"on taking a long needed break, a step back, and a breath"- drabble read and discussed on my youtube channel

"To Be Understood"- a drabble/free-write from my blog read audiobook style on my youtube channel

On Being Lonely- a drabble from my blog read audiobook style on my youtube channel

now that I think about it… where IS my pen- drabble from my blog read audiobook style on my youtube channel

why songbird- a drabble (and an explanation) by avsongbird- read audiobook style on my youtube channel

I got into a lengthy discussion with one of my readers today- free write read audiobook style by avsongbird

I Stand

I Stand
By Jennifer K.

              

              

I stand feeling nothing

Yet everything at once.

I know not what I'm thinking,

I am hidden from the sun.

He holds me close, yet moves away.

The dawn has marked a brand new day.

I live in the dark, and I'm craving the light,

Embracing the morning, dismissing the night.

He stands before me, many miles away.

I walk down the street underneath a sky-- gray.

I stand, feeling nothing,

Yet everything at once.

I know not what I'm seeing,

I'm blinded by the sun.

He stands in the sun, I'm lost in the dark.

Consider your feelings and with them depart.

I go, feeling nothing

Yet everything at once.

I know not where I'm going.

I stand.

written 8/14/1998 at age 15.

I got into a lengthy discussion with one of my readers today.

               I got into a lengthy discussion with one of my readers today.

               He asked me how it felt to document my life's details, to share not just my work, but details of my life and of my past with people I've never even met. He said that some of the finer details of my life made him feel uncomfortable, and I get that. Some of the things that happened in my past are touchy topics with some people.

               Living through them gave me a better understanding of others who've gone through the same thing.

               I gave it a fair amount of thought before I answered him, wanting to be as honest as I could be, and I told him it's hard, sharing yourself with others like that, opening yourself to others like that.

               But at the same time, it's therapeutic, sort of getting everything out there in the open like that, it's healthy. Certainly healthier than burying it all deep inside and letting it fester, letting it make you angry and bitter and making you feel guilty.

               Doing things like that allows things like that to own you-- and that path is certainly not a healthy one to travel down. It will leave you angry, bitter, self-destructive (and possibly even destructive), and it will isolate you.

               And it's a far better frame of mind to be in when you own your past, than when you allow your past to own you.

               At the end of the day, it's important to remember that everything that happened to you, everything you've been through, made you who you are now. That you wouldn't be who you are without every decision-- good and bad.

               Without every memory-- good and bad.

               Without every regret that haunts you.

               If you went back in time and changed any of it-- any decision you made, any action you took, any regret that you had-- then came back to the present, you wouldn't be you anymore. So everything I've been through, everything that's happened to me, everything I've ever done in my life-- I am who I am because of it-- all of it.

              It's a comforting thought, to see how far you've come in your life, and to recognize that fact.

               My blog is where I post my thoughts, my poetry, my stories. It is an extension of who I am. And I know not everyone blogs the way I do. How boring would it be if everyone blogged the same? There's no wrong way to blog. Blog what you want-- write to inspire, to get opinions, to begin discussions.

               If it's judgment you're worried about-- mockery, ridicule-- and what people think, don't. You can't let that thought stop you from doing what you want to do with your life.

               People will always judge you-- by who you are, by what you do, by what you look like and how much money you do or don't have.

               People are going to judge you. And some of them will be assholes. That's just something you're going to have to face. Because not everyone you meet will be an asshole. And if you don't risk the assholes, at the end of the day you'll be left wondering if you didn't just miss out on the chance of crossing paths with someone who could just change your life-- someone who would invigorate you, change your mind, make you see the world in a way you hadn't before.

               I've always been a firm believer in the life-changers-- the walking muses. I've met more than a few people in my lifetime who've inspired different works in me for various reasons. And they shall remain nameless, with my gratitude towards them just for existing-- for being who they are, and for inspiring such thoughts in me-- for sparking my creativity, and my imagination. I love them for opening my eyes, for changing my mind.

               I've met some interesting people since I started my blog-- writers, readers, people from all over the world. I've taken criticisms and compliments, been told how they loved or hated my work. I've read the work of others who'd read mine and chose to share theirs with me. And I was flattered at the thought that they wanted to know what I thought. I've had people asking me about what side projects I've got going, stories I've already posted, and what I plan to post down the line.  

