I am a jazz riff of hurt right now and all you can do is scat in my ear about how happy you are in all your suburban glory; a fucking Ella Fitzgerald of excitement at the prospect of cooking dinner in less than an apron for a gentile man 20 years your senior with the personality of boiled cabbage and the stench to match.
Trouble is neither of you can smell out of those deviated septums of never-ending summer frivolity, let alone taste how salty your god damn cous-cous has become.
And here I am: Bohemia crying back with a call to arms.
TAKE YOUR LIFE AND SHOVE IT!
I am lentils and light years ahead of you.
Peasant food I may be, but pissant I will never be.
My band only needs one fiddle, and second chair I will not fill.
We will make music that brings the listless to their feet.
Old women in stockinged toes to tap and flap their gummy elbows together in a clap that wraps against the pane glass of storm doors.
Their cacophony will wake the sleeping children out of their naps and off their backs into a parade of disjointed jigs, giggles, and wiggles as they wrestle to interpret the rhythm.
Come as you are to our show.
We're not showing off.
We said fuck the Cotillion.
We came out when we were ready.
No RSVP necessary.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
See Something, Say Something: Subway Stops and Goes
See Something, Say Something: Subway Stops and Goes
I
Subway platform catwalk
Hips sway with the confidence of so many polka dots against the monotony of New York.
Baby carriage percussion beats down the stairwells as the horn section erupts within each mini orchestra.
Waterlogged rats scratch their way into empty potato chip bags crumpled and discarded near the third rail.
The feeling of undercover lurid glances upon my ass is electrifying.
Just don’t mess this one up by turning around.
Let him come to you this time.
II
Country song reality,
Walking the city as a tumbleweed,
Losing cash and dignity as I spin down the avenues, careening into the streets only long enough to brush off some of the dirt that’s weighing me down.
I fall in love with the accents of Penn Station every day.
III
I am plucking at his torso as bass strings – an instrument I do not play, but I follow his freckles as chords.
My fingers have never felt so big.
They are eager.
In my eyes, he is a fava bean ready to be shucked.
I have blanched him with caress, and now remains only the supple skin between the green of us knowing the other.
At the thought of unveiling him, I spilt in two, only increasing the amount of surface area we have to cover.
On my lips there is a thin layer of honey, my skin itself a comb dripping with his essence.
I can smell the hydrangea and rhododendron tapped to produce this ardor on my face. My tongue languishes in the salt and sugar of our mouths pressed against each other in a vice of our own design.
IV
Wading through the fog of Harlem at four in the morning,
Sweater bespeckled with cigarette ash and Mexican rice,
My eyes lock on a beacon.
With cinder block feet and sloth lids, I magician myself to the streetlight spotlight outside my apartment door where my seat awaits.
Under the tertiary lighting of residents upstairs unable to sleep, watching so many infomercials and listening to hip hop songs of my youth to get to bed: here, I am sated.
My cacophony quiets only when I close my eyes and jukebox reveries start dropping as so many quarters from jackpot slots.
Mind of a woman, restless and strategizing.
I count on fingers, thumb first, to keep track of the meter.
V
Roller derby death march,
A pocket full of quince.
Treasure map of SoHo,
Street carts full of hints.
Mother on the subway refuses to put the brake on her daughter’s stroller.
She is picking at her nails as though she were in Alba foraging truffles.
She is truly a pig.
Daughter’s carriage bangs back and forth against the emergency door of the car, a pint-sized battering ram, chocolate chips flying behind her as so many splinters from a lumberjack’s thrust.
The ass of this woman as she exits the train reads like Braille, or tree trunk rings.
This girl was a mistake, and mom’s ass is a lazy, shapeless, sagging reminder of how futility manifests itself.
If desperation had a scent, it would be the shallow conversations of gay men in poorly fitting t-shirts on a damp Thursday in Hell’s Kitchen waiting to bump iPhones, if not something more.
