why, i wonder, are our lives so defined by cycles?
wake, shower, eat, brush teeth, go [to work, to school, to ever-present errands], return, eat, vegge out, sleep, wake...repeat.
repeat.
repeat.
glance, see, dilate pupils, smile, prowl, approach, negotiate, take, have, lose/break, cry, scowl, leave, glance...repeat.
repeat.
repeat.
breathe, cry, eat/sleep/shit, discover, laugh, love, grow, bleed, break, heal, learn, [live], migrate, procreate [, teach, settle, fade, wither, decompose]...repeat.
repeat.
repeat.
all we can hope for is that we are not hamsters in wheels; fixed.
roll down every hill, tumble blindly past each valley - enforce a cycle
move the subject forward.
Tuesday, January 27
Saturday, January 17
get on with the fascination [each another's audience]
i wrote the following at 5am last week. the editing of my rough draft was a harrowing process, involving many a threat to just trash the whole thing and drop out of college. to forget i that i ever had such aspirations.
****
it's the red wine this time, but that is no excuse
you're going to tell Angie, because how could you not? Angie has always been privy to your blackest secrets (not your deepest, necessarily, but certainly your darkest) because Angie is the only person you know who could understand them, implicitly.
Angie used to fuck around. with men, with women, with random streetpeople she'd found in bars. with you, a few times, in the beginning. with acid-laced cigarettes, with vodka and anti-depressants; with rusted chains and never-dulled knives; she fucked around with everything she could mix and match. now she's on the up-and-up, with a brood of fresh-faced children and a handsome man with his hand on her lower back, steering her away from her demons.
you aren't so lucky.
or perhaps that's not fair; can one really blame luck for events that unfold because of one's own decisions, hastily-made as they might be? of course not. in the end, it's not luck - good or bad - that has you pressed between him and the creaking door of his flat, the shadows not distorting either of your faces enough for you to pretend confusion. you know exactly whose nimble fingers are rubbing circles into your spine. further: you know exactly whose aren't.
thinking of Andrew is probably not the best way to lose oneself in emotion, because it's David's fingers that entertwine with yours, David's skin getting grazed by silver and diamond. in an instant, the only thing flooding you is shame. you're flushing so fluorescently your mind supplies a bizarre image of yourself at this moment, glowing a vibrant red only observed by thermal vision. you imagine also, however, that David can see it (surely he must be able to feel it? you're so hot. you're burning with it - a twisted, post-modern interpretation of the scarlet letter, you suppose, but it's your brain, so you'll just chalk it up to something peculiar and repressed, and move on).
and perhaps he really can see it (you wouldn't put it past David to harbor superpowers, not after the way he'd sunk into your heart, even mere moments after you'd met him) because he's pulling away, palms cupping your neck, thumb tracing your jawline, and his hands are so cold you think it might be enough for you to just fling yourself on him, push out every last tendril of fever, until you've stopped shaking and can finally rest.
but the moment is over, perhaps (it never is. wasn't over the second after the second you met him, isn't over two years later, won't be over in twenty years' time) and he whispers your name with an entirely different timber than the one he'd used a minute ago. the black pools of his eyes have contracted, and you see a nightmare version of yourself - puffy-eyed and faintly squarish all around, (and oh God is that how he knew!? did he feel you bloating, gaining, the curse of your shattered self-control in times of panic?) - reflected in his irises.
he whispers your name again, and how is it that you don't even much mind how, tangled as you are, you can smell the merlot that accentuates every syllable rolling off of his tongue? there's something tranquilizing about his scent that you can never seem to bottle. you've tried, of course; mumbling half-remembered jokes he's made like mantras, grasping for anything to wield against that never-ending penchant for self-destruction that used to surface mostly when you were out with Angie. you suppose there's some dark irony in the fact that she got better after a few weeks of inpatient rehabilitation, and you just got worse.
Angie can't be your lifeline anymore. even if the anchor she'd provided had only tied you to a life of coke, larceny, and overdue rent, she'd been something to cling to when nothing else quite took the edge off. Andrew was supposed to be her healthy replacement. the solid food to which a child progresses in the natural order of things. what he has become is...what has he become? he's been supportive in all the right places, and repremmanding in every proper situation. he has entirely lived up to expectations. once again it's you that misses the mark.
