baffled.

in a world, where everything seems so real. i wake up and climb out of bed, and my body hurts. i open my eyes and this is all i see, a concoction, a blur. reality aside from what is in my head, what is in my head aside from what is in my heart, lately doesn't seem to match up the way i always thought it would. i can't place my finger on it, i can't make sense of it, when really all i want is to make one person happy. one person to love me, for who i am entirely verses my appearance, or the things i do, or do not believe in. this world is so beauitful, so full of so many things, so many faces and places and thoughts and misunderstandings and it still manages to hold it's beauty, unlike i do. i lose sight of alot of things. i lose direction everyday. i back track, i get scared and i tuck and run, when i tell the world, i'll never do such a thing, ever again. i don't know how to get what i want, because i used to do such, in such a horrible way, and refuse to become that girl again. my hate and my love is not the same, and it bothers me, because that is what i am so used too. my reaction brings me to my knees, and fills my eyes with tears that i can't just push away because they just keep coming, steady. i want a life with out judgment. i want a life with out excuses. a life with out reason. i just want to live for myself, and i can't, and it hurts and it baffles me completley. to love another with everything you have, and gain nothing. the will to let that go, falters like a child in a candy store, with a dollar to spare on some gum drops and candy ciggarettes. what is to come of this world, what is to come of me?

yesterday:

because i need to get this all out of my head.

this was the night that i last saw you, the night, that i last loved you, and when i went home that morning, any part of me that still loved you, stayed there with you, and i watched as you destroyed it, burned it to the ground, my body limp at your feet, it seems. like you were siphoning the air out of my lungs, almost. then breathing particles of hate back in, through my lips. filling every vein. every morning after i woke to my feet and pulled myself to the kitchen, i poured it into my coffee and i drank it down, ounces and ounces of hate, doses, everyday. packing my fist full, and taking swing after swing after swing. not a care in this little tiny god forsaken world, i had no worries. every swing, faster and hitting harder than the last, feeling fresh, because i let you keep them closed for so long. i let you keep them closed while you lied and lingered behind my back, i kept them closed and i never pulled another as close to me as i did you, i never felt anyone besides you, and you broke me. for years, it was me. i broke people. i pulled them in, winded them up and let them down nice and easy, sometimes really fast and they'd hit rock bottom really hard. and i'd move on to the next. unashamed. i could have anything i wanted. i didn't take it for granted. i played my cards well, i lied and deceived everyone i knew, hated everything. i wanted everyone to hate me, because i hated all of them, and if it was mutual then that meant, i wasn't crazy, or losing my mind, but it was fair, and i'd get what i deserved, and then i found you, and when i thought you were the one resurfacing every part of me that had been hiding you were just molding and painting over and creating a hate filled monster, even more than i already was. you left and then i left, and we both left and it was for the best. we could never love each other how we thought we did. you say it was real, but where were you when i needed you the most? off playing games with my head, and toying with my heart, throwing around words, because you were too fickle to just say you were afraid i wasn't going to come home to you. when in all rationality you knew i had it in me, you knew i was coming, just a few more days and i would of been home free. home-bound, in your bed, in your arms, even months later, there with you, in that house, instead of his. it's safe to say the girl i have described here, that hate filled, tiny well-framed girl, is gone. and she has been for some time now, these are just the few things i have left to say to you. and only because i know you won't come looking for any two of these hundreds of words i've written here. you were everything to her, you were everything to the girl i was then, and it baffles me to say that she is no longer. i still, till today, stand strong or i stand alone. i am forever thankful for you, you turned me into something i hated and i found the strength to push her away. to change, completely. my hate and my love does not feel the same anymore. my happiness is not found in how hard i can hit someone, but found in hazel eyes and a slight smile. the way a child feels wrapped around my leg. the sun beating down on my face, kisses from a heart i've never felt before. my body shaking because something for the first time, feels real, since the last time my lips took flight off of yours, with no escape route and two blown engines, no directions and no excuses. now for the first time in years, i know who i am. i know what i can become, and i know what i will never be again. jospeh elijah ackerman, if there is anything left to thank you for, it's for being the biggest unregretful mistake of my life, you are down to nothing. dead to me, and still i thank you everyday, for showing me, how better off i really am.


this was not an act of anger, but so full of heart.
i am, still, strong enough. i will not falter.

and if i told you i wasn't alone here.

how many of you would believe me? if i told you, standing here in the dark, that my world is so full of light, how many of you would believe me? if i told you, my heart was so fucking saturated in everything i ever wished it to be, you would believe me? on the other hand, what you believe is your belief, and i can't make anyone believe anything they wish otherwise, but i've got the rest of my life, to show you how far i can shine. i have found everything. i have everything, for the first time in my life. i can finally breathe, i can wake up with out screaming. i can close my eyes and take deep breaths with out falling. i finally have everything. my fist, my arms, my mind, my heart, they are all open to you. open for you. and they cry for you, they beg for your warmth, they need you. i need you.

