A Fellow Outcast

We went live on Amazon this morning and my pride hasn’t faltered once. Every poem in this collection is more real than all the ones in the collection before. And dammit they were real, but my poems, my collections, my books they are growing with me. 

I’m feeling this a lot lately. Hence the lack of posts. I’m in my head and in my heart and not in it with anybody. I can’t seem to think straight or feel straight or talk straight. It’s all a jumbled mess and I miss home. And I’m not happy and so I’m being honest. My smile is brittle. It is candy. Wasting away for our satisfaction.  “I look in the mirror and I do not know myself. It seems I haven’t for awhile now. If I ever did. I smile. It seems brittle, like a dying lollipop between eager teeth. There are no crows feet. No tiny little lines that say “this is real, I am happy”. Because I don’t think I am. But I can’t be sure. My mask, mass produced, has been on too long for me to notice the nuances of my emotions. I can hardly tell a grimace from a grin anymore.”

I've reached the ready in my poetically inclined life. At first, it was vague. There was an understanding that I'd experienced something with someone at sometime but what and when and who were far out of reach. It was an anbodies poem. I was the author but not technically the narrator. In my first book at least. But now I've finished the second. There's something different about it. I've come to terms with owning the hurt. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m a walking, breathing broken heart. And god doesn’t it hurt? Like hell. In Misfit Tales  I own it. Every single excruciating inch of it. It’s mine and I want the world to know it. I want you to know it.  I started writing as a way to purge everything I didn’t want. I used the words to mask the pain. I pretended that if I made it vague, nondescript, it wasn’t mine. It wasn’t about me. It was a lie. Every damn sentence. Because it’s all about me and you and us. It’s about the misfits and the outcasts and par

I like to think you knew what you signed up for when you borrowed my pen. You knew that ink was the same as blood to me and I spilled it often. You were aware that optimism wasn't in my nature and I wasn't fond of shining brightly. Just constantly. I conserved the coil. No use wasting it on short bursts of illumination. I made sure you knew that I was a terrible introvert. I wanted to talk, constantly. I had so much to say about nothing in particular and about everything that mattered. But I didn't. Because I was a terrible extrovert. You were made aware that I wasn't particularly good at anything. Socializing. Not socializing. Speaking. Silence. The happy medium. Whatever the hell that was. I told you. Plainly. I suppose that was one thing I was good at: brutal honesty where my faults were concerned. You smiled then. Laughed in my face. Not rudely but with great disbelief. Because here I was, talking to you, and having hope (optimism if you will) that you'd take me

Sometimes inspiration is scarce. Sometimes the worlds so damn chaotic I can hardly think let alone write. But then I enter a bookstore and everything quiets. I could spend hours here, in this space between spaces. I could find inspiration here, if open to it. I could think here. In fact I'm forced to.  And here's what's on my mind: poetry. I haven't written enough of it. Or at least I hadn't when this picture was taken, edited and posted on Instagram like some trophy. Look! A book with butterflies. A book with ideas escaping it in front of my eyes. I grabbed a few. Just a few but it worked. I think. You tell me.  "There are things I wish you'd tell me. Like how uninviting my backside must be when I turn to give you better access. You sleep then. Soundlessly. I wish you'd tell me how desperate my "I love you's" must sound to your certain ears. They mean more then three simple words. They are a question, a plea, a bargain. A contract signed,

In a generation full of judgement, I aspire to love myself. What do I see when I look at this picture? Tiny eyes and a nose I'm not quite sure if I like or not. I see the remains of dead pimples and a face unsure of what to do with itself. But that's just my training. It's this knee jerk reaction inside. Tearing myself down is what society taught me. I don't fit the mold and so I do not fit. Beauty is square and I'm not even a shape. I'm a voluminous mass of thoughts. I am emotions made animate and bravery photographered. Here is me embracing flaws that aren't necessarily flaws. Here is me standing in front of a camera and saying "go ahead, I love me." And now, this is me sharing that with all of you. Try it out for yourself. It's freeing. I promise. Take a picture, recognize what you're trained to criticize and throw it out the window. You are beautiful as is. 

