To the man that wants my heart, 

by artmuse12

Time is not about quantity but its about the quality. I want the time we are together to have purpose and to be present in it.

I understand that you are an individual and so I am, that our togetherness will not interrupt who we are but will enhance our shared life experience.
To be in your presence will feel excitingly clam, peaceful, and tranquil. The commutation will flow with openness and honesty.

I want long walks with my hand in yours. I want us to watch the sunset and to dance during the golden hour.  I want lay in the grass and simply listening to the sounds of the world around us, while I trace your shape with my fingers.  I want to enjoy the silence and the laughter. I want you to play with my hair and rub my feet. After a long day, I want to simply sit in your presence and watch the flames dance in the fire while listening to the trees. I want us to be silly, playful, and passionate. I want hugs from behind, to be kissed on my neck and on my forehead.

When I catch you staring at me I will feel how much you love me in your gaze. When you do say I love you its because you do. I want you to know I will love you much as I love myself.  I want to be able to talk to you when I have fears that come up and for you to wipe away my tears, and to know that I don’t want you find my solution but hold me while I find it myself.

I want to you know that we are partners and that you will always walk beside me, not in front of me and not behind me.  I want you to know that when I lay in your arms its because I truely feel safe with you wrapped around me. I want you to know that as I fell asleep listening to your beating heart and your breathing, yours was the love song I was waiting to hear.

Loving you,

Shea

Love Is Magic and that’s what I want.

by artmuse12

Through the things we don’t want we discover the things we do want.

I have loved and lost; confused love with lust. I’ve made sacrifices because I was lonely, scared, or didn’t believe I deserved the same kind of love I am capable of giving.

I want the next man who thinks he loves, to stop and think before those words are said. I want to know if you love yourself first.

Because you have to love yourself before you can let someone love you; before you can love someone.

I want your action to show me that you love me not words. Anyone can say I love you, but it’s the feeling, the energy, and the connection behind them.

Love is sorrow and bliss wrapped up in life experiences.

It’s being present the moments.

It’s laying in the grass looking at the sky.

It’s laughing and crying over the dinner that was burned.

It’s the flowers from the ditch.

It’s the feel your hand on the small of my back.

It’s my finger gently tracing the shape of your body.

It’s the sound of your breath as I fall asleep next to you.

It’s dancing in the raining.

It’s holding each other when explained or unexplained sorrows enters our world.

It’s feeling calm and peaceful while simply sitting on the couch.

It’s laughter, smiles, tears, and sighs.

It’s knowing that sometimes we have to put ourselves first.

Yes, I want to be the Center of Your World and you to be the center of mine while still being individual people.

Love should be easy and warm.  I want to fall in love with a man that is my best friend who I can tell my deepest, darkest secrets and show him the magical galaxy that’s hidden deep inside my soul. Someone who knows that sometimes as a creative spirit, I have to go deep in that rabbit hole, but also knows exactly when helping me come out of it.

And I will do the same for them.

Love Is Magic and that’s what I want.

The last letter to him

by artmuse12

May 10th, six days after he had shown up and feed me the same story, he called and yelled at me for about a post that had nothing to do with him. He told me that she was upset, but with no regard for what his drunk behavior does to my psyche. Below was my response because I didn’t get a chance before he hung up.

We have a pattern and I have tried to break it. All I’ve wanted in the last six months was for him to keep one promise to pay back the money he owed me for one of the many secrets I helped him keep.  I wanted it to be the one thing that he hadn’t lied to me about.

At 2am this morning, he showed up drunk in his usual fashion, singing the same song full of I love you’s and let’s fuck. I stood my ground and logic won over loneliness.

Perhaps it was the healing of a very old relationship that reminded me of the kind of love I wanted. And it’s not this because I deserve better and truthfully so does she.

May 10, 2017 – sent via text

Things I don’t publish, post about and haven’t ever told anybody… Just so you know. 

 

The night I was confronted with this situation.  I ran away from, only to get home to puke in my drive way and cried until my whole body hurt. I didn’t have anyone to lean for support. My friends told me I was an idiot if I believed you. Yes, I told her because I needed it to be over one way or another. That night and for several nights after I cried myself sick and then to sleep on the floor by my window. I couldn’t sleep on that mattress that smell like you. I wanted you to choose me because that would have made it real.

 

But could you ever be faithful?

 

I have cried until it hurts and scream at the universe. The feelings come in waves and it feels like I am drowning. Our experience touched me on a soul level that truly doesn’t have a term and I can’t put into words. I painted and wrote about us because I wanted to understand how we were so sexual connected. 

