Posted on by elizadalton

Poetry: A Song to My Lover

I wrote this in 2015 inspired by a situation I was going through.

me around the time I wrote this poem

A Song to My Lover

Songs are written about people like us
Good songs and bad songs,
r&b songs, pop songs,
and of course country songs
Songs that try to capture
the complexity of infidelity
Most of them try to capture the guilt
and the grief
Some of them capture the romantic notion
Of secret meetings, stolen kisses
And the excitement
But there doesn’t seem to be
A particular song for us…
Could a song really capture something
so profound and beautiful ?
Something tainted by the reality
of our situation
Being with my husband is a commitment
I made
It’s an everyday task, not for the faint of heart
Being with you is easy
It’s refreshing not having to try so hard to make
sweet reality work
It’s amazing that you know what to do
to make me feel wanted
And my poor husband still hasn’t got a clue
It’s refreshing that when you are with me,
You see a person, a lover
and not just a wife and mother
These are things neve appear in songs
because our truth is an alternate universe
of the complexities of finding contentment
from someone else at the wrong time

Posted on by elizadalton · 1 Comment

Poetry: A Liberal Kind of Love

I wrote this in September of 2001, I guess I was frustrated with dating because it sucked getting stuck in relationships I had no business being in. Half the time, I did it to not be lonely but then I found myself miserable.

the magic is in you

A Liberal Kind of Love 

Holding hands and kisses
on the cheeks is
what we are no longer about

Hot and sweaty bodies
fucking with a goodbye
note in the morning
is now our nature

Respect, honesty, and trust
are long forgotten words

Deception, disillusionments and selfishness
are now our sacred words

Posted on by elizadalton

Story: The Ocean

List of pros I made when Mr.Toxic ghosted me in late 2019

I wrote this in the summer of 2019 when Mr.Toxic had once again ghosted me. I think so much of me was obsessed with him because of the chaos he brought into my life. Also, even though I hate to admit it, he brought so much inspiration to my life that I ended up writing over 50 pages of poetry/ mini stories about him. He was my muse for a while and I think I became addicted to him.

There once was a girl and she fell in love with the ocean. The ocean engulfed her with its salt smell, and the warmth of the water on late nights. The girl swam and swam, deeper and deeper into the ocean-loving it more each day. One day the ocean got tired of the girl and decided to make the biggest wave to throw her back to the land. When the girl woke on land, she was disoriented, confused, lost and hurt. She wondered if her late night swims had been a beautiful and hopeless dream. So a few weeks went by and the girl returned to her normal reality of her every day . She went through her normal routine even though her heart hurt-she slowly recovered from the crash of the ocean and just as she was almost to her normal self. The ocean decided to call her back again. At first, she couldn’t believe it-she thought her ears were deceiving her-but it was clear that the ocean wanted her to swim in it again-for whatever reason. The girl felt special and lucky and even though she was hesitant -she swam again in the ocean. This time -it was deeper and more intense. She felt at one with the ocean. She felt honored to learn all of its secrets and was completely enthralled by it. She was finally beginning to feel safe and so vulnerable she started to float and let the ocean carry her. All of a sudden the ocean got tired and threw her again-this time the crash was way more devastating . It felt like she couldn’t breathe at times. She knew that she should deal better since this had happened once before but this time she cried more than ever. She felt worthless and used in every sense of the word. She wondered what sin she had committed that the universe had handed her such unimaginable and tremendous pain. It was hard this time to get back to normalcy. It was hard for her to go about her day and not burst into tears because her poor heart would spasm when something brought back the memory of the ocean. And then the process repeated itself a few more times. It was more exhausting and devastating each time. It’s like she couldn’t learn and see how damaging the ocean was to her soul. Finally there was a time where it was so brutal the girl finally learned to tune out the ocean’s song and she never swam again. 

Posted on by elizadalton

Letting Go and Moving Forward-Drunk Edition 2020

It’s really hard to be vulnerable in this space but somehow I feel safe. Maybe it’s the lack of carbs along with almost a bottle of champagne and the almost anonymity. For the first time in a long time, I’m doing pretty good in life. I’m making this busy life of working almost 80 hours a week work for me with 3 kids, a great potential partner, a soon to be ex who’s my best friend/roommate, and the best friends any gal can find. I’m not failing at both of my jobs. In fact, I’m killing it and even had some “unusual” success at my second job. The guy that’s been my in my life for almost the past 4 months, has slowly moved from friendzone to something more last month and well he’s being very patient with my skittish behavior and my busy schedule. The second date and the last time we saw each other, he looked at me like I was magic and to be honest, it scared the shit out of me. So much of me wants to run away because I’ve never encountered someone that just wanted to really know me. Usually dudes, just put up this pretense of wanting to know the “real me” because they really want to be laid by someone “exotic” like me. Even, my soon to be ex husband pulled this trick. Haha. Do I blame them? Nah, It’s human nature to want to get laid, especially for guys. But, “A”, new dude, he’s different. He checks all of my potential great partner boxes and yet, I want to run. Maybe I’m scared of happiness finding me because I know how fleeting it can be.

