Sunday, November 8, 2009

Sleepwalking

I didn’t think it could hurt this much.

That the pain, being something black and unfit for life, would actually warp itself into a black hole inside my chest, and stem outward in leaves and coiling branches to choke all things outside of it that had a turn of color, a patina of hatred, cast from my mind, and my senses.

All films, all art, all thought stemmed from and created him.

Here was a man who was conscious. All human beings being philosophers, whether they recognize it or not, here was a man who was conscious of being human. All else are silent sleepwalkers, and I alone am left, with no voice, and no sunlight, in a waking nightmare.

I keep nudging the person next to me – “Are you seeing this? What do you think?” – but they remain unseeing, and I know not to wake them.

I have to pray to address the violence that lies dormant, in seed form, in my chest. This is how deep the hatred stems; it lies coiled like the snake it is, ready to snap at the slightest leaf tremble on the ground, at the slightest infraction and invocation from a dead thing with no string to the seed.

This is the thing to get through, when I thought I was already through.

This is the varnish to remove, the stain left over from the polish, when the polish has not been perfectly lifted; this is what to be wary of, when it seemed it couldn’t creep up any further, when it seemed it had been melted away by the sunlight.

This is the danger I present to the world. This is the darkness that is unfit to be cleaned by the sunlight. This is the dangling deadly fruit that will hit the ground with a silent thud, and will be felt only by my hands, my feet, my skin. This is the poison that settles and swirls at the bottom of the cup, after it’s been presumed to have been swallowed down; the trace elements stuck to the imperfections in the cup and upon each refill of liquid, I drink it down, again, and again. This is the residue that keeps on giving.

I have to pray for the protection of my neighbor, as I know as God knows that I am already broken, or that I will be soon, and the stillness I am capable of is the only thing saving us both.

This is the precipice I didn’t plan to reach, because I was not informed it existed. This is the vantage point I didn’t plan for. This is the sight I didn’t think I could see. This is what I didn’t know I didn’t know; what I never could have planned for; this is the unknown of which I need protection from.

I feel that I am being pulled to these exact corners of life not by my own will nor desire, but by something, who knows as well as I do how unnecessary all of it is, the pulling of me, the dragging of me, to bring me, what? Closer to a perspective, closer to a prayer that will bring me closer to,…what? To the great Something? So much unnecessary dragging; I see right through the strings and I am not impressed nor convinced.

And the hatred begins, again.

I wish I had fallen asleep earlier. Now that I need to, I am unable.

I wish that there were a book I could write, and burn into the words all sadness, all hatred of life, all longing, all burning tears so that its very presence would have a weight, a gravity, that would draw me to it, in the next life; draw me to this book on a shelf, in a distant or near bookstore, and I would remember as from a faint whisper: “here is the thing you must do to save him”, and I would know, I would be so pulled as to seek it in advance, it carrying all weight from my life and my love, the entirety of my love, to protect me from making the same mistake again, in another life. But the world will end with a fire, and a crash, and all evidence that permits us newness and betterness in the next life will burn with it, and I will make the same mistake again, and again, and again.

This is why the hatred begins.

This is the vantage point I am pulled to, and not above. This is where the line is drawn. This is where the thrashing begins.

This is where I wait for them to fall asleep, because in their stillness, they are protected. In their silence, when they do not even know not to reach me, they are saved. This is the line at which the blackness in me reaches through curling smoke-strands to fade away into the darkness, and to never reach, with open hands. This is where the smoke-curls end.

This is why the noise is always brighter in the night.

To call the sleepwalkers, to bathe their clothed eyes in artificial light. This is where the futility begins. This is where the strings collide.

This is where the cavity begins; this is where the picking, the stabbing, the pointing and whispering begins; this is where the abcess is formed and this is how the blood is drawn. This is where it pools; where it is congealed; and this is where the sleeping wound is awakened once more.

This is where the abcess begins.

This is where the tying-in of metaphor, like black velvet threads of ribbon, is formed. This is where ghost becomes ghost, and where noise is absorbed into the wall, from one slant. This is where the likeness of beauty is deceased, where it slides down to the floor in a crumpled, forgettable heap. This is where the ocean floor metes the wooden floor; and where the sound waves crash upon the door, and in the hallway, all passengers floating through, shuffle past, with no awareness more.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

The Flood

It's not going to last.

And no matter how long it seems to last, it will never be forever.

This is not necessarily a bad thing; the good things get better, the bad things get better, the great things end, and the bad things end. Everything is in flux, no matter how static it may seem. Something makes way for something else.

With every moment, implicit in our action is the fact that someone else will go after us.

It's not going to be as good as it seems it should be. But it often turns out to be something that has value.

You can judge situations all you want, but they're either going to exist, or they're not. Get busy loving or get busy leaving, because nobody else is feeling your irritation.

It's always better than you think it is, and it's always worse than you think it is.

We are afraid of the wrong things, and sometimes the fear runs so deep, we forget that we live under it. We get used to the protection.

You're responsible for getting it there, because everyone else is apathetic, lazy, or doesn't have your standard of excellence when it comes to what you want.

If they say they are, they're not, at all. Their actions would take the place of the need for their words.

When there is evidence, there's no need to convince.

Beauty, elegance, and incredible quality are very difficult to obtain both in people and in material objects. You have to pay a lot for them, and you have to work a lot for them, but they're the only things that mean anything, and they are divine.

Quality saves energy, time, and money. You always pay more for what is poor.

Humor, however, is usually free, and always priceless.

Self-crucifixion is the only way to perfection. But guess what? - It's a myth. There are fleeting moments of it, but guess what? It's not going to last.

Life's greatest curses are answered prayers. If you disagree, then you know exactly what to pray for, and I need your help.

If someone has to keep making excuses, then they are not with you. Not in any way that means anything, and not in any way worth preserving.

If they don't apologize, then they are not with you, and you do not want them around.

If they can't forgive you, then they are not with you, and you do not want them around.

Life is work.

Anything worth anything has to be worked for, and earned.

Anything worth anything is also going to hurt a bit, if not a lot. It is at least going to be pretty uncomfortable.

Perhaps the only exceptions to this are relationships with other people, when the fit, like a great piece of couture, is just right.

Time is all you've got, and even that is always, always up in the air.

There's no beauty without danger.

I've learned to ignore any grand idea of God.

I've learned to assume that if there is any God to be had, it is within, and is as natural and instinctive as being hungry, or trying to catch something if it falls, or reaching out to embrace someone in joy or in pain.

It's not anything you can arrive at by thinking about.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

10.21.09


10:21pm - 12:01am
10.21.09-10.22.09
Duke of Perth, Clark Street.
Emmy Lou Harris on Ipod.

It’s a bit of an unbearable sadness, and I don’t know who to turn to, and what to express to whom, without sounding desperate.

It’s a strange thing, to think that I have to work for my own happiness, that it’s not something that I’m automatically granted, by virtue of being conscious. I can’t believe that even that has to be a struggle.

Is this what it is to have high standards? Is this something trying to force my hand to develop a better life for myself? Because I don’t think it’s going to work.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think it will.

I feel these choices coming at me to reach out to people, to allow myself to be reached out to, and I feel like I’m failing, failing, failing.

Like every hand that reaches out, I just push away. I don’t know what else to do because to receive that hand would be so painful, I’m not sure why, but that’s how it feels.

It’s strange, to have people around you reaching out to you because they love you, and you, not being able to absorb that, almost as if it’s something your body literally can’t digest, so you don’t even try to ingest it. You just avoid it, in principle, in whole.

This requires a bit of a celebration.

I am free of it. Of the guilt. It may still be a while before I fully acclimate my life to that new status, but I feel it tonight, this is meaningful.