VI
Rhinestone cowgirl saddles up to the bar at 4:30 P.M. in the afternoon.
She is 65, and goddamn it she is going to use it her advantage: Senior Citizen discount on Kentucky bourbon.
Maybe I do want to grow old …
When am I going to learn to open my mouth at the right time?
I flap my gums all day long, but never at the people I should.
This same gentleman has walked past me four times now, and I ostrich my head down every time as I were playing a game of hide and seek, party of one.
I’m hiding.
He’s done seeking.
But he was seeking, and I’m an idiot.
I want to wear him like a London Fog trenchcoat in Central Park in November.
My arms slide along his as butter on Pyrex.
We are baking a pumpkin pie with a bacon crust.
He fits like all the clothes I stole from my father: a little long, but well worn in and soft.
I
Subway platform catwalk
Hips sway with the confidence of so many polka dots against the monotony of New York.
Baby carriage percussion beats down the stairwells as the horn section erupts within each mini orchestra.
Waterlogged rats scratch their way into empty potato chip bags crumpled and discarded near the third rail.
The feeling of undercover lurid glances upon my ass is electrifying.
Just don’t mess this one up by turning around.
Let him come to you this time.
II
Country song reality,
Walking the city as a tumbleweed,
Losing cash and dignity as I spin down the avenues, careening into the streets only long enough to brush off some of the dirt that’s weighing me down.
I fall in love with the accents of Penn Station every day.
III
I am plucking at his torso as bass strings – an instrument I do not play, but I follow his freckles as chords.
My fingers have never felt so big.
They are eager.
In my eyes, he is a fava bean ready to be shucked.
I have blanched him with caress, and now remains only the supple skin between the green of us knowing the other.
At the thought of unveiling him, I spilt in two, only increasing the amount of surface area we have to cover.
On my lips there is a thin layer of honey, my skin itself a comb dripping with his essence.
I can smell the hydrangea and rhododendron tapped to produce this ardor on my face. My tongue languishes in the salt and sugar of our mouths pressed against each other in a vice of our own design.
IV
Wading through the fog of Harlem at four in the morning,
Sweater bespeckled with cigarette ash and Mexican rice,
My eyes lock on a beacon.
With cinder block feet and sloth lids, I magician myself to the streetlight spotlight outside my apartment door where my seat awaits.
Under the tertiary lighting of residents upstairs unable to sleep, watching so many infomercials and listening to hip hop songs of my youth to get to bed: here, I am sated.
My cacophony quiets only when I close my eyes and jukebox reveries start dropping as so many quarters from jackpot slots.
Mind of a woman, restless and strategizing.
I count on fingers, thumb first, to keep track of the meter.
V
Roller derby death march,
A pocket full of quince.
Treasure map of SoHo,
Street carts full of hints.
Mother on the subway refuses to put the brake on her daughter’s stroller.
She is picking at her nails as though she were in Alba foraging truffles.
She is truly a pig.
Daughter’s carriage bangs back and forth against the emergency door of the car, a pint-sized battering ram, chocolate chips flying behind her as so many splinters from a lumberjack’s thrust.
The ass of this woman as she exits the train reads like Braille, or tree trunk rings.
This girl was a mistake, and mom’s ass is a lazy, shapeless, sagging reminder of how futility manifests itself.
If desperation had a scent, it would be the shallow conversations of gay men in poorly fitting t-shirts on a damp Thursday in Hell’s Kitchen waiting to bump iPhones, if not something more.
VI
Rhinestone cowgirl saddles up to the bar at 4:30 P.M. in the afternoon.
She is 65, and goddamn it she is going to use it her advantage: Senior Citizen discount on Kentucky bourbon.
Maybe I do want to grow old …
When am I going to learn to open my mouth at the right time?
I flap my gums all day long, but never at the people I should.
This same gentleman has walked past me four times now, and I ostrich my head down every time as I were playing a game of hide and seek, party of one.
