​Paper Cuts was months in the making, where eight poets came together, shared their work, critiqued each other, applauded each other, and worked as a team of artists to become better poets. At times, it was difficult, and sometimes the paper cuts took longer to heal, but they did, and so, too, did we.

Our words, like skin, became more beautiful, textured, and interesting over time. Where layers grew, so did our integrity and character. It took some mistakes, some Band-aids, and some trial and error; but mostly, it took vulnerability. Without that, there is no growth for a poet. And as we exposed our wounds, slowly allowing ourselves to become more and more uncomfortable, we realized our deepest poetry was brimming just below our surfaces.

We are now ready to share our work with you, hoping our poetry cuts into your heart, your feelings, your emotions, and that you’ll heal, somehow, along with us. 

To read moe about our journey and our special thanks, get your copy of PAPER CUTS: We bleed but do not die.

I’m looking at a nest precariously sitting in a tall tree, and the birds look like floating leaves in the clear, blue spaces between the branches. And hear them, even with my windows shut. Spring is coming! And it demands to be noticed. It feels…different. It’s as if your whole body reacts to the change, and something shifts. That heavy winter, the one that made you drag your feet every morning in the dark cold, where coffee wasn’t hot enough, now shifts to hope, like those floating leaves, and something says, deep inside you—Clean up. Get it together. Shake that baggage.  Simplify. Become lighter!

It makes me want to strap on my Converse and walk and notice and breathe. That’s what spring is. BREATH. It’s the conscious inhaling and exhaling of breath. And that does more for our psyche than any drug or substance. It is a physical and mental warmth. It’s a meditation, if you let it be. You put your head to the sun and let it warm you, and FEEL it, not superficially. You feel less harried. Less stressed. You don’t want to rush the way you do in winter. There is no longer a need to rush from house to car to car to building to car again to get anywhere but the cold, running to get out of the pelts of snow or wind. Instead, you feel your neck removing itself from your ears. You let your arms hang in a natural rhythm by your side. You’re no longer freezing. It’s quite fascinating when you stop and really think about it. That tension of pulling coats close and tucking scarves into necks so they don’t move as you walk is gone. You don’t even mind standing in one place. You feel each muscle unfurling, the tension and aches--gone. You can…think. That blue is brighter than any color you’ve ever seen.

Have you ever tried to shut down for just 24 hours? No technology whatsoever? No phone. No internet. Just quietude? Or what about just Social Media? Staying away from Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and the myriad other places you might frequent. How did it make you feel? I want to try to go at least one day without checking into my accounts, just one day of not going onto Messenger. Just one day of not checking book sales.

As I sat down to write this, and opened my computer, the screen saver was a universe of blue and purple and teal and bright and light stars. Beautiful really. Like a Van Gogh painting of space. But the longer I sat behind my laptop, the more I saw myself blending into it. The longer I stared, the more I could see myself in its reflection, just a shadow, and the stars became blurred and universe, so pretty when I opened it, faded into the background as I became more prominent in the picture. It was the exact reverse of when I first opened my computer and stared at the screensaver image, full of color and wonder, now it was just me, faceless, a black outline. Sounds like a bad acid trip, doesn’t it? But I’m afraid, it’s who we’re all becoming, extensions of technology.

I’m becoming 
the screen, 
the glare 
all I see--
mesmerizing 
addictive 
vapid--
a black hole
of light,
swirling 
with impermanent 
nothingness. 

I fade 
Into the background 
of its rectangle. 
Everything blurs.
Everything’s lukewarm. 
Everything’s grey.

I’m bored to tears, 
the plop
of them,
hard 
and heavy,
echoing 
in my ears 
of sleep 
and wake,
my thumb,
my brain, 
the click click
tap tap
of another
digital number
turning its red face. 

And I 
am a constant 
blue.

​R.B. O'Brien Author

Have you heard people use the term “love of my life”? Have you used it? And what is it really? What constitutes using that phrase? Can it happen more than once and therefore, an overused, trite phrase? Is it really “love of my life right now”? Or worse, do you only know that because it was someone you let get away? Someone you wish you hadn’t? Or have you yet to meet the “love of your life,” and are you still waiting?

To me, this means someone you love wholly. Someone you don’t want to change, and someone who doesn’t want to change you in any way. It’s that someone who fulfills you--emotionally, sexually, intellectually. That person who makes you laugh. Who “gets” you. Who finds you beautiful even when you know you’re not. It’s acceptance. It’s that someone who makes you love yourself, even when it’s very hard to do. It’s someone who looks into you, at your scars, both figuratively and literally, and loves you anyway. And it’s symbiotic.

