn to appreciate myself again so there will be no Drew.
Please no more Drews, or Craigs and the list is quite long.
And one day I do well and ignore him and then as the week progresses
I get tired and it gets worse and I think, that thing, my drug
please I need my drug, and off I go.
I don't need any more drugs.  I need to feel good about me
again, from the inside out
despite the rejection

"Berkeley is anti-business" because
the regulations about water pollution and
there is irony there because there is nothing clean
or natural about Berkeley, that irony I can see but imagine
how much worse it would be...
You surf in the ocean and would you like
to also be surfing with more chemicals
and other nasty by products of human beings?
Really, really, I don't get you...

"I saw what it does to people," you said
with a mixture of disdain and disgust like
you were talking about **** addicts before
and after pictures.
"I hate girlfriends," you said to me after you told me
we weren't going out on Valentines Day because your
ex set you up with someone else and you "have to" go
and who is afraid of Berkeley and all those new idee-ers
The vegan restaurants with rice milk whipped cream
The pleasant outdoor cafes with people learning, studying
the only "Ivy League" public University...
All those things there to open your mind and make you
think differently and you may begin to believe in Global Warming
and even though you don't, those thoughts may haunt you
but I know there are scientists working in labs all over the world trying
to figure out what to do about it ...
Socialism, you are afraid of that too
but what is it when Walmart hands out an application
for public healthcare to all their new hires
since they will never be able to afford their own
and Walmart can't share any money on their behalf
In the Netherlands, mink farms have been outlawed
yet you like to dissect them in your class and
carry around the poor dead skinless creature in
a clear plastic bag around the school
and many of those places prefer to pay the fees
and citations of skinning the animals alive rather than
pay to **** them before skinning
why doesn't that bother you?

He does you ***** once
you don't feel much
you're not involved
a little voice inside says,
stop
but I don't head it
but it happens again
like he's a horse testing you
how much can he get away with
until you burn
every time is bigger
each time you are more of a mess
So get off the first time
and rest

On V-day
I spent lunch crying
There were two drops
that didn't fall into my arms

Two little pools of sadness
from the worst of the madness
over someone I don't even like
when I look back over our history

I see, this wasn't a surprise.

There, when I feel my mind flooded with all this honesty
and like asking questions as we stare at data and can only see
details not the big picture and I think about things like why is it
that our school is below the state average in testing but it is so expensive it's upkeep
can't be afforded and we spend so much money on technology
but it's still below the state average and I know
you've told me that teachers moving around 3-4 times a day to different classes
prevents ownership by them but you haven't told me why this helps student learning
and now I hear admin says well in Japan the students just sit there and the teachers move
Japan?
And when I went to apply to the SPED program I told the professor I taught 70 kids in a double wide classroom and I had a microphone she looked at me like I was crazy
and so does everyone else I tell
But really, getting back to the first item, we spend so much money on technology but
the students score lower than the state average which is abysmal
It's like a fog has lifted and I never thought these things before

I told the shrink I wanted to commit suicide
I was so jacked up, filled with self hate
Like a jagged rock slashing
through my veins didn't want to stay
in my skin
but I'm calmer now
And I don't even really know how
things got that bad
I'm not even that mad
at all

I can rub off a zit on my cat's chin
it's not even gross, just little black dots
and I get so crazy over men
why can't I just rub this off
of my head or take a pill
or drink a lot of water or
swim in the cold Atlantic
and emerge cured, normal and sane

You can ask why
But there is no answer
Why do some people
get run over by trucks
while others cross streets safely?
Why do some kids get cancer
and some have everything they desire?
There is only so much we can control
only some much to hold, the rest is a game of cards
and all you can do is fight hard at your demons