               Do I regret sharing so much of myself? So many details, even the ugly ones? No. Because I'm just starting to branch out and to have people reach out to me, to contact me, and I'm coming across incredible people I might never have met if I hadn't taken the leap into online sharing. People who've told me "Oh my God that's how I feel" or "I went through the same thing". I couldn't have had that if I hadn't been so open about my past, and my experiences.

               Do I regret it? Not even close. If it makes you uncomfortable, if it bothers you that I write the way I do, that I talk about the things I talk about, then I'm sorry, and I hope you don't let your experience here make you shy away from reading the other works of the other writers on this site or others. Some of the best writing I've read over the course of the last few years has been by people who've been bloggers-- some of them fanfiction writers (before you judge, seriously, check them out). Some of them are incredible writers, people who fall in love with stories and shows and characters the way I fall in love with stories and characters. People who want to share their love of the stories and characters with others in turn.

               I get that. As a writer, as a reader, as a lover of books and comics and movies and all things creative and imaginative, I get it. After all, what good is fantasy, imagination, movies, books, stories, if you're not emotionally invested on some level? How boring to sit back and read something or watch something and afterwards "Yup that was something" and just go about your life completely unchanged by it?

               Do I regret? No, not even for a second.

Why songbird?

               My husband asked me about my blogger name the other day.

               Why, he asked. Why songbird? He said people will think I'm a musician of some kind.

               Music has always been a big part of my life.

               When I was growing up, every morning when I'd wake up, I would find my mom had already been up for hours, and the radio would already be on.

               And it would stay on all day long.

               Big band, jazz, swing, blues, oldies, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s-- she listened to pretty much everything.

               My dad had so many records I couldn't count them all. Some of it my mom liked, some she didn't.

               Suffice it to say, I had a lot of music constantly moving through my head back then.

               I was an impressionable, curious little sponge with a pulse. And my mom was always singing under her breath with the radio-- Jim Croce, Tom T. Hall, Gordon Lightfoot (God I love his voice). Singing came as natural as breathing then. Out of everything it could've been-- my induction into the wide world of music-- it was "you are my sunshine" that ended up being the first thing I sang, and of course others naturally followed.

               Nerd that I am, growing up with two brothers-- one younger, one older-- I'm pretty sure there's a copy of a home movie out there somewhere with little impressionable sponge-like me doing the typical little-kid "look at me" stomp dance, singing the Thundercats theme song at the top of my lungs.

               Yeah, you heard me. And I knew every word by heart.

               The older I got, the more I started branching out and getting into music on my own. Of course, growing up with the music I did, I still find myself coming back to it, listening to the songs I grew up with the same way I still like to go back to old movies and old books I read when I was younger, to remember what I was going through when I first read it, and to feel what I felt back then, when I first picked them up.

               I love anything with a good rhythm, anything with a good beat you can dance to. My mom and I used to dance in the aisles in stores, and when people laughed or shook their heads, we'd just laugh and shrug them off.

               Who am I kidding? I went to visit her up north a few years back, and when one of "our songs" came on the radio, we danced like we did all those years ago. Take that, Big Lots.

               I dance in my car. Sometimes I sing backup, and funnily enough? Now that they're getting older and discovering music, my stepsons join in. It's great.

               When I was in elementary school, my class took a field trip to see some random symphony play, and I remember that being the first time I ever actually saw people play on real instruments in person.

               I decided sometime after that, that I wanted to learn how to play piano. But not wanting to bug my parents with the idea of lessons, I signed up for choir in school, figuring it would be a good way to learn how to read music.

               From that first year, I was hooked on it. I learned how to read music, how to recognize the rhythm and how to feel it more definitively. And I loved it.

               And when my parents bought me a keyboard, I labeled my keys with masking tape and a sharpie, and I taught myself a few simple songs. Nothing incredible, but enough to make me smile. Every now and again, I still find myself going back to those songs. A few years ago, I taught our youngest how to play a couple. Now he's talking about wanting to play piano, though his love is the drums.

               It might've kind of been my fault, or his dad's. My husband was a drummer in high school, in band. He still has an old snare in the garage, but he swears he's "moved past it" and that he "Doesn't miss it."