I’m hiding.
He’s done seeking.
But he was seeking, and I’m an idiot.
I want to wear him like a London Fog trenchcoat in Central Park in November.
My arms slide along his as butter on Pyrex.
We are baking a pumpkin pie with a bacon crust.
He fits like all the clothes I stole from my father: a little long, but well worn in and soft.
Waking up Blank
I am too young to feel too old at a bar. I can still remember clearly the first time I went out to a bar. I was 14, with three friends, and I passed swimmingly. The bartender even bought me a few beers. I wasn’t old enough to really have pimples, so I wasn’t pimply-faced.
What I was, was confident.
A bar felt like home. Strangers gradually moving from being strangers to becoming new friends. Personas amplified and ego non-existent. The soundtrack always varies. Jukebox, record player, iPod, band, karaoke contest. They’re all variations of wallpaper. Some are brighter than others. A few are so esoteric you wonder where they were even found.
Then, very rarely, that moment happens.
The one inexplicable moment when an otherwise sullen girl lets out a scream so fierce that sound barriers are broken, earth shakes and hearts dissipate into little puddles within your chest.
Lindsay happens like this in my life.
It must have been a Monday morning. I didn’t have to work, but I had plenty of work to do at productively drinking enough to remind myself that I was more interesting than the job I had at the time. It must have been a Monday, as well, because the night before I had gone to Noir. This unfortunate decision was always made because Noir was the wasteland of zombie drunks needing just one more hour of alcohol after the rest of the bars in Cambridge had stopped serving.
Entering through that beaded curtain meant checking your coat and your dignity at the door. Can one finish 4 beers, 3 Jamesons, and 10 cigarettes in 47 minutes? Yes, yes you can.
Lindsay wasn’t with me this night. If she had been, what transpired would never have happened. She was still living on my futon at this point, and had recently been joined by Usman, her slightly charming but utterly useless rouge boyfriend at the time. They were now sharing the futon. I slept on my bed in my bedroom which had no door, no curtain, and consequently no shame. After all, of the three of us now living in the apartment, I was the only one paying rent.
I went to Noir because I had to. Had to because I had been at Charlie’s Kitchen right around the corner for an hour or so; and it was there that I met the conversation that wouldn’t end. His voice was gruff, something I’ve always been drawn to as my voice is so distinctly not straight. It’s not that I’m flamboyant, I’m just undeniably gay. So when a man sounds like what I would imagine a lumberjack might sound like, I am immediately drawn to him. When he turns out to be gay, I’m officially salivating. When he’s rude to me and slightly offensive to me and everyone else at the bar, I’m already picking out our song and wedding bands. This evening was already written. I wrote it. There were no words on it, but we were going to do it. Live.
Most people require a name when a new character is introduced. I knew his name, I have simply chosen to forget it. We apparently went to college together. He was in finance. I could give a fuck. I remember how I badly I wanted to emasculate him. When we were in bed, I began to acknowledge certain parts of him that he might not have tended to regularly: knee caps, armpits, other parts. When I returned to his mouth – the one part with which he was completely familiar – he tried to deny my kiss. So bold was he that he asked me to go brush my teeth before he would allow me access to his mouth again. I became the anger of so many Loretta Lynn tunes. I took my left hand to the nape of his neck, pulled him close and kissed him deep with the taste of his asshole on my lips. “From one ass to another _______. SWAK,” was my response before getting up to finally brush my teeth before bed.
I assumed that when I returned to bed, he would have already left. The whole time, Lindsay and Usman slept in the living room being anything but full of life, their snoring alternating perfectly to create the effect of an air conditioner’s white noise. I puttered in the bathroom a little longer than I would normally, debating whether or not to floss to give this idiot enough time to collect his clothes and leave me be. When I reentered the bedroom, he was still there. Now, he wanted to cuddle. This was not in the fantasy. He refused to leave. Apparently, his Marlboro Man rasp was nothing more than the pant of a breathy, doe-eyed Tiger Beat fanatic, and I was now David Cassidy. Kill me.