He's not your type, not even in the top 200
before the Gothic drama had even escaped my mouth
Therapy.... can ....blow...your mind
I highly recommend it
Except its frustrating like watching laundry
roll around and around, the same patterns are found
over and over, and just when you thought you were so over that
you are back again running down dark alleys of your mind
splinters and nails stuck in your feet but you keep running to and from
in the dark so certain this is the thing to do
She is there to stop you
"you like the idea of him, not him, just like with _
ITS AN OBJECT ATTACHMENT"
there's been a lot of 'em
So what if someone you don't like goes out with someone else at night?
Why couldn't I see that before?
I was spinning out that door
at the same time watching him strut
away, duck feet, an apple core in his milk crate
and still no chin
His messy hair slicked down
resembling a piece
ready for his big date
hopes to fornicate
a day's sweat coating him
and still no chin and afraid of socialism
and darwinism and not a believer in global warming
or that scientists ever harm lab animals or make them suffer intentionally
every day less attractive, without those rose colored glasses I see
I don't really like him at all

Psychology tells us, that most desperate bond
that one you can see with a child and a parent
is the key to everything in love you see, it's so easy,
If everything there was dandy, and we were warm and fuzzy--
the scientific definition for having a good childhood
We shan't have troubles
But...and it starts in infancy...things weren't so warm and fuzzy
and we were anxious and afraid, without words or memories made
A child can't think a parent is bad
She may run from the cave and become lunch for a passer by
So she puts on those rose colored glasses, and then its not them, it's me
She blames it all on herself, that's science, you see
So as an adult, that little infantile feeling is the model for love
Really, I look at couples and love and I think, that's how we used to feel
about our mommies and daddies, sans ***, of course
I still wear my rose colored glasses when the going gets tough
and I see a guy and he's not my type or not even attractive
and I'm like, wow, he's fantastic,
and off I go, and he hurts me you know, and he says things I don't
like, cuz he's really not my type or he does something that hurts me
and it's like I dropped through the bottom of the Universe
Free falling, out of the cave, totally crazed
When in reality, I feel nothing, for this dude
My only thought is, I am with men, truly crazy
and I have to leave those glasses at home
or throw them in the dump
never to be found again
because only then, will I stop being a loon

Al Capone called a hit from some Chicago hideout
and there was a ****** of a bunch of other mobsters
and a reporter came in and said I had more brains on my shoes
than in my head
and isn't that funny?

I took a risk, I know I'm a crazy loon when it comes to guys
some guy I don't even like that much but I turn to him in my
pain trying to get through my days, now
and I try to get him to go out but no there are excuses
and suggestions of him drinking a bunch of beers when one
makes him whoozy
and it was a Thursday, and I was back after two days
trying to plan my new life and everyone there was so nice
so I come back to "that place" to do my sentence, and
I can't find him at his normal spot--he's hiding in a little room
in a bunch of chemicals
and we talk and I ask him about going out after work
and he states flatly I have a date

And it's like I've been hit by an invisible bomb
I don't know what registered on my face
adrenaline rush in my stomach and just trying to fake it kool
like no big deal, I can't get you to come out, but
his ex girlfriend set him up with a woman and he "has to" go
and I translate in my mind, you "want to" go
and it feels sickening things were a
little more hopeful, driving through the fields of Monterey and a friendly
department at Cal State Monterey Bay

And wind, and sand dunes, and a hope for a better future
and now this. So I stammer out a couple of lame things
and he tells me he doesn't like girlfriends and will be single until he's 75
and I don't know what happens then and he's 41 and only been with someone for three
months, tops and I just sit there,

the kids, high school romance all around and hearts and chocolate and balloons
and stuffed animals and they ask me what I'm doing for Valentine's day
and I say, the guy I liked just told me he's going out with someone else

So I come home and mix up some crystal light and ***** like four times
until i'm talking to myself in a Southern Accent and explaining to myself
why this hurts and my cat lies across my face and purrs so all I can hear
is a smooth soothing sound and I cry and cry