freckles, planted.

the sun climbs down the sky, the wind climbs up the trees. breathing. i lay with my arms over my face, covering my eyes. blues verses the blue. stomach up, heart sinking, like it was a stone dropped off a cliff somewhere into the sea. falling to the bottom. tiny oxygen filled particles float up to the surface. behind it, as it sinks and sinks, and i just take another breath and close my eyes again. the sun's not out but the sky is still blue, it's bright and it hurts my eyes. is this all in my head? i reach out and i touch your face. is this all in my head? i work my fingers between yours. this is all in my head? i pull my body closer to yours and then i push away again. i don't want anything besides a kiss, and it's so obvious, and i'm alright with that. in my head. in my head. don't you go and get out of my head. i like you here. i'd like you better, if you weren't in my head, but inches from my face so i could reach out and feel you. "you're not only in my head, my heart, it is saturated" my god my heart is fucking saturated. the trees sway side to side, the leaves are all clapping together now, they're cheering us on. my toes are tapping, and my lips are singing you a sweet little song, but i don't say a word, i don't whisper a word, i'll let you read the patterns of my silent words, as i plant them on the tip of your tounge. the sun starts to rise, and it reaches in my window and leaves tiny little marks on my shoulders. freckles, planted. i open my eyes again. this time i'm awake. i'm awake. i place my feet onto the floor and i rise to find the kitchen, i fall again. i crawl to the kitchen just to feel the caffine flow through my veins. still asleep? no. awake. i'm awake. you are still here and i am still asleep. wake up erica, no don't, don't wake. sleep. you are here in my dreams.

and this is to anyone who doesn't believe in me.

we are all borrowed time.

we spend our entire lives, taking and giving, and taking some more. we spend every minute scared out of our little tiny minds, thinking about what's to come down the line. the farther we move, the greater the risk. some of us forget to realize that every second we are alive, every second that our hearts continue to beat, at a regular pace and sometimes faster, every breath we take, every blink of our eyes, every word we utter, and every song we sing, is nothing but borrowed time. we're all going to give it back one day. every person that we pull ourselves up out of our self-dug holes to care for, to even love, is somewhere down the line, going to just be another great loss. that does not stop us. we're taking nothing for granted, not this time. if i knew i was dying, if i knew i had little to no time, i couldn't fathom another person i'd rather spend that time with. i can't imagine what it would be like, if we all lacked the knowledge to think. if we all lacked the brilliant gift of learning, of forgiving but somehow never forgetting, and sometimes on the rare occasion, the complete opposite. how would we all survive as the human society expects so much more from us? i have always told myself, since i was a young girl, that the masses would one day all know my name. how i was going to do that, and what weapons i would use, i was so unaware i had been carrying it with me through out my entire life. there is nothing in this world, not a word more and not a word less, not a soul, not another heart, greater than the one i carry in my chest. i place my hand over it, several times a day. and i feel it. i lay in my bed when the stars come out and i lay there until they are gone again, and i listen to it. ever since i could remember i've wanted to write a best seller. i've wanted my words, and my name on the cover of the new york times. i've wanted my picture, placed in the new york journal, with a page spread about my clever words and how they have changed so many lives, and how even after the day my body is burned and tossed into the sea, how they will continue to touch people all a crossed the world. now i sit here at this computer, 2o years young and as hell bound as they come. faithless and heavy eyed. if i ever believed in such a thing. but what i have, in my heart, is so god damn saturated in more power than any of my words could ever carry on, in my life time or the next. i believe we all have to figure ourselves out, before another can even fathom trying. and until then, we'll continue to watch people baffle themselves over and over again, as they stumble over they own two feet and stutter every word that escapes off of their impalpable lips. people don't think before they speak anymore, people don't look both ways before crossing. people become more and more impaired with ignorance every second the clock ticks, as time robs the life from our bodies day in and day out. i want to open my heart like i open books everyday. from the center, belly up, and then flip to the front and begin with the first words "once upon a time..." i don't want it to be like that however, once upon a time, i knew this girl, who had nothing. her soul was empty, her heart was cold, and her fist reeked of nothing but a brisk sweat of hatred. she was small, her hair was dark, her eyes as blue as the deepest depths of the deepest oceans. she was nothing. she had a hand full of well-worded sentences and more than a thousand metaphors explaining how she spent her days. how her thoughts would jumble and fall out, some sort of jargoned mess. leaving you and everyone else slack jawed with hardly anything to say. she would leave her town and become someone else, every place she went. she mastered every lie she ever told. she mastered becoming everything she ever hated. she mastered becoming invisible. not to be seen by the naked eye. clever trick blend in. she was so care-free. she felt nothing, for anyone, anywhere. she was a monster. a tiny, well-worded monster. she could keep a straight face and lie through her teeth and you'd never know the difference. she'd keep a smile when her heart was breaking, and you'd never be able to notice. she was the con of the cons. a mastermind. flawless and very much so deceived by her own thoughts. no one could stop her, nothing could hold her down. she was invincible. her reflection disgusted her. her voice, making her sick to her stomach. she hated everything she was and everything she knew she'd never become. today i sit here, friday march 20, 2009. and i tell you, that girl is forever gone. none of you will miss her, none of you will know her name. none of you will recognize her face. her voice, or even the truth about who she is and where she came from. today i sit here and i type away and i realize our past is our past, and our future, if we risk it will someday, somehow be taken from us, so you, who ever is reading. don't you wait any longer, open your heart to someone who will stand by you, and never in front of you, someone who will stand by you and not hide behind you. i sit here today and i ask you, for your sake, come clean and wash your hands of all that dirt, i'm not asking you to forgive anyone, no one except yourself. apologies aren't worth any of your time. find what is in your heart and run with it. because sitting here and thinking about the girl i used to be, does nothing but push me forward. it does nothing but saturate my heart even more with everything around me. who i was, where i went, the mistakes i have made, do nothing but build a wall between what was and what still is, and it keeps me from turning back. i know i can never be that girl again, because of what i have in my heart. i am vulnerable and i am naive, but this is real. and this is who i am, i am not afraid. not anymore. i am not running. i refuse to take the easy way out. my tiny lungs can not take running anymore and my heart is far too frail to try. i am running down a road i have ran before and this time it is not rocky, it's free flowing and subtle and it feels nice under my feet. i know what i want, i know where i want to be. and for the first time in a really long time, i know exactly who i am. i don't stride to be inspiration. i don't beg for you to read every word. i only ask that if you do read, you take all of this to heart, because that is exactly where it is coming from, i, erica jean holmes, i have everything to give, and nothing to lose. nothing to prove. i want to shine with my true colours. i want to save who i can, and send them a map to where they wish to be. i want to allow you to be free, to hear your own heart beat, to be able to take a breath and feel it, just as i do, with every single godforsaken breath i take. i can feel it. please do not ask questions. i have no answers. do not contemplate, i have no excuses. just breathe in, and breathe out and know, that today i finally figured out who i am, and know that today, every ounce of hate within my soul has freely seeped out, like my mother said, in due time, it will all be gone, but you've got to risk it all. nothing having comes easy, and everything worth having is hard. just find your heart, stick your hands down your throat and into your chest and set it free. i have set out to be everything any of you ever thought i would, and everything i ever said i'd be. from here on out, this is me.


