1 Corinthians 13:4-7

I frequently listen to the shitty recordings of your songs. The guitar is well balanced. But your voice floods only my right ear. Your songs get stuck in my head all the time. N1 still makes my heart flutter. Not in the same way, just an endearing, "I miss this" kind of way. I miss you. I miss the way you understood me. I miss your constructive honesty. The way you'd hold me accountable. The way it would make me furious. The way you'd nearly sing me to sleep on iChat. The way I'd click on the end button because I didn't want you to watch me sleep. The way you begged for me to just be my honest self. I often find myself asking if what we had was real. We were so young, but does that really discredit the sincerity of what we felt? Does it abolish the feelings I couldn't explain? 

But I'm older now. I know it was unreasonable for me to expect you to walk through my bedroom door when I was home alone and afraid of the groans and whispers the house walls made. I know it was unreasonable for me to hope you would surprise me by coming home a day earlier than you told me you were going to. I know it was unreasonable to expect you to say the exact right thing at that exact moment. You taught me that the right thing wasn't always nice. Nor was it usually what I wanted to hear. But you were capable of that heartfelt honesty. 

You came into my life at a pivotal moment. It was an essential time in my adolescence and my walk with Christ. Meeting you swayed the decisions I made regarding school and friends. I was so alone. I was surrounded by people that I knew, but I didn't know any of them. No one was interested in the things I was learning. No one was concerned with the crosses I bore. You were an instrumental piece to my growing pains. 

Now I know that it's okay to wear my heart on my sleeve. I'm allowed to have feelings. And although sometimes they're going to be rejected, it's far more important to let them be known than allow them to be a mystery. You taught me that taking the risk is sometimes the most significant action in a relationship. If I don't, then there won't be a relationship. I've realized that I can't keep everything locked up. Most of the time, it'll be more beneficial for me to tell someone, anyone, than no one at all. 

I loved you as much as a confused fifteen year old girl is capable of loving a seventeen year old young man. Unfortunately for our relationship, I have since surpassed my fifteen year old capabilities. But God has a reason for everything. He gave me you so I could learn how to love someone to my fullest potential. 

Although I am entitled to my fantasies, I'm not allowed to literally expect them from a man, and get upset when it doesn't happen. I no longer have these disillusions of what could be. I realize what is and I'm content with that. I'm easily satisfied. 

And I owe that to you. 

Yours until the pigs fly,
Alessondra Marie

Lessons Learned

This is me learning a lesson. 

Trust no one,
feel nothing, 
do not invest, 
and never be like that. 

Yours until the pigs fly,
Alessondra Marie

Gungor

I play my piano completely exposed. I allow my towel to fall onto the bench while I touch each key softly with my fingertips, just hard enough to formulate a G major. I work the progression from G to A to D until my voice grows tired. Each note touches my naked skin; becomes absorbed into my open pores and resonates throughout my bare body. My hair falls into wet curls partially over my shoulder. I feel the cool droplets descending onto the small of my back.
All this pain,
I wonder if I'll ever find my way.
I wonder if my life could really change at all. 

I press my foot down onto the sustain pedal as I push down on the last chord. The notes carry themselves out as I turn my head to look at my reflection. I see the silhouette of each vertebrae poking through my back. I see the way my 12 ribs say hello. I see my collar bone, I see my tiny wrists. But I also see the fat rolls on the front of my stomach. I see the stretch marks on my thighs and the bare cellulite kissing my piano bench. It's never good enough for me. Is it good enough for you?
You make beautiful things...
You make beautiful things out of the dust. 

Images swarm my head. They're like cartoons, teasing the fears in my brain; wondering what I'm trying to make of myself and asking if this is worth it. Telling me that if I give up, it'll make me a coward. 
All around,
Hope is springing up from this old ground.
Out of chaos life is being found in You.

Yours until the pigs fly,
Alessondra Marie

Cold Association

There's a feeling I associate with winter. The feeling always comes when things are going wonderful, but on the brink of being awful. It's almost more bitter than it is sweet.
"What the hell am I doing?"

It's the way the cold air kisses my exposed cheeks. It's the way my lungs feel when they became icy. It's the way the anxiety of what is to happen bubbles in my chest.
"What the hell am I doing?"

I remember feeling homesick and desperate to find something familiar. I looked up to the steadfast sky, but even that was a stranger. I searched for the bears, the hunter, the princess and queen. But they weren't there. I said out loud, "Even the stars are different here." No one responded to me. No one even glanced my way as my scared, hot breath fogged the air in front of me. My nose started to run as my eyes swelled with tears, "I'm cold. I'm going inside." The cold, my sweet alibi.
"What the hell am I doing?"

You turned up the music as I sat in your car. You told me to drop the blanket and get out. We're going to dance. I don't dance. But I grabbed your free hand as you gently put the other on the small of my back. I rested my head against your chest and heard your heart beating. I gazed past your car, past the Livermore hills, past even the clouds. The stars twinkled bright as I asked them,
"What the hell am I doing?"