And I know, I'm not ready for the dating game.  Because if I was
I'd have someone up my sleeve too and I'd be comparing and contrasting
and all of that
but I don't
I just took a risk on a flirt and I knew I could get hurt

and all the empty desperation of my child self abandoned floods back
in and my friend says you don't want him, really

and it's true and I cry again and nothing makes sense

Is what I feel like today
that in America is supposed to be
a heart's fantasy

I just couldn't reisist
a little flirt, chance at a kiss
and then on that big V-day
come what may
he's out with someone else
and I'm splattered all across the room
i don't know when
I'll ever be
ready
to face love's chance again
but this is not when

I'm not playing the dating game
just trying to escape
just trying to be
just trying to feel me
ok and not retched
not spending my lunch break
over my desk,  tears on the laptop
God, this is over the top

And this is what I thought
if it's easy, I can not
avoid it
but if it's this same old stuff
All the dating, rolling in the rough

I can't handle it
I'm still just a stiff
when it comes to taking a chance
on a little romance

That ends with the object of my desire
the one I'd admire
on a date set up by his ex

and this is just a step
and not his fault or nothing
because we're just atoms
crossing nothing and ramming into each other

and now I am completely lame
and down for the day
finished all the ***** in the house
feeling like a louse

And I'm not having fun
So it's time to stop, the game is done

I shoulda known going out of my league
I thought this would be nice, if only it's easy
but it sure aint' at all and I'm really in the fall
flat on the cement, body parts evident, splattered all over the place
even some in my own face, body meat spray, just like Israel on a day
of a suicide bomb
spent lunch time in a sob
why I am such a dumb one?
Why do I fall for such pond ****
ok, maybe he's a diamond
to someone I can't find um
but my darling he's out with someone else right now
and I'm on the shelf
four vodkas to my name
and it's such a shame
can't keep torturing myself.
should have not fallen at all
but I did, and it's true, this love
ain't gonna do, cuz as soon as I was out of sight
he ran with all his might
into another's arms
and that's really ok
because come what may
only I'm not ready for this
not playing this dating game,
not waiting for a kiss
and that's all there is
just me, vulnerable and amiss
and I thought, he's not like me
he's playing the field
and of course I was right
and now I'm out of my league
lonely
in the night
but that's gotta be the way it is.

cuz that's who I is
right now
just still a kind of pudding
of a loving human being
easily squashed and
the pain is too much
so that's how it goes
just me and the ***** and forgeting
everything that goes

if you want to know what it's like
come to my home town
and you might be scared
but I've never felt more here than when I'm there
there is diversity,
and open homosexuality
and all kinds of weird clothes
and vegan places on little roads
and tattoos and non judgemental stares
and street people strutting their wares
and you may think its crazy
but to me it's amazing
if only I could come back
live here, I'd be on track

I called so he could hear it,
I know he likes it
my home town, and me, and he
talking
how weird
what is going on?  
how am I to know?
he couldn't hear the ocean through the phone
and what will happen, I don't know

it will prove
how smart and lovable I am
not overworked and still sick after
a month of coughing and pain
if he calls, I will be redeemed
not rejected and secure and safe
not nervous and frightened about
what the future holds
if he calls, it will prove nothing
it will be a momentary drug that won't last
because he's have called before
and I feel wretched in this moment,
working on a weekend
still sick
and unable to be at peace with myself.

come heal me
take me up in your arms and you'll see
how perfect I am to you
and we'll bask in each other's warm glow
no one else to know
or show
our love completes us
never leaves us
and you aren't real
with reality, I must deal

Gone on for weeks now
sapping my strength
giving me pain
nothing but work in sight
and I have little might
left but it's all sapped
and I can't get back
to the health
of me

Gone on for weeks now
sapping my strength
giving me pain
nothing but work in sight
and I have little might
left but it's all sapped
and I can't get back
to the health
of me

He doesn't owe me anything other than himself
as he is, as is, and if I don't like what I see
that's me
to deal with.
So what if it will be Valentine's day and I have no Valentine
I never try to get one--why would one just fall from the sky?
I guess I believe in magic, and misery
want someone to commiserate with and soothe me
but  a bad match won't do,
It's worth about as much to me as an old shoe, nothing new