But I let him sleep over. It was late, and I wasn’t up to the fight. I had just brushed my teeth, but I could still taste the whiskey on my breath as we slept. Or maybe it was his breathing on me that I tasted. Regardless, his was a condition I would address in the morning when the ethanol had run its course.
Only recently have I fancied myself an early riser. That morning, however, I was up like a shot at 8:45 A.M. It was precisely at 8:46 A.M. when I took stock of my situation at hand: ________ nestled against the wall on the edge of my bed, Lindsay and Usman still sawing away on the futon, and a floor that once existed as carpet now riddled with accordion-like suits made me quickly realize that everyone needed to get out. By 8:47 A.M., I was a whirling dervish in the apartment putting on an epic performance surrounding my imperative need to make it to yoga by 9:00 A.M. 13 minutes to find shorts, fill a water bottle, and eject one of the three clingers-on from my place. The clock was ticking.
__________ sat up and started to tell me how he needed to call whatever blood-sucking financial institution that signed his paycheck to tell him he was going to be late. I didn’t have time to tell him I didn’t care, nor did I have time to explain to him the nature of cell phones. I only had 9 imaginary minutes until I had to be nowhere but alone. In all this commotion, as _______ was crossing the threshold so both of us could make our exit, Lindsay perked up from behind still sleeping Usman and cocked an eye and a tit at the scene unfolding at my front door. ________ apparently woke up hungry; not for food, but rather conversation. He turned back to look inside the apartment, noticed her half awake person squinting to understand what was going on with such urgency outside, and without skipping a beat uttered a nonsequitor of epic proportion:
“Where you from originally?”
Now, there were four eyes squinting: mine and Lindsay’s.
At this point, there remained only 4 imaginary minutes before my class was to begin. A two-minute conversation ensued between ________ and Lindsay that made me wonder if he had in fact confused me for the woman of his wildest dreams. His voice was back, and he had resumed his role as prick of the morning. If he hadn’t already exposed himself to me the night before, I might have fallen back into like with him. But Lindsay covered her breasts, I threw my bag into my car, and told _______ I would see him around. He wandered up my driveway still talking. To whom I may never know, but I spent the 30 seconds or so that it took him to make it to Prospect Street watching him jovially converse with no one.
When he rounded the corner heading toward Union Square, I reentered the apartment to find Lindsay and Usman sat up straight on the futon. It was already 3 minutes into my imaginary yoga class, so I decided to teach a class instead. A bottle of whiskey, a pack of cards, two packs of Parliaments lights, and a soundtrack of the Velvet Underground, Wilbert Harrison, and Islands were all we needed to put ourselves back to bed an hour later to forget this whole thing ever happened. We slept all three of us on the futon. I found the comfort of their touch so much more comforting than the man that had just left my apartment. It was almost like being 14 again, when the bar felt like home. Now, the inverse was true.
What I was, was confident.
A bar felt like home. Strangers gradually moving from being strangers to becoming new friends. Personas amplified and ego non-existent. The soundtrack always varies. Jukebox, record player, iPod, band, karaoke contest. They’re all variations of wallpaper. Some are brighter than others. A few are so esoteric you wonder where they were even found.
Then, very rarely, that moment happens.
The one inexplicable moment when an otherwise sullen girl lets out a scream so fierce that sound barriers are broken, earth shakes and hearts dissipate into little puddles within your chest.
Lindsay happens like this in my life.
It must have been a Monday morning. I didn’t have to work, but I had plenty of work to do at productively drinking enough to remind myself that I was more interesting than the job I had at the time. It must have been a Monday, as well, because the night before I had gone to Noir. This unfortunate decision was always made because Noir was the wasteland of zombie drunks needing just one more hour of alcohol after the rest of the bars in Cambridge had stopped serving.
