.
that scene in Gia where Angelina Jolie is freaking out, afraid of her surroundings, afraid of the world and all the assholes who inhabit it: "You can't just take someones knife when they need it!"
i pulled my Francesca Woodman book from the stack of books meant to ship to my sister's house later this week, a book i've slept with and needed near even if i wasn't looking at it. some sort of balm. some sort of knife.
objects go in to boxes. boxes cover the kitchen floor.
a maze of piles. piles and piles and piles. all the trappings and papers and matchsticks of a life. it isn't detritus, this build up. these objects have significance. i think of the shoes i must soon sell and i close my eyes. i don't want to think of it just yet. the other half of my book collection too, must be sold off. i put my diaries in a box. 8 years on paper. i couldn't bring myself to tape the lid shut yet. i pulled Aase Berg's poetry collection 'With Deer' from the stack destined for the used bookstore. "not this one", i whisper. a balm, a knife to keep at my side.
but let me be honest: i wasn't much help today. mostly, i pointed from my place in bed, laying on an icepack. i've been locked in bed the passed three days. today, at least i could stand. today, at least i could walk. slowly, but i could do it. another round of drama with my damn iffy disk and, can i just say, the timing is absolutely awful. the only thing that would've been worse is if this had happened the night before we head to the airport. still, it's far less than ideal. i missed my last three nights of work at my restaurant. not only are there the lost wages and tips i'm thinking of but, more importantly, i didn't get to say goodbye the way i wanted to. i tell myself that maybe it's better this way. no ooshy gushy, tear-laden au reviour. but i know i'm wrong. it's not better this way. there are people i want to hug. there are smiles i want to see. and for however selfish or paranoid it may be, i don't want to go out being thought of as fragile, as a victim. i hate the way pity feels. this moment, this entire event is supposed to be one of staunch focus and bravery. i hate that it is being tempered now with the inconvenient fragility of my body. i hate it.
let me sip this beer.
there are pleasures to keep. despite the pain of my particular ailment, i've enjoyed the very rare opportunity to just lay in bed and spend the day reading. it isn't a luxury that i have often these days. i finished Kate Zambreno's 'Heroines' and want to write a huge response to it here but i need to digest it a bit more first. i need to calm down a bit. i'm having such an emotional, nostalgic reaction to it. it brought me back to aspects of my life as it was 4 or 5 years ago, an era i choose not to dwell upon very often. an era i've chosen not to write in detail about here but her book has made me rethink that stance entirely. there are memories that should be set to paper. there are stories that should float in this electric ether. i keep thinking about my mother tossing her journal pages into a large aluminum coffee can on the back porch and setting them on fire. i saw her do it on several occasions there at the house on Frontier Avenue. there is no personal writing of hers left. none. i have a few cute notes she scribbled and that's it. a birthday card here and there, nothing else. that's the way she wanted it. that's the way it is.
but i'm not her and she's not me. despite her big Angelina Jolie lips, i've got a much bigger mouth than she had. i wake up talking and there's no one left to disown me anyway. having any fear of family retribution is ridiculous. it's simply not in the cards and there are stories within this family that deserve to be told. there are stories that have been denied a voice for far too long. there are stories that could be a balm for someone else, that could lay like a knife at their side.
part of this act of writing (of making art) is to build one another up, to lend each other a bit of steam. at least for me it is. the lineage we create, how we talk to each other across time and space. i lay in bed this morning looking up at my big drawings on the wall to my left of The Bell Jar's book covers. i looked at them and wondered: is there any way she could have known how affective her book would be that a girl would make huge drawings of its cover and tape them to her bedroom wall? there is no way she could've know that, let alone trusted it, but we must trust our lineage. we create it. anyone can be a member. anyone can add their voice to the chorus.
i think of all this as i point at this and that and say which box what goes in to. i think of all this as i secretly wrap my mama's old aprons around christmas ornaments and hide them in boxes labeled ART. :) i think of my nephew and the lineage i can open a window to if i just keep writing, if i refuse to choose silence. i think of him and want to be a sort of balm, a knife laying at his side...
.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 22, 2015
of death and shame
.
i write about my mother a lot here. i suppose it's one of the only places where i feel i can. i don't feel guilty for bringing it up here, the subject of her death and death in general. i don't feel ashamed of my big emotions here. i can have them, loud and unruly behind the ineffectual whiteness of the screen. no one knows if i am crying or not. everyone can imagine whatever face they prefer for me to wear. or they can look away. many people have and i don't begrudge them for that. it's been 4 years. eventually, people want to hear about something else.
.
i just re-read that paragraph and feel that it is a half-truth. i often feel guilty about how much i write about my mother's death. the last several posts here are specifically about that and i'm sure the majority of posts i've made during the last 4 years since her death are about it too or at least reference it in someway. i look at my blog sometimes and back away from it because i don't want to be that girl who's droning on and on about her dead mama, about her broken heart, about the tragic twists of her life. but why not? why am i ashamed? this shame is, perhaps, the thing that has made blogging so hard in recent years. for awhile there i seemed to only manage the courage for it when i was drunk and disgusted with the world, drunk and disgusted with myself. and for a moment, even i was afraid of those outbursts. i started wondering if i'd fallen it to that weird literary alcoholism where one believes they can only write if they've had a few drinks. i'd read back over my posts the next afternoon and feel the knife of shame in my gut but i wouldn't erase any of it. i wanted to let it stand. i wanted to be brave enough to endure my shame. also (dangerously), i was attracted to being a bit of a mess, repulsive. i was at odds with so many things and i wanted to force the issue of my pain, my disappointment, my revulsion. i also thought the writing was simply that damn good. i was willing to scare relatives and friends and the mothers of friends that i was in the midst of a total breakdown. it wasn't the intention of the writing. not at all. but if it was the result, so be it. i was trying to say something true.
and maybe i was unravelling a bit too.
of course i was.
2008, graduated from college.
2008, decided to end my relationship with my father.
2008, moved to Calistoga and absolutely hated it.
2008 - 2009, explored the possibility that maybe i was bipolar simply due to the fact that i could not get along in my new surroundings. this was encouraged by my partner at the time.
2009, my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
2010, her cancer metastasized.
2011, my mother died. i was 30 years old.
2011, left Calistoga and moved back to Oakland.
