while reading The Hour of the Star

seems i am always circling around some sort of Reckoning, some sort of Return.  these thing i chase.  the moments when i feel most alive, charged with electricity and love, full of fear and pleasure and ego.  or the moments in the middle of the night when i am convinced of my own ineptitude, my selfish stupidity.  those horribly cold moments when i wallow in all my worst thoughts of myself, when i focus on all i lack, all i have always lacked. 

chasing a Reckoning.  some sort of Shattering.  a tear in the seam.  a crack that will let a little light in.  or a little dark out.

and i open a book and i read the words and for a one warm moment i feel Known in a way that i've always needed, in a way that i so often crave. 

 

the words stare at me and i nod my head: "Who hasn't ever wondered: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?"

there are so few moments of reprieve.  too few.  i look at my hands.  i put polish on the nails.  i look at my eyes.  i pull tar through the lashes.  i look at my mouth.  i cover the soft pink with the loudest red i can find.  these additions make me Real.  these flecks of color, these gestures toward Urge and Desire prove i am alive and healthy and humming with the ability to take part in an exchange with the world.  i am here and standing and capable but my little love-sick heart goes on wishing after so many ridiculous things.  

i want to be invincible and never made silent through shame or guilt.  i want to be the strongest thing in the world.  i want to not hurt.  i want to not long for things the way i do.  i want to feel contained and content and totally devoid of certain desires for the symbols of approval and appreciation.  

i suppose it's normal now for the questions to come.  it's been a week since buying the ticket and i am settling in to the knowledge that something i've dreamed of for so many long, lonely years is about to happen.  i make lists of what i need to take care of.  i need a backpack and flip-flops and a towel and a lock and a map.  i woke early this morning and kept my appointment at the post office to get an expedited passport.  when the moment came where i had to declare under penalty of perjury that i am who i claim to be i felt so giddy.  such a child-like happiness coursed through my entire body and i couldn't help but smile at the woman who asked for my oath.  in 2 weeks, my passport will arrive.  my birth certificate will come back to me under separate cover.  it's the first time in my entire life i've actually ever possessed the document.  it's always been in someone else's care. i'm an adult in such an official way.  i look around at the portfolios leaning against the bedroom wall, the guitar i haven't played in close to a decade, the books that will remain unread and all i can think is "just get rid of all this shit.  get rid of everything."

i war against my frailties.  i pull yarn through a loop with a cold hook.  i fashion a text of my own in red letters and i stitch them to poles on the street in the middle of the night when i walk home from the train station after waiting tables all evening.  i say this in plain language but it is a romantic moment.  no cars, no birds, no sound at all save for the soft scratch of my shoes against the sidewalk.  for however humble my life may be, it is also quite charmed.  i am not blind to the beauty that curls around me.  i am not oblivious to the goodness that swirls.  and so i am disappointed in myself when these frailties rear up and my little lonely heart beats against my ribs, begging for things i know don't matter and will only serve to hold me back. 

think of airplanes, little girl.

think of airplanes, woman.  

there is so much i do not know.