Which leads me as to why I’m writing this post at midnight while kind of drunk as I listen to the saddest and cheesiest pop songs ( Hello Selena Gomez, Camila Cabello, Adriana Grande and my favorite, Ariana Grande…etc-you get the point-haha). I finally said goodbye tonight to the fuckboi that has been haunting my life for almost 2 years on my own terms. To explain our story, well, you can look back on other posts and angst ridden/love poetry. Two words to describe our long term situationship, intense and toxic. It’s a cliché but I never knew I could feel such intense hate and love for someone until I met him. I was F.Scott and he was my Zelda, my muse, my long term obsession. The last time we had a falling out, he ghosted me for 3 months and you guessed it, he came back the day after I had my second date with “A”. It’s like he senses when I’m happy or almost happy and comes back to cause chaos in my life. And my masochist tendencies went to see him even though I know our story always ends up in devastation for me. And even though, I was angry with him and I hate him, somehow I still wound up in bed with him. I knew that night like I knew the first night I was with him, I love him and part of that is that when I’m with him, he makes me feel like I belong to him. I’ve never felt that with anyone. It’s intoxicating and addictive and hard to give up, obviously.
However, the sex, the chemistry, the love I feel for him will never be enough for us to make things work, for him to change into the partner I deserve. I’ve known this for a while but hung on to hope looking for signs that maybe he would change if I “stayed” long enough tolerating his narcissistic bullshit and the awful way he treated me. It’s amazing how love can make one so foolish and dumb. I recognize and am aware in my own part in this toxic mess we both ended up making for 2 years. And even though I recognize the toxicity of whatever I have/had with him, it’s still hard to let go. It’s hard to let go of the fact that maybe I won’t feel this with anyone else. But then I tell myself, I don’t want to feel like this with anyone else. It’s crazy, toxic, and makes me lose all of my common sense. So tonight after I texted him “Goodbye” for the last time, I allowed myself to drink, have a mini breakdown, and isolate myself from my friends. I’m not even grieving him or the potential of the great love story we could have been, I gave up on that idea a long time ago.

Tonight, I’m allowing myself to just really move forward from him and start a new chapter where he no longer takes up space in my universe. Tonight, I allow myself to feel that I do indeed deserve all of the success professionally I encounter. Tonight, I allow myself to acknowledge that I do deserve someone like “A’ who values me more than just a girl he can fuck. And even if things end with him, I can hold on to the hope that there is someone out there for me that really sees me and believes I am indeed magic. I’m never again settling for kinda half ass effort just because the connection/chemistry is off the charts.

Posted on by elizadalton

Eliza Conquers Toxic Situationships

It’s been 2 weeks since the toxic dude “C” that I’ve been having an on and off situationship with has ghosted me. We’ve been playing this game since we met in July of last year. The chemistry and connection between us has been the insane from the beginning and maybe that’s why I have always let him come back. Or maybe I let him come back because I do genuinely care for him and love him and a part of me wants to believe that he’ll change and things will be different this time. I hate that every time I let him in, I let myself be vulnerable and let my guard down. And then he does something to disappoint me each and every time.I think I lost count of the times I’ve cried over his idiot ass. I think this time I’m finally convinced that he’s never going to change and I’ve got to let him go. He doesn’t have the emotional maturity to face whatever conflict we’re having and he never will have the emotional maturity to do so. It’s strange because he’ll be the one to mention marriage or having kids with me and get crazy jealous about other dudes. I think this time he ran away because I called him out on his offensive behavior while we were out in public and he got his feelings hurt. Or maybe he simply got tired of me.

And of course, he was my muse for my writing for a while. Today, I am tired of writing about him. Today, I am relieved that I’m not waiting for him to text me. Today, I am thankful that I don’t have to deal with his alcoholic and depressive ass trying to make me see things from his republican/libertarian perspective or trying to pull me down in his depression with him. Today, I am lucky I’m not measuring my worth by how he treats me. I’m obviously still angry and upset about this but I’m slowly entering the acceptance phase that he will no longer be a part of my anl life. I think the fog has lifted and I understand that I deserve way better than him. He was part of my wild phase from 2018. It was this phase where I got I was hooking up with dudes for fun (me and my husband had opened up our marriage at the beginning of 2018). A few of them I had genuine feelings for but I ended up being a fun phase for them. I realized that while that phase was fun, I need something deeper than a shallow “no strings attached” connection. I thought that maybe me and “C’ had that for a while but I was wrong. I was another “fun” phase to another dude and he got tired when it was no longer fun and made me feel disposable. Oh well. Honestly, I don’t blame guys for being that way. I know my part in putting that energy out there and tolerating waaaay too much. And damn, I tolerated too much with “C”. It probably should have ended for sure when he friendzone the first time in late July or that time he threw me out of his apartment in January or that time in August when I was sitting in the emergency room with my kid and he accused me of sleeping with other men. Typing all this, I think damn, I should have let him go a looong time ago.

20191005_015451

Anyways, today, I say to “C”, thanks for inspiring me for the many poems I wrote, thanks for not believing in me when I needed you too, and also for the excitement and your dumb antics that me and my friends laughed about for hours. I’m not just turning the page, I’m burning our book.
In the words of Ariana Grande, “thank u, next” .