"Mara!" David again summons your attention, and your obediant neck swings up to re-meet that nightmare version of yourself. you never could deny him more than twice. when you blink him into focus, the room is spinning. you really shouldn't have had that wine with dinner; mere affectionate friend or not, you've forever had trouble keeping the world behind him from sneaking away even without added distractions.
he lets leave a hand from its post holding up your jawline to brush your bangs from your eyelashes, and you start at the ice of his touch. you shiver, hoping the violence of the motion will shake free your fidelity from its cobweb cell.
you bat his hands away, an half-hearted attempt to push him the rest of the way off of you, and twist the knob, to place wood and stairs and miles of concrete between him and yourself.
in the end, you forget everything but your quest to catalog the various shades of his freckles.
are all writers this self-loathing?
also: the title is a line from an Arctic Monkeys song.
it's the red wine this time, but that is no excuse
you're going to tell Angie, because how could you not? Angie has always been privy to your blackest secrets (not your deepest, necessarily, but certainly your darkest) because Angie is the only person you know who could understand them, implicitly.
Angie used to fuck around. with men, with women, with random streetpeople she'd found in bars. with you, a few times, in the beginning. with acid-laced cigarettes, with vodka and anti-depressants; with rusted chains and never-dulled knives; she fucked around with everything she could mix and match. now she's on the up-and-up, with a brood of fresh-faced children and a handsome man with his hand on her lower back, steering her away from her demons.
you aren't so lucky.
or perhaps that's not fair; can one really blame luck for events that unfold because of one's own decisions, hastily-made as they might be? of course not. in the end, it's not luck - good or bad - that has you pressed between him and the creaking door of his flat, the shadows not distorting either of your faces enough for you to pretend confusion. you know exactly whose nimble fingers are rubbing circles into your spine. further: you know exactly whose aren't.
thinking of Andrew is probably not the best way to lose oneself in emotion, because it's David's fingers that entertwine with yours, David's skin getting grazed by silver and diamond. in an instant, the only thing flooding you is shame. you're flushing so fluorescently your mind supplies a bizarre image of yourself at this moment, glowing a vibrant red only observed by thermal vision. you imagine also, however, that David can see it (surely he must be able to feel it? you're so hot. you're burning with it - a twisted, post-modern interpretation of the scarlet letter, you suppose, but it's your brain, so you'll just chalk it up to something peculiar and repressed, and move on).
and perhaps he really can see it (you wouldn't put it past David to harbor superpowers, not after the way he'd sunk into your heart, even mere moments after you'd met him) because he's pulling away, palms cupping your neck, thumb tracing your jawline, and his hands are so cold you think it might be enough for you to just fling yourself on him, push out every last tendril of fever, until you've stopped shaking and can finally rest.
but the moment is over, perhaps (it never is. wasn't over the second after the second you met him, isn't over two years later, won't be over in twenty years' time) and he whispers your name with an entirely different timber than the one he'd used a minute ago. the black pools of his eyes have contracted, and you see a nightmare version of yourself - puffy-eyed and faintly squarish all around, (and oh God is that how he knew!? did he feel you bloating, gaining, the curse of your shattered self-control in times of panic?) - reflected in his irises.
he whispers your name again, and how is it that you don't even much mind how, tangled as you are, you can smell the merlot that accentuates every syllable rolling off of his tongue? there's something tranquilizing about his scent that you can never seem to bottle. you've tried, of course; mumbling half-remembered jokes he's made like mantras, grasping for anything to wield against that never-ending penchant for self-destruction that used to surface mostly when you were out with Angie. you suppose there's some dark irony in the fact that she got better after a few weeks of inpatient rehabilitation, and you just got worse.
Angie can't be your lifeline anymore. even if the anchor she'd provided had only tied you to a life of coke, larceny, and overdue rent, she'd been something to cling to when nothing else quite took the edge off. Andrew was supposed to be her healthy replacement. the solid food to which a child progresses in the natural order of things. what he has become is...what has he become? he's been supportive in all the right places, and repremmanding in every proper situation. he has entirely lived up to expectations. once again it's you that misses the mark.