(and if you read that entire thing, please let me know, i want to thank you for the whole maybe 10 minutes of your life, i just took from you, that was borrowed and will never be returned, ha.)

losing my mind.

i don't know.

buy me some of these bad girls

when the rain stops

lets go find some hills and bomb the fuck out of them. ksweet.

i hope my kisses made it there.

the sun starts to set, i start to smile. which made me a different kind of happy, it's normally the other way around. vise versa. repeat. repeat. i breathe and live off of the sun, but not tonight, not now. the wind's picking up outside, it brushes a crossed and i can feel it, pushing my hair into my face. i push it back away. i light up the dark sky with the smile you put on my face. it felt warm. i threw all of me into the wind tonight, i stood outside and i said your name. i smiled and i spun around like i was the only one alive. i crossed my fingers and wished that everyone inside could see me, i didn't want to hide the happy i was wearing. i let it all go. i threw my past into my past and looked to the sky for what's in store for me. you have a hold of me. i pulled my hands to my mouth and took a deep breath, i threw them up and closed my eyes. i hope my kisses made it there. i let them find their own way this time. i know they will. not a single road map, no compasses. no direction, into the wind with out any senses. i threw them up into the starless sky. i couldn't see them, not tonight, with every rain drop falling onto my face, your kisses landed on my lips and i found a way to feel you. i'm a few hundred miles away, and i found a way to feel you. you're a thousand kinds of beautiful. i wish i could find just one word. i wish i could pull out every beautiful thing i have ever written and say they were all about you, but i can't so i won't. i'll just keep on writing, spilling the tiny thoughts that float through my head. and when the day comes, i can reach out and brush my fingers a crossed your face, i'll stand in front of you saying " i give you the world." i'll throw my hands up to the sky and embrace what stands just a few inches taller than myself. with eyes deeper than i thought were ever possible. a complextion so soft. i am perplexed but in dispair. completely baffled and seperated from what was, and what still is. i found myself again tonight, but in a different sense, than when others set out to find who they are. i found myself, only wishing i was where ever you were. wrapped up in your smile and hiding behind nothing but your eyes. i want to know everything about you. every stich inside you. every thought that wanders and i want to feel every beat of that god forsaken, beautiful heart. i don't know how we got here, i'm faithless and that's okay. but whom ever and how ever, for you, i believe i was made.