               And yet, last October, when we were at Six Flags Fright Fest, watching the live band, I could see his foot tapping to the rhythm, the way his eyes were glued to the drummer, and to the drums themselves.

               As a writer I've always found inspiration everywhere, and music was always one of my constants.

               To this day, I'll come across random songs and find myself running for a notebook, driven by the picture or the story or the scene the music put into my head.

               I've been known to listen to the same song on repeat over and over ad nauseum (On my headphones to protect my family's sanity), just to keep the idea fresh in my mind.

               Why songbird, he asked me. I was in seventh grade when I first took the name, the first email address I ever had, and my mom still gets a kick out of the fact that I came home from school telling her about the "cool new band Fleetwood Mac", at which point she proceeded to cross to the record cabinet and pull out all her old Fleetwood Mac records and lay them out on the kitchen table.

               In my defense, I thought their music kicked ass, and looking over her records, I realized I'd heard them all a hundred times before, if not more. But with all the music and all the albums and all the bands I'd grown up listening to, I couldn't remember all the names of each and every one of them.

               Growing up with a name like Jennifer, knowing as many of them as I did growing up, I remember 7th grade being the first time I had a name that was just mine, something that was just mine, the way my writing always has been.

               So when I sat down this month to start my blog, to try and get my writing out there and to give it an honest shot, and I found myself trying to figure out what name I'd use, it seemed only fitting to use songbird. Why not? I'm still the same curious, impressionable and open-minded sponge, a little older now, but still here. I still love music now as I always have. My collection is still just as eclectic, and just as rhythm and inspiration driven.

               I don't follow any specific bands, necessarily, but I do tend to revisit specific ones from time to time. At the end of the day, I go where the inspiration is, same as I always have.

               Why songbird, he asked me. I had to smile at the question.

               "Because it's who I am," I told him.

Words Left Unsaid

the things i most regret...

We never know what life will bring,

Or where it will lead us,

Or if tomorrow will ever come.

But wherever your path may lead,

Whatever life throws at you,

I want you to think about one thing....

I've come to learn that the

words I've most regretted in my life,

Were the ones I never said. 

Drabble on Love

My love is fiercely complete and loyal.

It is always and forever.

It is unwavering, unconditional, and unquestioning.

It bends its knee to no one

and never apologizes.

It is friend, lover, mother, wife

and child.

It is the crying shoulder, the patient ear,

The guiding light, the rock of ages,

it never abandons.

It is the sea-beaten shore,

Weathered, tested, and undefeated.

It is ever vigilant, ever present,

ever pure, ever true.

It never dies.

on taking a long needed break, a step back, and a breath

It's so easy to forget yourself when the world rushes in.
I found myself swept up in all of it,
losing myself in it, forgetting myself in it.
And now I've taken the step back,
to take the time I need to find myself again

I know what it is I want out of life.

I always have, I just have the tendency to become wrapped up

and losing sight of what it is I want, what it is I need. 

Of losing myself in others when they become important to me.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a selfish moment, but a necessary one. 

I've no intentions of abandoning the people I love most. There's nothing in the world that could force me to do that.

This is merely a recharging of my batteries, to keep me moving forward, instead of remaining stagnant.

This blog is my way of taking that long-needed step back, 

My way of trying to find myself again in the midst of all the chaos. 

I sit here now, at my keyboard, with the keys clacking out the audible sounds 

of my thoughts. Such a comforting sound, a familiar sound, the all too familiar clacking of those keys as my fingers fly over them. After so many years, it feels like home, to sit here, watching the words appear on the screen. 

I can feel myself shedding the layers of this world that have so clouded my mind, all of the stress and the worry and the self consciousness and doubt. 

There goes the fear again, my cursor hovering over the post button, then the sweet release of relief that rushes in when I finally click it, sending my thoughts off to whomever wishes to read it, in the hope that perhaps they know how I feel, and that maybe my push to find myself will remind them to take their own step back. 

