I've got the urge. That restless-fingered, half-lidded, soft and heavy kind of urge. I want to create something.
I've been itching here. Building up ideas. Building up desires. Biding my time.
It's now or never, world. Use me up, please. Take what I've got to give you. Once this is gone, there will be nothing left for a long time.
I'm hindered. I feel your bindings, they hold me back. I'd like to see you on the move. I'd like to see you put me in a cage, set me loose. Give me gold and diamonds, show me your poverty.
Mostly I want a wide open space. Somewhere I can spread my arms out wide. Something I can get up close too. Somewhere I can feel my wrists work. Somewhere my body will be free.
I want the colours. The red of a light. The ocher of a night sky. Green tar sands and the smooth, sapphire curves of your skin.
What are you doing, leaving me alone? I'm wasting away, and you're just letting me go.
July 22, 2008
July 03, 2008
Here I Stand (Shot 1)
I walk this beat everyday. I keep my eyes on the horizon and my chin cocked low. As my soles hit the pavement I feel the shock of my shoulders fighting back against the momentum of being free.
They keep me grounded, my head, my neck, my shoulders, my eyes. I keep it going, keep the thoughts moving. I think because it keeps me alive. But I swear, I think these thoughts are killing me.
There's only so much a body can take, I think. THe smoke and the smog, eventually it will fill your lungs and nostrils 'til you're breathing grey dust. That sun will bake the youth right out of you and the carcinogens right into you. Your eyes are stained with cataracts of too much pain, too much grey, dead concrete. But for now, you're coming back. You're always coming back for more.
The way the rain flows these days, you wouldn't think she's got anything to worry about. She's all angles and strides, lean and slope. But she keeps going to keep the world from catching up with her.
They keep me grounded, my head, my neck, my shoulders, my eyes. I keep it going, keep the thoughts moving. I think because it keeps me alive. But I swear, I think these thoughts are killing me.
There's only so much a body can take, I think. THe smoke and the smog, eventually it will fill your lungs and nostrils 'til you're breathing grey dust. That sun will bake the youth right out of you and the carcinogens right into you. Your eyes are stained with cataracts of too much pain, too much grey, dead concrete. But for now, you're coming back. You're always coming back for more.
The way the rain flows these days, you wouldn't think she's got anything to worry about. She's all angles and strides, lean and slope. But she keeps going to keep the world from catching up with her.
May 16, 2008
Things that are Real
- The noises Sean makes when he snores
- The curls of Sean's hair that I find when he's not here
- Butter
- The vibrance of wet red paint
- The sweetness of Rooh Afza
- Dark chocolate
- Soap bubbles
- The ten letters of my name
- Blood
- The scent of magnolias and cherry blossoms
- Sand
March 15, 2008
Lines
Sometimes you look for signs. For an indication. Other times you just know. There's no denying it. And at other times still, at other times you don't know what you don't know.
This is not one of those times. You asked if she was okay and see said yes. She didn't mean no, but she also wasn't okay. You wanted to help, but you didn't want to pry.
She's a hard kind of person to get a hold of. Most people don't know half of a story like hers. Most people wouldn't know where to start or where to end. But you know better. You know that a story like hers has no beginning and no end.
When you take her to bed and undress her, you don't see any scars. Her body is pristine. Soft and white, her cool skin blazes against her long black hair. You see past all this, and she doesn't know that you know. You can see it in the way she clings to you. You're always surprised at the strength she hides in those thin arms. The way she flexes them, squeezing tight around you, holding on to resist the urge for flight. She never clutches, she wouldn't, but you know from the way she holds you, she's afraid of being torn away.
Over all these years, she's never been as happy as you want her to be, but you've learned to accept it. You've given up trying to learn all the things you'll never know. It's enough, now, to know the scars are there. She'll tell you what she can, show you the things she can make you understand, but there are hidden parts, scar tissue that will always remain.
When she smiles you see those faint hints of sadness, etched by time into the contours of her skin, the colours of her eyes. It's part of her architecture. She's happy, though, and she knows you know it. For all your wishes that she could let the old pain go, she tells you, it's just something she can't let go. It's there, it's a part of her, and she's happy enough, she says. She's happy enough that she doesn't need to let it go.
This is not one of those times. You asked if she was okay and see said yes. She didn't mean no, but she also wasn't okay. You wanted to help, but you didn't want to pry.
She's a hard kind of person to get a hold of. Most people don't know half of a story like hers. Most people wouldn't know where to start or where to end. But you know better. You know that a story like hers has no beginning and no end.
When you take her to bed and undress her, you don't see any scars. Her body is pristine. Soft and white, her cool skin blazes against her long black hair. You see past all this, and she doesn't know that you know. You can see it in the way she clings to you. You're always surprised at the strength she hides in those thin arms. The way she flexes them, squeezing tight around you, holding on to resist the urge for flight. She never clutches, she wouldn't, but you know from the way she holds you, she's afraid of being torn away.