To me, it doesn’t mean a perfect love or a love that is superficial. It is deep, fulfilling. It is a love that challenges you on occasion. A love that is passionate. A love that transcends anything you’ve ever felt before. It’s poetry really. It’s beauty but not in a physical sense. Not at all. It’s about souls connecting in another dimension of living. It makes you feel as if you weren’t living before. And it’s never jealous.
​
Is this “love of my life” real? Fleeting? Just another romantic fantasy? For those of us who have been there, it’s the very reason for existence. 

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
E.E. Cummings

-I love to write blogs, and I still love to read them! It brings life into focus for me. I still peruse the internet looking for blogs that interest me on numerous topics. I enjoy it. 

I started writing my own blogs, because I needed a voice to record my thoughts as they were happening to me. Events of the day. Things people would say to me that made me want to scream or rejoice. Feelings. Relationships. Emotions. Basically in a word: Therapy. Or in another: Health.

I found that writing down my feelings and thoughts, much like a journal, help me process. Lets me move on. Forces me to think, deal with my cauldron of demons, and exhale or heal or make sense of a world I sometimes can't. And maybe it helps someone else.

I never thought to publish them here, like I have been regularly. Who cares? Who would read them? Most of the time, they're stream of conscious type rambles that I think will be about one thing and morph into another. It was friend of mine who said: "Publish these. And not just on your website." I'm still debating that. Probably not.

​But as I learned of a new feature here on my website, Categories, I started to update my posts into topics for people to find easier, and I realized, I've written about a lot of topics (see right-hand column), some more meaningful than others. 

...to goals, religion, and sexuality...

~Robert Frost

We talk of New Year resolutions this time of year, something we use for fresh starts, new outlooks, and perhaps ways to organize our lives, reflect on what is working and what isn’t. No life is perfect, and sometimes it can feel as if it’s spinning out of control. The start of a new year gives us hope. Hope to right the rails, hope to plod through the storm, hope that we will take our lives back. I’m fortunate that I get a long vacation this time of year after the madness peaks and explodes. I am never a rash person. And I never make decisions under duress. Ever. When things settle, so do I, and I think. And this year will be a particularly pensive one, especially when it comes to writing.

This year I will rethink my journey. I’ve traveled near and far all at the same time. I’ve written my dark fantasies far removed from my world and I’ve written my autobiographical truths into them. I’ve written sweet romance in distant tales and turbulent ones that mirrored my own past. I’ve taken leaps I never thought I would into new writing territory, some long, some short, and I’ve stayed in the same place with dear friends and goals, honing my skills to be better. And I’ve bled my soul into verse, reaching new depths, publishing a collection, and continually doing so every day, challenging myself to grow, steady on the course.

​We live in an age that contradicts itself. Do you notice that? Recycle but not plastic bags. Open your mind but not when it disagrees with my politics. Don't pirate my work but, here, it's all free. And buy books, but save trees. It's a polarizing time to live, and it's also a confusing time. And what is happening to the poet in all of this? Is there any such thing anymore? Has the internet killed the poet? Does anyone BUY poetry? Or are they just cruising the internet, reading what snippets come their way?

This discussion has been on my mind lately. and I asked if people still bought poetry books. Do you? Or are poetry books a bit of a thing of the past, that the internet is littered with poetry if you want it, so why buy a damn thing?

I buy books. Oh do I buy books. Not like the ones I write much, but nonetheless, I'm constantly reading before I fall asleep at night. Many of my newer books are on my kindle now, yes, because of the environment, but also for its convenience. I used to be against the kindle, until, of course, I actually owned one and could take and read as many books as I wanted at once. But poetry books are the one thing, besides my own, I do not have on my kindle. I own Dickinson and Shakespeare and Cummings and Plath and Whitman and...and...and...all in paperback or hardcover. I read them over and over. Paper books, somehow, are just perfect to plop down in a chair with by the fire to read. One poem or two at a sitting, sipping wine or drinking tea, god, I want to be doing it right now!

Call today's post my closure on my mom’s death, something I think I had been avoiding…but have somehow found this weekend in a cloud. Yup. A cloud. All kidding aside. Nature does that to me. It speaks to me in this very strange way. I’m not sure if it’s because I stare a lot at it--a tree, the sky, the earth--but my mind goes “limp” in a way. It relaxes, like being in a hypnotist’s chair and being told to stare at a spot or a dot on a paper. It serves the same purpose, but it’s more organic. It’s us reflected in IT. I somehow have come to believe that. Maybe Emerson’s “Transparent Eyeball” really does exist. I certainly felt that way this weekend, and that poem came out above.

I’m sure there’s not one of us here who hasn’t lost someone to that crabby and persistent dude called Death. It’s really just a fact of life. Like light and dark and good and evil and pleasure and pain and any other opposite, so too, we have life and death.

