they never knew her, god knows they tried

i want you to know i'm right.

2005-07-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

i want to start doing, believing, and being.
i want to be good, great, sensational, alive.
i want my hands to be busy in work that my eyes crave.
i want to walk through the front door with a tangible object of success, accomplishment, passion.
i want someone to have, to learn from, to commit to to know that my hope exists &that i have love that i can give.
i want to live in the moment, never deny the past, anticipate the future, or reword past sentences.
i want to be the person i know i am.
i want no fronts, no masks, no facades, no images, nothing to live up to except my own expecatations.
i want brand new ideas and to never run out of perspective.
i want the answers because i know the questions won't stop.

it's been awhile.

2005-05-06T19:54:00.000-07:00

it's been two months since i've talked last.
i feel like i've grown into someone that can offer something.
and that is only in two months,
in the past year i feel completely new.
fresh, alive, positive, unaffected, &in touch with the realities of life.

friends have come &gone, friendships have lessened &intensified -
supposably i just can't satisfy everyone, who would have thought? ha.
but i have also landed myself next to some of the most excellent characters since my highschool career.
i've become fully aware of what it is i want for the future, for today, from myself, &from others.

in about 2 weeks i go to see my therapist whom i havent seen since the beginning of this school year.
we had planned this meeting since the day i told her it was time i ended our meetings &figured things out on my own.
it's an interesting concept this time around;
i have an hour to spill out the most important moments, the lesser details, &my realizations from the past 5months.
60 minutes to show her that i can be on my own &survive.

i've been in &out of different relationships since the last time i saw her
&i've been on my own. i have experienced the best for me &the worst.
for now i have to go - i'm visiting my family &for the first time i feel like they truly approve &admire me.
they said i was classy &we've had some great conversations. i suppose i feel like i don't frighten or worry them anymore
it's a great feeling when you feel like you are finally being seen for who you truly are.

her own best model.

2005-03-29T00:25:00.000-08:00

"She continued to be the model in her photographs, donning wigs and costumes to challenge cultural stereotypes.

During the 1980s Sherman began to use colour film, to exhibit very large prints, and to concentrate more on lighting and facial expression. Using prosthetic appendages and liberal amounts of makeup, Sherman moved into the realm of the grotesque and the sinister with photographs that featured mutilated bodies and reflected such concerns as eating disorders, insanity, and death. Her work became less ambiguous, focusing perhaps more on the results of society's acceptance of stereotyped roles for women than upon the roles themselves. During the 1990s Sherman returned to ironic commentary upon clichéd female identities, introducing mannequins to some of her photographs. In 1997 she directed the dark comedy film Office Killer. She followed this in 1999 with an exhibition of disturbing images of savaged dolls and doll parts that extended her interest in juxtaposing violence and artificiality."

in the sand of our hour glass.

2005-03-17T14:30:00.000-08:00

I want to hold your Breath on my skin

Capture your Essence in my pores

So I own it for longer than just this Once.

We found it Funny that a sigh

was better than Our Spoken Words;

Rather have High Pitch Notes echo from the walls

then Syllables that string themselves in the Air.

"Hold my Hand," I requested outloud

Make me the Child because I know from one involvement

of our lips that you are my Prince.

We kiss in the Sand of our Hour Glass.

You stretch your limbs on to My Possesions

and I make believe I will Keep you -

Keep More than just the Breath on my Skin,

His sweat in my Pores..

thursdays we wine at tavern.

2005-03-11T02:30:00.000-08:00

I suppose I will just skip over &talk of all the trivial details of my Thursday. How I know not a thing of commitment because even if we do not physically touch, the ideas make us far guilty enough. Whatever - men's fingers rapidly take down digits &i find it not making but a difference to me. Precisely why I don't take theirs. It's ridiculous, truely. My social skills become fully multiplied when you put me under a dark sky. At night.. I can even charm myself. I'm sure you don't know what I mean by that - but really, when I type everything always has an underlying meaning to me. Whatever. Anyway. Yes! I love night life. Especially since my attire &black hair somehow makes me Ashlee Simpson. Literally, I walked to &fro &had people chanting Ashlee.. others coming up to shake my hand.. ask if I really was in fact her. I mean it is quite hilarious &of course, lets be honest, I don't mind it.. I do, however, mind that I smoked one full pack of cigarettes within the span of a night. That's disguisting. Revolting, etc. Chain smoking? Oh my. Otherwise, I spent my day very well. From 7am-1pm I was overly happy for no apparent reason; I think it's these damn yoga documentaries, coffee, &vitamin water i start my day with.. along with all my bubbly friends &just being around people. Right now it is 2:30am, I just got home &need to do 3 things: wash my face, curl up in a ball in bed, &make corrections to my novel that goes off tomorrow. Basically, if I win this i fly away for a week &work with perfessional authors to guide me, finish my novel, &have it published. My mouth waters over the mere idea - &i should have worked more on this novel. Revised it, perfected it into beauty, developed more &written more.. but i haven't done such a thing but i still have confidence &hope on my side that i will go far. other than that, i will wait for my phone to ring from the digits i am actually waiting for..