Entering through that beaded curtain meant checking your coat and your dignity at the door. Can one finish 4 beers, 3 Jamesons, and 10 cigarettes in 47 minutes? Yes, yes you can.
Lindsay wasn’t with me this night. If she had been, what transpired would never have happened. She was still living on my futon at this point, and had recently been joined by Usman, her slightly charming but utterly useless rouge boyfriend at the time. They were now sharing the futon. I slept on my bed in my bedroom which had no door, no curtain, and consequently no shame. After all, of the three of us now living in the apartment, I was the only one paying rent.
I went to Noir because I had to. Had to because I had been at Charlie’s Kitchen right around the corner for an hour or so; and it was there that I met the conversation that wouldn’t end. His voice was gruff, something I’ve always been drawn to as my voice is so distinctly not straight. It’s not that I’m flamboyant, I’m just undeniably gay. So when a man sounds like what I would imagine a lumberjack might sound like, I am immediately drawn to him. When he turns out to be gay, I’m officially salivating. When he’s rude to me and slightly offensive to me and everyone else at the bar, I’m already picking out our song and wedding bands. This evening was already written. I wrote it. There were no words on it, but we were going to do it. Live.
Most people require a name when a new character is introduced. I knew his name, I have simply chosen to forget it. We apparently went to college together. He was in finance. I could give a fuck. I remember how I badly I wanted to emasculate him. When we were in bed, I began to acknowledge certain parts of him that he might not have tended to regularly: knee caps, armpits, other parts. When I returned to his mouth – the one part with which he was completely familiar – he tried to deny my kiss. So bold was he that he asked me to go brush my teeth before he would allow me access to his mouth again. I became the anger of so many Loretta Lynn tunes. I took my left hand to the nape of his neck, pulled him close and kissed him deep with the taste of his asshole on my lips. “From one ass to another _______. SWAK,” was my response before getting up to finally brush my teeth before bed.
I assumed that when I returned to bed, he would have already left. The whole time, Lindsay and Usman slept in the living room being anything but full of life, their snoring alternating perfectly to create the effect of an air conditioner’s white noise. I puttered in the bathroom a little longer than I would normally, debating whether or not to floss to give this idiot enough time to collect his clothes and leave me be. When I reentered the bedroom, he was still there. Now, he wanted to cuddle. This was not in the fantasy. He refused to leave. Apparently, his Marlboro Man rasp was nothing more than the pant of a breathy, doe-eyed Tiger Beat fanatic, and I was now David Cassidy. Kill me.
But I let him sleep over. It was late, and I wasn’t up to the fight. I had just brushed my teeth, but I could still taste the whiskey on my breath as we slept. Or maybe it was his breathing on me that I tasted. Regardless, his was a condition I would address in the morning when the ethanol had run its course.
Only recently have I fancied myself an early riser. That morning, however, I was up like a shot at 8:45 A.M. It was precisely at 8:46 A.M. when I took stock of my situation at hand: ________ nestled against the wall on the edge of my bed, Lindsay and Usman still sawing away on the futon, and a floor that once existed as carpet now riddled with accordion-like suits made me quickly realize that everyone needed to get out. By 8:47 A.M., I was a whirling dervish in the apartment putting on an epic performance surrounding my imperative need to make it to yoga by 9:00 A.M. 13 minutes to find shorts, fill a water bottle, and eject one of the three clingers-on from my place. The clock was ticking.
__________ sat up and started to tell me how he needed to call whatever blood-sucking financial institution that signed his paycheck to tell him he was going to be late. I didn’t have time to tell him I didn’t care, nor did I have time to explain to him the nature of cell phones. I only had 9 imaginary minutes until I had to be nowhere but alone. In all this commotion, as _______ was crossing the threshold so both of us could make our exit, Lindsay perked up from behind still sleeping Usman and cocked an eye and a tit at the scene unfolding at my front door. ________ apparently woke up hungry; not for food, but rather conversation. He turned back to look inside the apartment, noticed her half awake person squinting to understand what was going on with such urgency outside, and without skipping a beat uttered a nonsequitor of epic proportion:
“Where you from originally?”
