There are many voices in my brain that blog on many sites.

My fingers spew rosewater or venom. Sometimes it is a nice mix,

                                                                                a sweet liquid that chokes.

Everyone with a keyboard or a pen does that though.

 It is human.

My brain, my heart, my soul.

                           All facets are out there for the reading. That is human ego.

But here on OpenSalon I found a new voice, my Honest Voice.

Tingling from my fingers on a floating laptop as I swim in this metallic soup of emotion

                                     Strange so strange how honesty can feel naughty, but it does.

It is being naked.

                  Words created to define a reality and not prose to understand it.

                               Words here mean something new.

                   No spellchecker, no quick run through the word processor, no hints at the mystery of grammar.

No lingerie, words that are naked too.

                   Freeform freedom of thoughts and letters.

                                  No more complex characters made of me... just me.

I write here in real time.

 At first it felt good to just get it out,  then there were comments.

I was not prepared to not be alone.

                    Strangers cared.

                                              Strangers related.

My friends and family who love me and whom I love could not share those words with me.

                            These are my living secrets.

               These are not my skeletons in the closet but my still warm bodies.

I kept up my uninhibited expressions of myself and learned how to express myself, from myself by writing the first posts here on OS.

Then she read them.

I was embarrassed. I felt shame in these honest expressions.

More shame in the responses. Like I had an emotional affair with a blog.

So I deleted the comments and almost deleted the writing.

        I stayed away from the site for awhile.

        But it had been good for me. Close to free therapy.

There was this over-used word that is actually a physical, emotional and psychiatric condition  called

                                                              Hope. 

I needed that.

Though I have found hope in many places, OS offered me hope when I had none.

              OpenSalon has been my half-way house of Hope.

Though my support network has grown, some days it takes every single thing in my toolbox to hold back those big india-ink tears that can flow.

Those tears stain my cheap white linen thrift-store suit of my 'good face' and ruin my whole day.

Here on OS for some it is about Editor's Picks or readership or tips.

For me OS is my diary of poetry and having it has been a positive thing in my life.

Life isn't ever easy, not if you are a sinner at least...

                                                                  and I don't know many non-sinners.

Writing here has made me come to terms that I can be vulnerable at all...

                  that I can not only spew rosewater and venom but also spew my own india-ink tears.

 My cheap suit can stay on.

              My good face can be put forward. I can cry here, so OS is good.

So here I am again. Writing in an honest voice in a different way.

Even though the pain from a day like today (so much misdirected hate spoken to my face and into my ears) makes me feel each movement as a thrust of an arm or knee in a crawl on a cold cement floor.

But I ask every day, with a smile on my face, 

                                                                                             please,

                                                                                                                  more.