"Mara!" David again summons your attention, and your obediant neck swings up to re-meet that nightmare version of yourself. you never could deny him more than twice. when you blink him into focus, the room is spinning. you really shouldn't have had that wine with dinner; mere affectionate friend or not, you've forever had trouble keeping the world behind him from sneaking away even without added distractions.
he lets leave a hand from its post holding up your jawline to brush your bangs from your eyelashes, and you start at the ice of his touch. you shiver, hoping the violence of the motion will shake free your fidelity from its cobweb cell.
you bat his hands away, an half-hearted attempt to push him the rest of the way off of you, and twist the knob, to place wood and stairs and miles of concrete between him and yourself.
in the end, you forget everything but your quest to catalog the various shades of his freckles.
Thursday, January 1
the over-long buildup to behavioural modification
one : i have a livejournal (please don't mock me) which i use embarrassingly often. i don't actually ever post or comment in any of the various communities i have joined. i can sit all day reading from communities where those who post do so to make note of some event that has happened, some emotion they needed to remember, some thought they needed to call attention to, because of its importance. because, for a second, it defined them. their reactions to such moments are the epitome of humanity, and i love to immerse myself in it, and write about every tangent these confessions lead me down. {1}
two : i must renew my commitment to Buddhism, and resolidify my trust in the God who's company i seek with it. i have toiled away for eons, handmolding my Zen into perfect rigidity. now i must build upon the foundations that i have left for cobwebs, before any crumbling of those stones which buffer me from all manner of howling winds.
three : i pledge to invest myself in my own academia. for too long have i let myself just topple from platform to platform, only picking myself up from the ground long enough to toddle straight off to lower heights. if i ever indend to accomplish anything, much less make of myself value via Achievement, i need to start climbing.
four : i will write more. i cannot grow into greatness if all i have to show for myself are fleeting fancies of faerietales and other flashes of fiction. {4} i cannot allow myself to put anything off, but i must improve myself in every fashion - particularly because i assume this mantle of Writer, and Philosopher, and Artist. i can't think of a single definition for any of them which includes a pervasive and ever-present slothfulness.
five : i shall not merely listen; i shall hear.
{1} and that is what i love about the Internet.
i can be completely alone, in a city where i know not a soul, and log on and immediately feel at home. at ease. surrounded, by the like-minded, by individuals so far outside my normal sphere of influence i would never be able to encounter (much less learn from) otherwise.
{4} i fear i have already damaged my Writer Muscle; caused it to atrophy beyond any level where i can retain full use of it again. further, i often read back on slop i've written and doubt i have ever even known such a thing.
but i never reveal what i think, even in commmunities about politics, or art, or music. among those who offer up their hearts, i lurk, on the brink of social interaction. previously, i have dared not inch a toe forward. now, i am determined to leap.
two : i must renew my commitment to Buddhism, and resolidify my trust in the God who's company i seek with it. i have toiled away for eons, handmolding my Zen into perfect rigidity. now i must build upon the foundations that i have left for cobwebs, before any crumbling of those stones which buffer me from all manner of howling winds.
three : i pledge to invest myself in my own academia. for too long have i let myself just topple from platform to platform, only picking myself up from the ground long enough to toddle straight off to lower heights. if i ever indend to accomplish anything, much less make of myself value via Achievement, i need to start climbing.
four : i will write more. i cannot grow into greatness if all i have to show for myself are fleeting fancies of faerietales and other flashes of fiction. {4} i cannot allow myself to put anything off, but i must improve myself in every fashion - particularly because i assume this mantle of Writer, and Philosopher, and Artist. i can't think of a single definition for any of them which includes a pervasive and ever-present slothfulness.
five : i shall not merely listen; i shall hear.
{1} and that is what i love about the Internet.
i can be completely alone, in a city where i know not a soul, and log on and immediately feel at home. at ease. surrounded, by the like-minded, by individuals so far outside my normal sphere of influence i would never be able to encounter (much less learn from) otherwise.
{4} i fear i have already damaged my Writer Muscle; caused it to atrophy beyond any level where i can retain full use of it again. further, i often read back on slop i've written and doubt i have ever even known such a thing.
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