I recognize tonight that I didn’t cause his death, that I didn’t force his hand. When he said “you saved me, I’ll never forget that”, and “we’ve got to look out for each other”, I don’t think I should have taken it as, We are the only ones who can help each other.

I’ve not written back to people, and they didn’t kill themselves, so just because he did, does not mean it’s my fault. Even if I was the only one who knew about it, even if I was the only one he divulged all this stuff to, even if, even if, even if. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault, and tonight, I know this, I feel this, even if reason or rationale or anything else fails to pull through for me. It’s not my fault. I’m free of it.

So if I’m free of it, what am I to do?

Go to New York.

I know I said I wouldn’t drink, but… I think tonight called for a toast.

What are the choices that lay before me?

A lot of things.

Self-destruction.

The embracing of every aspect of my life, and those in it.

Being honest with people and declaring exactly what it is that I’m thinking.

Not smiling if I don’t feel like smiling. No matter whom I have to sell a dress to.

He and I had come here, and we sat at this exact table, in this exact same spot.

I tried hard with him. I tried to learn, I tried to be a better person, but there was a point at which I thought, and acted, like “He’s just gonna have to take me as me. As is.” And I don’t know if he could, but I guess, in another way, I don’t know if I could.

I wanted so much to have someone set a standard for me – it’s breaking me up a bit right now, in public, in a flipping pseudo-English bar right now, no less, to admit this – but I wanted someone to set the bar for me and for me to rise to what I thought that would be. I think the whole time, it wasn’t even about that, there was no expectation that I had to be any certain way, but nonetheless, I wanted to, you know? I wanted to try. I wanted to feel the joy of going over and above the line that didn’t even exist; and for the first time in my life, there seemed to be a man that loved me unconditionally – (oh god, I’m so afraid that this feeling is only fleeting, that I’m going to relapse two Tuesdays from now and realize that he’d be alive if only I’d written to him; the precariousness of almost having saved him is epic, but I hope I never believe that again, never again, never, again).

I compare everyone to him. I can’t help it. No one was as…warm, as intelligent, as embracing, as determined, as strong, and the problem is, because he was so intent on covering up so much of himself, I think a lot of that strength came from his ability to wholly avoid and ignore….or put aside…his pain. I wish, in a sense, that things had turned out very differently, but really, they couldn’t have. They couldn’t be any other way than they are, right now.

This is the rub: the ability to consider possible worlds, other worlds, and not be able to do anything about it, to be able to think of a different outcome, and yet, for it not to be. This is a kind of hell. Not that I think it is, but actually, that it is. I cried for so long, and I cried so much, thinking that I had let him down…remembering receiving the news…thinking that it couldn’t be possible, but, that of course it was.

I don’t know how to rebound, how to bounce back from that. To know that the one person you loved more than anyone was gone….it’s the strangest thing. Because you know, having been alive, having been involved with this person, that you would have had an impact on them, but the thing is, you didn’t reach out. In time, that is. It’s a timing thing. And the motherfucker about death is, you don’t come back from it, not after a week, not by the time they found him.

I read in some Kabbalistic text that there was a way for someone to be brought back from the dead. That a rabbi had lain on top of a deceased child, and had lain, eyeball to eyeball, nose to nose, mouth to mouth, on the person, and after seven days, had brought them back to life. At Dayne’s funeral, I wanted to rip open his casket, and lay on top of him, before he was interred in his tomb. I wanted to lay on top of him, eyeball to eyeball, and see if it would work if there was even a possibility that it could be the case, that it could save him. But I knew I would look crazy.


Monday, October 26, 2009

C**t


. Status quo is the strongest force in the universe. In this sense, logically, liberalism is insanity; conservatism, as a metaphysical principle, is the only reality. Liberation is a dream. But it's one worth fighting for.

. I never, ever thought it possible that by giving it all up, I'd bring it all in.

. Every day, I am grateful that I return to my apartment. Because it is mine.

. I read an article yesterday about Guy Ritchie. He has three lines that he lives by. He revealed two, and concealed the third. This bothers me in a way that I cannot fully express. If you've got an idea to share, fucking share it.

. I am really, really impressed with the voice I use to talk to my dog, and how much I think I sound like a little kid, with the way I phrase words. I once made my ex-boyfriend choke on his food because I used that voice on him, and so, literally, he could have died from how cute he thought I was.

. This voice would probably annoy the shit out of someone else.

. But then again, maybe they would just end up choking. Just a little. Just enough to make it count.

. Thanks to him, I've discovered a predilection for really filthy, sexist jokes. And I'm loving it. If you have a donkey, and I have a rooster, and your donkey eats my rooster, what do you have? (Holler if you know this.)

. I feel better when I don't eat meat products.

. And yet, I crave steak, with garlic butter, parsley, and fat rinds every day, at least once a day.

. My principles on the matter are as slippery as the butter sliding off the steak I'm eating right now.

. Today I realized what a fucking airhead I sound like when I make bold declarations like "I'm a vegan." I've learned to shut up about it all so at least if I'm being a big flake, no one else knows.

. On that note, I'm pretty convinced that if you have to declare it, it's not true. Your actions would speak for your words.

. (damn, that was good.)

. Every single time, I've thought, "I'm gonna marry him." It's become something else now. I'm okay with not knowing the end. The fact is, since I'm not sure I can change any of it, I'd rather not have the guilt on top of it.

. It took one and a half years to go from denying it to accepting it, and everything in between. The priest told me, "Remember the stages of grief, so that when it happens again, you're better-prepared." That was the rub: it's going to happen again.

. I disagree with death, so I disagree with life. That's a hard thing to live with. You're always denying and rejecting the things that are all around you. The seeds that are being sown every moment, and the fruits that they are bearing, you are burning. It's a very combative way to live life. But it gives me something to think, and it gives me something to fight. And that is important.

. I've cursed existence and God a great deal. I'm not ashamed of it. But someday, if I'm burning in hell (fingers crossed), well, that's just gonna add fuel to the fire. Literally.

. Joy said in the car yesterday, "You know, it was a really hard day for all of us, but I've never lost somebody that I've been really, really close to." It dawned on me that I lost the person that I was closest to in the whole world.

. It's a ridiculous thing to have to resurrect from. I guess it gives me an interesting story to tell, but the problem is, it's not a story I want to be telling.

. The beauty is that you build your life around someone, and this gives your existence incredible meaning, more than you'd ever known or thought possible. The bitch of it is that when they go, you go with them. I've had to learn how to be a person again, since this. One part of you cannot die; all of you dies, and then all of you has to be reborn. You cannot break off a part from the whole.

. In a sense, then, you choose your own death, and it's a reflection of your life, of your mind. For him, it was, "This is the way it is; I'm right, and no one can convince me otherwise." And then, no one could. And we were suddenly convicted of something that wasn't even on the table. I could have stopped it, maybe. I maybe could have interceded. Why didn't I, then? Because I didn't believe him. Well, now, I'm convinced.

. It was while running on the treadmill that I realized that he's gone, and that I don't have a feeling about it. I'm not sure that that's a good thing. But considering how much my heart hurt over it, maybe it's a great thing.

. I'm not sure if I had the extra beat before it happened, but I know that at the most intense period of grieving, or really, right after that, I went to the doctor because my heart was behaving strangely. I believe that the grief caused it, caused the actual sickness of the heart, caused what they think is a tear in the muscle.

. I hear myself think this and start to feel sorry for myself, but the fact is, I wanted to cause myself that pain. Because I believe that he felt it, and I wanted to be with him, even if it was in pain.

. There are two roads to go down with him: life or death. If I choose him, I choose death. I have to let him go. Even he knew not what he did. I like to believe that after, now after his death, he knows differently. But that's a lot to like to believe.