And afterwards "we" will probably camp
and so there is no movie after all
and when I asked him to go out he said he had a lot of things
to do so I imagined a big pile of papers or something like I have
but really, he's climbing rocks with "we"
and there was no call and only an e-mail when I asked him to
call but he didn't because it was only to tell me that
he was blowing me off to go climb rocks when
I wanted to go see a movie but "we" will climb rocks and he will be
back when it is too late to see a movie so I've been passed over for rocks
and time with "we" who I don't know who it is, but he e-mailed
me this because he didn't want to call me because he knew I'd be dissapointed
and the truth is, I am, and I hope he falls off a rock and gets bruised at least
or even a broken bone wouldn't bother me at this point
and I hope it really hurts and he has a sunburn on top of it
and gets food poisoning from the food
and I think I should leave off of this because it just isn't working

We sat outside the office and I knew this wasn't good and there was a solemn atmosphere around there,  all over, like everyone is looking at a dead woman walking but I'm only fired
and I know this is going to happen when his face appears, anxious, can't look at me but finally making eye contact with me, voluntarily, since the play.  The good play, and then the taking away from me of the whole job and now it's time to take it all away.
And the secretary is preparing a big notepad where she will pretend to write big notes but they mostly she is really there to absorb it all with those big eyes and then walk around the halls and tell everyone she knows because in the restaurant when we walked in, her assistant, yes she has one, gave me that look, of knowing, understanding pain and everyone knows now, and they were all quiet as we walked in, two live people and one dead one
and the only thing is I don't feel dead, actually more alive, but a little scared because it's not clear what comes next although I know what I want

and he glanced and told us to wait and closed the door and called my real boss, who actually knows me, like he wasn't sure if I'd actually showed up and I knew in that one look he gave that this was THE END
So then he went and opened the door and said we'd wait for my boss because it was time to chop off my head and say it's not a good fit and that is what is printed on every single piece of paper that goes out to people like me these days, people who are so disposable
and yet he says "not a good fit" like it really means something and is just the right words for he moment.  really.  '
then he tries to change the tone to one of being upbeat and telling me the wonders of resigning and how great it will make my life and I'm just sitting there thinking
this is the most ridiculous pretentious scene, and I look over at the secretary who is staring at me, looking for tears and drama so it will make a better story "and then she--and she--" and it was just like "oh my God I can't believe she  and he" but I just stare back at her and there are no tears.   And instinct tells me what this is about, although I don't know, but instinct tells me that I am a threat to she who took my job and it is just so much easier to send me on my way

and my boss who will do whatever his boss wants starts to tell me that I have a lot of good things about me and--
he is cut off by a glare from his boss
so he crosses his legs a little tighter and his arms tighter and shuts up

and I admit I think this is the right thing because I am miserable and this is not what you are supposed to say.  
but it is the truth
I am in a sick, unhappy situation and this is finally a way out
and the three men sitting around me look like they don't know what to say or do
and they are vaguely insulted
and there are many more like me but they don't get this option so freely so they
stay and spend hours a day commiserating
and I am free
at last

it says something about them not you
contextualize...
be in the moment, breathe
you have to date a lot

ok, but ****, it hurts and ***** and I don't need this right now when
I'm scared and things are changing and so much depends on that interview
or does it and if you're in a frying pan, and jump out only into flames you are still not
safe
Own that reality as you own your own words and experience and look at that person
who rejected you and think: how much do I really like him and
stick with that, because chances are, it's not as much as you think
it's more about that primordial childhood abyss inside where love and warmth and fuzziness should have been but weren't but you are not that child anymore
and knowing that will save you.