2012, left a 7 year relationship that had been sexless for the last 3.
there's a lot in there to fall apart about. of all those things, my mother's death is the only thing i've really written about. at first, her death just made everything else seem so small and irrelevant. it was the biggest, most obvious horror. maybe it was also the most acceptable thing to write about, despite the overwhelming public discomfort surrounding death. no one really writes about the trauma of sexual neglect. at least not in the first person. not that i've seen. and not from the female perspective of being denied touch and how wounding that is. i'd be very interested in reading a text about that if anyone knows of something. and i'm still afraid to write about certain things, despite just sharing that secret. i'm afraid i'm going to make some sort of horrible, unforgivable transgression if i write about a past relationship, if i write about my father, if i tell the truth of what really happened, if i tell the whole truth about my mother, her marriages, our family, our undoing, our pain. despite my bravery, i still sometimes feel stopped. i censor myself. i don't want to dump lemon juice on the wounds of others. one of my biggest fears is hurting other people- a fear that has derailed the lives and selves of so many people.
thankfully, the only member of my family that reads here with any regularity is my sister. at least that i'm aware of. all my relatives on my mother's side, curious about my life as an artist, stopped reading here once the drunken 3am posts took over as the norm. long gone are the days of beautiful paragraphs about running with my dog down highway 128, through orange and red leaves, squirrels lobbing acorns at us from the tall trees, the scent of the vineyard crush filling the air. so idyllic. at least if that's all anyone knows, and that was all anyone knew for a very long time about my daily life in calistoga. i never let on about what a tortured, ignored, untouched "housewife" i'd become. i was so ashamed of myself and the deterioration i'd allowed to happen to my own life, my own dreams. i was ashamed of finding myself in a scenario that so horribly resembled my mother's 2nd marriage: man on the couch watching tv, woman reading a book in the other room. i remember so clearly the night i drunkenly confessed the sin of my sexlessness to my friend, Anne, while puking in the toilet at a mutual friend's house after having gone out and had one too many greyhounds. at that point, i'd been single about 7 months and no longer felt a responsibility to shield my ex from judgement. the reality of what my previous life and relationship had been burned within me, an awful dirty secret. in that moment, my shame burst forth along with all the booze i'd consumed and whatever i'd eaten that day. unstoppable. the next afternoon, hungover and dazed by the night's events, i felt embarrassed but also free. someone knew. someone knew my dirty secret and they didn't sneer at me. she sympathized and rubbed my back. i looked at the crust of vomit on my sequin jacket, called myself "a mess", and went home and wrote about it in my diary.
.
there were more deaths than just my mother's.
there are more deaths than just the physical.
perhaps i did "act out".
perhaps i still act out.
i won't allow another death to occur where there should be only one.
i won't be another girl burning her papers on the back porch, afraid of their power to incriminate.
.
i write about my mother a lot here. i suppose it's one of the only places where i feel i can. i don't feel guilty for bringing it up here, the subject of her death and death in general. i don't feel ashamed of my big emotions here. i can have them, loud and unruly behind the ineffectual whiteness of the screen. no one knows if i am crying or not. everyone can imagine whatever face they prefer for me to wear. or they can look away. many people have and i don't begrudge them for that. it's been 4 years. eventually, people want to hear about something else.
.
i just re-read that paragraph and feel that it is a half-truth. i often feel guilty about how much i write about my mother's death. the last several posts here are specifically about that and i'm sure the majority of posts i've made during the last 4 years since her death are about it too or at least reference it in someway. i look at my blog sometimes and back away from it because i don't want to be that girl who's droning on and on about her dead mama, about her broken heart, about the tragic twists of her life. but why not? why am i ashamed? this shame is, perhaps, the thing that has made blogging so hard in recent years. for awhile there i seemed to only manage the courage for it when i was drunk and disgusted with the world, drunk and disgusted with myself. and for a moment, even i was afraid of those outbursts. i started wondering if i'd fallen it to that weird literary alcoholism where one believes they can only write if they've had a few drinks. i'd read back over my posts the next afternoon and feel the knife of shame in my gut but i wouldn't erase any of it. i wanted to let it stand. i wanted to be brave enough to endure my shame. also (dangerously), i was attracted to being a bit of a mess, repulsive. i was at odds with so many things and i wanted to force the issue of my pain, my disappointment, my revulsion. i also thought the writing was simply that damn good. i was willing to scare relatives and friends and the mothers of friends that i was in the midst of a total breakdown. it wasn't the intention of the writing. not at all. but if it was the result, so be it. i was trying to say something true.
and maybe i was unravelling a bit too.
of course i was.
2008, graduated from college.
2008, decided to end my relationship with my father.
2008, moved to Calistoga and absolutely hated it.
2008 - 2009, explored the possibility that maybe i was bipolar simply due to the fact that i could not get along in my new surroundings. this was encouraged by my partner at the time.
2009, my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
2010, her cancer metastasized.
2011, my mother died. i was 30 years old.
2011, left Calistoga and moved back to Oakland.
2012, left a 7 year relationship that had been sexless for the last 3.
there's a lot in there to fall apart about. of all those things, my mother's death is the only thing i've really written about. at first, her death just made everything else seem so small and irrelevant. it was the biggest, most obvious horror. maybe it was also the most acceptable thing to write about, despite the overwhelming public discomfort surrounding death. no one really writes about the trauma of sexual neglect. at least not in the first person. not that i've seen. and not from the female perspective of being denied touch and how wounding that is. i'd be very interested in reading a text about that if anyone knows of something. and i'm still afraid to write about certain things, despite just sharing that secret. i'm afraid i'm going to make some sort of horrible, unforgivable transgression if i write about a past relationship, if i write about my father, if i tell the truth of what really happened, if i tell the whole truth about my mother, her marriages, our family, our undoing, our pain. despite my bravery, i still sometimes feel stopped. i censor myself. i don't want to dump lemon juice on the wounds of others. one of my biggest fears is hurting other people- a fear that has derailed the lives and selves of so many people.
thankfully, the only member of my family that reads here with any regularity is my sister. at least that i'm aware of. all my relatives on my mother's side, curious about my life as an artist, stopped reading here once the drunken 3am posts took over as the norm. long gone are the days of beautiful paragraphs about running with my dog down highway 128, through orange and red leaves, squirrels lobbing acorns at us from the tall trees, the scent of the vineyard crush filling the air. so idyllic. at least if that's all anyone knows, and that was all anyone knew for a very long time about my daily life in calistoga. i never let on about what a tortured, ignored, untouched "housewife" i'd become. i was so ashamed of myself and the deterioration i'd allowed to happen to my own life, my own dreams. i was ashamed of finding myself in a scenario that so horribly resembled my mother's 2nd marriage: man on the couch watching tv, woman reading a book in the other room. i remember so clearly the night i drunkenly confessed the sin of my sexlessness to my friend, Anne, while puking in the toilet at a mutual friend's house after having gone out and had one too many greyhounds. at that point, i'd been single about 7 months and no longer felt a responsibility to shield my ex from judgement. the reality of what my previous life and relationship had been burned within me, an awful dirty secret. in that moment, my shame burst forth along with all the booze i'd consumed and whatever i'd eaten that day. unstoppable. the next afternoon, hungover and dazed by the night's events, i felt embarrassed but also free. someone knew. someone knew my dirty secret and they didn't sneer at me. she sympathized and rubbed my back. i looked at the crust of vomit on my sequin jacket, called myself "a mess", and went home and wrote about it in my diary.
.
there were more deaths than just my mother's.
there are more deaths than just the physical.
perhaps i did "act out".
perhaps i still act out.
i won't allow another death to occur where there should be only one.
i won't be another girl burning her papers on the back porch, afraid of their power to incriminate.
.