. I am so, incredibly, unbelievably blessed by the people in my life, and am especially re-blessed by the reintroduction of old friends to my life, after many years. I'm massively thankful for all of you, even if you can't handle me right now. It will come together soon.

. I am learning what it means to be loved and treated well by people. And more importantly, to accept it, because I know that I am deserving of it.

. It's a very simple thing, really: when you reject what you are given, you stop getting it. You'll get another chance later, because that is just how life works, but really, you've got to accept it. You've got to embrace it. Give it a bear hug and fucking mean it. This is what it means to have grace: to accept the invitation to be beautiful.

. This is something that is many, many years in the making, and yet, its effect is retrograde in experience. It shows me how much others have always been this way towards me, and now my life, seen through a different lens, is infinitely, instantly, like a kaleidoscope of richness and tenderness.

. I thought I saw him at the train station. He was sitting on a stool at the bar. And suddenly I felt that it was the end of a movie. And it was a happy ending.

. I wanted to tell her off. After it had happened, I wanted to have looked her in the eyes and said "You're going to apologize to my friend, then you're going to leave and you're going to take your shitty money elsewhere." But I was in shock. I was so shocked at her casual cruelty, that I couldn't even look up at her. I'm ashamed at my weakness.

. I need to pause before reacting. I also need to improve my reactions.

. Basically, I need to be a lot better at being a raging c**t.

. I have film rolls of him from a few years ago. They may have disintegrated by now. I remember the pictures themselves, but it's not enough. It's never going to be enough.

. The CD he made me is the only thing he ever gave me. I thought of loaning it to a friend and it seemed to me that I was being asked to give up a vital organ. I didn't ever, ever want it out of my possession. Now, I really could give a shit.

. I click really well with the smart, bookish girls that come in, the ones who are really intellectual and really funny. I don't click so much with many of the other ones.

. I firmly believe in saving yourself.

. But I believe that if you can change someone, then you have saved them.

. Nothing gives me such purpose and hope as thinking this. If it's in increments, if it's by altering them in even some small way, then it's like my job is done. Life is empty if I remove that possibility. If this makes me ragingly, egregiously codependent, then, oh well.

. I try as much as possible to practice radical forgiveness. But other times, it's really a good thing to not let someone back in so quickly.

. I don't understand being hurt so much by someone that you couldn't have them in your life. Unless it's a type of physical, or mental, or sexual abuse, or they stole from you, or you just can't stand them, then I just can't understand how you wouldn't want someone who was a friend to not be in your life. What could ever be that bad? Maybe things end out of guilt, more than they do out of perceived receipt of pain.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Remember


I forgot.

I forgot.

There was a bright thing.
It moved quickly.
It had a soothing voice, and it made me feel special and right and like a good fit.

And then I forgot.

I wake up, every half hour, or two days, or 3.6 weeks, or five seconds, and remember that it could be.

I wonder how it is for you.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Hedy Lamarr, It Was Me You Were Thinking Of.


I don't know how I continually arrive at this, when it's a moving platform that at every chance evades my landing on it. But magically, supernaturally, I land it, every time, every single time.

It is frequency-hopping of the highest skill on my part, really, on the part of any human being. The greatest only constant consistency is the abject denial on my part, the refusal to see it another way other than the way I'd like for it to be, the way in which I don't have to assume the worst about other people, the way in which the illusion is maintained.

I thought that because you liked me, you were on my side. It was something I forgot: that you have interests that need to be met, and I supply the demand. Somehow, I forgot the rules of engagement. I forgot the standard of the need for the transaction, what it means, and what it comes from, and what it leaves me with, which is nothing.

The Devil Is Deep Water


I can feel it; there's a wholeness to be had, and I cannot get full from what is currently in front of me.

There's a nourishment to be obtained; there is a need to be addressed and attended, just the same as a patient with a wound that will not close.

Only this one goes without alarm. Or, really, it's a silent vibration, a pulsation that can only be felt by one; but it is an alarm call that plumbs the air, alerting someone, a particular anyone, that the distress is real, that the need is great, that it's not enough to be clean and pure, but rather, we have to get wet, to get dirty, to be blended, because without the danger there is no beauty.


Wednesday, October 21, 2009

No Tip-Toe


There's a sense of slowed-down urgency... of running to stand still.

I don't realize at certain times, for blocks of time, that there are choices being made at every moment, and others are going to assess them, just as I am going to assess and evaluate the choices of others.

It's hard not to take it all personally; after all, if someone does something involving you, how do you not take it as a direct action against you or to you? How do you not take it personally? Because even if they weren't thinking of you, then, well, they weren't thinking of you. It's hard to avoid your involvement with others in your own life.

How much should you take it personally if you don't factor in? I guess there's no answer for this, or no correct answer. I guess you just give people space, or you give them a chance to come around, or you just try to not irritate them or upset them further, if you know the things that cause them to get frustrated.

But sometimes, I just want to trample all over the eggshells.

Monday, August 24, 2009


1.  Fly.  Like, with my own will, and arms, and body.  

2.  Star in a movie with Daniel Day-Lewis, because I've earned that position.

3.  Walk with Russell Crowe, at the end of "State of Play", with the lights turned off towards the back of that huge office of their newspaper room.

4.  Own the house on Kelton Court, and shower in that bathroom, overlooking the bay, every morning of my life.

5.  Diego, running on a beach, into the sunset of southern California, while "Zephyr Song" is playing.

6.  Save people.  In a way that no one else could save them.

7.  Him to be alive, and happy, and healthy.  

8.  Write a Great Book.  

9.  Write the next big text in philosophy and political philosophy.


9 1/2


1.  It was the best I've ever felt, as a woman, and as a creative, sexual, whole person.

2.  It caused in me an incredible desire for both wealth and the ability to provide, for both myself, and others, in all the ways I'd always thought were wrong, or indecent, or immoral.  

2.5  I don't know whether it was the hot dogs, the wine, or Ayn Rand.  But let's just say it was all three, and to this effective trifecta, I say, "Amen." 

3.  I wonder about the lifestyle it would provide.  Is it something you could inherently enjoy?  Would it require a total numbing of yourself, your natural, organic reactions?  Or, is it something better than that?  Something inherently better than we could ever think it could be?  I'm so curious to find out.  

4.  Nearly all day, it was as if I was walking around in a dream.  It's been easily one of the best days ever, if not just in recent memory.

5.  It's amazing what you can do when you walk around with desire in your head.   A-maze-ing.

6.  It's something others can sense, if they could be a recipient.  And it's amazing to be able to hold, in your head, ever so lightly but truthfully, if for the moment, the "fact" that they could be the recipient.  

7.  I feel that I've been blessed with a small ray of knowledge that has illuminated the entire world for me.

8.  If this is what it is to have that envy, then call me a sinner.

9.  Baby, I'm drinking that wine you gave me, and the great thing?  It's starting all over again.  Bless you and your knowledge of good wine.  Bless you.  It's shaping up to be a great night.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

18.5


1.  She has the most perfect smell.  I'm not even sure my own kids could smell this perfect.  I realize this is a weird statement, but hey, at least I know my limits.  

2.  After getting this dog, I'm not sure I could handle the intensity of having an actual child, and all the fear, love, emotion, and metaphysics that go with that.  Dogs might be the cap on my ass.

3.  She reminds me of myself.  We even sleep the same way.

4.  It's a lot of pressure.

5.  His very presence has a soothing, almost an ordering effect.  

5.5.  When we have a deeper, more intimate conversation, I feel relieved afterwards, like a pressure has been alleviated; a knowledge I'd been seeking has been obtained.  Until that happens, I actually feel frustrated.  It's subtle, but it's there.  