 

I want to feel that feeling all of the time. The “feeling” is associated with you for now, but with time it will fade into a fond memory. We don’t know if we would work in the real world because we never tried. 

 

You drink too much and I’m a smoke too much. We both like our freedoms. 

 

But in the end, I want a man who only desires me, who works hard and is devoted to my mind, my heart, and my body. As I will be with him. I want to live in bliss and sorrow as a team.

 

I don’t know what you really want. However, I am sure you know your action prove that you want to be where you are. I am hurt, but I will survive. I will grow, learn, and love again.

 

However, I have to write and paint because it’s who I am, part of the person you once said you loved. So you shouldn’t try to take that part of me away.  I know that you have asked me to hate you, but that’s not who I am either. I did want you to hurt, to be in pain and suffer like I was, but not permanently because I’ve seen a part of your soul that you don’t share with many people. That’s the part of you that I want you to nourish and grow.  You have to love yourself though before you can truly let anyone love you back. 

 

I know I shouldn’t send this, but you ask me not post. I write and paint for me and I share it because I work through so much alone that at least when I post it I feel heard and can release it. Too often in this world we don’t feel heard, because as people we listen to respond, and never hear the words that are being said. 

Sometimes Our Demons Win

by artmuse12

I have held them at bay for weeks and months, but this last week they loudly rattled their cages, where they were being held captive. I was barely holding myself together.  I even went to a couple of art shows, thinking it would lift my spirits and I would be able to keep them at bay.

However, I woke up Saturday from a dream that I can’t even remember and cried. The person I wanted to text/call is no longer an opinion for more reason than I can count. The others depend on me to be happy, bubbly, and positive. The demons had broken free and whispered, “See, you have no one, you are alone.”

All those words that had been shouted at me over the last few months true or not, didn’t matter to the demons. The words are fuel for them, whispers that come from nowhere.

You’re not a good mother

Even your own child hates you

You are a failure

No one will ever love you

You are not worth their time

You are not good enough

You were only a sexual objective

Your pussy is the only thing men want

No one really cares

You will always a secret

 

Most of the time I use satire to get through any of my fears, insecurities, or self-doubt. I’m the one with the quick wit. I’m outspoken, confident, and usually self-assured but sometimes life’s just too heavy even for me. Even though I am willing to carry the burdens of another; I don’t want to be a burden. Many times, I accept the blame that is not solely mine to carry.

For years, I wanted the approval from others so I would wear a different mask to accommodate to them.  One day, I looked in the mirror, I didn’t even recognize myself and it was that moment I knew my life had to change.

I faced some of my demons through that process of self-discovery.  However, there are still some that sit deep within my physic.

The logical part of my brain and screamed at me loudly, “get up and fold the laundry. It is just sitting.”

“Paint or clean, get out of bed!” Logic screams.

The tears would pour out and I couldn’t stop them.

The demon mutters “No one will ever understand your pain because it’s stupid. You deserve to suffer.”.

I would even yell at myself to stop crying and feeling ridiculous because I couldn’t make it stop.

It was around 1pm on Sunday, and I was on the countdown, the kids would be home and I would have to pull myself together. I folded laundry, did some laundry. By 3 I finally got dressed and left my bedroom to clean, but continued to cry. The rain had stopped and it was dry enough to dig in the dirt and choked down the tears. I couldn’t let them out anymore. I needed to put the demons back into their cages or release them into the atmosphere.

I had to be the mom, who has it all together. I didn’t want them to know I had fallen apart. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was sad, that I listened to my demons. I especially DIDN’T want anyone to think I was suicidal. I was hurting from not just one thing, but a culmination of several and I needed to live there for a little while.

This is the longest amount of time I have ever given into my demons and/or my emotions and I don’t fully understand these moments.  It was a series of several events that create this physical and emotional break. Perhaps through this flood I have given it to the universe and released all the bullshit we tell ourselves.

I’m still not a 100%, but I will get there one moment at a time.

There is no plan, there is just right now

by artmuse12

I am a planner. I plan out my life. After, I graduated from college, I figured out that the plan changes and that’s ok.

I have changed it, altered and moved it.  It’s a work in progress.

I survived marriage, a divorce, unemployment, heartbreak, and parenting

I learned to listen to my voice, even when no one else understood. I discovered that there are more free thinkers out there in the world.  I wasn’t looking in the right spot or I had become to shut off.