Over all these years, she's never been as happy as you want her to be, but you've learned to accept it. You've given up trying to learn all the things you'll never know. It's enough, now, to know the scars are there. She'll tell you what she can, show you the things she can make you understand, but there are hidden parts, scar tissue that will always remain.
When she smiles you see those faint hints of sadness, etched by time into the contours of her skin, the colours of her eyes. It's part of her architecture. She's happy, though, and she knows you know it. For all your wishes that she could let the old pain go, she tells you, it's just something she can't let go. It's there, it's a part of her, and she's happy enough, she says. She's happy enough that she doesn't need to let it go.
February 29, 2008
Draw Lines, Write Days, Count Fish
If you were to throw a dart at a map, there is probably some telling where you'd end up. Depends on the map, depends on where you aim, depends on how far left or right you're standing. A lot less is left to chance than you might think.
Take a good physicist, your high school math teacher, and, say, a travel agent, and I doubt it would take them more then a few hours to piece together the likelihood that you'd find yourself in Kuala Lumpur.
But then, maybe you're already in Kuala Lumpur. It wouldn't surprise me. I'm sure they have a few good physicists there.
More importantly, you left your map on the wall in your travel agent's office. With a dart in it. This isn't the worst thing you could do, because it's not too hard to find maps...around. But your travel agent is a bit miffed because she shares her office with the office of the motel her parents run and the dart is starting to spook everyone's customers.
None of this really matters, though, because you've found your way to a nice little complex geared towards foreign travelers and the plaster walls inside your little straw bungalow are painted your favourite shade of aquamarine. Plus, there's some rustling outside, which you know is your girlfriend shaking the city's sand and dirt out of the sarong she was wearing earlier. She's not the love of your life, but she's a good sport and she'll let you nestle up to her, even in this sweltering heat.
By the way, the math teacher died of lung cancer with two devoted sons by his side, and the physicist you left behind in Kuala Lumpur when you decided to go to Thailand has started wondering, three years later, if you're ever going to send him that augury kit you said you would get him. Your math teacher was still a little pissed you never called to cancel before leaving for Kuala Lumpur, when he died.
But the sun is pretty hot, and you're on your sixth Singapori beer of the afternoon. Your girlfriend left you years ago when she realized you really would have let that scorpion have her if it meant saving your own ass, and you still keep that sarong she liked to wear in case she ever comes back.
You're lousy. You haven't shaved for days and your t-shirts are all yellowed and grayed from years of exposure to the sun, the dirt, and the sweat. The woman next to you on the plane keeps going on about how going to the Philippines had been a dream of hers ever since she was eleven and that foreign exchange student she used to call Timmy gave her a paper rose. She's obese, and sun burnt, and has awful curly blonde hair that reminds you of the lunch lady at your elementary school. You wish she would shut up, but when she giggles she kind of reminds you of your mom, who is going to be pissed when you show up on her doorstep after all these years abroad.
Take a good physicist, your high school math teacher, and, say, a travel agent, and I doubt it would take them more then a few hours to piece together the likelihood that you'd find yourself in Kuala Lumpur.
But then, maybe you're already in Kuala Lumpur. It wouldn't surprise me. I'm sure they have a few good physicists there.
More importantly, you left your map on the wall in your travel agent's office. With a dart in it. This isn't the worst thing you could do, because it's not too hard to find maps...around. But your travel agent is a bit miffed because she shares her office with the office of the motel her parents run and the dart is starting to spook everyone's customers.
None of this really matters, though, because you've found your way to a nice little complex geared towards foreign travelers and the plaster walls inside your little straw bungalow are painted your favourite shade of aquamarine. Plus, there's some rustling outside, which you know is your girlfriend shaking the city's sand and dirt out of the sarong she was wearing earlier. She's not the love of your life, but she's a good sport and she'll let you nestle up to her, even in this sweltering heat.
By the way, the math teacher died of lung cancer with two devoted sons by his side, and the physicist you left behind in Kuala Lumpur when you decided to go to Thailand has started wondering, three years later, if you're ever going to send him that augury kit you said you would get him. Your math teacher was still a little pissed you never called to cancel before leaving for Kuala Lumpur, when he died.
But the sun is pretty hot, and you're on your sixth Singapori beer of the afternoon. Your girlfriend left you years ago when she realized you really would have let that scorpion have her if it meant saving your own ass, and you still keep that sarong she liked to wear in case she ever comes back.
