mortality & an incredible, cavernous feeling of “knowing” that there isn’t anything after death. that belief is tragically unshakeable. i have tried. a lot.
creative wastefulness.
the impulsive recklessness that i know all too well to be a big character flaw, but that has always netted me facilitating results (admiration or awe, instead of the alienation and disgust some of my choices have deserved). conversely, the energy exerted while harnessing said character flaw when my desire is a wild animal.
the struggle to be good.
all the time i spend thinking about these things over living in the moment.
Letting go is gut wrenching. It is a hard knot like a cherry pit inside of me, begging to stop moving on, to revisit all that I know is over, done, or dead. Why is it so difficult to say ‘goodbye’ even to the ugliest memories? Because I feel the magnitude of all that time like a natural disaster, the wrecked cities and burned buildings of moments and years that can (and, truly, should) never be revisited?
I see winters of hope pinned like moths to the cold plaster walls. I see heartbreak and pounding bathroom doors and a boat in the center of a calm river. I see foolish decisions and hastily abandoned plans. I see two coasts and two lives, both of which feel foreign and strange to me, wrong in opposite ways and right in ways so secret that they’re tucked deeply away somewhere in my toes.
I see it, but I don’t know what to do with it, there isn’t a place for it now, and now is so much better anyway. Letting go is a bitch, though. A total bitch.
just maybe.
I realize that I no longer know how to carve out a space for myself, just for myself, in this wild atmosphere. Everywhere there is noise. It’s noise that makes me complacent, nervous, or tired. Noise that makes all of my connections feel precarious or artificial. Information given out like Halloween candy. I remain private, and quiet, and hopeful. I am hopeful to find space amidst all of the sounds to be heard, to be understood, to be seen. I find myself annoyed by those who are pushy about it, and I’ve wondered why that is, why it bothers me that people demand to be seen, to be heard, which, if you think about it, is the most natural thing in the world. And perhaps that is because sometimes I would like to do that too, but a vague personal decorum stops me. I remain in waiting for those rare perfect moments, when the night is young & bright and there is the taste of magic glittering through the sky, and I’ve had just one drink, and the right person is sitting beside me and it’s easy, and it’s safe, and it’s a little exciting, the newness of someone you just want to know a little better. And maybe it steals my breath when I really look at this community of humans for what it is: a mass of yearning, wanting, hoping. Everyone is seeking the language to bridge gaps, in whatever way makes the most sense for them. So much want - for acceptance, kindness, popularity, attention, love, esteem, companionship. Forums like the internet and the stifling phenomenon of ‘social networking’ make all the desire transparent, and it’s uneasy and strange to witness. I think a lot of people notice it, the static atmosphere of longing, and it breeds competition. Give me a honeyed room and a new record and a little easy silence. Give me a handwritten letter, tell me something simple and real.
There is nothing sadder than missing someone who never existed.
strange & lovely, this is. exhausted, i am.
too beautiful.
playing ‘resurrection fern’ on the uke & watching my baby learn how to walk. i love fridays.
“The Undressing Day,” Ada Limón
I dreamed the tangled crush of magic peels in the wax leaves made a spell of bones and everything bloomed big and better than before, and beyond the barbed wire, beyond this fence of angry fists there’s a breathing, there’s a breathing underwater. Love the body bending, the useless hair, the when of the skin, the when of the wrist, the witching, the now, the now, the insist.
-richard siken.
It has been more than two years since I’ve actively blogged/regularly written/documented purely for myself, to help the winter days to pass by. They passed and the cold thawed and the days became bright and warm. I learned to love being alone, just my body and the fierce sun and the rough ground and the spinning top of sky. I learned to cultivate the quiet and slowly, slowly, the ache for a safety net diminished.