Mar 21, 2015
grasping and scattering
.
it is a strange territory, this place of transition. a part of me wonders (has been wondering) if it's time to let go of the blog, to let it be an archive of a particular era and move on. i don't lean on it as much as i once did. i guess i don't need to. i am an entirely different person than who i was when i started this blog 8 years ago. it's hard to believe it's been that long. it's hard to believe the amount of change my life has undergone in that time. i look back and feel an almost total lack of connection to who i was when i published my first blog post. this has become a strange sort of time-capsule. i never really go back and read it. maybe one day i will. just like the diaries. i very rarely go back through them. the passed few years have been so much about living and not at all about reminiscing. i don't want to page back over my life right now. i'm interested in the view that is opening in front of me. i am interested in my Future. i've spent enough time dealing with the Past.
but it's complicated and i can be so inconsistent when it comes to certain things. i spent an hour reading a diary i kept when i was 23. it was amazing to read. i loved flipping through the pages and seeing my handwriting, almost identical to what it looks like now, and reading my complaints and passions, also almost identical to what they are now. it's funny what remains the same despite growing up, despite leading an entirely different life. the diary volume felt like such a treasure and i feel lucky to still have it in my possession. such a window. such a view. i know i'll feel the same way about the diaries of the passed few years too. i'll feel that way about the young days of the blog. i just don't know what this place is anymore other than a place to cry out in the dark. it isn't part of the community it once was. and that's okay. in some ways i prefer the silence that exists here now. i never fear my comment box. i never feel any pressure to blog. i never feel any eyes on me at all. every time i write here, it's a sudden impulse and not at all governed by rules or expectations. when i made rules for myself to blog everyday, i was probably a better writer in many regards but i also posted a lot of meaningless shit too. it's better this way - only posting when i have something i actually want to say - but i silence myself so often. i don't write here as much as i want. i'm not sure why i stop myself and the only answer i've come up with is that perhaps i've moved in to a different era of living. perhaps i don't need to do this anymore? or at least for awhile. i'm not sure. perhaps i need to make myself do it everyday again and wake the impulse i once felt to pound the keys back up. it's so easy to hide away in my private diary. it's so easy to close the cover and let my life stay there, stay put, remain safe. untouched and unknown.
i've been feeling a strange nostalgia lately from going through all my possessions and getting rid of things. i put all my nail polish on the kitchen table for my roommates' girlfriends to take. i pulled all my photographs out of the photo albums which housed them and left the albums on the street corner, too bulky to consider transporting on my month-long adventure across the US to new york. i put my mother's possessions in a box to send to my sister. i made a stack of books to send to Jose: Jean Genet and Kathy Acker, a Keith Haring coloring book. i send texts to friends asking them to come over and pick out what they want. i sold a third of my book collection the other day and got $200. i sold a third of my wardrobe and got $100. i sift through the objects i've lived with for so long and either feel an absolute connection and affinity with them... or nothing at all. the closer i get to the day we leave, the more i want to just be done with this task and leave everything on the street. that might just be what ends up happening. the last time i did this i even left art on the street. nothing good, nothing i was sad to be without, but even art was left behind to find its own way in the world. the urge to begin again, to be unfettered. the instinct to grasp at freedom.
i've written these types of sentences before. i've expressed these same sentiments and made similar statements. i guess it hasn't really been all that long since the last time i moved but i've never made such a big leap. moving across the country is a pretty major thing and it absolutely feels like a new chapter is opening. a deep sense of calm has found me despite the stress of needing to wrangle the possessions and memories which remain. i fight the urge to simply let it all scatter in the wind. some things must be saved. the diaries especially. everything else could burn but the diaries need to be kept safe. maybe that's the biggest perk of keeping a blog- it can't be destroyed. even if these words are never read, they remain. my mother burned everything she ever wrote. there are no poems and no diary entries. she burned them. she burned everything she wrote within a few days of scrawling them. she was that paranoid of feeling ashamed of herself. she was that sensitive. she was that afraid of her thoughts and words being used against her, of someone else twisting her emotions or statements. i don't want to be like that. for however obscure my life is i don't want to obliterate it. i don't want to erase myself. this desire to burn it all down, i don't want to share in it.
.
it is a strange territory, this place of transition. a part of me wonders (has been wondering) if it's time to let go of the blog, to let it be an archive of a particular era and move on. i don't lean on it as much as i once did. i guess i don't need to. i am an entirely different person than who i was when i started this blog 8 years ago. it's hard to believe it's been that long. it's hard to believe the amount of change my life has undergone in that time. i look back and feel an almost total lack of connection to who i was when i published my first blog post. this has become a strange sort of time-capsule. i never really go back and read it. maybe one day i will. just like the diaries. i very rarely go back through them. the passed few years have been so much about living and not at all about reminiscing. i don't want to page back over my life right now. i'm interested in the view that is opening in front of me. i am interested in my Future. i've spent enough time dealing with the Past.
but it's complicated and i can be so inconsistent when it comes to certain things. i spent an hour reading a diary i kept when i was 23. it was amazing to read. i loved flipping through the pages and seeing my handwriting, almost identical to what it looks like now, and reading my complaints and passions, also almost identical to what they are now. it's funny what remains the same despite growing up, despite leading an entirely different life. the diary volume felt like such a treasure and i feel lucky to still have it in my possession. such a window. such a view. i know i'll feel the same way about the diaries of the passed few years too. i'll feel that way about the young days of the blog. i just don't know what this place is anymore other than a place to cry out in the dark. it isn't part of the community it once was. and that's okay. in some ways i prefer the silence that exists here now. i never fear my comment box. i never feel any pressure to blog. i never feel any eyes on me at all. every time i write here, it's a sudden impulse and not at all governed by rules or expectations. when i made rules for myself to blog everyday, i was probably a better writer in many regards but i also posted a lot of meaningless shit too. it's better this way - only posting when i have something i actually want to say - but i silence myself so often. i don't write here as much as i want. i'm not sure why i stop myself and the only answer i've come up with is that perhaps i've moved in to a different era of living. perhaps i don't need to do this anymore? or at least for awhile. i'm not sure. perhaps i need to make myself do it everyday again and wake the impulse i once felt to pound the keys back up. it's so easy to hide away in my private diary. it's so easy to close the cover and let my life stay there, stay put, remain safe. untouched and unknown.
i've been feeling a strange nostalgia lately from going through all my possessions and getting rid of things. i put all my nail polish on the kitchen table for my roommates' girlfriends to take. i pulled all my photographs out of the photo albums which housed them and left the albums on the street corner, too bulky to consider transporting on my month-long adventure across the US to new york. i put my mother's possessions in a box to send to my sister. i made a stack of books to send to Jose: Jean Genet and Kathy Acker, a Keith Haring coloring book. i send texts to friends asking them to come over and pick out what they want. i sold a third of my book collection the other day and got $200. i sold a third of my wardrobe and got $100. i sift through the objects i've lived with for so long and either feel an absolute connection and affinity with them... or nothing at all. the closer i get to the day we leave, the more i want to just be done with this task and leave everything on the street. that might just be what ends up happening. the last time i did this i even left art on the street. nothing good, nothing i was sad to be without, but even art was left behind to find its own way in the world. the urge to begin again, to be unfettered. the instinct to grasp at freedom.
i've written these types of sentences before. i've expressed these same sentiments and made similar statements. i guess it hasn't really been all that long since the last time i moved but i've never made such a big leap. moving across the country is a pretty major thing and it absolutely feels like a new chapter is opening. a deep sense of calm has found me despite the stress of needing to wrangle the possessions and memories which remain. i fight the urge to simply let it all scatter in the wind. some things must be saved. the diaries especially. everything else could burn but the diaries need to be kept safe. maybe that's the biggest perk of keeping a blog- it can't be destroyed. even if these words are never read, they remain. my mother burned everything she ever wrote. there are no poems and no diary entries. she burned them. she burned everything she wrote within a few days of scrawling them. she was that paranoid of feeling ashamed of herself. she was that sensitive. she was that afraid of her thoughts and words being used against her, of someone else twisting her emotions or statements. i don't want to be like that. for however obscure my life is i don't want to obliterate it. i don't want to erase myself. this desire to burn it all down, i don't want to share in it.