You're lousy. You haven't shaved for days and your t-shirts are all yellowed and grayed from years of exposure to the sun, the dirt, and the sweat. The woman next to you on the plane keeps going on about how going to the Philippines had been a dream of hers ever since she was eleven and that foreign exchange student she used to call Timmy gave her a paper rose. She's obese, and sun burnt, and has awful curly blonde hair that reminds you of the lunch lady at your elementary school. You wish she would shut up, but when she giggles she kind of reminds you of your mom, who is going to be pissed when you show up on her doorstep after all these years abroad.
February 18, 2008
False Idol
I've got a face full of doubt. I've got question marks where my eyes should be. I keep my eyes on the pavement, my head ducked down. I make myself invisible. This is not the man I meant to be.
I am a woman. I can't be defined on my own terms. Even to be more than just a girl, to be anything, I've got to find my masculinity.
I reside in an inner tension. I won't be resolved until I grow up. Become a man. I'm uncomfortable with my masculinity.
I'm ungendered. It falls away. I have no strength, no quality, I am nothing but enduring flesh. A weak sense of self will not do for me. I'm profound. I'm a picture of utility. I am rigour and insolvency.
I am a woman. I can't be defined on my own terms. Even to be more than just a girl, to be anything, I've got to find my masculinity.
I reside in an inner tension. I won't be resolved until I grow up. Become a man. I'm uncomfortable with my masculinity.
I'm ungendered. It falls away. I have no strength, no quality, I am nothing but enduring flesh. A weak sense of self will not do for me. I'm profound. I'm a picture of utility. I am rigour and insolvency.
February 02, 2008
A Song in Flight
I was here, and when I wasn't they told me you had gone. You're beautiful to me. I turn my hand, I see a memory. A strand of hair and the light on your cheek. I'm alive, everyday, and you're a beautiful memory. So distant, so far. But the sights and the sound, the air and the feeling, it all stays with me.
I'm amazed, how beautiful you've become. How life continues. How there's so much I don't know about you. So much I haven't shared in. I'll always have those memories, green, golden, white. I'll always see your face, and know that you are happy. If there's anything left I can give, that's all that I would wish for you.
Go on, go happily. Live your life, and let it be as far away from mine as the rivers and roads should take it. Find joy, find love, and tell me nothing of this. I cherish a simple hope that wherever you go, you will go with joy.
I'm amazed, how beautiful you've become. How life continues. How there's so much I don't know about you. So much I haven't shared in. I'll always have those memories, green, golden, white. I'll always see your face, and know that you are happy. If there's anything left I can give, that's all that I would wish for you.
Go on, go happily. Live your life, and let it be as far away from mine as the rivers and roads should take it. Find joy, find love, and tell me nothing of this. I cherish a simple hope that wherever you go, you will go with joy.
January 31, 2008
Borderlands
My life is a bit of a broken record. A crappy love song. The highs are high and the lows, so low.
I wish I had a crank. Drive it into the ribs and vertebrae at the base of my neck and wind it 'til all the vast expanse of feeling was bound up into one.
I want to make a coagulate mass of the sea that engulfs me. I want to feel regular. Normal. Stable.
I want to purge the haunting of pain from my heart, my wrists, my eyes. I want to tear away the long, thing, exacting fingers that clutch at my neck, my throat, at muscle and sinew, choking me, keeping me from breathing.
I want to win a losing fight. I want out into another life. I want to dive out of myself and into the deep, the dark clotted mire. I want to lay back into rivers of peace, soft, like waters, inching up along my cheeks and mouth. I want to be saturated.
I want a guide. I want to feel every measure of strength ebb from my body. I want rest. I want sleep.
I want it out, so far out. I want to push it out. I want it expelled. I want it out.
I wish I had a crank. Drive it into the ribs and vertebrae at the base of my neck and wind it 'til all the vast expanse of feeling was bound up into one.
I want to make a coagulate mass of the sea that engulfs me. I want to feel regular. Normal. Stable.
I want to purge the haunting of pain from my heart, my wrists, my eyes. I want to tear away the long, thing, exacting fingers that clutch at my neck, my throat, at muscle and sinew, choking me, keeping me from breathing.
I want to win a losing fight. I want out into another life. I want to dive out of myself and into the deep, the dark clotted mire. I want to lay back into rivers of peace, soft, like waters, inching up along my cheeks and mouth. I want to be saturated.
I want a guide. I want to feel every measure of strength ebb from my body. I want rest. I want sleep.
I want it out, so far out. I want to push it out. I want it expelled. I want it out.
January 17, 2008
Machiavelli... Crazy Person?
Premise 1: Knowing what a given thing is like does not liken one to the given thing.
Premise 2: Possessing certain traits does not mean that the external world or its constituent parts possess said traits.
Premise 3: A knowledge of how things have been in the past is of little consequence when imagining how things will be in the future.