I know lots of things and at the same time feel like I know nothing.

Today, I realize there is no fucking plan, there is just right now!

Creativity and Sex

by artmuse12

I was staring at this canvas that needed to be toned yellow in preparation for this painting on self-touch. Its whiteness mocks me.  I have been sitting on this idea, minimally sketching about it. I have been so lost with school. That I forgot to paint. I forgot the thing that makes sense to me. The NEED to create. I have been reading about why artists have made art. How to stop and really see?  What is considered art?  I have been introduced to feminist artists, which I might be more like then I thought.

I have abstained from sex and men kind of in general.

I had a mean girl’s night.

I have masturbated.

I have read blogs and found people who I can discuss sexuality and creativity with. They seem to understand that these two parts are connected.   They get how these two are so intertwined.

There was a point where I couldn’t focus. I wanted to quit, to give up. I wanted to have sex to clear the chaos that was running through my brain. I want to get lost in something that made me feel amazing.  I even trolled my phone for about twenty minutes for someone to call or text. I couldn’t do it. I finally felt like my heart and vagina have found some common ground.

I was stressed and I want to touch a man. I wanted to feel his warmth, feel his body, his touch and his smell. I wanted to exchange energy and body fluids. I wanted to connect to someone new in real life and not online, not in a text, but letting someone new in scares the fucking shit out of me.

Instead of texting…

Instead of calling…

Instead of letting someone new in…

Right here in this studio, where I had wept over school and life. I laid out a blanket. I turned off the light. The room glowed from the candles that were lit in the window ledges and on the desk. I turned on the sounds of crystal bowls. I laid on the floor, stared at the sketches of my vagina on the wall. There are a few with my fingers, one with a dildo, one that’s a close-up of my clitoris.

20170418_104738

I took a deep breath, little coconut oil and began to message around my vagina, I rubbed my labia in between my thumb and index finger. First, the right and the left. I grabbed my thigh and moved my hand up to my breasts and pulled  my nipples. I grabbed my crystal wand, it was so cold on my skin. I lightly moved it crossed my clit and back again. It felt so smooth and gave me a tingling sensation.

I moaned aloud as I slid this cold hard wand inside of me. I widened my hips and my knees bent pointing outward while the bottoms of my feet came together to make a triangle. I paced my breaths with the in and out motions of my wand that I controlled with my left hand, while I continued to rub my clit with my right index and middle fingers. I arched my back and separated my feet. I pushed the wand out while I orgasmed loudly, staring at the shadows on the ceiling and with tears in my eyes. I lay for a while to catch my breath and to feel my pussy pulsate.

The was an act of self love not a sin to be ashamed of, this is the reason this painting should be painted.

I got dressed and turned on the light and put yellow paint on the pallet. I opened my google music app and selected my paint playlist.  MGK’s, “At my best” played as I made the first circular stroke.

20170420_074622

Paralyzed by Fear

by artmuse12

Paralyzed by fear.

If reading and comprehension come easily to you, you may not full understand the paralyzing fear of reading or reading out loud. The fear of being told that you are dumb or stupid, to have teachers and peers make you feel like you less than because it takes you longer to read or process. This was my experience from elementary through middle school and even Jr. High.  It was better in High school and much easier during my undergrad.

Tonight, I am sitting at my desk with my printed out essay that I need to read. Its only 9 pages. I start out pretty confident, after all I am 36 and have learned ways to cope with my dyslexia. I have found programs that make my life easier, things that assist with my writing. I buy dual copies of books in paper and audio this helps retain me as I follow along.

In the event that I couldn’t get a text on audio. I would just read it out loud. This works for the most part until I get into textual work or theory, when I get to words I can’t pronounce and start to stubble. I start to get lost in the unfamiliar words. I completed last paragraph on page 3 and the tears start to fall.

I start the next page. Suddenly, I see myself as that 12 year old working on homework for hours, crying and telling my mom that I am stupid.  I would get frustrated and she would should different ways to work a math problem, and even though I would finally understand it. I would still cry because I knew that Mrs. Ragor would count it wrong because it had not been done her way.  I was teased and told I was stupid by not just my peers but by educators. If I had not had a mother that was determined to help me, I would not be where I am today. It was my hungry to learn and her determination that made us unstoppable.