abandoned again.  maybe its cuz I wouldn't call him.
and now there's no movie, just my life, oh me
but it's good life, not bad
and it's going to take all the strength that I have
to realize he's not all there is for me
just a guy, and probably
one of those dudes I get with before I leave
a bad situation for a better
place
don't know why I do it,
but it's definitely a pattern
and I guess what matters
is I keep my head ******* on straight.
no desperate searches or calls or
staying up late
cuz if rock climbing is more important than
me,
this dude may just be one i toss back to the sea

what were they thinking, as I am here and still working
with four months to go and knowing there is no improvement
to be noticed and only betrayal after betrayal
and I've never been done so ***** as at this place
whose management thinks we are making 10 figures
and wheels and deals and has a blonde obnoxious secretary
who gossips and no I don't fit in because this is absurd and I am
reminded how a nasty person can ruin anything
a meal in Paris at a restaurant hundreds of years old
and a crabby old man who was my father in law and his
horrible girlfriend and we sat in this fancy place and I could
only think I wish my husband and I had gone out alone to McDonald's tonight
because we would be free of this hateful presence
or maybe we had just bought a loaf of bread and some cheese and at it
walking down the Champs Elysses, or maybe just starvation
would be better than these people and here I am again
in a perfect little "green" brand new school and I think it
is definitely located in the middle of hell and not surrounded
by wineries and fields and wealth

I sat with my attention deep into the computer screen
As he came back with two biscuits on a paper towel
"do you want one?" he asked
and a little line was crossed of caring I haven't had
in a long time and I was afraid, like a feral cat
reaching out furtively for a treat offered by
a concerned lover of the feline and
I reached out slowly for it, pink chipped nails
and fear, overcome
and he feeds feral cats around where he lives
a man who feeds cats...I never thought I'd know one

Means you suspect others
but it also means
you are suspect
because you think we're all up
to the same ***** tricks
as you,
little man, in your big office
with the blonde secretary
who keeps no secrets

Are blue and pierce through me, or maybe they are emeralds
and they glow and enchant me, and I look across the table at him
and wait, for him to feel the touch of my look,
to see his eyes turn up to mine, just brown,
and I feel the sting of desire and admire
all the beauty of his masculinity to eternity
it takes me
what is a man
who makes me feel
this good

I can see through that like a transparency
running, running from the truth of who you are
made by what you do
it must hurt to do someone ***** like you
do
and I always think, they feel nothing, these flyers in the night
bully me, suspect me and think they're clear, see
through them all I do,
the one whose suspects you always plots against us always
and he's only thinking you're playing his game, because its all he knows
and you, who don't have three minutes to look at my video but have hours
to do dumb things a lifetime really, it's not the three minutes, it's to look
at me, and to see, you done me wrong
so run, men, run, but like the cat running across the yard
away from the duct tape stuck to her fur
you are running from something inside yourself
and this I know, this I know

In the same day and it is just like I realize
this is really
totally
stone cold
insensitive
to be rooted out like a pathogen
when in reality the entire place is sick
and I'm only an observer

And his eyes were bluer and his lashes were longer
and its not just men who want to see long lashes on  their objects face
and he just seems so much more beautiful since I found out he used
to volunteer to save animals
but he just stares at me dumbly, as if I can't see him
and he can only see me through a lens of a microscope as he
studies me like a specimen and it just isn't really right yet
I can't read him at all

But not much
except that we are really self contained
so a drug will make our day or not
or a feeling we have is our entire universe and
that is just the nature of what and who we are
and we are not objective by any means but only by
sheer effort can we really see ourselves for who
we are, an image projected on a screen
and it is only us, inside our own skin

He's not a wolf, but only a mouse now
the man who yelled at me for crying when
I knew he was nailing my coffin with bad evaluations
and planting the seeds of God knows what and what are
they thinking and what are they going to do next to me and nothing makes sense
but he hurries by like his tail is on fire and he doesn't look so scary anymore
but just kind of strange and I wanted him to like and respect me
and give me this kind of good feeling about myself
but now he's just wearing a black nylon jacket and
looking nervous and small and furtive
and I wonder why he ever made me so frightened