Now, there were four eyes squinting: mine and Lindsay’s.
At this point, there remained only 4 imaginary minutes before my class was to begin. A two-minute conversation ensued between ________ and Lindsay that made me wonder if he had in fact confused me for the woman of his wildest dreams. His voice was back, and he had resumed his role as prick of the morning. If he hadn’t already exposed himself to me the night before, I might have fallen back into like with him. But Lindsay covered her breasts, I threw my bag into my car, and told _______ I would see him around. He wandered up my driveway still talking. To whom I may never know, but I spent the 30 seconds or so that it took him to make it to Prospect Street watching him jovially converse with no one.
When he rounded the corner heading toward Union Square, I reentered the apartment to find Lindsay and Usman sat up straight on the futon. It was already 3 minutes into my imaginary yoga class, so I decided to teach a class instead. A bottle of whiskey, a pack of cards, two packs of Parliaments lights, and a soundtrack of the Velvet Underground, Wilbert Harrison, and Islands were all we needed to put ourselves back to bed an hour later to forget this whole thing ever happened. We slept all three of us on the futon. I found the comfort of their touch so much more comforting than the man that had just left my apartment. It was almost like being 14 again, when the bar felt like home. Now, the inverse was true.
Hide and Seek
Written at 13. Scary ...
Hide and Seek
Reminiscent of your way
Common of your step
Remarkably
I follow
I don’t know why
But I did
I can’t change
Or hope for solace
After what you did to me.
I’m being selfish
I should have let you strangle my soul
Or relish in the thought of my pain
But I didn’t
What was I thinking?
You always know best
I’m in the closet
Behind your darts
Hiding in the J.C. Penny display case
Hoping
You can’t catch me.
Opposite Eyes of Knowledge
A scholarly man requested my help
I acquiesced and pondered
He wondered what all his years of work would bring him
Simply he said that his life had been pressing
While his nights had been lost
Minutes were words, and words were books. Yet all the time his eyes glanced at mine.
Words became mumbled expressions of awe
Hands reached out, touching
One on a cheek
The other, a heart.
The man replied his many thanks and he wept.
I laughed in spite of it all.
I’d helped this poor man with the brush of my hand
Words again were mentioned
But only subconsciously for no one to hear
And I, the lesser intellect of the two,
Gathered my small brain into my deformed body
For the scholarly man had seen something in my eyes,
And yet I still look for the happiness it brought him in myself.
Hide and Seek
Reminiscent of your way
Common of your step
Remarkably
I follow
I don’t know why
But I did
I can’t change
Or hope for solace
After what you did to me.
I’m being selfish
I should have let you strangle my soul
Or relish in the thought of my pain
But I didn’t
What was I thinking?
You always know best
I’m in the closet
Behind your darts
Hiding in the J.C. Penny display case
Hoping
You can’t catch me.
Opposite Eyes of Knowledge
A scholarly man requested my help
I acquiesced and pondered
He wondered what all his years of work would bring him
Simply he said that his life had been pressing
While his nights had been lost
Minutes were words, and words were books. Yet all the time his eyes glanced at mine.
Words became mumbled expressions of awe
Hands reached out, touching
One on a cheek
The other, a heart.
The man replied his many thanks and he wept.
I laughed in spite of it all.
I’d helped this poor man with the brush of my hand
Words again were mentioned
But only subconsciously for no one to hear
And I, the lesser intellect of the two,
Gathered my small brain into my deformed body
For the scholarly man had seen something in my eyes,
And yet I still look for the happiness it brought him in myself.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Ellipses ...
