Rest In Penitence.

You are a foul and selfish creature... 

Though I know that you only meant to bring me comfort when there was none to be found.

 I know it was you alone who was there for me when no one else was. 

My entire life, you were there, whispering what you thought I needed to hear. 

You used to even use my voice and impersonate me.  

 I had to kill you so I could fully live.

What do they say about the road to hell? 

Well, you have paved it and you can rest there now.

I choose to let you stay on the downtown F - Train at the Coney Island stop. 

 With drink in hand when I walked off, I left you mine as well- consider it a parting gift. 

Half asleep, the nightmare is there regardless of sleep. 

That was our way, that was our life. 

A perpetual nightmare we could not wake from, did we try? 

How far we fell! 

The night I severed our tie,

the best friend that referred to us as his "Wife" had

left us alone.
 Again.
 A frigid January night. 
He was aware that we didn't have a sleeping bag. 
He also knew our health was poor,
 well, he left us alone in the hospital, 
why wouldn't he leave us alone to freeze? 
Do not condemn him, he suffers the duality as well.

We allowed him to think that his love didn't matter to us. 
We lied.

 while you continued to seek our oblivion, I knew this was heading nowhere that I belonged any longer nor anywhere I that wanted to be.

just boiled down to more suffering than solace.

 He was indoors with another girl on this night.
we knew it. 
Taking from her, using her, for whatever he could, calling her baby, whatever the fuck he had to. 
He sought to fulfill his needs. 
But, had we not done the same to him a year or so before that even began? 
Remember Todd? Yes, you do, I remember. 
You call out his sin, when you are guilty of missing the exact same marks! 

So, I let you stay on that train.

The uniformed outreach team, whose blatant tangerine colored vests matched the decrepit benches, got on board our train car. They asked the older black man, two rows down, if he wanted to go indoors tonight. 
He was sprawled out taking up the entire bench. 
Homebum Wingnut status.
I watched through my hood and the dingy tendrils of hair that had fallen in front of my eyes as he groaned at them and lifted his coat over his face. 
They were about to leave the car I was on. 
That is when I looked to you. 
This was what I was hoping for, my shot in the dark. Darker then dark.

The couple with the orange vests labeled B.R.C didn't even take notice of me, I must not have looked the part that particular night.
I called out to them, only necessary words:
 I was homeless.  where they would take me if I were to go with them, (always prone to suspicion) asked if I had an I.D, No I did not. I asked if they were going to call the cops.
 No, they weren't, only asking because they were going to have to drive me in their van to a drop in, deep in the Bronx. what it would be like there? I could take a shower, have breakfast in the morning, I could sleep in the warm indoors.
 I didn't think on it long enough to allow you to talk me out of it. I left you on the train. I was sold on this half ass notion of perhaps altering my future, by taking a mere joy ride from Coney Island to Hunts Point. 


You didn't like that much did ya?

I didn't know that I had killed you until months later.

When I was still sheltered and far away from Maverick.
(Who; refused to show any interest in changing for the better, no interest in acknowledging an exit, forget about taking it.)
 When I still had not consumed a drop of alcohol since that night on the train with you. 
When I drank, slept and lived with you, as one.
 in our caress of mutual despair. 

I eventually realized you were dead, that I had abandoned you, that you are an insidious evil bitch and a repugnant leech.

That doesn't mean I don't miss you baby girl! 
Especially in the dark. 
That doesn't even mean that I don't love you.
You were once a part of me, almost my entirety.

This does mean, however, that I do not need you anymore.
Your ghost is not welcome here.
no more whispers in the night.
Rest in penitence and stay the fuck away from me will ya?

 Mary, Mary, quite contrary huh? 

Ha! indeed.

Mary Catherine Cowardice Queen

Contemplation with Cleanliness- S. of C.

-Originally hand scribbled in June 2015-

Warmth cascades over my body.
 The water dissipates but is sufficing. 

 I stare at the pastel blue tiles in front of me trying to find patterns. 

It's has been a habit of mine since I was a child.

 In the shower with only the dingy plastic curtain hiding my nakedness from the shared space. 

This is the extent of my privacy these days. 
It’s only a slight step up from that drop in center at Hunt's Point. 

Where I first went into hiding and began to write and read again. 

To be myself again. 

To get away from him. 

This new place is nothing posh but it would give you zip code envy. 

Don't worry N.Y.C and it's continued Disneyworld plans are working their abra cadabra. 