I continued to struggle through this 1930’s essay that yes is still relevant. I hit record on my phone, thinking I might be tempted to share and exert of my reading, but that may be too scary. Online classes add to these fears and anxieties, it’s all textual and becomes a sea of letters and words that I am drowning in. I read through my fears. I can’t read this in my head because it bounces off like my brain is rubber.

Finally, I get through it, the notes were not taken and it took me about an hour and a half. I sat there the tears leaking out of my eyes as if I can finally release the sea I was just drowning in.

It was at this moment, I sent another message to my professors and asked about dropping a class. I felt like a total failure. I couldn’t do this. Two classes, children, and work. There is no way! It’s too much and the reading has me feeling like a failure. All I have ever wanted to do was write and make art, but maybe it wasn’t meant to be. These thoughts of the things my middle school teachers use to say to me were screaming, so loudly in my head. I felt so defeated in that moment. I hit send on my email and let the tears flow.

One of my professors had responded to a previous email. He reminded me of my accommodation and advised me to submit my documentation.  I haven’t had to do this in years, but I will dig out paper work. He told me about PDF reader opinion “read out loud,” which I had to google.  I pulled up the pdf of the textbook my other professor had sent me. The “read out loud”, was the lifeline I needed last night. It’s not ideal, but it worked!!

After I complete these sections. I was going to scan in the previous essay, then I realized that I had a theory book that was on audio, low and behold this fucking essay that took me nearly 90 mins to read, was on the audio text I have.  I listened to this essay and took notes for another 20mins, it all made sense to me.

It was 2 AM by the time I finished. I sat with my 12 year old self. She reminded me of all the things I was afraid of and I reminded her of how far we have come. Together we cried not because it was over, but she is the only one that truly understands.

 

Every Negative has a Positive

by artmuse12

Negative: I couldn’t get a single book on audio this semester.

Positive: I spent Thursday and Friday ready out loud to myself in funny accidents to get through the pages.

Negative: I should have than work on the video and the paper, but I was not able to focus on it after all the reading.

Positive: I was inspired to work on my book which has a deadline coming up. So, I got lost in this story and the words.  Relived a few life lessons and before I knew it was 1 am.

Negative: My youngest, who is a night owl.  Requested an hour of TV and in my bed at 1AM. I explained to him that I am going to fall asleep and that he is too big to sleep in my bed.

Positive: I could snuggle with him and after 30 minutes before telling him that I couldn’t keep my eyes open.  He agreed to end the movie if I will tuck him in.

Saturday was just one of those days and was not nearly as productive as it should have been, it was full of interruptions.  There are several reasons as to why this weekend was going to be full of changes.

Negative: The older teenager was going to be here and his plans change from hour to hour. Consisting of mom take me here, mom pick me up there. This is not unusual for a teenager, but I was trying to write a fucking paper.

Positive: He re-met and a friend of mine, and for the first time since the divorce he said. “I like him, he seems chill”

I reminded my oldest that this man and I are just friends, and that I have too much on plate to date.  This idea of me letting people met my children is hard for me, even if they are friends.  The fact that he liked someone even if it was a friend was huge because he doesn’t like anyone new.

Negative: Unexpected visitors:

Positive: My wonderful supportive mom stops by and for the most didn’t interrupt me directly.  She drove with me to drop the boys off and even stayed late to watch a movie with them, while working on my paper.

Negative: I don’t like going to the grocery store. It feels like a waste. I understand that we need food to survive, but it mostly feels expensive. It used to give me a panic attack. Now it’s just annoying with the time and the crowds.

Positive: I got to go grocery and my mom made this trip more pleasant. Plus, the kids brought in and put away all the groceries away for me.

Sunday had just as many distractions, but there are ways a better way to look at the situations and find the best part of it.

Unhurried Rain 

by artmuse12

The day is gray and cool.

It reminds me of you.

The rain falls unhurried

Drumming on the roof

Tinging in the gutters.

It’s almost as if I can see you

Sitting across from me,

In that orange chair

Smiling, your blue eyes

looking for my soul.

We laughed and smoked

Told each other our story.

We departed in the rain

Both unsure of the first move.

Overwhelmed

by artmuse12

Well, I feel overwhelmed and I want to have sex, but I am taking a break from that. I want to forget that I feel like my life is spinning out of control.  The reality is that it’s not out of control, it’s just finding a new balance. My fears kick in, “can I read the material fast enough and I will be able to maintain the schedule.”  yet I always find my way.

I am a 36 year old dyslexic who knows all the coping skills with a 4.0 GPA and yet there are moments that I feel like the 12 year old girl so afraid to read out loud.