.
Jan 29, 2015
"new year, new you"
.
sharing sweaters, counting days;
i go through my closet and pull dresses i haven't worn in years from their faithful hangers. i fold the garments and stack them politely in a bag meant for the consignment store, in a bag meant for the Goodwill. i retrieve unworn shoes from the back of the closet and wipe away the dust. i sneeze over and over again like a cartoon. i save the tshirts that maybe brian will want to wear.
there's something so endearing about looking up and seeing your lover wearing your clothes. i'm lucky to have spent so many years dressing in the armor of the Tom Boy - baggy shirts and over-sized hoodies - that i've got plenty for him to choose from. i get warm and sentimental when he pulls on my red and grey striped sweater i've owned since i was 15, the same sentimental warmth that finds me when i focus on the fact that we share the same tooth brush. there's really no reason to have two.
i've gotta say, 2014 was a good year. i fell in love over and over again.
i fell in love with a man who has ended up being my best friend. it's a pretty wonderful feeling. throughout the night, we turn to each other in our sleep and let our hands run softly down the curve of each others' back, knee cap, or eyebrow. it's no small event to me. it's no small event in my life to feel this safe on a regular basis. this safe, this appreciated, this understood. i feel lucky everyday. and bewildered.
i fell in love with art again (again and always), particularly drawing. such a beautiful, wonderful return; a piece of myself waking up after a long, agitated slumber. i return, hot and heavy, to those black lines and shadows, spilled ink and graphite stuck below my cuticles. i'm surprised i went so long without seriously drawing but, then again, it makes sense. crochet is such a comfort. not just the things that i learned how to craft, but the act itself. a rhythm. a ritual. a cradle being rocked.
so much of the last 3 years has been about repair. so many of my actions and decisions and whims have been an attempt to heal. i can see that now. and as i move in to this new year, i largely feel that that Healing has been had.
for as strange as this might sound, it is a little scary.
what will my voice be like now?
i pull a pale blue button-down from its hanger. i go on sorting and considering, attempting to make room for a new beginning. i look at each article of clothing and, rather than ask myself if i want it, i ask myself "do i want this to follow me in to a new life?" i think of Sartre, of his eloquent proposition that there is always "a virgin future waiting to be forged" and know that i am standing at that edge, that place where one sees the mountain in front of them and knows that they will climb it, the first step having already been taken.
i thin my possessions. i pull an unfinished drawing from my portfolio and grab my pencil. i turn on my computer, log in to this space and start hitting the keys, not because i have anything in particular to say, i simply have the urge to speak. i'm learning that this urge is something to revere. this urge is something to give in to. it is how my future will be forged. it has always been forged this way. it is how i will come to know how to use my new voice. it is how i will come to know this new "me". it is how i become less and less afraid.
.
sharing sweaters, counting days;
i go through my closet and pull dresses i haven't worn in years from their faithful hangers. i fold the garments and stack them politely in a bag meant for the consignment store, in a bag meant for the Goodwill. i retrieve unworn shoes from the back of the closet and wipe away the dust. i sneeze over and over again like a cartoon. i save the tshirts that maybe brian will want to wear.
there's something so endearing about looking up and seeing your lover wearing your clothes. i'm lucky to have spent so many years dressing in the armor of the Tom Boy - baggy shirts and over-sized hoodies - that i've got plenty for him to choose from. i get warm and sentimental when he pulls on my red and grey striped sweater i've owned since i was 15, the same sentimental warmth that finds me when i focus on the fact that we share the same tooth brush. there's really no reason to have two.
i've gotta say, 2014 was a good year. i fell in love over and over again.
i fell in love with a man who has ended up being my best friend. it's a pretty wonderful feeling. throughout the night, we turn to each other in our sleep and let our hands run softly down the curve of each others' back, knee cap, or eyebrow. it's no small event to me. it's no small event in my life to feel this safe on a regular basis. this safe, this appreciated, this understood. i feel lucky everyday. and bewildered.
i fell in love with art again (again and always), particularly drawing. such a beautiful, wonderful return; a piece of myself waking up after a long, agitated slumber. i return, hot and heavy, to those black lines and shadows, spilled ink and graphite stuck below my cuticles. i'm surprised i went so long without seriously drawing but, then again, it makes sense. crochet is such a comfort. not just the things that i learned how to craft, but the act itself. a rhythm. a ritual. a cradle being rocked.
so much of the last 3 years has been about repair. so many of my actions and decisions and whims have been an attempt to heal. i can see that now. and as i move in to this new year, i largely feel that that Healing has been had.
for as strange as this might sound, it is a little scary.
what will my voice be like now?
i pull a pale blue button-down from its hanger. i go on sorting and considering, attempting to make room for a new beginning. i look at each article of clothing and, rather than ask myself if i want it, i ask myself "do i want this to follow me in to a new life?" i think of Sartre, of his eloquent proposition that there is always "a virgin future waiting to be forged" and know that i am standing at that edge, that place where one sees the mountain in front of them and knows that they will climb it, the first step having already been taken.
i thin my possessions. i pull an unfinished drawing from my portfolio and grab my pencil. i turn on my computer, log in to this space and start hitting the keys, not because i have anything in particular to say, i simply have the urge to speak. i'm learning that this urge is something to revere. this urge is something to give in to. it is how my future will be forged. it has always been forged this way. it is how i will come to know how to use my new voice. it is how i will come to know this new "me". it is how i become less and less afraid.
.
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 2, 2014
you
.
there's some place in me,
untapped,
that i thought only i could get to
but i go searching for your picture
in the middle of the night...
i want to be wrong.
it's not enough to lay at your side.
it's not enough
to be the patient girl
who stops talking when your business line rings.
it's not enough anymore
to be your weekend fun.
when you spoke of god
with your cock in me
i wanted so badly
to be a believer again.
how many beautiful choruses i would sing
if you'd leaf through the tears in my heart
like a hymnal
as eagerly as you did my genitals.
i want you to know me and not look away.
.
there's some place in me,
untapped,
that i thought only i could get to
but i go searching for your picture
in the middle of the night...
i want to be wrong.
it's not enough to lay at your side.
it's not enough
to be the patient girl
who stops talking when your business line rings.
it's not enough anymore
to be your weekend fun.
when you spoke of god
with your cock in me
i wanted so badly
to be a believer again.
how many beautiful choruses i would sing
if you'd leaf through the tears in my heart
like a hymnal
as eagerly as you did my genitals.
i want you to know me and not look away.
.
Jun 1, 2014
I WANT TO BE HOME FOR THE WORST PARTS OF YOU
.