I am the by the books type of girl. Model daughter. Model student. Model freakin employee. I even do the whole tortured artist thing by the goddamn book. Until I didn't. Until my wires crossed and everything went to shit. Because I initiated change I didn't want. I got scared, brave and stupid all at the same time. I fell in love. No, that's wrong, I dove headfirst. I became the romantic I made sarcastic comments about. I packed my bags, labeled my boxes and said hello to Colorado. Well, almost. I've got a week to change a mind that won't have any changing. It's decided it did enough of that. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared. I'm absolutely, completely, without a doubt terrified this is the stupidest thing I will ever do. I'm so afraid that this heart I try so damn hard to deny I have will end up broken beyond repair. But I'm doing it anyway.  Here's the thing: stagnancy is just as terrifying. Living a life out of fear has got t

"It's time to say goodbye, but I think goodbyes are sad and I'd much rather say hello. Hello to a new adventure." -Ernie Harwell As the clock ticks down to the day I leave the only home I've ever known, I find myself hiding from all emotions. If I let one in, then everything comes in. And so much of it is sad. Goodbyes are sad and terribly inconvient. But new adventures are not. If I can remember that, if I can live these days by this quote then I think I'll be okay. I'll be brave enough to fly. 

"Oddly enough, more often than not, alone was all that made sense. In the way empty made you full. Filling spaces that didn't exist for other such nonsense like happiness."  It seems forever ago that I wrote this here poem. It came to me the way all poems do. Slowly at first and then a tidal wave of emotions. Alone was my home. Emphasis on was. It's not anymore. Not really. And I'm not quite sure what to do with that. How to handle it. I find it rather annoying. A creature of habit, I shun change even if I provoke it. 

A Fellow Outcast. I'd like to think that when the name came to me it was some epiphany. Some incredibly profound moment. But I'd be lying to myself. It came to me the way quiet revelations do. It was a whisper over my skin, an understanding in my pen. I'd reached the end of my first poetry book, Angels & Inner Demons, and an Author's Note just felt right. But how to sign off? N.Avila seemed too formal. Nikki Avila felt too unoriginal. In essence I was more than myself. Some of these poems were from a different life, a different me and so the note shouldn't be written from I. I thought it should be from someone that was everyone. An outcast. A Fellow Outcast. Because who among us has never felt like a pariah? Who had never felt the strains of a box in which they could not fit? If I could reach the outcast in everyone and remind them that they were not alone than my task would be filled. It became so simple when I thought of it that way. I was moments away from si

Every once in a long while I'll take an asthetically pleasing picture of what I deem my best feature. When that once in a long while matches up with a poem I can't help but share.  "Can you taste my pain when I kiss you? Are my lips a testament to fear? Fear that this is the last they'll know yours..." Here's to best features whether they be eyes, cheekbones, smiles or lips. 

When I make risky decisions I find someplace like this -- secluded from society with a front row seat to life -- and melodramatically go over all the possible consequences with my multiple alter egos. 

It seems every day I come across something on my feed that likes to tell me I am not the things that happened to me. Somehow, someway I am better than them. But I would disagree. And in that disagreement I found poetry.  "I am everything that's happened to me. I am all the ways I let their actions ruin me. I am the nights I spent balling my eyes out instead of sleeping. I am the screams my pillow kept for me. I am the thoughts one should never have to think. I am the coward who couldn't follow through. But I am also all the ways I survived the adversity. I am the compassion I showed others. I am the words I wrote and the darkness I shared. I am open ears and a willing shoulder. I am human. Ruined and built back up differently. Perhaps less effectively. Perhaps more."

Because earth is a temporary residence. This flesh suit is a temporary residence and I have hope that each day I'll make temporary memorable.