On An Unexpected Muse

I have a character in my head. I don’t often find characters that simply wander into view. Most of the time I create them, shape them out of the gritty shit-coloured clay of my own dull experiences.

“The sunshine lazily spilled off her freckled nose and splashed onto her shoulders. Wrapped in a pale green sundress, she complexes her legs and motions for the host. ‘House white,’ she declares from the edge of the shaky metal table.”

I spent four hours writing these three terrible sentences nearly three years ago. There’s something sacred about this strange woman who has inadvertently rooted herself inside my mind. I see her in a place I visited once, almost nine years ago, in a suburb outside of Paris. I remember a castle and a dusty two-story merry-go-round. I eagerly snapped photographs of this playground, not quite understanding how to make it beautiful and fit the entire near-monstrosity into the viewfinder at the same time. I remember walking into a courtyard. Small iron trellises lined the walkway and vines swept the walls. I remember thinking I could almost see the vines growing — meeting, dancing, and knotting before continuing on to greet their next partner.

I plopped myself down into the singular iron patio chair in the courtyard, the future resting place of my mysterious fellow traveler. I rested my camera on the accompanying table, where she would come to lay her arms. The sun trickled down through the waving arms of a willow tree. It was the same sun that now bounces off her wide brimmed sun hat. When I was sitting where she sits, I’m almost positive I was writing bad poetry and taking the day’s breeze for granted. I am endlessly curious why she’s sitting there, what she’s thinking, and why anyone would order a house white in Paris. Most of all, I wonder what her eyes are like. Kind? Sad? Brown? Blue? Black? Small? Evenly-spaced? I want to rip the hat from her sophisticated head and ask her a myriad of questions I’m sure not even she would know to answer. I did not birth this woman; can she even be mine? If I wrote her, would she even be my creation? Or one of her own making, simply using my hands to tell her own story? 

On hunting knives.

Whatever happened to judging people based on who they are? Maybe it’s just the people I’ve been hanging out with, but I feel like recently, everyone’s just faking it, just molding themselves into a specific niche they feel comfortable in to avoid the rest of the world. Now I get that you may be sweet and nice, but that won’t keep you warm at night, I get that. Trust me. I do. But why is there such an emphasis placed on fashion and beauty and lips that plump, noses that slope, and stomachs that flatten? And I think this is somehow tied to the fact that we’re playing this sick blame game of “I can’t get a job and I can’t survive because of the economy and because of finances and because of the Republicans and because of tax cuts for the rich and corporations are people and…” We blame everyone else for our own faults, and try so hard to distract ourselves from the possibility that we were the ones who fucked this all up. We paint up these shells of people and cower inside of them, hoping, just desperately, desperately hoping that if pretend long enough, that we’ll become these things. That the state of the economy will get better. That people will like us. That we’ll get a job. That everything will fall into our laps, just like mommy and daddy promised us. 

On An Exercise in Futility

Salad fork, dinner fork on the left, dinner knife, dinner spoon, soup spoon on the right. Dessert spoon, dessert fork up top. I tuck the cotton square into my lap and gaze across the table. Time moves quickly, rushing through my ears like a pounding waterfall. The noise overwhelms my senses. Pronouns fade into the white blankness of the tablecloth as I stare unwaveringly at the blinding glean of the water glass. He’s, she’s, it’s rustle around me. They tell me I’m pretty and pick at strands of my hair. I feel the scratch of electricity against my neck. I cannot see them, only stumbling oblong and pear shapes, fuzzy at the edges near the corner of my vision. They creep glasses of increasingly dark liquid towards me. Picking at the rim of my glass, I want to cry, this is my hair, this is my skin. Why can you touch me, how can you see me, I don’t want you to see me. This is my hair, this is my skin.

If I looked at you, I’d see something fine. I’d see something dirty. I’d see something with cracks. If you looked at me, you’d see something spoiled. You’d see something plundered. You’d see something unholy. My misplaced parts no longer have a glue; the edges no longer match. I belong with the wreckage. My sole desire is to pound my woeful shards into dust and blow it into the wind, with yours. You are as tarnished and anomalous as I. We are the waifs. We are the godforsaken. We are the quietly forgotten. We are of no merit, no value, and for that, we are invaluable to one another.

Eagles often engage in what is known as a “death spiral.” Two mates meet thousands of feet above the earth and lock talons. Then begins a vicious, looping free-fall towards the land. They do not stop, they do not disengage. They brutally struggle for life; two beaks, four wings.. a winding primitive mass grappling for the possibility of existence.

On Making Love

So here I sit, all dressed up and nowhere to go. My feet dangle from the sunroof down to the center console of my dusty 4Runner and a Stella balances precariously next to the ski rack. There are two days out of the year I particularly enjoy – Fourth of July and Christmas. For some reason, I had always imparted a strange melancholic sense of child-like wonder to these days. Perhaps in the midst of our nation’s great economic downfall and the absolute rise of the political farce, I appreciate a good regression. Painted sugar cookies, sweet summer dresses, open toed shoes, seasonal melodies and mixed drinks, all splashed with a simple and ever-unchanging colour palette. My last Fourth of July was spent in Sweden playing YouTube videos of fireworks shows on my laptop. I cherished those three hours of darkness.