.JPG)
this is a horrible picture of this piece. this isn't even how i think this piece should be displayed. it's simply that i want to live with it for awhile. i want this net of poetry falling all around me, encircling my bed, greeting me in the half-light of early morning when the brightness of the day first spills in through my window: I WANT TO BE HOME FOR THE WORST PARTS OF YOU - my masochism sunning itself in the twists of black yarn, stretching its limps in the slow patience of each stitch, as pleased and self-satisfied as a cat.
these games of exposure are sticky. how much of this ends up being Persona? how much of myself am i actually exposing? how much do i want to expose?
the level of redaction i employ when culling phrases from my diary is steep. i look for poetic turns of phrase, a nod toward a particular shadow of self. i tell the truth but not the whole truth. these sentiments are divorced from their original context. entire paragraphs and pages that flesh out the original meaning and situate the phrase in a more complete environment and atmosphere have been obliterated. one sentence remains. a fragment. and that fragment is let to sparkle in the rays of sun that come filtering through the broken blinds above my bed.
a tease.
a hint.
a half-truth?
lying by omission?
my banners wave, endlessly endlessly, in the soft light of fantasy and desire. in just such a light, it is easy to fashion whatever truth one wants, whatever truth one needs. i can be whatever you need me to be. my desire, a chime that beckons yours.
a spider's web.
.
this is a horrible picture of this piece. this isn't even how i think this piece should be displayed. it's simply that i want to live with it for awhile. i want this net of poetry falling all around me, encircling my bed, greeting me in the half-light of early morning when the brightness of the day first spills in through my window: I WANT TO BE HOME FOR THE WORST PARTS OF YOU - my masochism sunning itself in the twists of black yarn, stretching its limps in the slow patience of each stitch, as pleased and self-satisfied as a cat.
these games of exposure are sticky. how much of this ends up being Persona? how much of myself am i actually exposing? how much do i want to expose?
the level of redaction i employ when culling phrases from my diary is steep. i look for poetic turns of phrase, a nod toward a particular shadow of self. i tell the truth but not the whole truth. these sentiments are divorced from their original context. entire paragraphs and pages that flesh out the original meaning and situate the phrase in a more complete environment and atmosphere have been obliterated. one sentence remains. a fragment. and that fragment is let to sparkle in the rays of sun that come filtering through the broken blinds above my bed.
a tease.
a hint.
a half-truth?
lying by omission?
my banners wave, endlessly endlessly, in the soft light of fantasy and desire. in just such a light, it is easy to fashion whatever truth one wants, whatever truth one needs. i can be whatever you need me to be. my desire, a chime that beckons yours.
a spider's web.
.
May 23, 2014
shift
.
it's strange to me that there have been so many days lately where i haven't wanted to write. it's a big shift from my normal mode. even when i don't write here, i'm scribbling away in my diary, hermitting in that crisp, blue-lined home of mine. but there have been days lately when i just need to sit. there are days when i run from the workings of my own mind, when i simply need the simplest of things- a movie on Netfix and a deep pillow... things i very rarely allow myself.
i JUST saw Lost in Translation for the first time last week. why it's taken me so long to make time for such a beautiful film, i can't say. or i can. it's that i have really fucked up notions of value when it comes to spending time in front of a screen. or not fucked up, maybe, but issues nevertheless. my ex stepfather spent the majority of his free time in front of the television and i was always so disgusted by that. my mother would be outside working in her garden, enjoying the feeling of her hands in the dirt and the sun on her back, and he'd be inside yelling at the tv screen. she hated the tv always being on. always had. growing up, she refused to let us spend a saturday simply laying in front of the television. she was definitely the type of mom that yelled at us to get outside and be in the sunshine. and good for her. i've come to appreciate that about her so much. and so it was so strange to me that she married someone whose favorite "hobby" was watching tv. she and her husband got to a place where they didn't even eat dinner together at the table anymore (something my mother really valued). she'd make dinner and bring it to him in front of the television set. she'd sit next to him and watch Law & Order, a major concession and acquiescence that was hard to stomach. in my adolescence, i swore to myself that i'd never marry a man that watched tv all the time. i needed passion and romance and someone to stay up late talking with. i needed someone who read books every now and then. i needed someone who preferred the stereo to the tv set 9 times out of 10.
though we were never married, i found myself in a relationship that shared this exact component of television love that i so disdained. i fucking hated it. at 28 years old, i had the awful, humiliating, confusing, and painful experience of meeting a man at the front door in revealing lingerie just to be walked passed after a quick kiss on the forehead and a careless "you look nice, honey" to flop down in the armchair and turn on Sports Center.
fuck that.
and, yeah, i know it's not the tv's fault that i lived with an inept asshole... but it's easier to be mad at an object than at another human being. especially a human being you love. one looks for a scapegoat, a storehouse for blame.
and so i considered television a complete waste of time and found it absolutely abhorrent and unacceptable that it is the number 1 pass time of americans. that's disgusting. disgusting and ridiculous. but my judgement about television extended to anything and everything that took place on a screen. everything from music videos to film to art. if it happened on a screen, i saw it as a waste of my time, a waste of my life.
that's harsh. and i knew that, in some ways, i was missing out...
it was amazing to have such a simple, direct experience the other evening. it helped that there was a gorgeous man in the room with me, laying half naked on my bed. :) we laid there together, drinking vodka sodas and running our fingers along the curves of each other's legs, as Sophia Coppola's beautiful, poignant film played in the dark of my bedroom. it's been so long since i've had such a soft, safe, close experience. it's been a really long time since i've felt at home with a man. i've not felt this comfortable with a man in a very long time and, at times, i am unnerved by it. i'm used to being inside my own head. i'm used to having the only say. i'm used, now, to not being hurt and assuring my safety through remaining single.
but something is opening up in me. my armor is melting away. i look at this other human being and think he's got the best face on the entire planet. i look at this other human being and feel so thankful for his humor and wit. i look at this other human being and think, "maybe i'm not alone in this world after all... "
and so there are days when i don't want to write. i want to just lay and be. i want to curl against his form and not think about all the heavy things. i want to lay my cheek against his back as we snuggle in bed and i want to enjoy the rare instance of a quiet mind. it was this soft moment of laying together in bed watching Lost in Translation that made me realize i'm truly ready to try my hand at this Love thing again. it was so simple and so quiet but there was no other place i would've rather been.
i felt entirely at home.
.
it's strange to me that there have been so many days lately where i haven't wanted to write. it's a big shift from my normal mode. even when i don't write here, i'm scribbling away in my diary, hermitting in that crisp, blue-lined home of mine. but there have been days lately when i just need to sit. there are days when i run from the workings of my own mind, when i simply need the simplest of things- a movie on Netfix and a deep pillow... things i very rarely allow myself.
i JUST saw Lost in Translation for the first time last week. why it's taken me so long to make time for such a beautiful film, i can't say. or i can. it's that i have really fucked up notions of value when it comes to spending time in front of a screen. or not fucked up, maybe, but issues nevertheless. my ex stepfather spent the majority of his free time in front of the television and i was always so disgusted by that. my mother would be outside working in her garden, enjoying the feeling of her hands in the dirt and the sun on her back, and he'd be inside yelling at the tv screen. she hated the tv always being on. always had. growing up, she refused to let us spend a saturday simply laying in front of the television. she was definitely the type of mom that yelled at us to get outside and be in the sunshine. and good for her. i've come to appreciate that about her so much. and so it was so strange to me that she married someone whose favorite "hobby" was watching tv. she and her husband got to a place where they didn't even eat dinner together at the table anymore (something my mother really valued). she'd make dinner and bring it to him in front of the television set. she'd sit next to him and watch Law & Order, a major concession and acquiescence that was hard to stomach. in my adolescence, i swore to myself that i'd never marry a man that watched tv all the time. i needed passion and romance and someone to stay up late talking with. i needed someone who read books every now and then. i needed someone who preferred the stereo to the tv set 9 times out of 10.