They have already pushed this place out, 

Even though it has been helping women in need since before the 1980's. 

The building is already sold, within a year it will be another shopping hot spot of NoHo beneath outrageous luxury condo's.

I am here now, this place that I sleep, where I read, where I am safe.

 A million spiritual and emotional miles from Maverick other poisons. 

Even though he may well be on that very same sidewalk only a block north. 
The Greatest of Great Jones, where we once slept together. 

We once held each other beneath our shroud, bodies locked and familiar. 

We created our own universe beneath those filthy zero degree bags. 

They might as well have been Tuscany’s finest linens.

 We might have been any normal couple, if only. 

There was nothing normal about any of it Mary Catherine...

The day’s of “if only” are over. 

I am weary with of thought and I am nearly finished in the shower. 

I begin to rinse the Tresemme conditioner from my hair when I hear them.

 The mad ones are here. 

Those amiable voices with piercing laughter. 

They infiltrate the sliver of peace and solitude I had managed to find.

My thoughts once again wander in an irrational direction. 

Are they mocking me because I never speak to any of them? 

Then that would mean they don't like me. 

Big Fucking Surprise. 

Who the fuck cares? I do, somewhat. 

After all is it not basic human instinct?

 One who is deemed unworthy of the space they occupy is purged. 

This is some kind of primal instinct. 

I believe that everyone concerns themselves with this sort of thing at one point or another.

Some more then others, still, only to an extent.

They are a goddamn lie if they say otherwise.

Never trust one who makes such a proclamation. 

That's what I say.

Besides it anyone doesn't like me, then they most likely fear me, out of misunderstanding I assume... As Machiavelli said! 

Something like...

"If you can not be both feared and loved it is better to be feared then to be loved." 

I agree, but I suppose that your motives for wanting to be feared must be considered.

(I can still hear these women squawking inane attempts at conversation.

 On the other side of the plastic, at the sink, in front of the mirrors. 

I try my best to not pay attention despite the unnecessary volume they speak in.) 

"The Prince".

 I know, contentedly, that not everyone is fit, nor is expected, to rule. 

This, at least is indisputable.

I turn off the water, open the curtain to grab my towel and the thought provoker's have vacated. 

However paltry our sovereign may seem, we are only the size of our mind anyway.

Mary Catherine, Cowardice Queen

Eyes Cast Downward- Memoir Excerpt

Originally hand written in July 2015

Late Spring of 2014.
 Just Months before liver failure

Our eyes are nearly always cast downward. 

The crumpled cigarettes smoked done to the filter, the carelessly tossed beer cans, the stains on the sidewalk... 
Could that be piss? Yes. Yes it is. It's close enough to that fucking alcove. 
Damn it, my body is weak. 
I drag my useless form with the strap of my backpack clenched in one hand and my drink in the other. 
I kick my coat over and sit on it in a fairly futile attempt to ease the harsh discomfort of the sidewalk, another attempt to rest.

I hear the click, clank thud of high heels strutting towards me and I do not dare look up. 
I know what I'll see. I know how I appear, and more importantly, I know how I feel. 
Besides, I want for nothing at this moment save some privacy.
 Privacy is one luxury I can not afford nor have I figured out how to obtain. 
I have no need to beg or lie, not right now... Thank the gods.

I dig into my bag and my hands roam about until I feel the familiar rectangular thin paperback. 
I Pull out my copy of "Existentialism is a Humanism"
 I had stolen from Barnes and Noble a few days back so I could read it again. 
I was curious if in the years that have come to pass, that I might see or understand something that had eluded me the last time I read it.
Years before I came to be in this degradation. 
 I began to read, curled up, making myself as invisible as the great many 'they' desire us to be. 
With one poison within reach and waiting for the other to return to me. 
Waiting for the peace I knew would not come. 
The Line that haunted me was "Man is condemned to be free..."
I already knew this, I had for a very long time and I still believed it.
Despite my impoverishment and seeming uselessness. 
No. It's all mixed up.
 I do not loath the 'click, clank, thud' of the millions of people that walk past me and my kind. 
Each and everyday, making their assumptions and passing out Judgement.