6.  He comes with advice, insight, revelation, and an instruction manual about himself.  This is even better than I could have imagined, even though it's not easy.  It's like a continuous test that I feel well-equipped to take.   

7.  I'd been at a point recently at which I would say I "arrived" at my life. 

8.  I embraced exactly where I am, and what I do.  But I stopped searching.  I stopped writing, stopped wondering, stopped painting.   The hunger went away.  The desire went away.  Is that a good thing?  Buddhists say yes.  I say maybe.

9.  I never realized the delight inherent in the search.  I also never realized contentment could feel so empty.

10.  I have to constantly remind myself of how to think of you:  as a treasure.  As I would think of a friend.  As a gift to be held lightly in the hands, not with a clenched fist.  

11.  And yet...there is a deep path behind you.  The mystery and beauty promised on that path are something I cannot have with a friend.  

12.  It's pretty simple: if you have good thoughts about someone, you're going to love them.  If you indulge in negative thoughts about them, you're going to want to get away from them.  In this sense, you can absolutely choose whom you love and whom you don't.   

13.  I need to nap.  A lot.  Since she arrived.  I didn't think adoration and love could be so exhausting.  Again: not helping the whole kids situation.

14.  I think of you now, and I'm not sad.  The emotion is not right under the veil.  I don't know if I've put it away permanently, or if I've realized you and I could never have been, anyway.  But either way, I've remembered my life.     

15. I miss the agony of grieving you.  It was a very, very close, and very pure embrace.    

16.  He's not perfect, but he's determined to be better.  I keep thinking, when I witness him, "This is a man".   

17.  Last night, when we first got her, I was playing with her and kissing her and Diego so much, that I actually had to pull dog hair out of my mouth.  I imagined coughing up a hair-ball this morning.

18.  So, strangest thing: I coughed up a hair-ball this morning...

Monday, August 10, 2009

322


you slide back
and yet grab handfuls 
out of the air, 
arranging them with your grasp
and they will travel thru your hand,
up your arm, 
tingling in your throat,
and as you brush your lips
against my cheek and my ear,
the words will sprinkle out,
and be caught forever in my hair.


Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Eleven


1.  Peanut butter makes me happy.

2.  It's hard not to see yourself reflected in the world, or with your friends, but especially when you fall for someone.  So many hopes get placed in such a tiny basket.  But it makes me feel worse to think of being apathetic and just going with the first clean, money-making individual you meet.  There has to be a sense of magic, a sense of eternity.  And if you can't see the future in your lover, then you're going to hate yourself in the morning.  

3.  When I think of love, it makes me sad.  

4.  I really hope to get to a point at which I move past this.

5.  I've desired much, and I've desired little.  Desiring much is much, much better.  

6.  I was more creative, and in a greater variety of ways, when I was little.  I wonder why the fuck this ever goes away.

7.  I wish I lived with my little brother and sister at my dad's house, with him and my step-mom.  I feel I got shorted on the little sibling thing but now that I have it, it's not enough to just visit.  I want to feed them breakfast.  Like, every day.

8.  I fall for someone, and I wish that they were a certain way, and am disappointed.  It keeps pulling me back to this: that it's better to be alone, to not compromise myself to anyone, to know that I can swagger down the street and kiss whomever I want, whenever I want, and not have to answer to anyone.  

9.  I used to tell people close to me "Don't express too much to me."  Now I know how painful that is, especially when you're just trying to tell someone you love them, in whatever way you can.  Funny, how it hurts you, to not be able to give.  I never thought it could be that way.

10.  If it's a feeling, then I always get it wrong.  Maybe it's totally rational.  Maybe it's as methodical as perusing a job application.  And if you get along with them well, and maybe if they make you laugh, too, then you just go with it.  

11.  I'm still undecided.

Shell


It's a shield.   It's a shell to raise, to cower behind.  It bears a spiny surface and it protects something jelly-soft on the underside.

Do I take it as it is?  Do I respect and address and react to the surface push outwards?  The hard, spiky surface that keeps me at bay?  

Or do I address the frightened underbelly that has to lie beneath?  

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Seal


Your flaws make me perfect.

I dreamt of your flaws, and of being the person they give me the chance to be.  

Pull


I need him.  

I need to express things to him, constantly.  

If mine is his outlet, then he is my outlet.  I need to plug in; i need to discharge, I need to see a reaction.  I need to know that something in him is being affected; that I can change something in him.  That I can cause a change in him.  I need to see this, and more than anything, I need to do this.  

I'm writhing, and twitching, to express myself to him.  

Where are you, now that I need you?  Now that I need only you?   I moan and I ache and I twist in anguish for you, over you, at the thought of you, at your voice.  

I need you.  My very heart is for you, it beats against my breast and wants to leap into yours.  It reads you, like a shark.  It knows you are alive, that you're in my world, and from 40 miles away, my heart desires only to move near you.  It knows you are in the water and it causes me to want to swim closer to you, to hone in, to taste you, to just bite into you and shake my head and my jaws and know you are locked in between my teeth, unable to move.  

Friday, July 31, 2009

Set It Off

It's about a reaction.

It's about taking what someone else can give you, how big or how small, how much or how mean, how sweet or how hard, how cold or how kind.

To need to give with no limit, only to brush up against another molecule that can't handle that kind of heat, is to bounce around, endlessly, as a peg, always trying to find the right hole, never quite finding the right fit.

It's a heat to give off.  It's a heat to be absorbed.

You either step closer to the heat, or you move away from it, and you can only do what you need to do.  

Can you reorient your nature?  Maybe.  

Does it require a lot of burning?  A lot of discomfort, while you move closer to the source?  Maybe.  

Will it be worth it?  Maybe: is the red something you can get used to?  Is the blue something you can live with?  

Do you find the perfect purple in between?  

I'm red with desire to warm you.  

Friday, July 24, 2009

Here I Am, Waiting to Hold You


This is just too beautiful not to celebrate.  

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

How 'Bout Now?


I want to run around my house, screaming for joy with my kids.

I want all of us to sing songs so loudly and so badly that we break down into convulsive laughter.

I want us to be goofy and jump on things and do flips over furniture.

I can't wait for all of this. 

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Father Figure

(Incidentally, I'm having deja vu now upon publishing this.  AWESOME.) 

11.34 pm, November 14, 2005

It's one of my favorite George Michael songs, if such a category of favorites could exist (hey, he had some great tunes; "Freedom"? With the video with every hot supermodel from the 90's?  "Faith"? TOTALLY ROCKS).  But "Father Figure" has special significance because my whole life, I've gravitated towards men, always older than me, who were very intelligent, very thoughtful, and very compassionate, and it didn't take me long to realize why that was. 

At one point, not too long ago, I was having a hard time reaching out to God.  I tried calling Him "Father", to bring it into more familiar terms, and for a while it worked, and then the weekend was over.  For whatever reason, it couldn't stick.

I am in a relationship now in which I am learning to do things that I disobeyed my mother about for my entire childhood, adolescence, and the years in which I was living at home and I was still too immature to just do what she asked.  My mother was an amazing mother; but I was too stubborn to be of any good.  That tenacity (to use a euphemism for "stubborn blockhead") has served me immeasurably in certain ways, but has done nothing for me in terms of shaping me - or allowing myself to be shaped - into a strong, responsible adult.  As you know from my previous entries, I will have a paper due the next day, and I could be on a diet, but I will order a pizza, watch a movie, and then surf the internet for four hours from 3 to 7 am, instead of actually writing my assignment and getting my sleep.  I feel I am beyond reproach, and I'm waiting for someone to scare me into doing things. 