though we were never married, i found myself in a relationship that shared this exact component of television love that i so disdained. i fucking hated it. at 28 years old, i had the awful, humiliating, confusing, and painful experience of meeting a man at the front door in revealing lingerie just to be walked passed after a quick kiss on the forehead and a careless "you look nice, honey" to flop down in the armchair and turn on Sports Center.
fuck that.
and, yeah, i know it's not the tv's fault that i lived with an inept asshole... but it's easier to be mad at an object than at another human being. especially a human being you love. one looks for a scapegoat, a storehouse for blame.
and so i considered television a complete waste of time and found it absolutely abhorrent and unacceptable that it is the number 1 pass time of americans. that's disgusting. disgusting and ridiculous. but my judgement about television extended to anything and everything that took place on a screen. everything from music videos to film to art. if it happened on a screen, i saw it as a waste of my time, a waste of my life.
that's harsh. and i knew that, in some ways, i was missing out...
it was amazing to have such a simple, direct experience the other evening. it helped that there was a gorgeous man in the room with me, laying half naked on my bed. :) we laid there together, drinking vodka sodas and running our fingers along the curves of each other's legs, as Sophia Coppola's beautiful, poignant film played in the dark of my bedroom. it's been so long since i've had such a soft, safe, close experience. it's been a really long time since i've felt at home with a man. i've not felt this comfortable with a man in a very long time and, at times, i am unnerved by it. i'm used to being inside my own head. i'm used to having the only say. i'm used, now, to not being hurt and assuring my safety through remaining single.
but something is opening up in me. my armor is melting away. i look at this other human being and think he's got the best face on the entire planet. i look at this other human being and feel so thankful for his humor and wit. i look at this other human being and think, "maybe i'm not alone in this world after all... "
and so there are days when i don't want to write. i want to just lay and be. i want to curl against his form and not think about all the heavy things. i want to lay my cheek against his back as we snuggle in bed and i want to enjoy the rare instance of a quiet mind. it was this soft moment of laying together in bed watching Lost in Translation that made me realize i'm truly ready to try my hand at this Love thing again. it was so simple and so quiet but there was no other place i would've rather been.
i felt entirely at home.
.
Mar 24, 2014
in bed with kate and all my memories of When...
.
recovering today with kate. my back hurts. i am spending the day in bed.
it's good to finally be reading this book. i've been a bad friend in that regard... we artists are supposed to stick together. but i've been a bad artist lately too. i bounce in and out of enthusiasm, in and out of my once-unshakable integrity and devotion. maybe i've just needed a bit of a break? maybe i am, once more, in the wool-gathering time...
today, i return to a previous self. maybe the pain is good for me. as a result, i am caged (beautifully so) in my new grey sheets, in my new bed, in my new room at the front of the house. last week, i upgraded. i jumped from renting the smallest room in the house to the largest. private bathroom and all. this aspect alone makes it feel as if i suddenly live by myself save for the occasions when i hear a roommate drop a dish in the sink. it is beyond nice. i can stretch out again. i am no longer cramped. my books no longer crowd me, dominate the room. i enjoy the light that spills in to my room each morning from the window above my bed. i wake up feeling free. i wake up feeling grateful.
even today. despite this pain. a day in bed should rectify this ache. tomorrow will be better. tomorrow i should be back on my feet. but until then, let me languish in this strange variety of luxury. though i am in pain, it is fantastic to be able to spend the day in bed with a book. especially Kate's book. i think back to that weird, wonderful era when we communicated across the electric blue line of the internet in the comment boxes of each others' blogs. so many of us, us girls and women trying to say something about our lives and find a site of understanding... having to fashion our own nests out of words and sadness and the light of a computer screen... i lived for my blog in those days, and i lived for hers, and i lived for rebecca's. i was obsessed. pleasantly obsessed. i was so miserable in my daily physical reality, then: trapped in the deadening silence of little Calistoga, in the deadening silence of a dead relationship.
it's hard to even talk about it. not because it hurts but because it seems (and feels) like such an impossibility; a falsehood. it feels like it never happened. that wasn't me. i was never that girl... but i was. i lived it. and it feels just as much a lie now as it did then. jose reminds me: "but you made so much good art there". he's right. i did. but i have a hard time calling that a fair trade. i have a hard time looking at my work and saying, "yeah... that's a good consolation for what i went through".
i used to write everyday in this space.
i wrote everyday in this space because i wanted desperately to have someone to talk to. it is horrible to me that that was the impetus and i was in a relationship at the time.
on page 24: "I am realizing you become a wife, despite the mutual attempt at an egalitarian partnership, once you agree to move for him."
perhaps, i became a wife when i agreed to follow a man out to the California countryside, a place i had no desire to be, in order to feel some sense of safety... for so many reasons. so many hard, horrible reasons. the collapse of my biological family being central to that decision. and we were never officially married but everyone saw as as married anyway. toward the end, i resented that. as if my decision to remain unmarried didn't matter. there were good reasons for remaining unmarried and it upset me that they weren't acknowledged... and this Upset led me to look at myself and what i'd chosen to be a part of... i helped keep those good reasons a secret: the lies we tell ourselves and the lies we tell each other and the lies we build together. it's easy to allow oneself to become lost in the haze of desire. especially the desire to be Right... the desire to avoid the shame of being Wrong.
perhaps i became a wife when i chose Silence.
perhaps i became a wife when i chose to endure Silence.
it horrified me when i'd hear women far older than i complaining about how their husbands never talked with them and how deeply i related to that deep pain. the ignored wife.
years later, i lay in my own bed reading about the silencing of wives... the necessity of a wife's silence. i recall the years i offered up my own Silence as a benefit to the lives of the men around me. my lover and my father and my step father... all the things i never spoke of because, in telling on them, i told on myself (or so i believed). in telling the truth about my own circumstances, i somehow became a Judas. i somehow betrayed my mother. i somehow betrayed everyone by simply telling the truth about my own life and self. the knots of silence that keep a girl in place. the knots of shame that keep her poised and pretty and appreciated by everyone around her. the prize of her silence. the reward she receives is simply the absence of Shame.
perhaps that's why i put so many words out in to the street now.
perhaps it's why i am so slow to trust men and so slow to trust the idea of family. i need a new definition for these things... a new understanding of what relationships can be and what they are for. i am most comfortable and happiest in my independence. and so i paint my nails lavender and turn the pages of a book. i lay in bed, shopping on the internet, and choose to not feel guilty about any of it. if i am silly, let me be silly. let me be what i actually am: a non-wife and a non-daughter. i went down the other roads and it nearly destroyed me. i am making my way out of silence.
.