It’s easy to fall in love with someone when you watch fireworks together. They make the entire world stop. Suddenly, you are five years old again and nothing matters. There is no economy; you don’t even know what the word means. There are no expectations, no obligations, no bad investments, or bad news. You want to be a super hero when you grow up, but everyone will tell you not to worry – you already are. For those twenty minutes of popping and sizzling lights, you are transported. For those twenty minutes, you can live somewhere else where the rest of the world can never get to. You can spend those twenty minutes on the street where you grew up. You can spend them in the moment of your first kiss. You can spend them in the place you’ve always wanted visit, but never had the balls or the money. This place is only your place. You keep time and space within the pads of your fingertips. That’s why it’s so easy to fall in love if you stand too close to someone else when you watch them. If you inch close enough, you can share that space. Two can move as one.

Why had I invested so much in a stupid holiday? I perch my chin on the palm of my hand and slide my eyes to meet those of the neighbor’s drunk husband, red cup in hand and oil-stained towel sticking from the back pocket of his shorts. He looks happy. He has a slight hint of devil in his blue eyes. I gaze back, with a tangible apathy in tow. Maybe it’s because we’ve been conditioned since birth that the holidays are the times you spend with the ones you love. Maybe it’s because I lived with my mother after my parents got divorced. Maybe it’s because I’m weak. Maybe it’s because no one loves me. Sighing, I finish my beer. I’ve had one too many. I’ve already said too much. My melodrama has become as much of a farce as the 2012 presidential race. And it’s gone.

Take a drag.
Take a sip.
Take a drag.
Take a sip.
Take a drag.
Take a sip.
Take a sip.
Take a sip.
Take a sip.

Drive and never come back.

On Beginnings

I wrote this on my iPhone, so I apologize for formatting and everything.

It occurred to me driving home at dusk through a thick and low layer of fog, suffocating in its security, where clouds confuse with mountains and inland lighthouses illuminate the way home. It had been a year of confusion. It had been a year of mistakes and an infinite unravelling of weakness. But today, someones weakness has become my saving grace. Someone else’s anger and sadness has lifted me from quite possibly was my own, festering and recoiling upon itself.

I apologize for leaving you guys for a while; it seemed my only option. Not only that, but my only desire. For that, I’m not sure I’ll ever understand or believe. I’m sorry for the posts I published and immediately deleted or published privately and poured over, wondering the consequences of pressing that little boxy button.

I’m back, but I want to clarify the reasons why.
I’m back because this tale has an ending and I feel I owe it to you, even all of you who follow for pretty pictures to stare at while you sip a whiskey on the rocks home alone (or is that just me?).
I’m back because I still have forgiveness in my bones. Some of you know me personally, and I’m sure you’ve seen me grow over the years. When plush with youth, I could be a selfish cunt. Now, stuffing sticking out from the edges, I’ve come to see that everyone is fighting a great battle. Be kind. Be open. Be loving. Be forgiving. Forgive people more than you’d forgive yourself, then back up and try to allow yourself the same freedom.
I’m not back to slander or vilify. Normally, I wouldn’t even touch upon this because the very mention seems to point directly at you and claim, “Evil!” However, it’s been not only insinuated, but lamented over. Don’t read this blog for gossip. Read it for my shit metaphors, endless optimism, and silly thoughts. I’ve never claimed to be unbiased. In fact, quite the opposite. This blog is essentially fiction. It’s my own story, and that alone tints my writing. Read at your own discretion, and never, ever judge. Everyone has their own path. Everyone makes their own decisions.

Today, as I drove towards that tall grey building, I cried. My head began to ache, but through the throbs and sobs, I laughed. I realized that for the first time, I was crying for happiness. My life changed again last Thursday, and here I sit, on a plain Monday, with the rustling of pressed paper in hand, telling everyone that I’ll be seeing them tomorrow a free woman.

If reading pop post-modernist literature has taught me anything, it’s that we have a tendency to hold onto our pain. We re-tell our stories, re-opening old wounds over and over in search of pity, pseudo self-awareness, or an “awakening.” Anything to make us feel real. But this is my ending. I won’t tell this story. If you wish to read it, it’s here, but only in bits and pieces. I have no desire to hold on to this. And with the pound of this gavel, I am letting go.

On Fuck Me

I keep publishing, making private, editing, publishing, making private, and editing my newest post. Parts of it seem so fucking whiny. The parts that drone really drone, and about things I simply don’t care about anymore. It’s like muscle memory. I’m so used to dwelling on certain things, thinking a certain way, going through certain motions. It’s like my brows are still furrowed and I’m just now rubbing them out. Something’s wrong. Something’s off. I thought, “Maybe it’s just not ready yet. Maybe I’m just not ready yet.”

