Edge

I've been going for weeks now. I'm getting more sleep, having less nightmares and even daring to go out on the weekends. But right now, I feel tired. I feel lonely, even though I'm never alone and I'm not sure I want to even write anymore. Who reads? Who cares? It's no longer cathartic.

I'm very hungry, and once again, my bank account is in the red. So cookies and a hot pocket for dinner it is. Better than nothing. Way better than nothing.

I feel like I'm standing at the edge of a cliff, looking down at the ocean. I'm not afraid of falling or being pushed over. I just want to jump, and feel the water wrapping around me...going further into the depths of murky water. Cold water. Black all around me. A few struggling breaths, but such a sweet release.

Thank you all, for reading. Even if you pass judgment by what's written here...even if you feel the urge to label me or think you know what I'm all about. Thank you.

May your lives be full of love, brightness and warmth. Of eyes that only live to look at you, of ears that exist to hear your voice and lips that would die without at least uttering your name once in their lifetime.

Blessed be.

53 Days of Solitude

53 Days of sunshine

Of dreaming without rain.

50 and 3 days since you're mine-

But do you feel the same?

53 Days went swiftly,

Just passing like a breeze.

After 3 days and some 50

I loved you all with ease.

53 Days of whispers

And promises to keep.

It took 3 days plus 50

To miss you in my sleep.

53 Days, but really,

I only needed one

To know the 52 others

Were how my life begun.

53 Days of love true

Have changed my attitude.

Now 1 simple day without you,

feel like 53 of solitude.

~ Yari I. 05/2010

Cheesetastic

I've always been the kind of person that felt the need to show my affection for others by giving them material things. I guess it could've been seen as buying their love, but I always saw it as keeping their love. I thought I wasn't good enough to be their friend, that I didn't deserve the kindness or company they bestowed on me.

I remember in first or second grade...actually all of my initial elementary school years I would always use the money my parents gave me for candy or food to buy stuff for my friends. I'd buy them candies or lunch, and pretend I just did it because I had the extra money laying around. I never let them know I didn't eat or it was my candy I was giving them.

As I got older, around Jr. High and beginning of High School, I would spend my allowance the same way. On others. I wouldn't eat all week at school, save up money for a few weeks and then get different things for all my friends at the mall. Expensive things too. I would never buy myself any of that. I remember I got Pablo, the first boy I liked, a Calvin Klein cologne set ($80) and a Dragonball Z shirt he really liked from Journeys ($40). That was a lot of no lunches for Yari. I got my buddy Edil some Billabong swim trunks, a leather Volcom wallet and a Fox shirt ($150), just because. Pretty soon I realized no matter what I did, people would come and go...silly Yari.

As I got older, I started switching the gears in my head. I became this person who wanted to give people something to remember me by...a personal gift. Most of these are handmade, with references to inside jokes or something with a special meaning to the both of us. I tend to bake cookies and muffins, mail them with a card or a book to a friend. I'll write them a poem, or dedicate a short story to a memory I have with them. (Sir, Sir, step away from the pigeons =] ) Or maybe, just maybe, you've been close enough to me to have songs dedicated to you. They no longer play on the radio or in movies. No. Now, when I hear them, your face pops into my head and my love for you in my heart.

Last night I stayed up until 3 a.m. baking up a storm, framing a picture I took, filling out a card and listening through innumerable gigs of music finding the right songs to burn into 2 cds. I am exhausted and my back hurts from baking for hours. But I am sitting here smiling and humming in my head...because I'm so cheesy, I just can't help it.

Your sweet moonbeam

The smell of you in every single dream I dream

I knew when we collided you're the one I have decided

Who's one of my kind

~ Train

Words I Feel and Breathe

I have the last words of Frankenstein's monster swirling in my head over and over. I remember reading them for the first time as a child and thinking "How can someone feel such anguish and despair? So much pain? Such words..."

Alas, here they are. Truer than ever. I'm tired. I'm gone.

"Farewell! I leave you, and in you the last of human kind whom these eyes will ever behold. Farewell, Frankenstein! If thou wert yet alive, and yet cherished a desire of revenge against me, it would be better satiated in my life than in my destruction. But it was not so; thou didst seek my extinction that I might not cause greater wretchedness; and if yet, in some mode unknown to me, thou hast not ceased to think and feel, thou wouldst not desire against me a vengeance greater than that which I feel. Blasted as thou wert, my agony was still superior to thine; for the bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in my wounds until death shall close them for ever.