Jan 25, 2014
ugly
.
ugly little angela ugly little angela crawling like an angel so wholesome so hopeful so hopeful my horrible shapes somehow manage to elude you your beautiful wide eyes somehow stumble into a diamond of blindness that damn bright blue of heaven spilling over the eager ugly inches of my deformed form every inch of me more horrible and polluted than the inch before each lick more bitter than the one before slap my face slap my face i'll beg you to slap me until the ugliness falls away leave me red and wanton but without want without that atrocious longing for beauty wipe me clean of all the lessons i was fed slap the adjectives out of my mouth yank my head back spit on me scream at me and for one moment i'll know at least one other human being sees me.
all i want is for one other person to know me.
know the worst of me and don't turn away
all the things i cry about in the dark, no mother at the end of the hall to come running
to interupt the nightmare, smooth my hair back and kiss my forehead, no angel crawling at the foot of my bed
i'm the angel
the spectacle
crawling, open mouthed
begging, blue eyes open as bruised legs
ignore the gleaming smile that greets you
ignore the image
the way i walk so tall
red lips and long hair
high heels and dressed in black
"that's a bad bitch"
ignore it all
even if i am that girl
i want you to see me stripped completely down
see me beg you like a prideless dog
and choose to stay til noon anyway
.
i can say anything here. i don't give a fuck who loves me if you don't. did you hear that? i said i don't give a fuck who loves me if you don't... and all i can do is hope that this feeling will pass.
.
ugly little angela ugly little angela crawling like an angel so wholesome so hopeful so hopeful my horrible shapes somehow manage to elude you your beautiful wide eyes somehow stumble into a diamond of blindness that damn bright blue of heaven spilling over the eager ugly inches of my deformed form every inch of me more horrible and polluted than the inch before each lick more bitter than the one before slap my face slap my face i'll beg you to slap me until the ugliness falls away leave me red and wanton but without want without that atrocious longing for beauty wipe me clean of all the lessons i was fed slap the adjectives out of my mouth yank my head back spit on me scream at me and for one moment i'll know at least one other human being sees me.
all i want is for one other person to know me.
know the worst of me and don't turn away
all the things i cry about in the dark, no mother at the end of the hall to come running
to interupt the nightmare, smooth my hair back and kiss my forehead, no angel crawling at the foot of my bed
i'm the angel
the spectacle
crawling, open mouthed
begging, blue eyes open as bruised legs
ignore the gleaming smile that greets you
ignore the image
the way i walk so tall
red lips and long hair
high heels and dressed in black
"that's a bad bitch"
ignore it all
even if i am that girl
i want you to see me stripped completely down
see me beg you like a prideless dog
and choose to stay til noon anyway
.
i can say anything here. i don't give a fuck who loves me if you don't. did you hear that? i said i don't give a fuck who loves me if you don't... and all i can do is hope that this feeling will pass.
.
Jan 24, 2014
what aftermath?
.
wash my whites.
take my pill.
"don't forget your shirt"
hungry to reminisce
my bad deeds
the things i've done that would make my mama hate me
determined to earn it
she hated me for no reason
never once made it a secret thing.
i hold my breath
i don't want your death around me
i'm familiar enough
but put your hand around my throat
i want to feel a real fear for once
it gets tiring
being afraid of nothing.
keeping busy
chasing all the ugly names.
some type of hurt that is honest and sure.
some type of hurt i can't explain.
.
wash my whites.
take my pill.
"don't forget your shirt"
hungry to reminisce
my bad deeds
the things i've done that would make my mama hate me
determined to earn it
she hated me for no reason
never once made it a secret thing.
i hold my breath
i don't want your death around me
i'm familiar enough
but put your hand around my throat
i want to feel a real fear for once
it gets tiring
being afraid of nothing.
keeping busy
chasing all the ugly names.
some type of hurt that is honest and sure.
some type of hurt i can't explain.
.
Sep 11, 2013
.JPG)
Apr 21, 2013
once able
.
it is beautiful to be able to sit naked on a sunday night with a cocktail and a favorite book. i haven't read poetry in so long it seems. it is a life-blood that returns to me. i flipped open Ariana Reines's THE COW and read the first poem that my eyes happened to find. of course, it is the perfect fit:
it is beautiful to be able to sit naked on a sunday night with a cocktail and a favorite book. i haven't read poetry in so long it seems. it is a life-blood that returns to me. i flipped open Ariana Reines's THE COW and read the first poem that my eyes happened to find. of course, it is the perfect fit:
that last line, the refrain, is such a brutal chime. an ache that rings through me in a language i understand... a need i understand.
to be fully oneself. to be honest. to be unafraid of the ugly. to be unafraid of becoming ugly. to be afraid but to move forward anyway. to be lost and uncertain and choose to see it as Freedom. to be able to create a well of courage and move, finally, like a king.
it has been a week of sleeping on ice packs and trying my hardest not to let negativity take hold. finally, this afternoon i was able to pace slowly back and forth down my hallway without appearing feeble and deformed. my disk in finally slipping back in to place. i haven't taken pain meds in days and am finally on the mend. and i promise you, recovery cannot come speedily enough. cabin fever is a motherfucker. i loathe laying around in general and this week of being confined to bed nearly made me cry. i love solitude but only after exercising my love for being out in the world, in the surge and throng, in the heat of work and play and exploration. even boredom is better outdoors than when locked away in the room at the back of the house. it has been total agony in more ways than one. it's one thing to lay around out of sheer laziness or exhaustion; it's an entirely different thing to be confined to bed due to such severe physical pain. the pain itself makes one depressed. the fact that it seems unending. the fact that one can look back over the course of a week and still not be healed. the fact that one must sit and deal with the fact of the fragility of their own body... how easily it can be broken... how easily it can become a cage.
still, there is always a value. i've made a pile of yarn bombs to drop the second i can get out of the house and resume my artistic adventures. i long for the wide open expanse of dark city streets in the middle of the night. i long for the glow of street lamps and the headlights of cars cruising slowly by. it has been such a practice of patience and endurance to withstand this stillness, this degree of physical inability. it breeds compassion, that's for sure, as well as providing one with the somewhat uncomfortable opportunity to perform a deeper self-investigation than one might have undertaken otherwise. i haven't been able to run my fears away or burn my sadness down with work and excersize. i've been forced to sit here with them. i've been forced to sit and look at my ghosts. i've had no choice but to recognize when my feelings were dramatic and unwarranted, based purely in the pain of my situation, and when they were a normal, natural outcropping of a hurtful event. i have filled so many pages in my diary and am coming face to face with the core of my needs, the remainder of my naivety, the necessity to emerge from this site of safe repose (once able) and rush again toward the life that is waiting for me in the ecstatic hustle of art. i am newly aware of a bevy of mistakes i've made and i aim to repeat not a one.
i think of Simone Weil. i try to obey her. i try to not struggle against my suffering but to endure it passively, to let in polish me, to allow it to create a new beauty within me. it is a hard task. an exercise in endurance and the ability to tolerate anguish without becoming bitter.
i need to discover a new definition of the word LOVE.
i need to make room for the creation of a new face for GOD.
.