But here’s the thing. Are they opposites really? What happened with my cloud was supposed to be a bad thing, but talk about opposite! Do you think death is a bad thing? A sad thing? It hurts, because we’re living still, especially if we loved that person, and they’re not. It’s almost a selfish thing when I think about it.  That’s where the pain is. In our void. That we still have to live without them. We also don’t like to talk about death, and yet we must. We must plan for it. For everything else we plan for--retirement, saving money, etc.--death is really the only sure thing. Have you thought about what you’d like your funeral to be? Do you want to be buried? Cremated? I know. Morbid. But why does it have to be?

On a hot, summer day this coming July at my family lake cabin, you might find me taking a hit of a joint, back firmly placed against the peeling wood of a floating dock, eyes closed, knees slightly bent, a contented smile hard to hide, the sun caressing my half-naked body as it welcomes the slight sunburn it knows it will garner, having been covered in layers of wool and cotton for too many New England months. Pink is such a pretty color. Perhaps I’ll roll over onto my tummy, hold my chin in the fists of my hands, elbows firmly placed on the wood to get comfortable. My legs might even cross behind me at the ankles to sway, and you might even hear me hum a tune, something like Weezer’s, “And it feels like summer,” as I take long, slow inhales and exhales, watching the smoke disappear up into the clouds like my stress. (‘course, I romanticize. You realize there is no way to get a joint out to a dock without, most likely, ruining it. 😉).

​Funny I’m thinking about this, isn’t it, with so much snow on the ground and sticking to all the trees this morning? It’s beautiful really. The snow is still even coming down ever-so ethereally, so lightly, and the trees, the huge pine trees, are weighed down by the wet, white wonder. It makes me wish I could paint. But not all the trees look so lucky. Some are bare but for the snow that sticks to them. And even that pretty white color can’t hide its pain. I almost feel bad for them. They look cold. Old. The one I look at right now as I write this has what appears to be a wound. I see the chipped wood of its protective outer layer gone, exposing what could almost be described as a slice in its soul, the bark, red, visible, even as I know summer will do its repair. But not all its broken branches will find their way back to rebirth.

Even with all this romantic beauty around me, the picture only artists can do justice to or famous photographers, like Ansel Adams, and even with my fortunate life that allows a safe distance of warmth as I sip my coffee to marvel at it through my window, I’m beginning to feel cold myself. Winter out-welcomes her stay, and so, my mind drifts to that special summer place, where anything has always been possible. It’s where I wrote my first love letter, where, for one summer, innocence got gladly lost under a crescent moon, where, if you’ve read Ruin My Lipstick, I sometimes dared to swim to the deep part of the lake, where teenage girls shared one joint between eight lips and dared to tell our secrets.

This summer, a new law will be in effect. I will be able to walk into, I’m assuming, a smoke shop in my cut-off, jean shorts, sun-kissed, messy hair, skin still damp, and buy a joint or a bud, or what will it be? I’ve never actually bought the stuff. It’s hard to fathom. Smoking weed has been such a taboo, secretive act for so long, to think about doing such a thing in the open air, makes me feel like that teenager who is finally able to drive for the first time alone. It’s a bit like masturbation. You’ve kept it hidden for so long, to share it freely, it just seems…well…odd or out of place, not something we brag about or share. That stuff is private.

The funny thing is that I don’t smoke marijuana. Of course I have. I don’t mean that. I even inhaled it. ;) But I never really liked it. Not my bag. Anymore than a puff or two and I didn’t feel like myself anymore. Felt a bit out of control. Paranoid. I wonder if it’s because I was so self-conscious back then, worrying about EVERYTHING, if my legs were long enough, if my shifting eye color was too weird, if I was smart enough or good enough to get into the college I dreamed of. I wonder if I just wasn’t confident enough in who I was to alter my psyche, but instead it just highlighted my perceived flaws.
​
I really don’t know. But this summer, I may, on a warm, July day, lie alone, in a newly-purchased bikini, much more comfortable in my own skin than all those years ago, and contemplate all the things I wish I’d done but didn't, and perhaps, too, blow a bit of the past in rings of smoke and see what words it writes across the limitless, night sky in front of me. Or perhaps, still, all these years later, I won’t have the urge to alter my state of being at all under a night sky, and instead, safely smile in the daylight of the blazing sun. Yes, perhaps, that will be quite enough.

I’m pondering, today, like many days, life and death and relationships and the rush of trying to accomplish everything in 24 hours and for what, besides a tear in our nylons? (Okay. I don't wear nylons, but I do wear tights! I'm being metaphoric here. ;) ) What are we exactly rushing about for? How many of you can relate to THAT?
 
While in the grocery store checkout line, my mind drifted to my mom and a poem poured out of me and onto the note pad on my phone.
 
