Category: struggle

Tuesday Tunes

Unlike Pluto – Villain in my own Story

Lyrics –

I was the one who wanted nothing
I was the one who lived in pain
I was the one who strived for nothing
I was the one who stood in rain
I feel like I’m no good I should run away
I feel like failure’s one step ahead of me
Fuck all the people with the Bentley’s with their nice lives
Fuck all the people in the mansions with their bright skies
Fuck all the people sitting pretty with their sane minds
Fuck, think I’m becoming the villain of my story
I am the one that’s holding grudges
I am the one that lives in pain
I am the one who’s out of touch and
I am the one inflicting pain
I feel like I’m no good I should run away
I feel like failure’s one step ahead of me
Fuck all the people with the Bentley’s with their nice lives
Fuck all the people in the mansions with their bright skies
Fuck all the people sitting pretty with their sane minds
Fuck, think I’m becoming the villain of my story
And I’ve been the bad guy for so long, I’m growing tired
Is it too damn late to twist the plot to turn it round

My two cents –

I have been doing a lot of thinking about perspective lately. Especially since writing my memoir. We are all the villain in someone else’s story. When we become the villain in our own story is when we start to change. I know that my story as seen by others was different than it was for me. I can’t speak from their point of view. I can only speak my truth. So, when I tell my story… It will always be shaded by my perception. How it affected me. How it changed me. I try to look at others perspective, but it is not easy with some situations.

Inspiration without a home is a memoir. My story. It is not completely linear… Nor should it be. There is stories about abuse, about rape. There is a life in those pages. Not a good life, but one lived. That life created the woman I am today. And I am at least remotely sure that I was the villain of some of the story as told by others.

Quicksilver poetry

©2019 Patricia Harris

Sleep elu,

Sitting in my bed

Still shaken from

The monsters that live

Inside my head.

Revisiting memories

Is far away from

The way that I need

To help me sleep.

Shaky in the dark,

I dare not turn on

The bright overhead light.

For though the fear

Blankets my skin,

I do not want

To awaken the ones

Who are still sleeping.

Support the fun

Ok. Here’s the deal. I am able to take on commissions. For poetry, art, jewelry (within certain guidelines), and book covers. Summer is winding down and I am looking for ways to be able to do more art and such during the Christmas season. So, if you want me to do something just for you… Now’s the best time.

Or if you just want to donate to see what I do with it… Here is my PayPal.

Or if you want to do it more than once… patreon offers many tiers.

Tuesday tunes

So usually I choose one song. Which really works… But today I want something slightly different. Today I want to do a small group of songs. A playlist if you will. I am pansexual, and I have had relationships with both male and female. I don’t plan on putting the details up, and I don’t want to put the lyrics up for these. My opinion is going to be on the topic more than individual songs. The songs were chosen for this playlist purposely.

Too many of the so called lesbian love songs don’t sit right with me. To me a true love song should be good whether it is for a female or a male. These definitely have a female target, but it would work for either gender. Many, if sung by a different singer, would be made hetro.

I love that idea. The songs excite the heart in me. The poet who loves to see love in all of its facets. See lyrics are not gendered. The singer, the tempo it is sung at, these all what affects our, as listeners, perception of it. That is why some covers come across better to an individual ear than the original.

Everyone I have ever had in my life has a song that reminds me of them. Some songs I only listen to if I need to pull them from the mind, for good or ill. The first song on this list belongs to someone I once loved dearly. She hurt me because she was raw from another hurting her. Still I love her and I miss her, even if it hurt me to have her near. I will never wish her ill. It is the only song that is that meaningful for me.

I am just going to share the playlist from YouTube. If you can think of any that I missed… Let me know.

Tuesday Tunes

Hello my lovelies. Welcome back for another song. Tell me in the comments what you are listening to today?

Today I bring you

Aerosmith- Janie’s Got a Gun

Lyrics –

[Verse 1]
Dum, dum, dum, honey what have you done?
Dum, dum, dum it’s the sound of my gun
Dum, dum, dum, honey what have you done?
Dum, dum, dum it’s the sound

[Chorus 1]
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Her whole world’s come undone
From lookin’ straight at the sun
What did her daddy do?
What did he put you through?

[Verse 2]
They said when Janie was arrested
They found him underneath a train
But man, he had it comin’
Now that Janie’s got a gun
She ain’t never gonna be the same

[Chorus 2]
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run
Tell me now it’s untrue
What did her daddy do?
He jacked a little bitty baby
The man has got to be insane
They say the spell that he was under the lightning and
The thunder knew that someone had to stop the rain

[Chorus 3]
Run away, run away from the pain yeah, yeah yeah
Run away run away from the pain yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Run away, run away, run, run away

[Chorus 2]
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run

[Verse 2]
What did her daddy do?
It’s Janie’s last I.O.U
She had to take him down easy and put a bullet in his brain
She said cause nobody believes me. The man was such a sleeze
He ain’t never gonna be the same

[Chorus 3]
Run away, run away from the pain yeah, yeah
Yeah yeah yeah
Run away run away from the pain yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Run away, run away, run, run away

[Guitar Solo]

[Chorus 2]
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Now everybody is on the run

[Outro]
Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run (Honey honey, what’s the problem?)
Because Janie’s got a gun (Tell me it ain’t right)
Janie’s got a gun (Was it Daddy’s cradle robbing that)
Her dog day’s just begun (Made you scream at night?)
Now everybody is on the run
Janie’s got a gun

My two cents :

This song brought me comfort as a teen. I am an abuse survivor… And I was not believed. So I was a very angry teenager. I really think that most teens are angry. The injustice of being too young to do adult things and too old to be a kid. But I was fighting battles that I had no idea of how to deal with. This song spoke about vengeance against abuse. It spoke to the angry in me. I still love the song for that reason. It speaks to the part of me that has never seen justice. I have a lovely playlist that I may share… There is a lot of songs that talk about abuse… A lot more than most people realize exist.