Crisis and Fear

In my life, I've found that, when faced with a real crisis, the easiest way to deal with stress and/or fear is to stop where you are and let it have an unimpeded moment to rule you, to take over.
Let it in, familiarize yourself with the feeling, saturate yourself in it, and give it time to pass. 5 minutes, 10.
Then cast it aside and continue on.
If you don't, it will lurk at the back of your mind through everything-- clouding your thoughts and subconsciously influencing your decisions, your every step.
If you give the fear and stress the time and attention they deserve, you'll be done with them and move on, the whole situation easier to deal with as you come at it with new eyes, a clear mind and a cool head.
With that taken care of, I've always sat down by myself late at night and made a list of what I had to do for each situation, numbering each item by level of importance, then looking at each item as a separate event, following through with each, then striking it out with a single line once each step was complete.
I'm not saying it works for everyone-- I'm not that pompous or egomaniacal. I'm just saying it works for me.

Tired

God, I'm Tired.
It's an ironic feeling to be young and Tired.
To know that Time does not affect you as it does others.

To be conscious of this fact is paradoxically even more surreal.
Feeling quite tangibly the distance between myself and those I surround myself with.

I submerge myself within them,
drifting in their easy conversations and letting it come over me,
like lowering myself into a warm bath after a long, hard day.

I find inexplicable release in these moments,
and utter peace in the chaos.
Forgetting the ghosts that come in the dark stillness of the night,
when I lie on my back, eyes on the ceiling,
With my mind a million miles away.

Know Thyself

know thyself

Know thyself.
You can't get anywhere in this world without it.

Who are you?
What drives you?
What fuels you?
What do you fear?
What do you desire--
What do you NEED?

What do YOU have to bring to the table?

If you don't know yourself, how can anyone else ever hope to know you?

Can't Sleep

A lonely heart burns in the dark of the night,
the warmth of a single body twisting restlessly beneath the covers
as she seeks the solace that should come
inside of the darkness within her eyelids.
A secret place, a secret peace.
In a space where no one can know,
the emptiness she feels,
To face the world alone.
Always with a smile to hide the pain,
As she finds herself always alone again.

Outside the window, the sounds of night,
The moonlit sky goes swimming by,
But in her room, in her bed, she sees none of it,
her eyes closed against the black of night,
As she prays inside her very soul,
For mercy, for sleep...
For her secret place....
For her secret peace.

Into The Sea

She sat on the bank of the river,
watched her dreams roll away downstream.
She felt their loss more than the heat of her tears
Because she isn't as strong as she seems.

She was expected to smile
So she smiled.
Always expected to bend but not
break.
Giving all of herself that she could give,
Wondering how much she could take.

And so often lately
She finds herself visiting the river,
Late at night, when she's left alone.
One by one, dropping her dreams
Into the water,
Watching them fade into the sea.
One by one
into the sea.

Lost... and Found

I lost myself today, in the swirling tides of silence,
Closed my eyes against the pain, and closed the shutters to hold it in.
I lost myself in the feeling, letting it crash over me, surrounding and overtaking me.
Consuming me,
Letting it move through me and touch me in all the ways I never knew it could.

I found myself today, on the floor as I thought that I lay dying.
My heart in a thousand pieces, splintered, shattered, bleeding.
Tears falling as I gathered the shards of my heart in my hands, and
held them to myself, comforting that heart with just myself.

I picked myself up today, dusted off and rose from where I knelt,
Surrendered in what I felt.
I steeled my spine, so used to bending, and held my head up high,
A new determination in my eyes.

I stood and watched through the window, as the dawn broke through the night,
scattered rays giving over to day, to drive the night away.
Taking with it the monsters, and the fears I felt before,
When I lay upon that floor, not feeling anymore.

I found myself today.

To Be Understood

               Sometimes, you just want to be understood. You don't want to explain... you don't want to pretend... or lie... You don't want to have to make excuses.

               You just want to be. And you want that to be enough.

               That's all I've ever wanted in my life. It's a human thought, isn't it? To want to know that just being you, with your faults, your shortcomings, with your joys, your passions...

               To want to know, for one brief moment in time that you... are enough.

                I've always taken people as they were. I love watching the masks fall away, watching the lies fall by the wayside, and watching people become who they are.

               I love them for their scars, and the tales they can tell. For the battles they've won, the hardships they've faced, and survived. The people and the past-times they've fallen in love with.