thank you for bringing me back to life, thank you for resurfacing my heart.

been thinking alot lately

i want one of these little fuckers.

because i can't help but be happy

and i found you

at the deepest depths of the deepest sea where the water was bluer than i had ever seen. i don't know how i stumbled a crossed this, but i couldn't just pass this. something stopped me. so i stayed here and i listened to you tell me all the little things about you, which were so very similar to all the little things about myself. and here i am wishing i could breathe like the fishes, so i'd never have to resurface, and stay under this cold water, feeling alive, feeling this rush. swimming forever. when i was a little girl, in the midst of growing up on the water. never afraid to dive in and sink down. i would tell everyone how i wanted to be a mermaid when i got older, and if i were to die tomorrow, under water would be the place for me. and it baffles me to think, now, i can swim and still find a way to breathe.

to keep this smile, is to keep the sun.

i wake up and i roll out of bed, with more than a smile and a million tiny whispers, the sun's not up, but it's still shining. i open my eyes knowing, everything's going to eventually be alright. i've got more in my heart than i thought was possible, i've been sleeping better and it feels real good. there's a world out there, screaming my name, i don't know what to do other than to give back, everything i've taken. when it comes down to then and now, what was and what still is, it's been years since i looked like i had the stars in my eyes, and all i can do now, is shine as bright as i can, and just keep on shinin'

4:30 am, smiling like a kid in a candy store.

i think back, i close my eyes. i breathe in what i thought this used to feel like, what recycles back out, is redefined. i don't carry the ocean anymore, i've found a way to trap the skies. the light colours and the darks, right before the sun sets, how they consolidate together and blend like one colour. i've seen your face a hundred times, in pictures of a man i never knew, and now, something somewhere that i don't know, in a town i used to walk, sits a boy who feels like home.




thank you.

speaks for it's self.

my friend ashley did this for me a while back.

mockery

inside of every writer, there's a set of words that make that person who they are. there's a set of words that seem to never fail them. a set of words that make sense to them and them alone. today i was laying on my couch and i was humming nothing but sounds. the sounds turned into words, and i began to sing really quitely. it was almost a whisper.

this is what came out:

"from the colours in the sky to the root of all the trees,
your clock work, and mine, every leaf on every tree."

i sung it over and over again.

this is all i have to say to the two of you.

CIRCA 1948

three dollars let this baby into my heart today, such an awesome find. i'm so happy right now.

the only part of me that can't lie.

i'll probably be in denial for the next few days. you are to blame.

i always look for you.

i get in the passenger seat, and i stare out the window. everything looks like it should, but the more i look west, the more i find nothing. my head hurts. nothing makes sense anymore. sleeplessness vs. insomnia and my lack of wanting, my lack of waiting, my lack at direction. i feel like i've lost everything and nothing all at once, and it's confusing. i don't know what road to take, i don't know where to go. not now, not anymore. you're ruining me. know that.

i miss this:

i had the life i wanted there, these people.

i painted this for you.

why do you always leave when i wake up?

sometimes, but only sometimes i wake up like i did this morning and it felt like i was still sleeping. it took me a few minutes to realize i was awake, and then you faded back into my memory and i stood up with a smile. i stood up with a smile knowing that today, i was going to be alright. i would be okay. just like every morning, i gathered myself and carried all of my mess, my heart, my thoughts, and my tiny whispers that no one ever hears to the kitchen to put on some coffee. i stopped before filling the filter more than i should with grounds, and i smiled to myself and pushed my hair to the side. you had faded back and i was alone again. i can hear some sort of music coming from the office and my first instinct was to spin around in my kitchen, so i did.

i just kept on spinning.
i'm ready for it to get warm out, so i can spin around like i used too.

when i woke up this morning

i kept my eyes closed and i could feel my hands shake, like maybe you were in my presence. i knew you weren't but it still felt good, and i was peaceful in some sort of mind. i could hear the ballad of love and hate playing from my room, and it made me sad for minute. i got up and poured me a cup of cold coffee and sat down in the dark room i fell asleep in and i let myself go. i let my thoughts wander around, and i stood up thinking, "i'll make it out of here someday." yes, i'll make it out of here someday, and i won't have to worry about where i'm going. i won't have to worry about what the world is holding for me. i won't have to worry about what's out there waiting, all i know is i'm going to go find it, and keep it, hold it really close to my heart, until the sound of yours beats insync with mine. and instead of hearing mine, i can only hear yours. until i can only hear your heart.




it's a really fucked up world out there, and we're all still acting on human impulses.

i sleep, but i don't rest.

i will never be the person who doesn't love you, because that person will never be me.