And after I wrote it, I thought back to an older post I wrote, about the way I’ve always been compelled to write this way, this stream-of-consciousness way, even in the weirdest of places: I was the girl who always read and who carried her notebook with her everywhere to jot down things she observed: the woman smoking with her coat pulled tight against herself in the cold wind; the shy teenage boy glancing at me from under his long bangs, fidgety and nervous;  or the plump 3-year-old pulling on her mother’s pants in defiance to get attention. I was always looking for a “story.” And though I don’t carry a notebook anymore, my phone has replaced it. Easier even to record ideas, thoughts, snippets.
 
The truth is, I wrote a lot about my mom too. I had a complicated relationship with her. Can any of you relate? I wonder if it’s more common among mother/daughter and father/son relationships. That dynamic. Those high expectations. I wrote about this before: (loveand-all-its-idiosyncrasies.html).

You see, my mom had a tough life, dreams ripped from her more than a few times, and she was what one may call a pessimist as a result. She was harsh. She was critical. She didn’t like me laughing too much. She often questioned my choices. Do you want people to stare at you? Aren’t those jeans a little too tight? Isn’t that skirt too short? Must you make such a fuss with your hair? You know you’re pretty, but you do realize your looks will fade? Aren’t you going to eat something else? Have you practiced this week? Can’t you be more like your brother?
 
But what I realized in that checkout line, now that my mother has passed, all those things I used to do for her when she was ill, that I sometimes internally complained about, produced an bit of an epiphany in me…and hence, the poem.
 
The tick tock is deafening.
Muscles ache from strain.
Rising sun.
Feet on cold oak.
Passing cars, honking horns, angry fists
of move over
and fuck yellow lights.
Undress.
Dress.
Leotard.
Bun just right.
Spray in place.
Grab an apple.
Keys?
Don't forget the milk for Mom.
Dash to the express checkout
and curse and hiss
Into the back head
of the too-chatty, blue hair,
fumbling in her too-big purse,
fingers not quick enough.
Pour a quick glass of red
to match cursory letters
on black and white
Times New Roman font
In teacher's ink.
Speed-dial family.
Snapchat friends
and try to breathe.
It's what you've waited for.
Except now,
the silenced whirring rush
tramples the solace
because you realize
that the only way
to stop
is to admit: Not anymore.
And you look to see
Irony
holding Time's hand
with a grim grin.
Every year.
One fewer thing to do.
One minute.
One second.
Closer to death.

It might seem a little dark from Rosemary, the romantic. I have a lot of them. These kinds of poems. And they probably don’t make sense to anyone but me. But they’re there. Often. And just below the surface. Always. It's okay. We all have a little dark in our light. I'm just grateful I have this little thing called writing to allow me to see them. It makes me whole.

Tattoos were once thought of as marks of the troubled, the degenerate, the troubIe makers. Employers shunned those with tattoos and lies and myths about them were widespread and full of misconceptions, exaggerations, and lies even. Times have changed, like most things based on fiction and lack of knowledge or understanding. And tattoos are more common and accepted than ever, even consider works of art.

I have one small tattoo that I got in college on a whim, and though not profound or "serious" in its outward appearance, I do love it. I got it at a time when I was truly discovering myself and my sexuality, where I could finally accept that calling myself a feminist and having submissive sexual tendencies didn't have to be opposing forces. Thank you, college, for that!

I'm pondering getting one more, either on my shoulder or lower hip, right on the bone, or on the underside of a breast. Something also small. I'm not a fan of ostentatious tattoos. My body just isn't big enough for that, and it's just not something I find attractive, personally. Plus, I like skin. ;) I want it to be a quote, and I would have gotten one already, except that I'm not sure which one! Of course, Shakespeare comes to mind, and I've narrowed it down

But lately, I've been pondering my own quote, one I penned myself. Is that too self-indulgent? I was thinking about "Ruin My Lipstick" to mark and forever remind me that I published my first poetry book, something I never thought I'd have the courage to do, but I'm not sure at 80, I'd be happy with that choice! And then again, why not? It's another turning point in my life, another mark of accomplishment, a growth, a reckoning. “Ruin My Lipstick” is the title poem of the collection, but it has layered meaning for me in many ways. Literally, there is this:

“I liked to wear lipstick
and nothing else
and found myself fascinated
with the shape
of my lips
and the different colors
I could make them.”
 
But it’s also very symbolic and figurative. We all have insecurities, and as I was compiling my poems to include, I realized the theme of facade runs through much of my work. In fact, most of my writing does, even my novels, those fronts we all put up in real life: who we are expected to be, which is sometimes in direct competition with WHO we really are.

So frankly, perhaps I want this tattoo to be less frivolous, less rebellious really mean something to me, more of a reflection of the person I am now today, not the college student in the beginning of self discovery and rebellion, but the older version of myself that I am happy I am becoming, albeit, slowly. 

To get a copy of Ruin My Lipstick, click here:  NEW RELEASES