NEW VINYL!!! (They say you were something in those formative years…)

  

I don’t believe you are leaving me cause me and Charles Manson like the same ice-cream…

Thoughts on love, Tori and tattoos...

"If there is a way to find you I will find you..." the opening track to Boys For Pele, Horses, sets the emotional tone of the album. "It's a descent," Tori once said. "It's as if the horses have come to take us back, to descend, to find the dark side. By dark, I mean what's hidden..."

What is darkness really, but parts of us not yet whole? Hell, I’ve been here before. The late hour, Tori playing through my headphones, her understanding curling around my pain like this comforting, familiar blanket you’ve owned all your life. Her spark always mirrored my own, her bruised and battered soul. Rape, rejection, loss, never fitting into boxes (“I'm like anchovies, not everyone wants those hairy little things”), lovers drawn to her light yet afraid of her fire. Or lovers that got distracted by easy blondes like Courtney Love in 93’. (looking at you, Reznor). 

But there is another feeling now... I hurt him. My soulmate... I was so lonely, so thankful to have him just for a little while, that another woman's fears became my very own paradise. He was desire, my love before she knew him, and how dare she take him for granted. I didn't care what it cost to get him back to me. I knew those moments that we felt whole together would give way to an amazing relationship if just given the chance. And I hurt him, my beautiful friend, and the feeling of wrongness oozes through me. I played through scenarios often, knowing if we wound up together I would insist on his son maintaining a relationship with her, in every scenario putting his child first no matter what. Yet I failed in that priority in the here and now. Even worse, deep down... I'd go to that place with him one more time, just to feel whole one last time. There is no fairness for us. He has to know he is a good person... that loneliness and longing and regret are not wrong, they don't make us broken... just human is all. Not many see who he really is beyond his mistakes and flaws. They don't see his kindness, his empathy, his passion and humour and awareness. He is all those things and so much more. 

He thinks I would let him destroy everything, but he has to know... I would skate all the way to the moons of Jupiter to keep him from falling apart. 

But... 

I hurt him.

He insists his darkness would devour everything, but I have never given anyone that much power over me. Besides, when we aren’t facing darkness alone, something shifts. There is a balanced, fulfilling life possible with what we have, our connection is a beautiful thing for us, just not possible in a life of lies and hurt. It’s the secrets that made us both sick, tainted all. Shame will do that. This isn’t about those superficial wants and desires so easily attainable, a desire for a quiet, peaceful life full of easy pleasures. He doesn't see what kind of life is possible. He told me to find a partner like his own, and in that demonstrated certain misunderstandings about me.

I have been with men and women that are the opposite of my energy and pain. You end up walking through life off-centre, as the weight of all you refuse to say and feel and be claws at you more and more. Cutting out pieces of yourself. The thing is, what he fears, I view as a sanctuary for all I am and could be.

He always saw my sensuality. He saw every dark and beautiful corner of my mind and didn’t turn away from the broken pieces. He connected with my fiery soul. He has even seen only that which those closest to me see – my playful spirit that is not weighed down by the world. But he has never known my heart, not really. Where people so readily see my light and fire, my heart is more like an expanse of river beneath the dark of the moon. Still and steady. Calm and forever carved in earth.

Jay, whose darkness devoured and spat him out years ago, lives with his parents now. He saw oblivion and chased it. His excesses rendered his schizophrenia permanent, his oblivion shattered every relationship he had. Though I remember when we first met – in the backyard of my Inner West housewarming under glittering lights. Rooms of our six-bedroom artists corner had to be filled. His mischievous eyes locked mine, and he lay his head in my lap. He said my warm energy silenced his voices, that they had never been quiet before. So he moved in.

That time we lived together and those hours spent in each others company, marked the only time he stopped chasing oblivion. He paused, focused, and his eyes cleared. We cooked, watched movies together, lay on a mattress sharing stories and music and wine. He sketched that Bill Hicks portrait for me... we were best friends. I was dating James, but Jay and I weren’t like that anyway. My love still reached him and sung his darkness a lullaby. For a while I was his peaceful place that gave space to everything he was, and when I moved away the abyss returned and swallowed him whole.

“there are some who give blood, I give love, I give… so I can live”.

That is my role in life, I help others reclaim the pieces of their soul held hostage by their demons. I’ve been violated by the real monsters of the world. The darkness that comes from being broken is different to the predatory kind. Others have never known my true heart and how powerful I am. I have loved those that haven’t seen darkness, and I have loved those that have. But my true love will not be someone to hide shadows from. They will be someone that in response to my unconditional warmth, humour, love and spirit, leaves space for the lust and chaos in me. And I them.

They will understand what violation at a young age inflicts on the soul. They will also understand why I choose to channel my rage and pain into consensual sexual encounters. A fistful of hair, a hand wrapped around my delicate throat as I find my pleasure, strong arms holding me down as I look into his eyes in defiance and demand he go harder, deeper. To hurt me. No... those that tried to break me do not get to take that away from me. 

It is mine.

To quote something special... finding someone whose pain down in their soul is the same as the one down in mine, there is freedom in that (everyone like us carries that tattoo, in a way). In return, I give. I have learned to be more guarded with the broken souls that see my strength yet have no interest in healing themselves. So I search the whole world for the kind of love that lets the calm rivers, burning fire, easygoing spirit, light of the stars and darkest elements of me all co-exist. 

 I have always been able to heal darkness for others, from the moment the twins learned their mother was dying. And when that seed of destruction rears its head I stand up, stare it down, and tell it to back the fuck off. Because I have survived the real monsters, it listens. And because I have been alone in a dark room with my broken soul for years, I wouldn’t be afraid of it either. Love with no hiding – that’s where I am so different from so many others. Lazy days, movie nights, dinners at home, and lust and darkness explored in our bed, where we are both safe. That is my dream. Until then, to him and all those lovers lost, my message to you will always be this...

maybe she's just pieces of me you've never seen.