Fireworks.

Fireworks: that's what they say love feels like.
Explosions that breathe life into our hearts and make us believe in love.
They make it sound so amazing.
All of those songs and poems forget something though.
They never remind our excited spirits that we might get set on fire once we get too close.
I guess we all kind of know, I mean that's why "love is scary" right?
Maybe we like getting burned now and again, maybe it makes us feel alive.
Maybe we are just longing to feel something..anything..that even burning is worth it.
And we never realize that love letters aren't alway true love's letters.
We don't understand all those quotes.
The ones that tell us we won't find ourselves in others, that someone won't complete us until we complete ourselves.
We keep searching, yearning like we're missing something.
And I guess those poets were right to leave out their scars, that's why they were writing after all, to try to fix their broken pieces.
They wanted to make a new reality, the perfect love they almost had.
That, or they leave the blood on the table, sign their signature with it hoping that somehow it might help them move on from the throbbing.
Either way we were right from the start, and hell yeah, love is scary.
But life is all about the risk, the unpredictability, the unknown, so no wonder we're drawn to it.
Because it might kill you, burn you, break you, shake you, turn you inside out and torment you.
It might be all sweaty palms and shaking voices, but you might luck out.
Maybe, just maybe, by the grace of God it might turn into colorful dragonflies and fluffy, white clouds, sunny days and warm rain showers.
"Good mornings" whispered into your ears and the kind of tedious fights that make you crave passion and love more, it might become intertwined fingers and intertwined hearts.
You might luck out.
So tell me, is it worth the shooting stars that we make blow up in the sky, in all of their unpredictable colors on the 4th of July?
Fireworks.

Photo cred: Google images

G.

Hazy Promises

I’ve been on the warm side of cold shoulders and on the bloody side of love.

I saw the broken hearts of others, the fake smiles on their faces and tried so desperately to fix them...I guess I never quite got it.

The way you feel shredded inside and the sun seems either oddly dim or annoyingly bright. 

Naive. Yeah, I guess that’s what you’d call it.

And I hate writing about love.

It's too much in my head and the more I try to sort it out the more confusing it becomes. 

You know the way it is untying knots... how it looks more simple from the outside but there are thousands of strings being pulled each way.

I think that's what my emotions must look like. 

So I'll focus on the horses and the way things seem to work out so surprisingly perfect; the way opportunity is falling into my hands. 

I love the way their dark eyes look at me so differently than any others and I'm not afraid.

Hints of pain haunt my writing and I want you to know there are reasons.

One you day you'll touch your skin and it'll be cold but it's going to warm up, I promise.

You'll look in the mirror and see those tears falling like little clear pebbles but they'll dry up, I promise. 

Pain is temporary, that's what they all say anyway. 

I won't lie to you. Sometimes your heart is going to look ugly, like a tornado came and overturned your secrets. 

You're okay though.

Flaws become your perfections in someone else's eyes. 

Take a deep breathe and look at the sky.

You are the sky.

Some days you'll be dark and stormy and mad at the world, screaming and stomping and tormenting with winds and rains. 

Oh but darling, those days make the prettiest sunsets.

XoXo, Gussie

XOXO

I'm fresh out of things to say that might have any hint of meaning to you.

So today I'll just let the profound words of others resonate in your minds.

Xoxo Gussie

Addictions

It all started when I learned to move my fingers because then I could begin my addiction to lacing them in horse mane. I got hooked on my addictions young, they must've always been pulsing beneath my skin. Like the water we drink and all of our body's yearnings. I fell in love with the feel of dewy grass between my fingers in the morning. I crave horse hair and horse sweat, their hearts beating beneath me. Aspens whispering from the mountain side telling me their sorrows and triumphs. I was plagued with that fall in love young, hard and fast tendency and it eats at me whenever my eyes are open. And sometimes in my dreams. I've been looking at plane tickets and figuring out how can I possibly pack my clothes in this amount of space...dear heavens I can't forget my moccs. I'm hungry for what's to come and all of the new, oily hides that I'll get to run my hands down. My lungs are aching for that fresh air and my eyes for those new mountainsides. Here it comes now.