I loath no one but myself alone. So much more now, more than ever. 
Why now? 
After reading those words and seeing my dirty hands clench the pages. 
I chose not to throw my poison upon the littered concrete to join the other's drained of their essence. The bottles drained of their essence. Just as empty as those who chose to drain them. 
This is cowardice. This I loath. 
No.
I did not allow myself to be rid of my condemnation. 
I chose not to grasp what little freedom I had left. 
I did nothing to pull myself out of my blight. 
In all my self loathing cowardice, I put my dry lips around the mouth of the bottle.
I tilted it back and swallowed until I had to stop to breathe. 
I placed that putrid liquid noose back down. 
I looked again at my beloved Sartre, once my refuge and anthem. 
Now my torture, yet still my truth.
My only life support.
 I held the tears that had nearly excreted from my eyes. 
Not because of shame or it's like.
 I kept them in because I knew I could at least exert control over that.
As seemingly insignificant it may seem. 
Besides, I could not read with tears obstructing my vision.

Mary Catherine Cowardice Queen

Rebellion in Rapture -Memoir Excerpt

Never again, but there was a time when I felt it was all out of my control.  
Then I felt it was all at my command and fate was a story that mankind told himself to justify cowardice and inaction. 
Then everything crumbled into disarray and I was utterly lost in a world I thought I knew.

Before all that, there was a night club on Atlantic Ave in Delray Beach I went to Thursday nights. 
The bouncer would always let me in... Under twenty one? Come on in, I didn't see a thing. 
After my smile and greeting with a touch on the bicep for good measure. 
We would dance for hours, Arcade Fire, M.I.A, Yeah Yeah Yeah's, The Velvet Underground, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah,  The Fiery Furnaces. 
And clap I did, with my fiery hands and stomp about with velvet smooth feet. Shout and shout "Yeah!"  above the booming bass and screaming riffs that enraptured and deafened me. 
Swaying and gyrating and I loved every second of it. 
Armed with nothing other then the collective power of good Grrrl friends, a couple of cans of Redbull and a bottle of Voss water on standby. 
Such fun we had! I knew that Megan was insecure and I did my best to distract her and encourage her to just dance, I willed her to be as lost as I was. 
Mostly, I was lost in my private rebellion, lost within the music and blossoming feminine power. 
For I was finally single for the first time at the ripe and dauntless age of nineteen. 
A husband and two children that had already happened. 
Nothing could stop me then. The world was at my feet. 
Holy shit, was I wrong. 
Youth, it seems, the early twenties of one's life is an approximately five year bout in delusion and idealism.

I felt Niccolo's presence when he would arrive. I felt his eyes linger across my young, flowing limbs. I loved when he watched me, even though I never let him know that I knew he was watching me, we never flirted in public. That would not have been good for his business, Badbone Records was still relatively new. Aside from that, he had his marriage. 
I do not think people should marry until they are around thirty, they have no idea who they are or what they want. Until then all their decisions are trial and error and loads of experimentation with a whole lot more error. I am fairly certain of this. The same could be said of any decision that means permeance  Such as a career choice or a home. Yet, the way society has everything set up, they try to trap us from before kindergarten even begins. 

It is my choice, my job, as an adult nearly thirty, to unlearn everything that was force fed and remember everything that felt like truth. It is my Job to live as I intend to live. 
With laughter, comrades of like minds, creative expression, poetry, philosophy and love, what that is beginning to look like without delusion. 
The truth as I see it, as I recall it, above all else, truth is my job.

Mary Catherine, Cowardice Queen

Cupidity- Prose from Journal Excerpts

-The first half was written in the beginning of September.-

 Lust and all feelings have returned with a vengence...

I think about you more than I ought to. So much more then I mean to. 

I Don't like it. Rati please leave me alone if I can not be satisfied. Please. I never meant to summon you. I have never touched you before. Your hands have brushed mine. It felt like an electric shock. slowly strumming through my veins. You send me mixed signals green means go gogogogo! Ouch. But what if it's red? Red hot. Hot burns. I don't want to think of you... Everyone else is a disappointment. Every fucking time. I try to tell myself. That it is not you. It is what you symbolize . What the fuck does that even mean? You have established yourself and I am still on my way. That is what that must mean. I admire you. I respect you. You make me smile. I can smile without you. I can not find meaning in this, because this is different than anything I have ever felt for anyone. 
I am kidding myself. I wish it was merely carnal. 
Aphrodite, be kind to me, please do not toy with a mortal young woman. 
Where is your sister? Take my right hand Athena and please grant me wisdom. 
Be just with me and all women who suffer this folly. 
Hermes, please won't you take my left hand? 
I beg you to be swift with and more cunning than I am.
You surely are. Then it would be simple. 
I still want this "you". It is hard for me to give my body to anyone else.
 I am cold at the thought. 