"But soon," he cried, with sad and solemn enthusiasm, "I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly, and exult in the agony of the torturing flames. The light of that conflagration will fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit will sleep in peace; or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell."

~ Frankenstein, Chapter 24, Part Three

Homesickly Homesickly

This morning I woke up earlier than I set my alarm for, an indication that I was in for a long day. I got dressed in slow motion, staring at my shoes for a long time and my mind not really thinking about anything. These new happy pills sure are magical. I haven't cried or cut in 3 weeks. I also haven't felt much of anything. Just a dull blank. Can't complain.

I opened the screen door and walked out on the deck, immediately feeling the humidity wrap around me in a wet, suffocating embrace. The sun was coming out, and the temperature was rising steadily. My first thought was: "Christ. It's muggy and hot. UGH!", only to stop dead in my tracks and take in a deep breath...while holding down the knot in my throat. I remembered the last time I had experienced a morning like this.

This is how every morning in my sleepy, tiny hometown in the mountains of Puerto Rico is. You're already sweating and the hair is frizzy within 2 minutes of walking out your front door. I stood there, in my front yard in Odessa, Texas, staring at the red sand under my feet. Must have lost my mind for a few minutes, because I vividly saw my old bright yellow Converse shoes with the bright red laces stepping up the soaking grass hill on my way to my grandmother's house. I saw the plaid skirt, with the wide pleats and my white polo shirt with a gray vest...my school's uniform. My eyes almost saw my morning like I used to at age 15, the island breeze carrying the smell of sea up into the mountain, mixing it with the strong smell of tropical fruit coming from our mango tree in the yard. Then my eyes almost swept the front yard of my grandmother's house, and saw my grandfather's white Oldsmobile...with him smiling up at me behind his big, brown plastic framed glasses. I almost heard his voice calling my name.

Then some dogs started barking and I was brought back to reality. No trees. No roosters. No grandfather. Just pitbulls barking in the distance, the sound of a weed whacker going at it in some alley, the smell of sulfur that's ever present in the air here in West Texas. No one was calling my name. No one ever would. I had now traded paradise for desert, and plaid skirts for casual business attire. My braids for a simple pony tail. My college years for working years. My friends for a laptop. My dreams for someone else's.

Alas, the past is the past. Look at me, Grandma, I'm all grown up. Ain't it a shame...

I Think I Should Go Now...

The vinyl tiles felt cold, frail under my tender feet. For some reason I felt mentally drained, as I looked at my reflection in the mirror. In the soft, yellow lighting of my restroom, my skin looked creamy and my features soft. Staring at myself for what seemed like an eternity, I kept coming up with reasons why I am undesirable. I am 25, but my body looks like I've been through hell and back already. I traced the small scar on my eyelid with my fingertip, then carefully traced the hoops that now adorn my cartilages on both ears. Looks like they're healing, but I can't help but wince in pain as my finger moves my ears around a bit. Maybe they're not.

I look so tired, and so sad. I practice smiling, it looks so fake. Why do I have to force my smile on my lips most of the time? My lips are slightly bruised, nothing make up can't hide...I hope. My hands keep sliding slowly down my neck, as I trace my collar bone and every other familiar corner of my chest. My breasts are less than perfect, though with a nice bra I can normally feel like I have something to be proud of. Without one? Not so much. My small nipples were standing in attention, in this cold bathroom, as if urging me to quit the body inspection and get to showering pronto. I grab my breasts and squish them into the desired position, if only I could be that perky for the rest of my life. But gravity is already winning. Bummer.

I trace the soft scars down my stomach, and remember the days when I used to show it off and be proud of my abs. I stop there. I don't want to further investigate my wide hips and thick thighs. Real women have curves...or so they say. Confidence is carried within? Well I'm standing there, looking at a woman who's too fat to be sexy and too sexy to be fat. I have a long torso, so that helps. I definitely do not look my weight. But I can't find a corner of my body that I can completely and absolutely say I am proud of.