Dinah said it best: if I were a bell I’d be ringing.
She was a complete stranger.
“Do you have a significant other?”
“I did, and now I just have his stuff.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to leave you.”
Fuck.
He was significant. He altered me. And in thinking on it, maybe he doesn’t want to leave me. The last significant one took everything. That’s the thing about significance: it never leaves. It lingers. It stares back at you from the mirror. It punctuates every sentence.
Why has this one sentenced me to a life forever ending in ellipses?
I love the declarative. Period. Full stop. Definitive.
The subjunctive has never done much for me. It doesn’t tuck you in at night. It tells you it will be in a minute when the program is over. It asks you to dance in broad daylight in the company of strangers, takes the lead, dips you, and doesn't pull up back up.
She was a complete stranger.
“Do you have a significant other?”
“I did, and now I just have his stuff.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to leave you.”
Fuck.
He was significant. He altered me. And in thinking on it, maybe he doesn’t want to leave me. The last significant one took everything. That’s the thing about significance: it never leaves. It lingers. It stares back at you from the mirror. It punctuates every sentence.
Why has this one sentenced me to a life forever ending in ellipses?
I love the declarative. Period. Full stop. Definitive.
The subjunctive has never done much for me. It doesn’t tuck you in at night. It tells you it will be in a minute when the program is over. It asks you to dance in broad daylight in the company of strangers, takes the lead, dips you, and doesn't pull up back up.
Hard.
This might be the first time in my life that it has felt more natural to use a keyboard rather than a pen.
I have this thing about writing in pen. Black pen. Not blue. I tried writing in purple for a brief moment in time when I was exceptionally happy, but that, along with the ink, ran out. But right now, typing feels good. It feels truer to the story I have to tell. I think it has something to do with how remote everything feels at the moment. I live at the end of the world. Quite literally. In actuality, I live on the fringe of the end of the end of the world. Even when I lived at the cultural epicenter of the world, I was still on the fringe. This is becoming a commonality in my life. Always on the fringe.
Recently, I was accused of being novice at love. I have been reviewing that observation over and over again in my head, and I am finally starting to make heads and tails of it. First, I need to consider the source of said accusation. I did love. I think I currently love. I know I will love this man in the future. In whatever tense, he hurt/hurts/hurt me. There is a tautology in that. One can only know pain when coupled with love. Acknowledgement is another facet of hurt. Children fall, and often fall hard. They have yet to learn how to fall forward, so they fall backward; back to the ground, softest part of the skull connecting to the pavement. The most fascinating part comes in whether or not anyone sees it. Without the appropriate response from someone older and more experienced in the ways of falling, they will simply continue on their way, unaware and unscathed.
I’m not sure how many more times I will allow myself to fall. A dear friend recently discovered the closest approximation to love I’ve seen in awhile. She’s struggled with relationships in the past, moving from one to another utilizing her sex as a weapon rather than a tool. Several months into her current partnership, realizing for myself that this was not a test but rather an examination of true love, I asked her how lucky she felt. She promptly explained to me that there was no luck in any of it. Instead, she plainly retorted, “I’ve finally made enough mistakes to deserve this.”
In my short history, I have made many mistakes. To assuage myself I have often told myself that in making them I learn more about myself, and consequently how not to repeat them. Then why do I keep making the same fucking mistakes? I have loved two men, one woman, and an arsenal of friends. The woman might be the only one who has ever reciprocated my love, and we are designed to love others in conjunction with our love. A former employer of mine told me that while I might be programmed to be physically compatible with men, my truest sensuality is most closely realized with women. At first I thought her to be bat-shit crazy. Then, I thought about it. She might be on to something.