I think I'll be waiting forever. 

An amazing thing happened to me today.  I've been exploring Chrisitianity lately, because, well, why not, and a minister that I have befriended expressed some concerns he had for me regarding my virtue as a responsible young woman. 

For anyone who knew me five years ago, that conversation, back then, would have never have taken place. 

For anyone who has known me in my whole non-Christian life, this would have never have taken place.

I have known this person for exactly four weeks, and seen him a total of four times.  And yet he had the love and concern for me to express things that no man in my life who should have expressed such things ever did.  That is magnificent.  

The weight of what that means has yet to truly make its way into my heart, but I do know that since I've been trying to become closer to God (emphasis on "trying", as evidenced by my last blog, the one with all the hatred and the expletives), He has shown me the things that I long for the most; the things that have been missing in my life.  I feel as though I am beginning to find something that I have been longing for as long as I can remember, and that I have searched for in vain, and found instead only heartache and disappointment and rejection. 

Lindsay Lohan recently released a song entitled "Confessions of a Broken Heart".  In it she describes her heartache over not having her dad around, and suffering through abuse that I never went through, but that, as a human, we can all empathize with.  In addition to being a very cute, rich little girl, she also one-upped me on the spiritual end: she was able to express her pain in such a concise way and with so much vulnerability and truth that I am ashamed that she has a song on MTV about something that I denied to to myself for years regarding the very same subject.  Now, I've been a very lucky girl, and never suffered the things she had, but I think I am not alone in feeling that I wish I could have connected to my parents, particularly my father, in a better way.  

I always thought of myself as emotionally aware, and perhaps more so than most other people, but it turns out that the one thing I always needed to express, I never even let myself feel, and a 19 year old beat me to it.  It also turns out that I'm not alone, and that it's a real relief when you won't let yourself feel certain things, and then something in the universe reminds you that they are alive and kicking in your soul, and that someone else did the work of expressing it for you.  So I'm thankful to her for having the balls to express herself, and to express the pain of millions of other kids who couldn't say it or wouldn't allow themselves to even feel it, and had no choice but to feel it, when they heard the power of lyrics put to music. 

It's amazing what life won't let you get away with.  

Sometimes when it catches up with you, it cuts so deep that you feel as though your heart is the desert floor, cracked open from the drought, and when the rain pours in, it burns so hard that you couldn't have ever imagined that relief from pain hurt more than the pain itself.

Friday, July 3, 2009

So Bunny

I have an obsession with Playboy. 
 
Bunnies, to be exact.  
Potentially being one, to be more exact.  I have no shame about this.  And if I had more balls, I'd go to California and get to that Mansion and I'd be a bunny, lickety-split.  But from what I've learned from "The House Bunny", I'm like, 64 in Bunny Years.  Not so good.  (Couldn't they put vaseline on the lens for me? I've heard that's a good trick).  

"The House Bunny" is one of my favorite movies.  I understand the lesson of it, but I still can't help but fantasize about the idea of what it would be like to be a Bunny.  To live in a big house, with tons of girls who are like your sisters, to have a huge swimming pool, an unlimited spending account, all the plastic surgery and personal trainers you'd want, and the adoration and obsession of pretty much of all men (whether they admit it or not).  You wake up every morning and the sun is shining; you can go shopping with your Playmates and eat lunch wherever you want; you travel to Paris or Vegas or New York with Hef on business - or pleasure! - and you're like this little goddess with a super cute wardrobe and stripper heels.   

I've wondered frequently about the future of the Playboy Empire, and what will happen to it once Hugh Hefner passes - which will be a sad day.   He worries me, he does.  I wonder if he sees his bunnies move on to bigger and better lives and if he is melancholy over it at times.  I wonder if all the bunnies who moved away end up returning to, say, celebrate holidays.  I wonder if Hef has sweaters knitted for them, or if he gives them red bikinis and antlers to replace the ears.  I wonder if he gives them dental, and what his healthcare plan is like.  Besides the whole possibility of tons of casual sex, they seem like healthy, happy girls.  There's a price for that happiness, no doubt, but I guess the question is, if they're happy, then isn't that what matters?   
 

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Frontier


My mom and I were looking at the rows of dogs confined in their cages in the pet store tonight and none of them felt like mine, nor like it should be mine.  Maybe I had no emotional peak because I know the dog technically won't be "mine", it would be my mom's, but I would think I'd feel at least something; it'd be an addition to our family. 

And it occurred to me that maybe this is why people have their own children, and don't adopt.   Because if they adopt, there's this little person that is not technically theirs, and doesn't have their blood, and doesn't have their smell, and doesn't look like them, and doesn't really resemble them.  I think we all seek to obtain the things and the people that are reflections of ourselves, somehow, but maybe there's a point at which you stop trying to see yourself out there.  What does it feel like to go about life and seek the truly unknown?   To go where you don't see yourself?  

I don't know what that leads to, and I don't know how to begin to list the different ways in which this manifests, aside from children and the decision to adopt or not to adopt, or to have kids, at all.  

I've never been a person to step up to bat and say Okay, this is a duty, and I'll just do it.  I have always counted my feelings on the matter, sometimes so heavily that I've talked myself out of duties, or outright shunned them.  So I'm amazed at the idea of people who take something like a phrase from the Bible, and interpret it as God's suggestion that they should adopt, and then they do adopt, and they do it merely because another life needs them.  This is so foreign a concept to me that I can actually feel my neurons firing when imagining what that might feel like.  

Monday, June 22, 2009

Girls rock


Words of wisdom, from my little sister, saved forever in my phone:

Girls rock boy jrowl 

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Sacrifice


I desire for there to be a deep-seated deity in the pit of me who is never satiated and whose hunger goes unabated.  Who won't be quenched even after I've sacrificed all pleasure and leisure to her.

She shall demand the impossible and she shall be wholly blind to all half-assed attempts, seeing only victory, never settling.   She will be able to digest only whole bodies, my body, my soul, my bones, again, and again, and again.

I want her to wear my very teeth around her neck. 

Carbon Copy


He was a carbon copy of a human being.

He left residue all over me, and I couldn't clean it off for so long.

And he wasn't even the second sheet.

He was the last one, the one that you have to force the pen against the paper for, in order to hope to imprint.

Only, the words never quite make it through.

You can keep the copies.

I don't want your record.  

Monday, June 15, 2009

374

somehow, stepping on glassy slivers
produces not the shivers 
i'd thought it would

i catch my fingers on iron spider webs
and as i walk i am followed
by unbreakable threads

i have often wondered what makes
a man sparkle
i say now that it is the 
jewel of a woman

288


the stars on my ceiling sky
don't glow as bright as once before
and notice this did the angel
resting his chin on my wall

the lights in my little world
do not come up as often
i've noticed, ever since
you unclothed me
   i shall say, instead,
   since you uncovered my red

the flowers agree as they
dangle on their vines
they slip loose pink
tile tears that dance 
on my carpet
and i feel like a god
as my kingdom mourns for me

310


i have tired
like the words
you say too deep to swim
and sink you quick
   i am sorry for 
my face, that the chasteness
in your eyes says

does not lick, from stretching
on the toes, the twelfth 
layer

where crimson legs cross
and throw jade bracelets
  for an offering

to which you markedly decline
and decide the 
   tear in this lining
   unforgivable to the task
     at hand
   on the pads of your fingertips

and leave quicksand 
   on my pages

Sunday, June 14, 2009

283


To put it simply
your words float around
like burning butterflies

with each flap of their wings
more ashes settle in my eyes

It Was Chilling.


I shake a delicate finger
at those who stop dreaming
only to be still with 
the mad drive of a
mean, elaborate eternity
here for you & there
in me as we whisper
together and rob a language
beneath the shine of a
delirious sky.


