anti-solace

let me crawl back under my rock now.  let me crawl back to where i came from.  my coils of black wool and ink, graphite dust stuck to my feet, smudged across my face, empty bleeding heart dragging its ugly shape and shame across the page.  the inches are horrible.  each scratch of the pen, an agony.  each inch of wool twisted into knots, a horror.  but it is the only repair that has ever worked.  it is the only repair i trust, the only truth i know.  i bring my two hands back to myself.  at least for a time.  at least until i can see straight.  no longer interested in reaching toward the world, toward unknown doors.  at least not until it is time to pack a bag.  i see now that what i've been accused of is true.  i talk too good a game.  i take pictures of myself wearing a cap that says SLUT across the front and everyone automatically believes it.  they see my red lips and how seldom i become upset.  they see how independent i am and somehow, inexplicably to me, confuse me with being cold. i am not cold.  nowhere close.  my brashness is a moral responsibility to my own life...  to live as fully and as wholly as i can manage.  but i am not callous and i am not flagrant and i am not without compass or standard.


but fuck it.  what do i know?  i don't know a damn thing.  it's why i want to live.  in order to find out.  something.  anything. and it could quite easily be that it's my mirror that shines askew.

 

what is it about me that makes people seem to believe that i have no feelings?

i've cried three times this week.  everyday, for 3 days running, a small horror found me.  and even in the moment i told myself to feel blessed and lucky because i haven't had a bad run of luck or days of pain in so long it seems.  everything has been going pretty well.  no major complaints.  but i could feel it all along brewing in the background, simmering below my naive feet.  i've expected it for quite some time now that my brashness, my good game would lead directly to the wind being knocked out of me.  i've been going against my better judgement in certain ways because i just became so damn tired of loneliness.  i became so tired, painfully tired, of not allowing myself to know the world and to know other humans.  but i knew it was coming.  i knew i would wake up, humiliated and stupefied, and feel the urge to run away from the life i have here in Oakland.  and  maybe it's necessary?  maybe it's the kick i need?  i have wondered while crying if i should try to feel thankful for this pain...  it untethers me, afterall.  there is no longer any reason to drag my feet.  there are no anvils around my neck.  there are no gentle hands to lay me down and smooth my hair back across my forehead. 

i wake up this morning and a Great Goodness finds me...

baby's first passport arrived in today's mail.  i kissed it and kissed it and wanted to cry.  it is sitting next to me on my bed right this minute.  it is a gem.  it is my most sacred, most valued, most loved possession.  today, it trumps every piece of art i own.  everything pales in comparison to this little book: a testament to faith and struggle and belief.

in 4 weeks i'll be back in my beloved NYC for a few days before hoping on a plane and heading to europe for the very first time.  my very first trip over seas.  i am beside myself.  i can't find the words.  i'll find them in europe, i suppose! ha!  Becca and i stop in London for a night and then the next evening, on the 4th of July, our Independence day (and the 1 year anniversary of when i had my passport photo taken), we fly into Berlin.   a few days later, we will take a train from Berlin to Paris to see our beloved Rammstein play in Nancy, France.  after that?  hahahaaa!  there is absolutely no way to know!  but when (if?) i return, i fly back to new york for a few days before heading back to Oakland.  i'm sure i'll spend the first few days back crying, forlorn and lonely and in total anguish, in my bed before having to tie the apron around my waist once more, put on my bright lipstick, and tell jokes table-side.

i am lucky in that i will have a job to return to.  i am lucky in that i like my job.  i enjoy being around people and i am very good at creating an atmosphere of warmth and ease.  i'm good at being a waiter and, come July, it is a profession that will take me around the world.  well, at least half way.  :)  but i'm telling you, these next 4 weeks cannot go by fast enough.  the passed two days i have been crawling out of my skin.  i have never wanted to hop on a plane so badly in my entire life.

i am not afraid of knowing the world.  i am afraid of NOT knowing it.  i am not afraid of people, not even if i know i will suffer as a result.  i am more afraid of dying without ever having known what real love is.  i can tell you, right now, that i do not believe i have ever experienced it.  not on the receiving end anyway.  not a healthy love.  it seems definitions for love run the gamut and i am a dunce trying to figure out what the fuck i'm supposed to be doing and saying in the midst of it.


i'm supposed to be making art in the midst of it.
i'm supposed to be writing.


at very least, i know what my life is for.