I let the warm water wash away two days of self doubt and questions. How can anyone call me things like 'beautiful' and 'amazing'? I lean my hand against the wall, and lay my head down, letting the shower spray the back of my neck and between my shoulder blades, feeling the coconut scent fill the steam forming around me. I cannot begin to comprehend why anyone would feel proud to be seen with me, when I am more than ashamed to be seen with myself. Who am I to pretend everything's okay and feed the hope that someone finds me attractive?

I'd had enough of the self loathing, as I reached down and turned off the water in my shower. I pressed my hot face into the soft, safe towel and felt the urge to just end everything. It would hurt a lot less if I finish things before they run their natural course, and I end up broken anyways. Everyone loves Yari. The Yari inside. The Yari outside? Well...she's only cute and loved when the people get to know the inside one. It's almost like my personality and good-nature towards others compensates the lack of virtues in the looks department.

So now I sit here in front of this laptop, in a pair of flamingo boy shorts and nothing else on. If I were thin, that would sound so amazingly hot to someone. But I am not. So it's just a fat broad in tiny undies, rubbing the lotion on her skin...

...she might as well get the hose again.

Aggression

I thought I'd have a significant blog post today...but I find myself a little peeved.

I'll keep it short and to the point. Men find it easy to hide behind the endless list of excuses that sound good in their head and insulting to our ears.

This whole "I'm a guy, just be straight with me otherwise I won't get why you'd be mad at me" line gets old. Quick.

We're not idiots, you know. As much as you'd like to pretend we don't know what you're up to or what you're really doing, specially if we're not there by your side, it's all a load of bologna. We know. We always know.

We know when you're busy with something else or when we're not top priority in your life, even if you swear up and down that your sole purpose for living is us.

You say you can't read our minds, yet you KNOW something's wrong when we're quiet or giving you monosyllabic answers. So you're not that dense after all!

How about you level with me. I'm not someone you can just bs around with. Relationships are 50/50. You mean to tell me you have time to do an array of things, but not 5 minutes to answer or check in with me?

You mean to seriously tell me you're sitting there pouring your little heart out saying you love and miss me...when I'm there? Literally RIGHT THERE. All you have to do is take the time to talk to me or reach out to me, instead of assuming I'm the one that doesn't want to talk?

Why do *I* have to make the first move? Why do I have to do anything? Why do I have to come up with the ideas, and the future and the planning? For once I'd like to sit back and see you follow through with all the 'dreams' that are to be had.

So what if I say this now: The ball's on your court. I'm tired of making the decisions. Of being the one asking first. Of being the one bringing up the serious talks. Give me the time, uninterrupted. Show me my place in your life.

Can't handle it? Then be upfront. End it.

It's the little things...

I was walking back from the hospital gift shop this morning with Shanidy, something that has become a sort of escape from our cubicle and into the world of micro-shopping. We normally do this every other day of the week, before 9 a.m. and it's become sort of the 'recap' time for us. To go over what's going on in life since we last saw each other at 5 p.m. the day before.

When I first started here, I will whole-heartedly admit I was terrified of her. Who wouldn't be? She's gorgeous, smart and upfront. I'm a tomboy, clumsy and simply do what I'm told for the most part. I was constantly afraid of saying the wrong thing, and felt rather inadequate by being me around her. She has a way of talking and taking command of a room. She is always heard, even if the outcome is not the one she wanted...at least she puts in her valid points on the table.

Then small things started happening...she'd think something I said was funny, even if she gave me a weird look. I started noticing that she was asking my input on things at work not just to be polite but because she really wanted to know what I thought. We started emailing back and forth during work, most of the time witty remarks that we didn't want to say out loud. Then we got sent on a business trip together to Iowa. Nothing brings two girls together like boys and corn fields, my friends. Whatever nerves I had left about being around her completely disappeared by the time the trip was over. The last night, she slept in my room...which means I slept soundly. I hate sleeping alone. I felt completely at peace. She was gone by the time I woke up though...that heart-breaker!

Since then, we've gone past the line of sharing. I know her stuff...she knows mine. I trust her with mine, and I hope she knows she can trust me with hers. Every time I think I have her figured out, she comes out of left field and completely surprises me. She makes me laugh, she makes me feel not so alone in this town anymore. She lets me be me, and I secretly love it when she raises her eyebrow at my nerdyness. Doing Zumba with her makes it hard to be grumpy at all the exercise...my lil white girl can shake that thing like no one's business.