A poem, from 1997.

Refrigerator poetry kit, bless you and your efficient economy.  

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Cent


1.  I have a hemangeoma in my upper left gum.  

2.  If it were to be punctured - which is hard to do, and I know, cause I tried it once - there's a good chance I'd bleed to death.

3.  This is probably the only reason that I didn't pursue boxing.  

4.  And I love, love, love hitting things.

5.  I also love, love, love makeup.

6.  The thought of creating a really beautiful eye, with a lot of shadow and liner and mascara, and especially a really great eyebrow, is what gets me out of bed in the morning.  Never underestimate the power of a great eyebrow.  It lays the foundation for the whole face. 

7.  I paint.  Abstracts.

8.  For the past 6 years, I've had random visions of paintings.  

9.  Prior to "resuming" painting this spring, I hadn't touched a paintbrush in precisely 22 years.

10.  I call my paintings "my children".  

11.  I firmly believe one of my paintings, entitled "Genesis", will eventually be featured in art history books.

12.  I have an older brother from our parents' marriage, and he and I have two little siblings from my dad's remarriage.

13.  I didn't meet them until the one was 4 and the other was born.

14.  For about a year after I met my little brother and sister, when people would ask if I had siblings, I forgot to include them.

15.  I don't feel guilty about this.  This is merely a fact.

16.  I get very uncomfortable with too much attention or affection.

17.  But I find it highly irritating when people, to whom I dish out love, affection, and attention, can't seem to take it.  

18.  I believe that consciousness is everything.

19.  I think, but do not yet believe, that the point of life is twofold:  to work, and to discover that we are God.

20.  I have dreamt of being the following:

21.  An actor.

22.  A director.

23.  A marine.

24.  A spy.

25.  A monk.  (Not a nun.  A monk.)

26.  If it's true that the one sin God does not forgive is cursing His name, then I'm fucked.  Royally, irrevocably fucked.  

27.  But I'm not worried.

28.  I am not a Catholic because of their idea that suicides cannot be forgiven.

29.  Barring that fact, I think I'd be wearing Rosary beads as jewelry.

30.  I spent the better part of a year.five believing I was the Messiah.

31.  The idea took off when I intentionally deprived myself of sleep for about two weeks straight.  

32.  I had the most amazing visions, revelations, and abilities.  

33.  At least once a week, I wonder what I'd be like, if I continued thinking that way.

34.  Or, if I had continued to deprive myself of sleep.

35.  It made me understand, in a very different way, that gravity is what keeps life together on earth.  It's what makes us interact with each other.

36.  It sounds really spacey and flakey, maybe.  But is it truthful?  Yes.  Take my word for it.  

37.  I have told several people that I loved them.  

38.  But the only time I stayed in love, was once, with a man I dated for four years.

39.  My puritanical upbringing leads me to delude myself into feeling the need to fall in love with someone, when, really, I think I just want to get laid all the time, not have to deal with the boring day-to-day shit, and not feel guilty about leaving whenever I want.

40.  With my luck, the first guy I try this with will probably be the guy I marry.

41.  I never wanted children, really, really, wanted children, until a few months ago.  

42.  I once had a vision, a year ago, of having had children, watching them playing on a swing set in a backyard.  I only saw the backs of their heads, the sunlight shining on their light brown hair.  It was, without a doubt, the single most pure, beautiful, sweetest feeling I've ever, ever had in all my existence.  I believe it was a vision tied directly to a guy I was dating at the time, to whom I felt a very, frighteningly deep connection.   

43.  This is a guy that no longer talks to me.  

44.  This was only one of many reasons as to why the cursing out of God commenced.  

45.  I love to dance.  

46.  I love to sing.

47.  When I sing and dance, I remember that this is what life is supposed to feel like.

48.  I plan to learn the moves to the dance-off of the MSA gang in "Step Up 2: The Streets."  

49.  I believe that to be the single greatest dance sequence ever committed to film.  

50.  I see sparks, everywhere I look.  Sometimes they are the color of the object I'm looking at, but I can see something that looks like moving particles.  Sometimes they're big, bright, and blue or white, or red or black.  I will also look at the ground and see swirls, as if I were able to see the wind.  

51.  This began about a year ago.  

52.  I thought it was due to bad vision, but it happens whether I wear glasses, contacts, or nothing.

53.  I'm curious as to whether everyone else experiences the same thing, or something equally odd but similar.  

54.  I once reached out to my brother to try to build a better relationship with him.  He couldn't understand it at the time, and that hurt me, tremendously.  

55.  When he came around, a few years ago, the pain from my initial attempt had made me calloused.   His attention didn't even enter my consciousness.

56.  Now that I've realized that I should have been more welcoming, he's stopped calling.  This hurts me, deep in my heart, more than anything else.  

57.  I often think about being adopted into a family, now, so that they can raise me, the way I was never, and should have been, raised.

58.  I know I had a really good life, in comparison to many and most.

59.  But this does not prevent me from knowing that I missed out on a great deal.

60.  I have an obsession with Alexander the Great.

61.  If his semen had been somehow preserved, I guarantee you, I'd find a way to get it, and carry his children.  

62.  It's moments like this when I think "Fuck, I'm an animal."

63.  "But at least I'm a smart fucking animal."

64.  Is the product of 8 x 8.

65.  It took me about a decade after it first became cool, to finally embrace hip-hop as the tits lifestyle it is.  

66.  (I'm a late bloomer).

67.  I wish I had been a 20-something chick in the 70's, when Sly Stallone hit his stride with "Rocky."  

68.  Because then I'd be having his babies.  

69.   From "Rocky" to "Rocky 4", he has, without a doubt, the most beautiful face and body of any man alive, before or after.  

70.  I really, actually, would like to look like Barbie, and no, I'm not ashamed of this.

71.  What can I say?  She's hot.  If they'd made her a redhead, or a black chick, I'd be saying the same thing - in fact, I'd probably have admitted it earlier.  They didn't.  Get over it.

72.  I believe in makeup as a spiritual tool.  And no, I'm not kidding.  Think about it.  

73.  I don't read as much as I probably should have, to spout off some of the shit I throw at people.

74.  I get bored really easily.

75.  If I had to take only two books in my hands while the rest of all other literature burned, I'd take Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Collected Essays", and Kimora Lee Simmon's "Fabulosity".   Between Shakespeare, the Baghavad Gita, T.S. Eliot's poems, E.E. Cumming's poems, and boatloads of other texts, there's no comparing within their own canon.  That said, I'd rather keep two works that inspire me under every circumstance, and that are outside of the realm of classic literature, and are like two best friends, constantly advising me and cheering me on.  And no, I won't rethink this position. 

76.  I like a lot about life, but if there is going to be a Messiah, I'd like him to come soon, within my lifetime, hopefully before I start to get gray and wrinkly.

77.  I may find a way to end it before I get old.  

78.  I can only commit to so much, to so many people.  

79.  When I found out they were hanging out, I had very violent thoughts about them.  

80.  God cursed me with an obsessive kind of love for people who wanted nothing to do with me. 

81.  I realized that you have to crawl your way out of hell to escape it.  Nobody, but nobody, will ever save you.

82.  But think about it:  if it came down to only being saved in order to escape hell, well, then we'd REALLY be fucked.

83.  Unless that messiah comes....

84.  I used to take tons of photographs of people that I love.  

85.  I don't know when or why, but I stopped.  Like, I screeched to a halt. 

86.  I write poems.  

87.  I'm not more proud of my paintings, but my paintings do give me a feeling that nothing else on earth provides me.  Not writing, not love, not accomplishment.  They make me feel whole with a very tangible steely quality in the pit of my stomach.  