You know how sometimes you stack several objects somewhat precariously, or try to lean a broom against a wall, and after letting go sort of hold your hands a few inches away, half worried the whole thing will tip, half trying to keep everything in place through the sheer force of the will power emanating from your splayed fingers?
It's hit and miss in physics. Your odds are even worse with people.
I think this is what I spend most of my time trying to do. Keeping it together. It would make much more sense to just try to stack myself neatly, with care, but the thing is, it's a shit metaphor. I'm not a pile of stuff.
It takes a lot longer to reorder your soul than it does to rearrange your closet.
This thing is going to take some time. I have to remember that. Probably a long time, with a lot of bad days, but not forever. Probably not a lifetime.
If there's one goal I can get behind, I think maybe it's dying happy. Which, of course, would mean not dying early. Which is maybe a sub-goal? Whatever it is, I can probably get behind it, too. Thus, my primary motivation in not killing myself is that it would directly impede dying happy. Way to go... rational choice!
Well, I can't damn well get it out of my system if I keep trying to hide it so other people won't worry about it, now can I?
Premise 2: Possessing certain traits does not mean that the external world or its constituent parts possess said traits.
Premise 3: A knowledge of how things have been in the past is of little consequence when imagining how things will be in the future.
You know how sometimes you stack several objects somewhat precariously, or try to lean a broom against a wall, and after letting go sort of hold your hands a few inches away, half worried the whole thing will tip, half trying to keep everything in place through the sheer force of the will power emanating from your splayed fingers?
It's hit and miss in physics. Your odds are even worse with people.
I think this is what I spend most of my time trying to do. Keeping it together. It would make much more sense to just try to stack myself neatly, with care, but the thing is, it's a shit metaphor. I'm not a pile of stuff.
It takes a lot longer to reorder your soul than it does to rearrange your closet.
This thing is going to take some time. I have to remember that. Probably a long time, with a lot of bad days, but not forever. Probably not a lifetime.
If there's one goal I can get behind, I think maybe it's dying happy. Which, of course, would mean not dying early. Which is maybe a sub-goal? Whatever it is, I can probably get behind it, too. Thus, my primary motivation in not killing myself is that it would directly impede dying happy. Way to go... rational choice!
Well, I can't damn well get it out of my system if I keep trying to hide it so other people won't worry about it, now can I?
January 15, 2008
Recycling
You take the old, you make it new.
In conflict, this is a bad thing. Relatively, even worse.
Try expressing something original. It would be the first time you said it, no? Enough with Freud, and put away the ballistic jelly. It's time for words.
I lost my voice. Who lost whose voice? I lost your voice. Try something original.
Try saying something new.
My head is full of other people's ideas. My lungs are filled with artificial air. I'm living on borrowed being. Try saying something new.
I don't want to keep going over the same thing. Ooover and oooVer, and ooovEr again. But how do you start fresh without throwing everything out? If I rebuild, I keep the bricks, or the mortar, or the plans, or something else. What if none of it's very good?
I want to say something new. So do it. So go.
So one, two... three, and go.
GO!
In conflict, this is a bad thing. Relatively, even worse.
Try expressing something original. It would be the first time you said it, no? Enough with Freud, and put away the ballistic jelly. It's time for words.
I lost my voice. Who lost whose voice? I lost your voice. Try something original.
Try saying something new.
My head is full of other people's ideas. My lungs are filled with artificial air. I'm living on borrowed being. Try saying something new.
I don't want to keep going over the same thing. Ooover and oooVer, and ooovEr again. But how do you start fresh without throwing everything out? If I rebuild, I keep the bricks, or the mortar, or the plans, or something else. What if none of it's very good?
I want to say something new. So do it. So go.
So one, two... three, and go.
GO!
January 07, 2008
1 lb.
"But why are you sad? I mean, you seem sad, and you weren't so before."
Hallie thinks I am sad. Hallie is correct.
Hallie kind of reminds me of a garden gnome. She's little, and her face is sort of squishy looking because of her deep crease-y wrinkles. She also wears delightful skirts.
And she thinks I'm sad.
I am. I am sad. And I'm tired. Most of the time, most minutes of the day, I'd rather give up.
I'm faltering. I really don't believe I'm going to make it all the way. It would be nice if someone believed me. Who says it's all going to be alright?
Hallie also has a lisp, and not the greatest manners.
Hallie thinks I am sad. Hallie is correct.
Hallie kind of reminds me of a garden gnome. She's little, and her face is sort of squishy looking because of her deep crease-y wrinkles. She also wears delightful skirts.
And she thinks I'm sad.
I am. I am sad. And I'm tired. Most of the time, most minutes of the day, I'd rather give up.
I'm faltering. I really don't believe I'm going to make it all the way. It would be nice if someone believed me. Who says it's all going to be alright?
Hallie also has a lisp, and not the greatest manners.
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