Though I have no definite reason to do so. 
No certainty or guarantee of any kind. 

I am saving it for you. 

This You. 

This irrevocable thought of you. 

The reappearance of you in thought. 

You who?

A featureless desire.

I think that your kiss would be what it ought to be.

 I think your hands would know exactly where to go as if pulled by an invisible string. 

You would just inherently know how firm and how gentle and when and where and how? 

But it is never that perfect. Is it? No. Hell no. Could it be? 

I looked up the antonyms of every word describing how I feel for someone I was with last and the feelings I have for you match. The best sex of my life was with a stranger. A one night stand. 

I was only fifthteen. The second best was my Antonio. My First love. We were together almost everyday, more then once a day- now that I think about it. We were crazy for one another. 

But we had time to each others bodies. It was awkward at first. 

So yes I think It must be some kind of romanticism. 

My body doesn't know you! 

Yet... There I go again. Goddess damn it all! Take this fervor from me. 

This Imagination of mine will be my ruin or my salvation.

 I could almost feel your hands as I type this. It's stirring inside me again. 

 I. Aphrodite. Mary. Rati. You. Who?

Five months later and five crushes later, I write the following in my journal...

Today is about giving credit where credit is due. 
I have displayed changes in my character, an acceptance and a certain level of behavioral maturity that I never thought I would ever reach. 

I have been able to maintain a friendship with a male, whom I do find attractive. 
Yet, I do not act upon these thoughts or impulses. 
I do not even vocalize them to him in anyway that would be considered flirtatious. 
I value the friendship so greatly, and his monogamous relationship, that I put neither at risk. 

This may seem trivial to some, perhaps even a “Well, obviously…” but this is not natural for me. 

I have never valued friendships, not totally. 
Nor have I put much consideration into other people’s feelings in the way I do now. 
This has come not just merely from having a conscious again. 
I think I finally understanding what a friend is. Being a friend is a verb.

It also came from the experience of being the girl that was betrayed in this way. 
To say that it is a terrible blow would be an understatement.
 I would never wish that kind of betrayal on another. 
Especially if this friend loves this “other”, this would cause him pain as well. 
I do not walk around causing havoc anymore, a terrible wake in my path. 
I like that, it feels so much better this way. 

Of this, I am proud.
I acknowledge this growth and quite frankly am struck dumb at its appearance.

Mary Catherine, Cowardice Queen

Dr. Brewster

The questions they always pose are 
arranged for sentence long an answer. 
Yet when I respond accordingly they look confused.
as if my answer was somehow causing
conflicting ideas and they do. 
He spoke of "The average person..." and "Typically a..."
 I glare into his eyes and say 
"Average? There is nothing average about me, in this regard, you'll find that out soon enough.
 The quicker you do - the better. 
And typical? 

If you're going by textbooks and trying to put me into some predefined category, you will not find one." 
I do not say these things to intentionally be cross or condescending, nor even defensive. 
I want help, I was not mandated there, I sought it out, but I do have a certain amount of self-awareness that is not common among people with addictions.
 I believe he was taken aback by all of my frankness, awareness, intellect. 
Combined with the extent of my trauma and experiences and the resulting personality sitting in his office. 
All in such a brief amount of time, he didn't know what to think. I expected as much. 
 visit number two, he says, 
"What happened to the smiling and friendly girl that was in my office last week? 
I want to see her." He thinks this is a humorous request. He smiles and it spells fool on his front teeth.

I put my head in my hands and wipe away my tears. 
I breath in as deeply as I can, look at him again and say, 
"You just asked me about very emotionally charged and triggering subjects. 
Was I to feign some kind of apathy or peace
 -that I don't feel-
 regarding subjects that cause me distress? 
Please, if you can just ask the next question so I can check this off my to do list! 
I have wasted enough time!" 

My little outburst left him wondering if I was bipolar. 
God damn head shrinkers.

 I knew going into it that I would have a hard time finding someone who after getting a glimpse of my mind, would willingly take me on as a client or patient and be capable of what I know is a challenging case. 

I didn't let that stop my pursuit. 

If I am "ill" of mind then I wish to seek treatment.

But please know that I am not like any other
chess game you have played and mastered.
you need to forget your previous strategies.