And it's all just a blur, like out of body experience as I
take risks I never used to take like singing
into the microphone, and really I never sing
and I sang "I Believe in Miracles" with feeling
and what is happening to me, as  I just kind of ooze from one hour
to the next and I asked a guy to see a movie with me
but that's weird I never do that and the fog has lifted
and I take a picture of myself in blue
like I used to when things were simpler and happier
and I can't tell why I used to be so stressed and anguished when now it
seems like there may be hope after all and escape
and a job you hate can really be a kind of jail of pent up
feelings of anger and it just kind of rots you and makes
you hate life and even if you only have a vague notion
kind of a fuzzy, idea of the future, kind of like
walking on cliffs in Marin county with clouds, thick ones,
rolling in so fast you can see them and you can feel them
on your face as well but you can't see the trail ahead
but it is so beautiful and bracing and alive

I wanted you to like me, respect me, maybe knight me
But you don't even see me, need me, want me
and quickly you found another
and now I've just uncovered
a gloomy kind of thing
but I will shout and ring
cuz you weren't a guy who'd ever please me
weren't a guy who'd even see me
and now it's over now I see you
and it's clear I'm something you'd never do

Away from pain
climb out of ruts
and into the moonlit night
to see the stars so clear and life so bracing
and wonderful and opportunities still there,
even if they've been shrouded in misery
for too long
you are alive and you must be strong
because dark forces have crushed so many souls before you
and you must fight in this world, for the re-birth of yourself.

Creating is part of living and it can't stop even if there is hardship
and that won't help because if there is hardship
the worst thing is to just freeze and hate yourself because you are there
and not here, over somewhere better
so the blood must continue to pump through the veins and your dreams must continue even if they are now more furtive and furious than ever,
that is the life force and there is nothing,
nothing that will stop it
but death

You won, I lost and then again I lost
and it's not so bad, really.
Isn't that funny?  
Because in the end being in a place
where you are just a loser losing over and over
despite all your efforts to please
in the end this is a nasty situation
and I must be happy that it's over and I don't have to
keep trying to please so hard, be respected, be valued
in a place where my values aren't valued and never will be
unless the whole
plan
changes...which will be a long time from now.

I wanted you to respect me and think she is good at her job
and you didn't, but of course
that didn't stop me from wanting you to look kindly upon me
and seem to look forward to seeing me
but you didn't and more and more
seeing me seemed to be a trial for you and now
my mere presence causes you to practically foam at the mouth and
say I'm projecting, which is not what I'm doing
I'm just sad.  That's all. Just sad that we never connected and it was never natural and it was
what it was just not nice or anything and you never got me or liked me or understood me
no matter how much I showered you with attention and compliments and tried to say nice things and was really going crazy with the process and now it's over

So I guess I can stop trying to make someone who doesn't like me, like me and
keep trying to get myself to like me...which in the end, is all I have.

So many mixed emotions and feelings of...guilt for not feeling worse about
being fired
Like it should be just a devastating mixture of an acid knife cutting through my
stomach, but it is more like, I am lighter like a Monarch butterfly, despite needing to
shed fifty pounds, and more hopeful and optimistic as I
walk around and finish out my tour of duty at this school
that really feels like I'm in a bombing raid with everyone miserable around me all the time
and no one really hopeful and just there and now I get to leave, or must leave
and it is so hard to leave a paycheck that had I not been forced
I might have stayed
And I was so miserable and no amount of wine from the valley would have made it palatable
and I don't mind moving on at all, was really looking forward to it rather as my mind wandered
up and down the miserable stretches of time and spent a good part of down time commiserating
with fellow sufferers of the place
And now I have high blood pressure, to compound it all, and I feel like maybe now
I can maybe, just maybe find something less toxic because this was certainly
not for me
So I do get scared, but am balanced on a knife's edge and I don't feel it,
so perhaps it isn't a knife's edge at all
perhaps I've fallen into a pit of feathers and can relax into them for awhile.

Saw it coming five miles away
"Not a good fit" as they say
Thought the place was wacky from the start
Didn't want to take the job, but that's all they got

Now I'm struggling with conflicting feelings
Should feel bad, but my mood has hit the ceiling
Free at last, is on my mind
I'm not in jail forever, can go back in time
and take that other turn down the road
I feel better now, like a firework ready to explode