it begins with an ache.
definitely an ache.
somewhere inside you
you don’t know where
the back of your teeth
your feet
your eyes
an ache.
you can be happy. you can feel all the pulses of
life within you, matching rhythm with the world.
you can feel everything continue forever
like the ocean
the mountains
the blanket of night
while inside you, remains an ache.
you can feel bigger than everything
bigger than everyone
see their hopes and dreams
their fears and failures
their shame.
and you hold their beating hearts in between the edges of your teeth
so alive and delicate and vital
demanding of it
the urge to bite down primal but irrelevant
and they’ll show you everything
show you the blood and sores and abandoned rooms
the sweat
the terror
the everything and anything so much bigger and blacker
with their hands inside of them
even in the calm of their voice you can hear
the nighttime anxieties like stones rattling inside glass bottles
they’ll show you everything and still swear they don’t believe in it.
they’ll see the blood on your hands and they won’t believe you did it.
you’ll tell them that you’ve torn it out, you’ve torn it all out
every last bit that seethed inside them
spreading infinite emptiness
you tell them it’s magic. real magic. not the stuff of unicorns and rainbows.
but the things that men go to war over when
the women stoically hold it between cool fingertips
just waiting for someone to ask the right question.
and they won’t believe you
because they’re so terrified of the blood they may find on their hands.
and that makes you ashamed of their blood on yours.
and throughout all this
it’s the ache. the ache that accompanies you
the ache that has always been there for you
the ache who has never failed you.
it is the ache that cries out into the night
using darkness to reach out for familiar hands
the ache searches for its own.
the ache uses you.
the ache renews you.
the ache can only find an equal.
but the ache is never more vindictive
than when it fears seeing behind a person’s mask
and finding emptiness
a lack
a void
an impenetrable stranger
the ache fears death.
the ache fears that it has pulsed and beat and
longed for its own echo
where never an echo has existed.
2008. A Retrospective
Fuck became my favorite seasoning.
The seasons changed colors and moods.
I fell in love with a ghost.
It came with strings of such resentment.
In the space between I want to believe it validates life.
I left my boss.
Like a fake-smile relationship with the rich, idiot kid of the guy your mom works for, but who you have to be nice to so she can always have a job. I started to throw around the word retarded because if that label can be used on my brother when he’s so much smarter than them, then they’re for sure retarded.
I found that I enjoy disappearing. That I love giving out hugs, but I don’t like people to know how to find me.
I found that if you put too much pressure on me, I just spin spin spin
I found how deeply I can ache within my happiness.
The world is really not so big when you look at it as a tiny place inside you
The world is really only as big as you can imagine yourself.
2008 was heaven and hell
and somewhere in it all
i didn’t lose my mind.
after months of hard work, we just won best new product at cannabis cup with the bc chillum. it was an incredible high, working with david to make something out of nothing and have it be successful. we’re both winners when we want to be, when we put our drive and energy into something. there’s just no question how strongly we can project ourselves onto reality when we want it. the highlight for me was the owner of the coffeehouse we were sponsered by, a shrewd and incisive no-nonsense businessman, saying i was brilliant and that he’d never seen someone put so much energy into a project. and that i’d impressed him which was saying a lot because he’s not easily impressed. it meant a lot to me because the guy says what he means and doesn’t bullshit. He really meant it and it came out of respect–i’m on his level. i think i knew that this was one of the things i wanted going in. it was one of my goals–to have a great time, to give others a great time, to win, and to let an opportunity that this guy gave us turn into something bigger and stronger than he could have ever expected, demanding his respect as an equal. i’m really happy because we succeeded in all of those objectives.
his girlfriend, the owner of a seed company that also won a few awards, gave a speech the second time saying this was for all the women out there who dare to dream. that when she first started, this guy had said she was a goldfish who needed to learn how to swim with sharks and now she was swimming with sharks. afterwards, she came up to me and gave me a big hug and said that us women just have to do it. it doesn’t matter if it’s a man’s world, but if we have the talent and the ability and the burning in our hearts, we have to do it. in a way, that second speech came after we won, and i think it had to do with both of our wins…we were the only two women in the winners. that meant a lot to me.
i’m still recovering from the cup. i really did put everything into it, but it was great, it was so focused, i never lost track of my goals. it was 22 energy. the craziest thing is that at the beginning of the year, i would have never expected that 2008 would involve me quitting my job of 4 years, meeting a soulmate, moving to amsterdam and winning a cannabis cup.
this year has been the most incredible, free, adventurous of my life and i’m so thankful for it.