               I love them as they come. And I've always hoped they realized that I always did what I could to love them as they were-- that I truly wanted to understand them as they were.

               I always wished I knew what it felt like to be understood. To be loved and understood and accepted for who and what I was.

               But then how can I hope to find such things, when at times I find I don't even know myself?

               But how many of us can claim to truly know who we are, or why we do the things we do?

               I've always thought it was my job to dig deeper into human nature. To understand what drives us to do the things we do. Why we love the things we love, why we hate the things we hate, why we fear the things we fear. What kind of a writer could I be without knowing the nature of those I create my stories for? How can I hope to reach up through those pages and touch the hearts and souls of others if I cannot begin to know what they care about?

               I want to pen the words that reach into your heart. I want to find the words to tear you open and make you look deep inside yourself. I want to open your eyes and your heart to the things that drive you, to the passion that burns deep within you.

               I want to force you to face your deepest fears.

               I want to move you, to awaken you unto this world, and unto yourself. Then I want you to do the same to others, who in turn, can do the same.

               I want to brighten your day. I want to make you smile. I want to bring tears to your eyes and make your heart ache in your chest.

               I want to remind you what it is to truly feel, as you were always meant to feel. Love, hate, horror, passion, strife, heartache.

               I want to make you realize what it is to be understood as you are, what drives you, what scares you, what touches you, what stirs your passions.

               I want to awaken you unto yourself. To show you what it is, to truly understand this world, this life such as it is.

               I hope to awaken you to yourself, if I can. And as I find bits and pieces of my soul buried within those pages, in my quest to share the worlds inside my head with all of you, as I read back over them and find myself hidden within them, perhaps one day I will find myself made whole by my efforts, and at last, I will find the understanding I've always hoped for.

On Being Lonely

               Do you know what it's like to be lonely? Not every day run of the mill lonely. Everyone knows that.

               I'm talking about deeply, desperately, achingly, "staring out the window wondering if there's a single person alive who is at that moment missing your company or thinking of you at all and knowing that there isn't and hasn't been for a long time" kind of lonely.

               The kind with no end in sight.

               What you wouldn't do-- what you wouldn't give-- to not be lonely, even for a moment. Sometimes it scares you to think about it.

               I've been lonely most of my life. Don't get me wrong. I've had friends, I've had family. I still have family, and friends, both of which show up on occasion. I've got people in my life.

               But you can be in a room full of people, with crowds of people in your life, and be lonely.

               Lonely people know what I mean.

               In a world full of acquaintances and faked smiles and meaningless conversations, with television and high speed travel and the internet making the world a smaller place all the time, you'd think it'd be harder to be alone, let alone to be lonely.

               But if you know what it's like to fake that smile and to get up, get dressed, and go about your day like everything's fine, knowing you're fooling everyone because none of them really care enough or know you well enough to recognize the difference, then you know what I mean.

               At the end of the day, your clothes aren't the only thing you shed when you get home. When the doors are closed and your work is done and there's no one else to smile and act brave and pretend for.

               When the mask is shed, and you climb into the shower and turn the water on so no one will see you or hear you when you cry, because the last thing you need right then is to have to muster up the strength to put together one more lie, because if you tell them the truth, either they'll never believe you, or try to tell you all the reasons you have to be thankful.

               Of course you're thankful for the good things in your life. You're just tired of being alone.

               You're tired of having to fake that smile and put on that mask for everyone else, and knowing it's painted on.

               You're tired of always being okay, whether you're okay or not, because you have no other choice.

               Just for once, what you wouldn't give not to feel lonely. Not to feel alone for just one second of your life. Not to be brave or pretend. Not to have to lie just once to the people who profess to know you, who profess to care. Not to know that if you did try to explain how you really felt, they'd try to prescribe you a cure for your emotions, or to tell you to suck it up, that it's normal, and how everyone knows how you feel. That they know how you feel when you know better.

               Some days are more exhausting than others, smiling, faking, pretending. You come away feeling drained after the simplest of conversations, because your mouth is moving, the words come out, and all the while you wonder what the hell your small talk is worth as the seconds of your life are ticked away, knowing you can never get those precious seconds back. And yet you just let them go, figuring that some form of interaction, even a fake one, is better than none at all.