Throughout the course of my life I have known many mothers, most notably my own and her best friend. I have a father, too, whom I love. But my mothers have fostered in me a sense of self-worth that is unparalleled. Around Eileen and Janice, I like myself the most. Their choosing me makes me choose myself. When I need to be reigned in, they bring me back to me, reminding me that I am enough. Moreover, I am brilliant. I shine, brighter than the darkness I often harbor. Thinking on it now, I find it strange that I had to move to a place with so many god damn lighthouses to realize that I am beacon enough. I illuminate. And perhaps that is where the paradox lies: while I spend my life casting light on the shadows of other people’s trajectories, I can’t free myself the tower. I am endless accolades for others, yet I refuse to give myself a superlative. When I was in high school, I was offered the choice of “Most Likely to Succeed” or “Most Talkative.” I accepted the latter, but I knew the former to be true. And sitting here steps from the ocean, sun gently warming my feet, I know I have been successful in love. Maybe not in loving another, but at the very least myself.
I have this thing about writing in pen. Black pen. Not blue. I tried writing in purple for a brief moment in time when I was exceptionally happy, but that, along with the ink, ran out. But right now, typing feels good. It feels truer to the story I have to tell. I think it has something to do with how remote everything feels at the moment. I live at the end of the world. Quite literally. In actuality, I live on the fringe of the end of the end of the world. Even when I lived at the cultural epicenter of the world, I was still on the fringe. This is becoming a commonality in my life. Always on the fringe.
Recently, I was accused of being novice at love. I have been reviewing that observation over and over again in my head, and I am finally starting to make heads and tails of it. First, I need to consider the source of said accusation. I did love. I think I currently love. I know I will love this man in the future. In whatever tense, he hurt/hurts/hurt me. There is a tautology in that. One can only know pain when coupled with love. Acknowledgement is another facet of hurt. Children fall, and often fall hard. They have yet to learn how to fall forward, so they fall backward; back to the ground, softest part of the skull connecting to the pavement. The most fascinating part comes in whether or not anyone sees it. Without the appropriate response from someone older and more experienced in the ways of falling, they will simply continue on their way, unaware and unscathed.
I’m not sure how many more times I will allow myself to fall. A dear friend recently discovered the closest approximation to love I’ve seen in awhile. She’s struggled with relationships in the past, moving from one to another utilizing her sex as a weapon rather than a tool. Several months into her current partnership, realizing for myself that this was not a test but rather an examination of true love, I asked her how lucky she felt. She promptly explained to me that there was no luck in any of it. Instead, she plainly retorted, “I’ve finally made enough mistakes to deserve this.”
In my short history, I have made many mistakes. To assuage myself I have often told myself that in making them I learn more about myself, and consequently how not to repeat them. Then why do I keep making the same fucking mistakes? I have loved two men, one woman, and an arsenal of friends. The woman might be the only one who has ever reciprocated my love, and we are designed to love others in conjunction with our love. A former employer of mine told me that while I might be programmed to be physically compatible with men, my truest sensuality is most closely realized with women. At first I thought her to be bat-shit crazy. Then, I thought about it. She might be on to something.
Throughout the course of my life I have known many mothers, most notably my own and her best friend. I have a father, too, whom I love. But my mothers have fostered in me a sense of self-worth that is unparalleled. Around Eileen and Janice, I like myself the most. Their choosing me makes me choose myself. When I need to be reigned in, they bring me back to me, reminding me that I am enough. Moreover, I am brilliant. I shine, brighter than the darkness I often harbor. Thinking on it now, I find it strange that I had to move to a place with so many god damn lighthouses to realize that I am beacon enough. I illuminate. And perhaps that is where the paradox lies: while I spend my life casting light on the shadows of other people’s trajectories, I can’t free myself the tower. I am endless accolades for others, yet I refuse to give myself a superlative. When I was in high school, I was offered the choice of “Most Likely to Succeed” or “Most Talkative.” I accepted the latter, but I knew the former to be true. And sitting here steps from the ocean, sun gently warming my feet, I know I have been successful in love. Maybe not in loving another, but at the very least myself.
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