But that doesn’t seem right. Ready doesn’t have anything to do with it. Now, there’s no need to dwell. I still have the same best friends I always did — the same drive, the same hope, the same bright eyes, the same confidence. In fact, I did something that almost surprised me the other day. It tasted like freedom. Like fun, like I will buy you another beer because I like the way you talk and you don’t insult me, call me fat, or disgusting, or worthless, or any variance thereof. Like you enjoy who I am, I enjoy who you are, we never have to see one another again if we so desire, and this is simplicity. It tasted like silk and sandpaper and like the way I was supposed to be spending my youth. This weekend, Diana, Mark, and Myra are coming for Bay to Breakers, and I can’t fucking wait. Ugh, how will I make a costume in time? AND HOW MUCH BEER IS ENOUGH BEER. (Answer: The limit does not exist!) Fuck, I can barely contain myself.

On Samples

So I haven’t been writing much lately. In lieu of my usual piece-of-the-moment-about-my-gaylationship, I’m going to serve you up some samples from about fourish years ago. It was a year of sleeping with men of authority, of watching young children suffocate and fall limp before my eyes, of waking up late for class, and vodka. It’s all a bunch of over-written shit completely saturated with awful metaphors and descriptions. I was meditating a lot at the time and the stuff I wrote afterwards often seemed like the rantings of a teenage girl on acid. Sometimes I was on acid. But hey, at least it’s something. Here’s one page for your reading pleasure:

There is a silence that disembowels my soul. A bloody mess sloshes to the floor and wolves trot in circles, anticipating snacks. Skin and tissue sticking to their ribs, they hungrily devour my insides.

Within one moment, a solid, ice fraction of a second, my heartbeat stops, picks up, throws itself past my spine, and settles down again. That one moment inspires the hope that I may find humanity through the storm and the humiliation that it has found me, and driven me to madness. The instant is quick; the thoughts pass before I can remember them all. It’s back to the story I write at the beginning of each day and the scripts I rescue from the street. I despise the mechanics of my logically hardened heart and often wonder if it beats at all.

—————————————-

“She is weeping sex.”

—————————————-

It was as if my sternum broke in half and painted the world rainbows with its insides.

On Empty Sex

Do you have a brother, one that teases you? Or a sister, you share shoes with? Which neighborhood abode on your street do you remember best? The one that housed your best friend with the red trim and the white shutters? Or the tiny wooden cabin with the sweet old couple that always made shortbreads and lemonade? Do you like to be fucked from behind? Do you prefer to be taken slow and sweetly, or quick and roughly? Will you scream when you cum? Will you run your nails down my back when I slip inside of you? 

I place my palm against her cheek, letting my fingers run through her long brown tresses and gently thumb her ear. Her hair is made of silk and smells of fresh flowers and female musk. I move her jaw towards mine and there is fire. My curious attraction instantly morphs into an all-consuming desire. Time, which had (up until now) been crawling past me, sluggishly creeping from moment to moment, now became a violent twister, playing a game of tag with my desire. I thrust her slight body against the kitchen wall and begin to lift. Our lips tangle with one another, and never dare to part. She tastes sour and coppery, but I like it. I want this, need this, must have this.

Suddenly, it hits. I set her down and let my mouth hover over hers for a moment. Empty. This is empty. The entirety of my passion rapidly drains, taking the colour in my cheeks along with it. This is empty writing. This is empty sex. We are empty people.

I look into her eyes and forcefully pull her towards me. We tear ravenously at each other’s clothes and fuck wildly on the kitchen tiles. The harsh, cold ceramic eats at my knees while my nipples make instantaneous tracks along the glistening sweat of her stomach. My wrists begin to ache as she cums, and she screams, not unlike how I imagined. I stand back and survey my conquest: the curves of her hips, the dew on her forehead, the stringy wet hair plucking from her crown. She is beautiful, for a second. She is both my horror and my savior. Throwing my dress over my head, I turn and walk out the door into the cold, stale night. Embers of a cigarette spit at my knuckles. So what, then, was the point? We are nothing, and this is nothing; but does this weightlessness negate it’s own significance? My heavy shoes create hollow thump thumps as I trod down the stairs and into the darkness. 

I had a sex nightmare about Harry from One Direction.

He was sleeping in a dorm-style room on the floor next to Snooki, he had just gotten a Prince Albert that looked comically oversized next to his junk, turned down a blow job because he was too eager to “get it in,” asked me “Are you ready to party??!!” when he was about to cum, and subsequently cried during and after orgasm. 

I don’t even listen to One Direction; I’ve clearly just been on Tumblr too much. 
Gross. 

On the Ecstasy of Being Wanted

On Putrid Desires
On Fuck This, I’m Going For Pizza And Beer With A Lesbian 

Possible titles for my next post.