So, this morning we were talking and I heard her say that she told someone else: "Yari is a friend first, coworker second." I did a happy dance inside, because that's exactly what I told someone she was a few days ago. She felt the same.

So what better way to celebrate friends and Fridays, than taking a picture of our awesome shoes in the morning sun. Oh. Shanadaaaaaa! <3

GRRRRRAAAAAH!!!!!

I have a few posts here that cover my favorite things. Now then, if anyone cares about them or remembers them is a whole other story. But lately, I found myself being grossly misunderstood by some or even looked at like I am insane when I get a bit upset at others actions.

So, if you're reading this, please use it for good and keep them top of mind will ya?

Yari's List of Dislikes/Hates:

1. I hate to be tickled. In any way. Even if you're just sneaking up on me or doing a romantic gesture, please...please don't do it in any area that tickles me. It makes me very...very mad.

2. I dislike 99.9% of R&B music. Don't sit there and try to get me to listen to songs, no matter how good they are of if they're classics. DO. NOT. LIKE.

3. I hate being called 'kiddo, girly, chickie'. I know you don't mean much by it, but to me it's a way to make our friendship/relationship impersonal. Like giving a gift card as a gift...it's nice that you got me something, but did you even TRY to figure out what I like?

4. I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE peach/mango flavored anything. I love the fruits though.

5. I hate being pushed into uncomfortable situations after I clearly explained I have an issue with them. i.e. I hate eye contact, it makes me very uneasy. So why are you looking at me in my eyes intently?? I hate pushy people.

6. I dislike mornings. I am not a morning person. Never was. Never will be. So don't take it personal if I just woke up and I'm not exactly a chatterbox. Leave me be. I'll come around.

7. I don't like people that don't understand what a fear of bugs/heights/dark is to me. Don't be an ass and throw a grasshopper at me or any other tiny bug thinking I'm merely 'afraid' of it. I will freak the HELL out. I will CRY. DO NOT CREEP UP ON ME in the dark. DO NOT PLAY ROUGH with me on a HIGH place. DONT. BE. A. DOUCHE!

8. I really dislike being given the runaround. Either you want to be my friend or not. Either you want to hang out with me or not. Don't keep me kinda waiting around on you. I am not one of those people that can get the hint easily. So just be blunt. The sooner, the better.

9. God I hate skinny jeans on dudes.

10. I don't like doing all the work for someone. Take the time to know me, that way you won't have to wonder if something's wrong with me or why I'm mad. That means, don't just take these 10 things and think that as long as you avoid them you'll be ok. If you really knew me, you'd know there's a lot more that annoys me.

Ask questions. I will answer.

Every May 3rd

I used to wait on that little dirt road by my house, sitting on the cement wall with the graffiti on it, every May 3rd. It was usually around 7:00 a.m. and in Puerto Rico that means the weather is cool, damp with unnatural amounts of morning dew and overcast skies. You'd think it would be a rainy day ahead, but living there taught you this was just a routine joke the skies played you every new day. In a few hours the temperatures would reach the triple digits and the sun would crisp you up like a thin piece of bacon in just a few minutes of standing in it.

None of that mattered. It was May 3rd, and in a few minutes I would see the house on the hill open it's front gates and your dad's chocolate brown El Camino make it's way down slowly, avoiding skidding in the wet dirt or getting stuck. I could make out the pale blue of your shirt on the passenger's seat and my heart would be racing it's way up my throat. It's not that I never got to see you, oh first love, for you were my neighbor and we played everyday till sundown. We even called each other at night to talk on the phone until bed time about Ninja Turtles and race cars. But I waited every year for this day, your birthday, to be the first one to tell you, as your car drove by on it's way to school, that you looked like an old angry crab. It always made you laugh, as I held on to the metal pile sticking up from the wall and swung out waiving and yelling those words at you at 7 a.m. Your dad just shook his head and the soft look on your eyes, the blush you had...told me you loved me like I loved you.

Our first love lasted from ages 5 (is that even possible?) until age 12, when my best friend Arelys made out with you in front of me...and you let her.

I'm 25 now, but on May 3rd every year I think of you and of us. Of innocence and happy days. The best years of my life.

So here I am, Alex, swinging from my blog wall and waving at you. Telling you that I don't know how you are, or if you're happy...but you most definitely look like a really...really old crab by now. Also, screw you for cheating. :)