when i replace meal with martini

2005-03-10T01:45:00.000-08:00

i have only but one question;

how did i not throw up on those wet blades of grass?

bury my face in the greens of the herbivorous.

race through the flash of red before the green allowed me to do so.

i stuck close to the road - became sexual with the bend of each maneuver

"let the wind breathe itself into my pours," i mouthed as i let the window fall.

rain on my windshield - someone crying from the heavens, you mutt.

why not laugh? why not expel such feelings and let grieve surpass you?

slovenly after the dine of two shaken drinks,

left me retreating to bathrooms - in mind bedrooms.

but no, i have conscious in me. i am unkept,

unattractive at best. incapable of controlling gestures

and evocative only by taste of mouth, by the air of my breath.

he smells apple and thinks of Eve by impulse.

"did not the story of Eve involve a snake," he questions with slide

oh but please, button your jean for my mistress would be mad

and my love even more heated. "we must be good," and i button his shirt and go.

thinking of how you must loathe me with hope.

hope that you do in fact loathe me - and

hope that you will have reason not to.

well i thought of you this night. you were not the only one,

but you passed my mind atleast once, twice, three.

my fingers dialed you, my mind told me to over glass and tab.

weighing my options: make you remove hand from below

and consider tomorrow i will come in favor to you or

let you sleep to death as tears boil your oiled skin?

i chose with your account in mind. it did me no good,

but really i felt no differently and drank till i righteously

stored my dial into his calling.

atleast he looked my way as i puffed death into his face.

-Chelsea Leigh

(a drunken poem fulfills me best)

i met this man today, he died in 1988.

2005-03-09T15:50:00.000-08:00

Basquiat Exhibition in Brooklyn March 11-June 5

"What identifies Jean-Michel Basquiat as a major artist is courage and full powers of self-transformation. That courage, meaning not being afraid to fail, transforms paralyzingly self-conscious 'predicaments of culture' into confident 'ecstasies of cultures recombined."

a motivation to do.

2005-03-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

today i pulled out my water colors &glue &started in on my art journal(?) - i dont really know what to call it. i wrote without intent &im sure it all sounded better in my head. it's always hard for me to begin something. nothing is ever perfect enough. the water colors didn't resemble a sky enough, the words weren't styled in good enough font, there was a mark on the page. the criticisms continue &i force myself through them. i came to the conclusion that this is a good thing though. always wanting to be better, more perfect. i expect perfection when i'm giving something my all.

i suppose he has had some effect on me. one wouldn't think it could be long enough to have already left a mark, but with some people it doesn't take much. with some i don't need convincing to find something admireable. &with him i have. i am effected in the sense that i want that much more out of myself. ive always wanted this but now, pathetically perhaps, i have motivation to be, to do. &i curse myself, just as i always do, that in such sort time i have seen enough to like.. but with me i am still so hidden, so secured, so mysterious perhaps. i want what i have to offer to be obvious; i want to be able to flaunt it, have it known &yet i know i can teach another person so much but at the same time i know that not everyone is going to be willing to wait around for me to come out &prove that...

so i went along the aisles of bookshelves; trying to indulge myself in someone i hadn't heard of. this is hard for me at times. i was always a really smart child. i was so eager to learn. i'd finish all of my workbooks ahead of time, go to teacher stores &buy all the lessons to practice, i'd read every biography &historical event. then i was repremanded by teachers - they didn't want me getting ahead.. &i guess that's where i first started to slow down. then middle schools weren't accepting me - i was bad at testing &my IQ was low, or so that had been a secret kept from me. i was convinced that i was dumb &so i brushed off anything that had to do with intelligence. i decided to focus in on creativity, focus on writing, on expressing myself &all i was going through. now i realize how much i disregarded because of my insecurity. &at 17 i am hungry for more knowledge, to find out about those you set the platform for who we are today. i want more to say, more to discuss, more to relate back to. i ended up buying poetry by publius ovidius naso &nikki giovanni.

each day i want to be able to say i did something, something other than work out or school or sleep or party. i want to read, write, do photography, send a letter.. just something that i can be proud of. something that shows me i'm making something of myself &im no longer waiting around.

in rhyme we have reason.

2005-03-08T16:16:00.000-08:00

most of the time i feel as though the only way anyone can understand or know me is through my written words. it is my only honest voice. i cringe when i speak; atonished by my chosen words or the lack thereof. i find myself to be terrible with verbal communication, yet in type i can reason, i can come to conclusions, i can have opinions, i can persuade, i can just be me. i suppose this is the result of some underlying barrier i have forced upon myself; ultimately due to some bitter experience. last night i said that conversation was fake. that it is piled down with barriers &that i hardly believe in it. &for the time being i will keep to that, i will continue to write as if my only audience is my own eyes rereading each line, &i will continue to put myself in situations/experiences that force me to feel, understand, &create a perspective. because for the time being turning experience into written words is my only way of communicating, correctly. this journal will be everything. another way in which i expose myself, for myself &whomever. another attempt at tearing down some barrier &at understanding myself better, so i can be..that much more.