88.  For a while, I wanted to marry Jesus.  

89.  Not like "become a nun" marry him.  

90.  I mean, like, He comes to earth and I get to be His Girl.

91.  Since that's not looking like it'll happen, I'm gonna have to look into other options.

92.  It's amazing the difference that a full face of makeup makes for me.  

93.  I am helplessly attracted to pretty but masculine lesbians with skinny Madonna arms - pre-yoga, like during the Blonde Ambition phase - who wear wife-beaters and boys pants.  

94.  I don't do anything about it, but that doesn't mean it's not hot. 

95.  Speaking of hot:  Gene Hackman.

96.  I disbelieve that Daniel Day-Lewis really wanted to do the film his wife directed.  

97.  I also disbelieve that she knew how to film him correctly:  you don't swing the camera around when you're filming the Jesus Christ of the acting world.   You keep it still, and you make everything revolve around Him.  And by Him, I mean, Daniel Day-Lewis.

98.  I agree with Picasso:  women are either goddesses or doormats.  

99.  But I disagree with the bullshit that is the Madonna/Whore complex.  Go fuck yourselves, whoever goes along with that idea.

100.  I'd rather be surfing.  

This Cowgirl Told The Blues to F**k Off


It took reading one sentence from one girl's blog for me to realize this startling conclusion: 

Why the FUCK am I so down on myself?  I'm a fucking GREAT person! 

Thanks, Cowgirl.  

Friday, June 12, 2009

Yes, Those Are My Knuckles Bleeding. Why Do You Ask?



I'd make an amazing spy.  

I almost joined the Marines.

I taught myself how to throw knives. 

I hollowed out a serious dent in my 80lb heavy bag - with bare knuckles.    

I'd make a great stunt car driver.

I do all these things, and have bragged to men I've dated about these activities, for what reason?

To protect something inside of me that is as vulnerable as a bird with a broken wing. 

Could You Put the Mask Back On? It's Better That Way.


I have a thing about worship.

I tend to do it, a lot.  

I have been a very, very lucky girl, and I happen to have had, and still have, many people in my life who simply amaze me.  And I have told them this.  And some of them have expressed the same back to me.  My best friend once said, "I think you should be in love with your friends."  I'd have to say, then, that I'm in love with a lot of people, some whom I've never technically met.  ("Hi, Steve Nash?  Want to follow me on Twitter?")

A guy I used to date ("Electrical Storm") was obviously trying to tell me, through his actions, that he no longer wanted anything to do with me.  Canceling dates, not calling, barely responding to texts, etc.  I gathered what he was doing, and I sure as hell was not about to let him off easy.   This is a guy I once baked a carrot cake for, and walked around the city with it, in a bag, just to deliver it to him.  This is a guy that had no response for me when I told him that I had fallen in love with him.  This is a guy that I would read to, in bed, late at night, when he was tired.  

The last time I saw him, I asked him point-blank.  "I can take it," I said, which is true, and was true.  "If you don't want to have anything to do with me, just tell me."  He looked at me, eyes slightly wide, poker-faced.  He couldn't say it.  He looked down at his fries and picked one out and said "Are you sure you're not just trying to be hard?"  "No, I simply prefer honesty."  "Look," he began, chomping on the fry, "I think it's better for you if you spend some time away from me."   What about me suggested that I couldn't handle him telling me to fuck off?  

And what is it about brutal honesty that repels people?  And I mean, being brutally honest about both the bad, and the good?  Why does just hovering around zero seem to feel best to most?  

When was it decided that embellishing the truth, or flat-out lying to people, was the best way to go about things?  That divulging a passion, an obsession, was worse than being quiet?  That prolonging a falsehood, and extending pain and discomfort, and unawareness, was better than a swift, blunt kick to the crotch?  Or, punch in the boobs?  Or that dispassion, and nonchalance, were somehow the ideal?  And were infinitely more comforting than the warmest, most nurturing embrace?  

I love honesty.  I realize that in all situations, it's not wise to deliver it, but fuck, when someone asks, why not just tell them?  Especially when your later behavior makes it ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that you should have just put your cards on the table?  

There's a book called "The Four Agreements" that says that we agree on elements of what we call "reality" (which in many cases, can be un-truths) in order to be able to communicate, and live harmoniously.  But when so many of us are so often doubting each other, smelling something foul about another's behavior, and feeling so out of harmony, then where do we begin to break the cycle?  And I'm not just talking about the lies we can sniff out.  I'm talking about the beauty we can feel:  that the client from work would totally want to hang out with you outside of the office; that the guy you're dating is falling in love with you; that the friend living in the state you left misses you so much, they wish you could come back and move in with them?  

Why can't we be a Declaration Nation and SCREAM IT FROM THE HILLTOPS?!

I try my best to come up with explanations for people's behavior, as a mass.  I try to give them the spiritual benefit of the doubt (except, of course, in the case of individual guys I used to date.  Their diagnoses are still TBD).  

So, regarding the "unreality as reality" agreement, I would argue this: that maybe everyone, deep down, really just wants to love everyone.  Maybe, since it's easier and nicer to feel good towards someone, or, to have no obvious negative feelings, people - myself included - are more inclined to go with a slightly skewed version of them.  Maybe the goal for all of us is love, under ideal circumstances.  If it has to be from a distance, then so be it.  If it has to be by not having them in your life, so be it.  If it has to be by believing that they will one day stop doing drugs, or "stop being gay" (as if that's a choice), or that you were the one who pushed them away, then that's the way the cookie crumbles.  Or I guess, in this case, this is how the cookie is kept together.  

Love from a distance is more pleasant.  Sometimes it burns too brightly.  Sometimes it's so intense, like an infra-red light, that you feel uncomfortable with it.  Perhaps because love is truth, and truth feels the same way, people feel similarly in the presence of both.  I don't know many people who can handle worship, or constant admiration and adulation.  Most I know still struggle with it and run in the other direction.  There seems to be a pretty standard frequency of expression of affection among people, and the same level seems to lie within people's comfort zones.  

I see the sun as a physical symbol of the Light, or love, of God.  I believe God set it up that way so we'd understand Him through our senses and our intelligence.  It's a constant reminder for us, and science confirms it:  the sun never goes away, it merely lights upon other parts of the earth, when it's out of our sight.  Even in the darkest night, we know it will rise the next morning.  And even under the grayest cloud cover, we know it is there, trying it's best to reach us.  

Maybe with the ozone layer slowly depleting, we will adapt and our tolerance to light will build up, generation after generation.  Maybe in a hundred years, we'll be able to embrace people we used to fight with without having to say a word, we'll be able to take in strangers off the street like they were our own children, and we'll be able to be totally honest with each other, because we know it won't be the death of either of us.  And we'll be eager to honor and love and worship each other, because we all deserve it, and we'll be quick to show it in ways and with a frequency that is now beyond our reach.   

To do my part, I'm going to stop wearing sunblock.  

Reflection


I want to come home to him.

To someone that I love, more than anything, more than anyone.  

To someone who is my best friend, to someone who makes me laugh, to someone who laughs when I try to make them laugh.

I want to come home to someone I can take care of.

I want to come home to him.

  

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Excuse Me, Have You Seen My Nose Hair Trimmer?


I really, really, really love makeup.  

Like, take-it-behind-the-middle-school-and-get-it-pregnant love it.  

Eyeshadows.  Lip-liners.  Bronzers.  Brushes.  A great foundation.  An amazing highlighter.   Makeup rules! because it is a daily way to transform yourself, to transcend, to be new, different, better.  