Mary Catherine, Cowardice Queen

Cease to Love- Journal Entry/Memoir Excerpt

I told them with words, I showed them with action; Each and every one of them! 

Did they think I was exaggerating? I had to prove it. 
I cannot cease to love nor do I wish to. I only wish I could have had the strength to carry them all. 

To press my lips to their despairing mouths and breathe peace into their lungs.
I want to nurse them back to life; my little bit of hope into their shrieking veins. 
Cradle their lovely, mad and weary heads. 

I do not, act upon these desires, not anymore. It has been a long while now. 
Like everything else in my life thus far, I had to learn this through much error.
 It was not successful, I would have done more damage; To myself first then to them as a result. 
Then I would be another example of doom. A doom they believe they are fated to. 

I was bleeding out myself, bound against my true desire, my very nature. 

Suffocating on screams with no sound. I had to breathe life into myself first. 

That doesn’t eradicate the sorrow I feel when I think of them, or worse, when I see them. 

The apathy or sometimes anger I see in their eyes. 
I know it wouldn’t be there if they could see rightly. 
I tried to clear their vision. It did not work! My attempt was only met with suspicion and angst. 
How can you tell someone you love him or her or even show it?  
Someone who does not know what this kind of love is? You can try but it will be for naught. 
The danger in this act is very real. I have tried before. You just live; hoping they see their worth.
You must love those who are receptive to this love.

I am still stiching myself back together; My sutures are still recovering.
 I have a feeling they will always be there. 
Just dangling loosely, taunting, wanting to be split open again. 

This is why I have to keep my love tucked inside when they are near. 
They will recognize it and respond the only way they know how. 
I once had the same response to love,  it is innate unto this daemon.

They will sabotage it before it is able blossom. 
That doesn’t take the sorrow away.

I feel traitorous at times. I was told by a therapist this is called “Survivors Guilt”. 
When I described that I should be dead.

 “The Doctors just did what they were paid to do! That is the sole reason that I am still aliv.!”
 I shout at her with mascara laden tears that irritate my eyes.
 With shallow and quickening breath I cry out, 

“What gives me the right to walk away and leave them out there to die?” 
Yet I am safe, for now; From myself above all.  I will go on and sort it out. 

Shift my perspective or try until I see clearly, or something of it’s like.

 I write, I breathe then things make a bit more sense. I do what I must. 
I survive. This is a battle to the death and now I fight for my life. 
Then I worry later; Peace comes and peace goes. It is not mine to keep, it never was. 
I do what nourishes my soul. Though it still feels alien at times, I do so regardless, I must. 

Mary Catherine, Cowardice Queen

What Fills?- S. Of C.

It is 2:38 am and I feel empty. I just watched another apocalyptic film. Two hours of it all. 
It was supposed to have a comical theme. I am not laughing. 
It always reminds me how much time is wasted. 
What fills me up? 
Nothing I have experimented with fills me completely. 
I come very close at times. 

When I am too absorbed in the joy of living to think about any supposed lack or unquenchable thirst. When I am laughing. When I am in love. 

When that love is reciprocated. 
When I watch the autumn breeze carry the crisp leaves in the wind. 
When I hear the foliage break beneath my intrusive boots. 
The brittle beautiful things of nature that they are, that we are. 
When I feel that connection to the wind that carries them. 
When I breath in that breeze and my lungs fill up. 
The solid ground beneath my feet. 
I am an extension of the earth. A branch whistling, we are linked.  We live. 

I feel something like roots beneath me, yet we are not separate. 

I love the floating and gliding through the air.
We are dancing when I feel as weightless as them, only sometimes.

When I reach the intersection and the walk signal lights up as my feet come close to the traffic. 
As if on cue. 

Synchronicity. 
Ants. 

When I smile because something random amuses me. When it doesn’t matter at all that I am physically alone when I smile. Knowing someone is out there who is smiling alone as well. 

Perhaps there is even someone who smiles and laughs at the same things I do. 

Better yet, they find this joy for the same reasons. 

Possibility. Hope. I glance behind me, in order to see just how far I have come. Turning my eyes to the distance between where I am going, then to where I stand now. How much closer I am! 

It’s okay that it frightens me, as long as I don’t retract my steps. 

I can even stand still for a moment if I need to, but only for a moment. 

-Stagnation is not a state I find comfortable.  

Empty is far more promising.-

Mary Catherine, Cowardice Queen