Photo Cred: Google Images

Gussie

Butterflies and Smiles

Writing is my outlet, my open vein of emotion so the toxic blood can bleed out. So it's no wonder when I write it looks like inky sadness, fear or stress. 

But. 

I forget to write about the butterflies and smiles because they are still dancing in my eyes and stomach and wait everybody it's 11:11 hurry and make a wish.

The words tiptoed in my mind and then they slunk away before I could write them and besides my sidetracked mind was too busy watching our horses work.

My eyes were being drawn and pulled from distraction to distraction, left with too little time to focus on fluttering phrases.

I want you to know that we were always smiling and the pain was only temporary. 

The blood clotted and dried, the fury faded.

Our red and frustrated faces mellowed to a blushy pink and we were giggling with our arms wrapped around each other like long lost siblings. 

We were throwing bucketfuls of water on each other soaking the leather on our feet and tossing cuss words as terms of endearment. 

Raiding wardrobes like they were our own and coaching from the sidelines 'rodeo mom' style. 

We drug each other and our clutzy selves around with breathy smiles on our lips and our parents were hands in the air giving up.

And dammit we were happy. 

We might have had a bad day, one with gory truths and failure and it hurt. 

But we were okay and without the failure there is no success.

With out the pain there is no comfort.

It's only to rid the pain that I write about it and I'll try to remember to show you the butterflies and smiles.

XoXo

Gussie 

An explanation.

It seems that I am very good at expressing myself without actually saying what I'm talking about. If I've confused you, I'm sorry. Frankly, at times I confuse myself and that is precisely why these jumbled thoughts end up on paper.

I'm going to try to clear some things up.
I almost always write about a horse and a person. Sometimes it's about some horse I only threw a leg over once and other times it's about my little pally horse that I could never stand to part with.

As for the people, sometimes it's my sissy, my best friend or someone who hurt me. Other times it's someone I'm trying to forgive or cowboys, usually the ones that have pried their way into my heart. And sometimes it's not any of these, just someone from a dream.

Every now and then my ramblings are about ten stories compiled into one or sometimes just a vivid memory.
I hope I keep it balanced; with a taste of sweet, a taste of sour, some good and some bad.
Whatever it is that ends up crying out from this page, I hope it means something to you and/or that you can relate. I hope you grin when you read it. I hope you laugh and show your friends. Or maybe, I hope it pricks at your heart and makes you remember something painfully wonderful.

I by no means have any profound advice or ramblings, hell I'm only 18 and I've not seen near what I'm going to. I haven't rode hundreds of horses yet or met so many people. I'm kind of just plundering my way through things.

I don't know how much good this blurb did, but it was worth my muscle cramped hand I believe.

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34

XoXo Gussie

Just what I needed.

My metaphorical walls have blood stains and dirt built up for nearly 2 years now. All ugly and unconditioned, in pretty bad shape. The worst part is the mindset I have taken on. I'm working on the change; the reform. And dammit I was aching for something. I knew I was but I couldn't pinpoint what on God's green earth it was that I was craving.
I found it though.
I found it in an old house and an old barn.
It was in the corrals that stood declaring their grit and strife to stay up right.
New horses breathed it into my nostrils and sent a fresh kind of shivers down my back.
My heart is freeing up finally and I can feel all of my gashes pulling together and healing.
I didn't expect what I needed to be hiding here.
I didn't know that I needed sissy to whisper into my room in the morning or that I needed to talk to my brother-in-law about calves.
I had no idea that's what I wanted.
My body was telling me something and I surely wasn't listening close enough.
Maybe I needed colder, drier air to hit my lungs.
Maybe I needed more dust, mornings in the cake truck or late nights.
I'm not sure what it was that I needed but I got it.
What snapped in my mind is a wonder but I guess it doesn't matter.
This is the best I've felt in far too long but God I am thankful. 

- Gussie