I ran out of my house and to my car, holding on to my purse and hood as if my life depended on it. I felt my messy ponytail thump, thump, thump against my neck. The buckets of water pouring from heaven and the broken street lights made it seem impossible to drive half an hour to school. Terrified, I put my hands on the steering wheel and pressed on the gas peddle. Not nearly ready to go I said to myself,
"What the hell am I doing?"

Everything starts with I and ends with me. It's time to grow up, and deny the definite theme echoed throughout my life.
"What the hell am I doing?"

Yours until the pigs fly,
Alessondra Marie

Creep.

Sometimes I just want to yell, "fuck off." 
Just fuck you and fuck off.
I don't really want to say it to anyone specific. I just want to cry it to the wind and let the sound waves impact the first soul it finds. I'm not angry at you. I'm angry with myself. 
All the time.

I don't care if it hurts,

I want to have control,

I want a perfect body,

I want a perfect soul...

I just want him to call me pretty. I want him to see me. I want him to see my dimpled thighs. I want him to see where the sun has kissed my skin and where it has not. I want him to see my split ends and my overgrown roots. I want him to see the stretch-marks, the scars, the blemishes.
Just see my imperfections. Call me pretty in spite of them.
I dare you.

But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here...

I don't belong here. 

A larger part of me wants to be shunned. I know I deserve it. I deserve to be punished. I torture innocent people. I walk all over their hearts. I am a bully. 

"Who is it you want to be?" 
"I want to be sweet and thoughtful. I want to be courageous and confident. I don't want to fight with people. I want to be easy." 
"Okay, so be that. Problem solved. :)"

But it's so hard to be that when I've been this for the past 17 years.
Angry. Bitter. Mean. Cowardly. Selfish. Ugly. 
Fuck you. 

Yours until the pigs fly,
Alessondra Marie  

Redemption '08

I remember earnestly exposing my scars for the first time. I was merely 13 years old, naive with illusions of sincere love. We sat in a blank room filled with instruments. His music thickened the air; each note enticed me further into our young infatuation.

After each song we would have sober confessions. I openly admitted my most troubling vice. He asked if he could see the flesh proof of my self hatred. Without hesitation I rolled up my sleeve and stretched my arm out toward his open hands. My palm faced the ceiling as my cheeks grew rosy with shame.

He removed one hand from my arm and touched my cheek, forcing me to gaze at those metallic grey eyes. Without breaking eye contact he put two fingers onto the two inch scab. His eyes swelled with tears as he said, "It breaks my heart that you feel such intense pain that you're driven to hurt yourself like this."

He had such a deep sense of compassion towards me and it dwelled in him for no reason other than the Holy Spirit inside his heart.

He was the vessel God used to hold my arm steady as He ran two fingers across my scars, calling me redeemed.

Yours until the pigs fly,
Alessondra Marie

A Siren's Cry

I'm not sure anyone understands what it feels like to look into the mirror and literally hate the persistently shallow grimace I refer to as my face. I hate my brassy hair that never lays correctly. I hate my scarlet blemishes that stain my forehead. I hate my thick, untamable eyebrows. I hate my shit colored eyes. I hate my random freckles. I hate my hooked shaped nose. I hate my chapped lips. I hate my uneven collar bone. I hate my plump arms. I hate my ever-growing waistline. I hate my dimpled thighs. I hate my round calfs. I hate my stubby toes. I hate that I have to shave every inch of my body just to stay presentable to the general public. I hate that number on the scale. 
I hate my unrelenting hatred for myself. 


Moreover, I'm not sure anyone understands what it's like to keep this dissatisfaction to myself. I constantly find myself desperate to explain this deep revulsion to anyone that is willing to listen. All the while I am terrified of being judged accordingly. The thought of being that girl horrifies me to no end. And so I mention my vices but quickly change my mind. And the subject. 


I'm not sure I know how to look into the mirror in an estimable fashion. There is nothing I want more than to love myself the way I've felt you love me. But it's an incessant battle that will never go away. It's tenacious; nearly stronger than my will. It catches me by surprise and is triggered by nothing more than a glance at my reflection. 


When I was ten I was granted permission to join a club. It was called Merely Mortal, and I was only permitted to become a member if I knew what the words meant. Merely meaning only, simply, or just so. Mortal meaning human; often compared to and falling short to a divine being. Merely Mortal: only, simply and just human. 


As debilitating as my opinion of myself can be, I'm only human. I suppose the beauty of my mortality is that I'm sanctioned to hate myself and the things that I do, but still learn from it. Essentially, it doesn't matter in what regard I hold myself. There's always someone or something out there that looks to me in a higher esteem. I guess that's what keeps a person going, right?


Yours until the pigs fly, 
Alessondra Marie