Being a woman, after all, is ALLLLLLLL about artifice.  Are her eyebrows naturally perfectly arched?  NO.  Is her hair naturally buttery blonde?  NO.  Is her skin naturally so even-toned?  NO.  Are her boobs naturally that perky?  Heyoow NO.    

Bitch, please - you're gonna tell me that there's such a thing as natural beauty?  

I can show you waxing strips lookin' like Chia pets that will tell you no girl, no way, no how, doesn't do some grooming or some spackling to pretty it up.  

The fuckin' nature of bein' feminine is all about fakin' it till we makin' it.   Come on!  Dying, shaving, plucking, powdering, squeezing, freezing, frosting, glossing, teasing, shaping, draping.... It's a testament to the power of regeneration that any chick continues to grow cells and hairs on her body!!

So it bugs me when men say "I like a natural beauty."  AGAIN:  Bitch, please!  
I can show you natural, and it looks like YOU!  It also looks like the guy sitting next to you who hasn't shaved in a week, and who, by the way, is scratching his balls. 

So what the guy is really saying is, "I want a girl who spent hours trying to look hot, but who doesn't actually look like she spent hours trying to look hot."

I say, if you're going to be faking it, ladies, REALLY make it fake.  BE AGRESSIVE!  B-E AGGRESSIVE with your beauty!  If it's out there and it's transgressive, it's gonna be rad.  Hot pink hair, 5-inch heels, weaves, breast implants, plastic clothing, go for it!  

Make your beauty like spinach:  ironic!  


Tuesday, June 9, 2009

9.


1.  I take pills.

2.  I like them, a lot.

3.  I like to fart.

4.  I dated my cousin.

5.  I didn't write back to my ex-boyfriend (not the cousin), and 2 weeks later, he killed himself.

6.  The day he hung himself, I went walking, and felt God was trying to show me something.  He showed me a telephone pole that looked like it was being strangled by wires.  I missed the significance, completely.  

7.  Until that time, I thought I was Jesus.  

8.  After my ex-boyfriend killed himself, I realized I couldn't save anyone, not even myself. 

9.  I don't have the strength to publish this yet. 

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Not for Nothing


He was the last lil' bit.

The last lick, the last morsel, the last bite left on the plate that I just couldn't get rid of.  

But you came along and you wiped it clean.  

You replaced that last piece with something else.  

Something non-addictive.  
Something substantial.  
Something that replenishes.
Something that doesn't deplete.  

A ray of light, from miles away.  

"The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray."


Saturday, June 6, 2009

2


There are two kinds of people in the world: 
those who simplify everyone into two kinds of people, and those who don't.  

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Since You're Gone


I'm on a tightrope and I keep falling off.  I don't understand why, but I keep finding myself back on the tightrope.  Sometimes I fall off, sometimes I jump off.  But I always end up back on it.  And my heart feels just like the guitar chords from the Cars' "Since You're Gone."

Even now, as I'm thinking this, and picturing it, I'm irritated to have to write it (visual of me, in bed, sighing, frustrated, in the dark, headphones on.) 
Why?
Cuz it feels so pointless.

This afternoon I was driving down Rand Road and remembered one night, pulling over onto the meridian of this stretch of road, to cry, and cry, at about 2 or 3 am, because I had just left him, and he had said something about not being able to have a lot of time for me, for some reason, something he said he was going to be doing.

In a nutshell, here's my beef with god.  I find this man who I fall in love with and live with; we go to a church that tells us that in order to be obedient to god, we cannot live together.  I move out, then we break up.  Then a year later he kills himself.  Turns out us living together - a.k.a. me, keeping a 24 hour watch on him - was the only thing keeping him alive.  

Do you see why I'm bitter as fuck?

Own It.


Revel in your own destruction.

Revel in your rebellion.

Because if the ship is going to be sinking, you may as well be singing.

We trademarked that permission.  That's for YOUR enjoyment.  

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Too Late


It's a strange thing, seeing opportunities that have passed you by.

Do you ever notice, when you're with someone you know is fantastic, that you sometimes totally shit allllllll over it?  Like, it seems with your every move, you are holding your middle finger up right in their face?  And when they don't seem to have seen that, you kick them in the balls?  (Or, shins, if they have no balls?)

Or is it just me?

I seem to be confronted with all these ghosts of opportunities past, that I was either too stupid to appreciate at the time, or too afraid, or both.  Now, when time has passed, and I'm more wise, it's too late.

I know there's always a silver lining, that the grass is always greener, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone, and any other random cliche that applies.  And cliches happen, I know this too.  And I know that there's going to be something headed my way that will make me look back and say "See, Jess?  THIS is why THAT didn't work out."  That's happened before, and I know it will happen again.  But I cannot help but to wonder: Did I throw away something that was really worth grabbing with both hands?  

And why, why, why does this seem to happen, again, and again, and again?  

Why on earth would a person shrink away from being loved?

I can think of only 2 reasons:

1. They doubt the authenticity of the source.

2.  They disbelieve they are worthy.  

Clean


There's a mess on my brain. 

There's paint all over the inner ground of it, after you slip right through its translucent sky.

But someone's taken a rag, wet with solvent, and dabbed out the stains.
With each thought of you, the rag blots you away just before you settle. 

Sunday, May 31, 2009

.......

I am so frustrated. 

I need to connect to someone, someone that I want to be around, who is fun to be around, whom I can be my best self around, and I can’t do that at this moment, and it frustrates me insanely. 

I am turning to substitutes to falsely fill the need and I am shaking in my chair, twitching my legs out of nervousness and anxiety, because I am so impoverished.  I don’t know how to solve this. 

I want to connect to him but he’s not reaching out back to me.  I am waiting for a response from him, but it’s been over a week and I’m still here, waiting.  He’s the only one I feel like being open to, and with.  But I sit here, unrequited.  It’s very difficult. 

I need to be being loved by someone whom I love equally as intensely. 

I need that reciprocation.  I need that reflection, that connection. 

I’m dying for a connection.

Friday, May 29, 2009

It's a Slippery Little Sucker, But, It Is A Sucker.





The light at the end of the tunnel.

Finally.  Today I reached it.  Ever-elusive, it evades, it saunters slowly or it sprints succinctly as you chase it down.  The closer you think you are, the further it actually is.

Today, I grabbed that light.  I put it over my knee, spanked it, and then I sent it packing with a sandwich and a juice box to elude some other poor fellow.  

Because, my friends, that poor fellow is no longer this girl, right here.  

I May Not "Get" You, But I'd Sure Like to "Own" You.

An Ode, to All Lovers Who Say One Thing, and Mean Another

If we used a translator 
in our Lincoln Navigator,
we could kick out the mediator
for wearing bogus alligator.

We could buy us a thesaurus,
Cuz you know it would work for us,
And we wouldn't be so porous 
When we singin' out the chorus.

If what I said got through to you, 
And if I heard you loud and clear,
It might mean less smelly poo 
And yucky waxes in our ear.

I know you want me,
I want you too,
but all this bullshit
Is a kick in the canoe.

So I'm-a make a declaration
Address the state of our lil' nation
Prohibit bunk retaliation
When all we wants is rhythm nation

I say some things that I don't mean
You take for truth a black smoke screen
I swear I'll cut it, make it lean
If you can give it gloss and sheen

Cuz folks like us, we know what's true
We don't play round, we don't be cruel
We got the sparks, we got the fuel
We both love films with Mercedes Ruehl.

I'm gonna give it to ya straight:
For you, I'll never have no hate
I love you straight right through the gate
So let's mellow out and marinate.

So I don't "get" you and you don't "get" me
But let's combine the family trees
I disbelieve the sweet things you say
But that don't mean I don't want to play

So let's get on with it
Don't play no games
Let's just stick with it,
And merge our names.