Random thoughts of poetry.

Now I normally don’t do this. I don’t explain my poetry, or my art, because I think that most people see what they want to in anything creative. I feel like explanation ruins a piece. To be honest this post is not entirely an explanation… But rather an aside. I have been thinking a lot lately about accountability. About guilt and mistakes. About what I am responsible for in my life and what regrets I should have and what it all means.

I have thought about the regrets that others have expressed towards me. I find that I have very few actual regrets. Each of my choices I made with all of the knowledge that I had at the time. I have revisited some of them later… And hindsight makes regret easy… If you let it.

The problem comes in when you allow regret to consume your conscience. We are as a society, cold. We have lost the conscience. We have lost the knowledge of good and evil, or the will to care. When prison actually looks better than trying to make your way in this miserable world…lives of others no longer matter. That is not a mental illness thing… It is a wake up call.

We have a society where you can work 60+ hours a week and still not be able to afford to pay rent. We live in a society where there is often no way of breaking even, much less getting ahead. Where hate and violence is broadcast nightly on the news. So I have to wonder how we as a society can fix this? How can we take responsibility for the problem and fix it?

Thursday Tea Party

Hi all! Pull up a seat! So much on my mind… I am a wee bit squirrel brained lately. All that it takes to distract me is a shiny object in my side view.

First… I want to express my grief at the sad demise of Grant Thompson. He was way too young to die. *a moment of silence *😭

Now, I think that I promised a Tea recommendation? I love tea. Homemade, store-bought, hot or iced. I prefer sweet, but anymore I settle for adding splenda. One of my favorite store-bought teas are Stash Black Chai Spice. I prepare it with half milk and half water and it is a luxurious treat.

I have been working on the publishing company a lot here lately. It has been a learning experience. I am learning about contracts and the messy part of publishing… That moment when crap hits the fan. It is frustrating when it is your work with snafus… It feels like failure when you are handling other authors work. I am blessed with authors who understand and are patient with me.

Fae corps anthology Under the Mists is available in Ebook format… However as the platform that I chose to use for the paperback is still in Beta… We are looking at a month wait for the paperback. We are still going to be trying to get it in as many hands as possible because these stories are really worth the read.

I am quite sure most of you saw the call for submissions that I shared yesterday. Fae corps has two new anthologies in the works. We are going to do another fae story one, this one about light fae. We are also going to do a poetry collection.

Fae corps is also pleased to announce that we are going to be representing Ms Deedra Nichole in her In a small world series. We are in contract negotiations now, but I have no doubt that we will be able to do it.

I submitted 3 poems in a call for submissions that I found on wordpress. One of the three was accepted. My poem is supposed to be published on August 5th. With all of the feels of failure in the publishing… This felt like a win. I will take it.

Oh… And soon the next edition, the summer edition, of Creative Rising Ezine will be publishing. I will share the link to subscribe as soon as I get it.

Hmmm I think that is everything…. So I will be back tomorrow with some sort of tips on writing…. So for now… Time to gather tea leaves.

This is Thursday

Thursday is my weird day. I have found the groove on every other weekday. So every Thursday I sit here staring at the app on my phone and I wonder what to post. I look through the blogs I follow hoping for a clue… Throwback Thursday…. Hmmm. It would be easy… Just post old pictures… Nah man that is not really fair to the ones that actually do read the blog… Though I may be doing that on patreon today. Posting old art.

I saw one blog this time doing a pay it forward thing. That could be cool… But I have no idea what to do with that.

I am struggling with this because I want something that both is interesting to read(and write) and something that I am likely to engage y’all with. So far I am liking the way Tuesday tunes are working. Monday poetry always seems to be a good thing. And wordless Wednesday is good. Friday prompts and writing tips seems to work. So what the heck do I do with Thursday? Tea party works… But I don’t always have conversation for the tea. A good tea party needs a conversation don’t you think? So talk to me. Tell me what topics you would like me to cover at my tea party. Next week I will do a tea party with recommendations for a good tea and a topic of conversation hopefully suggested by y’all.

Negativity Disguised

So, I am about to rant. I am going to keep it civil… But I thought that meme funny and slightly appropriate. As you know, my new publishing company is doing a release event this week. Well yesterday was Serena’s day to post and bedtime loomed at 3pm as usual. So I was blessed when one of the other authors offered to do a live teaser reading for Serena.

Her reading actually caused ugly happy tears. Her video was full of comfortable homey behavior, very much of the southern charm that her writing is filled with. And somehow our event attracted a troll. This person, and I cannot be certain of their gender so I will be using they/them to refer to them, chose to complain about the sweet rambling on the video.

Yes, they have the right to their opinions. We are trying to sell books, and not everyone is going to want the book that these writers have put their heart and soul into. However, they do not have the right to be rude about it.

I have no problem with expression of opinions. I have a problem with the ones who are just rude in how they express said opinion. This caused the authors in the anthology to do something amazing. In a very professional manner, they came forward to defend one of our own. They did not confront the troll. They tried to reason with the commentor. We ended up deleting that comment tree, because we felt that the negative energy involved was not appropriate for the event.

People… You want to give constructive criticism or feedback? Fine. Be discreet. Be kind. You have no idea what the person is going through. You can be a light or a toxin, the choice really is yours!

Scheduled snafus

Last week I did some posts ahead. I scheduled them in wordpress thinking that would be it. Yeah, it’s never that easy. I have found that as I went in to post the last two posts I was finding ones in my drafts that did not post. I want to thank all of you for your patience. I believe that all of them are now posted. I will go back to posting on time and quit trying to schedule ahead, at least for now.