Mar 6, 2013
let me lay a little judgement down, let me cast my questions out
don't write for the public, just write.
don't write for the public, just write.
don't write for the public, just write.
don't write for the public, just write.
don't write for the public, just write.
don't write for the public, just write.
don't write for the public, just write.
don't write for the public, just write.
don't write for the public, just write.
don't write for the public, just write.
write as if no one is watching.
especially your mother's family.
this is what i tell myself tonight as my fingers reach for the keys. i tell myself: please do not try for eloquence or an even keel. do not reach toward that horrible expectation to be fucking fair and unbiased and full of benevolence. i am not a god and don't want the responsibility of one. though as far as i can tell, gods are really just dead-beats who somehow managed to turn the abuse of neglect in to "mystery". maybe being a god is the freest thing an entity can be? still, i prefer the heat of my flesh to the cold skin of aloof perfection. i turn back through the pages of my ravaged and bent diary and find so many insights to cling to. and not simply of my own either. i've recorded the things friends have said to me. beautiful, intelligent, talented, cultured women who i am stunned by and proud to know. i thankfully had the good sense to write down the advice they gave me and the assessments they made. whether it be a day ago or a year ago, their words are a balm and a warm hug. just like everyone else i possess a tremendous talent for convincing myself that i'm Right. :) luckily, i am a diarist and can prove to myself otherwise. my wet and trembling eyes skate hungrily across the thin blue lines that carry my handwriting. i read page after page. the ink functions as a mirror. at times my script becomes wild and loopy as my emotions build and gather steam. other times, i am controlled. my script is measured and small, sure of the curve of an N and the beautiful slant of a T. in the diary i write in cursive so that i can write as fast as possible.
i will never be able to write fast enough.
what i wanted to talk about tonight is that marriage seems largely like a bunch of bullshit but doesn't that make me sound bitter? does it make me sound envious? i assure you i am not envious of married people and if any married person wants to know why that might be, i suggest you take a moment and look at how YOU speak about marriage. y'all don't exactly seem to be a fount of five star reviews. just sayin. y'all speak ATROCIOUSLY about what marriage entails. you use the worst language imaginable to speak about your spouse. it's sickening. it really is. not to mention totally offensive. WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU STILL MARRIED IF THAT'S HOW YOU REALLY FEEL? seriously??? why are you married? and please don't give me that "for the kids" crap. we are all so beyond that degraded, abusive, deformed logic. the desire to have children itself is, in our time and place, a pretty thin reason in and of itself to wed. i myself do not intend to procreate. i have absolutely no desire to be a mother. i do not want to bear children. in fact, i am doing my best to ensure that my particular bloodline has the least chance of survival possible (and if you met some of my family members, you'd understand why). aside from that glaring bit of judgement, i simply do not find babies to be at all compelling. i never have. i have more to offer this planet and humanity than my biological capabilities. i do not think that raising children would be a worthwhile way to spend my time. not at all. and why does everyone seem to throw logic out the fucking window when it comes to this topic??? as if EVERYONE needs to have a baby??? for all you know, i might end up being the WORST MOTHER IN THE WORLD! but i suppose it's the same dumbass glitch that makes us all believe that, upon someone's death, even the monsters among us go to heaven. because i'm not talking about the waiters, artists, and chefs i frequently hang out with, i'm talking about regular people in the suburbs. all the so-called Christians who esteem the institution of marriage. y'all should hear how your respective mate speaks about you when you aren't in the room. better yet, maybe you should go to your room and think about how you speak about your mate. use it as a mirror. look at how ugly you've become. look at what an ugly proposition you've presented marriage to be. think about all the things you deny your counterpart. think about all the rules you've wrapped around them and your association with one another. all the little signals you expect to see as PROOF that he or she really loves you. i am becoming convinced that it isn't love that most people want, it's protection of their fabulously tiny egos. as i move forward i realize more and more that i am simply uninterested in a conventional life. i am not interested in being involved in what others have termed a "real" relationship. if the utter shit y'all are describing is a "real" relationship, i prefer to play house, thank you.
i know 3 couples, maybe, who seem to truly love and respect each other. their love is an encouragement to me that maybe something different from what i've known exists. i don't want to be embittered or smug. of course i want to believe that i belong somewhere and that at some point in my life i will be appreciated. why do i need it to be "forever"? nothing is forever. we all march toward our demise. death is not a fiction. we age every day. we will all find another white hair in the mirror tomorrow. while i'm here and while i am able, i want to create as much joy and passion as possible. i don't need someone to promise the rest of their life to me in order to appreciate the absolutely stunning beauty of their humanity. the rest of a person's life is a huge thing. who am i to dictate the terms of it or feel entitled to make rules regarding it? love is not subject to scarcity. there is not a limit to how much love a person can feel. there is not a limit to how much beauty a person can behold and appreciate. and pain will come regardless so let's just get over our egos and let people be who they are. if anything, that's what i want. i want to be myself. i want you to be yourself. i don't want to be a parent. i don't want to suppress another human being. i want a man that i might love to come back to me freely at night. i don't want a man to lay next to me out of a sense of obligation or pathetic fear. i've had that and it is torture. it is torture to lay next to the sleeping body of someone and know, for a fact, that they are only there because it has become expected, because it has become comfortable. i would rather risk my heart being broken over and over than ever suffer that shit again. why should anyone think my heart too fragile to withstand the risk? i'm an orphan, guys. we're tough. and like most tough motherfuckers, we are capable of tremendous love. we are capable of ushering forth tremendous compassion, beauty, understanding, patience, and appreciation for the hardships and horrors inherent to humanity. what i am no longer capable of (and i hope my siblings aren't either) is allowing another person or social expectation to limit the amount of pleasure, beauty, and love that exists in my life. if someone loves me for a day or a year or 10 years, it is a gift so long as we are both being ourselves. i don't need an ordination to know it or a tradition to approve it. my mother would high-five me and kiss my forehead and hug me so tight and say, "little girl, you better suck every bit of joy you can out of this experience". i know because she said it to me often enough when she was alive. she knew my heart. she knew how soft it is, how eager to please and comfort. she worried that it would be taken advantage of. it has been, in horrible ways, but i am not afraid of testing other waters. i know how to be myself. i know my own death will find me. i am afraid of it finding me too soon. i am afraid of it finding me in the midst of some unreasonable fear or expectation that prevents me from knowing the world in all it's sorrowful glory. i am afraid of it finding me before i kiss the weary eyes of another human being who has also been subject to the wrath of this world's winds and retributions.
fin.
Feb 25, 2013
correct me. seriously.
.
there is nothing to promise
there is nothing to promise, I promise you. please excuse the awkward tears in my
paper. the bites in your cheek. let me lay quietly, don’t reprimand me. don’t reprimand me just take my face in your
hands, your big hands, your big hands. if
we were both willing and fashioned from stronger material maybe we could be the
instruments from which music for bad people is made. if we were stronger. or if i was.
if i were better. if i could take
a better beating. let me try. i look at you and shiver. i remember your blue eye. the way you peered at me through that hot inch
of air. pupil to black pupil, my curiosity
spread wide. it is no secret that my
ultimate intention is to burn this body down to nothing, just a cold and
stupid, grey stump, good for nothing save for the paste you might make from spit
and ash. my mother’s heart rattles
inside her silver tin. my mother’s heart
rattles in my ear. i put your fingers in
my mouth and suck the salt you offer. i put
whatever you offer into my mouth and take the meaning you provide. down down down in to my stomach and i think
of my skin turning young below your nails.
my mother’s heart was burned down to nothing and made useless save for the
paste you might make from spit and ash. her
widower marries another and her ash still shivers in the cold confines of her Clock
Urn. he said “might as well have
something useful” when he picked out the carriage for her remains.
now, ask me if I believe man’s love is eternal. now watch me laugh.
.
critique me. i mean it. i want to be good at this. send me an email if you like. angelasimione at gmail dot com
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