29 December 2013
ISOLA
grass grows from the alarm clock. it's astounding, the sounds of five sets of eyes that could never understand why a ship is referred to as a 'she' just as well as i cannot put my finger quite on the outcome of the next year. i keep searching for you only to find that you are hiding underneath my skirts again, then falling into an inescapable bathtub of public enemies. shame on throwing your wallet into the fireplace but...forgiven, i suppose, if it is that that keeps you bleeding. and with the most enticing voice i've ever seen, you misplace your vowels and drag out your consonants at a rate which isn't decipherable. is it possible all the cheap vodka has gone to your head? is it possible that the portuguese pavement stifled your willingness to brave the storm without an umbrella? left filling the evenings with old music and miscalculated kissing makes me restless. whelmed. hammer to heart and enclosed in a glass case, the wait. everything intrigued us and thrilled us, alas together remain unmutually unenamoured. as i remove you from the pedestal, tangled nerves dangling from the moon sharpen our vision and carve an exit. the alarm clock needs trimming.
22 December 2013
THE SPACES AMID LOVE
you have ghosts?
of course i have ghosts.
what are your ghosts like?
they are on the insides of the lids of my eyes.
this is also where my ghosts reside.
you have ghosts?
of course i have ghosts.
but you are a child.
i am not a child.
but you have not known love.
these are my ghosts, the spaces amid love.
of course i have ghosts.
what are your ghosts like?
they are on the insides of the lids of my eyes.
this is also where my ghosts reside.
you have ghosts?
of course i have ghosts.
but you are a child.
i am not a child.
but you have not known love.
these are my ghosts, the spaces amid love.
11 December 2013
EPENTHESIS
Please don’t make me feel anything right now; I don’t have
the time for that bullshit. I just heard someone scream outside the window. I
hope you didn’t make them feel something. I hope they are just screaming for
feeling alive. I would like to do the same but I’m conscientious of my
neighbors (ellipses) Does this fact make me more alive, or less alive? Are we
all being too conscientious and not screaming enough?
I have noticed -thanks to a long sit in a warm bath -to keep
feeling the warmth it’s necessary to stir around a bit. Feet out, then under.
Water is warm again. Water is wet again. I think that water is the softest
discovery. Sit in it for a moment and it becomes you. Am I even sitting in
water anymore? Because I feel nothing? And does it feel warm or cold now? And
how long have I been in the bath now? I have to keep moving to feel anything at
all. Generally speaking, I think that I
knew this, but the bathtub has since confirmed it.
I cut a chunk out of my hair this week. Was touching it just now; it’s all irregular
and obnoxious. I told myself it’ll grow
back. It’s just hair.
I know someone who died this week. People are dying
constantly I suppose, but usually it ends up being someone I’ve never known. I
don’t know how to react to death. I guess the only thing is to learn to grow
despite the loss, to grow because of the loss. I’ve really no idea though. I’m very scared of death. Of people I love
dying. Of feeling too much, or feeling too little, or feeling nothing at all,
when I do eventually lose someone. Of not spending the right amount of
time with them, or not telling them how I love them enough. Most of all, I wish
that death didn’t happen, well at least not totally, and I could just pour out
my loved one's presence into my morning coffee day in, day out. Still greet you in the
morning, have you after dinner.
I’m hooping again. It feels good to move like that again. I
paid the rent and the electric bill this week. Passed four finals. Sat in cold
coffee shops and scribbled away about human anatomy. Remembered, once, to make my bed. Avoiding most things because I get too distracted by distraction’s distractions.
Another harrowing goodbye will come this week. This seems to
be the recurring event the past couple of years. Change is good right? I still
think of the profuse tears I’ve shed on buses each time I’ve left someone. It’s
really underrated how painful goodbyes are. It’s always worth it; to have such
good times, despite the difficult separations. Maybe it makes true connections
a bit stronger, even. (what does it remember like?)
I need to start packing for Chicago. I need to eat something
for dinner besides an apple. To do over Christmas break: Jacob’s coffee.
Books. Countdown: 2 days.
11. sleeping pills and damien rice
08 December 2013
LIFE EXISTS IN FIVE CIRCLES
life exists in five circles and you are telling me thesethingsthatdon'thappen and then you are telling me thesethings that i pROBABLY alreadydetermined and imtryingtobe modestandok, trying to be ok, but i think it comes off--flakes shakes takes breaks away from me what idontwanttoknowthatialreadyknow
that none of these noneofyou--none are how i imagine thatorthis orthoseorthatorwho and im notsure, buti used a comma, wow, can i concentrate on that, or how im listening to wordless music, how ihatethaticanremember these things; cold accompanied by NO NOTION of time (which is exactly how i like it) and thinking: i think this ends by walking out the door
ok well i cant care becasue there is this cold, actually freezing wind harsh against my arms, against my forehead, i check if my window got opened, well no, hereanothercomma, it's closed. but okay, these blinds, they are not keeping me warm. this skin, these muscles, bones, costumes, songs, loves, they are not keeping me warm.
this touch
neither.
that none of these noneofyou--none are how i imagine thatorthis orthoseorthatorwho and im notsure, buti used a comma, wow, can i concentrate on that, or how im listening to wordless music, how ihatethaticanremember these things; cold accompanied by NO NOTION of time (which is exactly how i like it) and thinking: i think this ends by walking out the door
ok well i cant care becasue there is this cold, actually freezing wind harsh against my arms, against my forehead, i check if my window got opened, well no, hereanothercomma, it's closed. but okay, these blinds, they are not keeping me warm. this skin, these muscles, bones, costumes, songs, loves, they are not keeping me warm.
this touch
neither.
29 November 2013
THE SKY PULSING
the sky pulsing 11/29/13
iamsoafraidofdying
iamsoafraid it will be OK
do something
dosomething
dosomething
it will be OK
it will beOK
dosomething
I am soafraidofdying
I am soafraid
I am I am iam iami?
249-252
25 November 2013
I KNEW IT, I WAS FREE, I WAS THERE.
five minutes of dreams and i'm resting my head in your lap on the couch. the one that i burned with a hairdryer when it was first new, sorry. you're reading me that scary story about the witch with twigs for hair and a cave for a home who sold marmalade. or maybe you're explaining shakespeare to me. i knew it, i was free, i was there.
i liked the way you impulsively painted the bathroom with periwinkle stripes. the way you crush your christmas candy cane and eat its crumbs with a spoon out of a bowl. the way you seem to consistently finish the last piece of other people's puzzles, despite angering them, you find it funny, and so do i. not to mention the passion with which you built my history project, quilt me beautiful warmth, and paint my life with such scenery.
and i especially love the contrast between you telling me if anyone ever hurt me, to punch them, yet you watch almost every television show with tissues in hand to wipe clean your crying eyes. there is such beauty in your range of emotions, and how they are subtle and sound when i need someone strong, yet the most mundane things can create such feeling in you. there is such beauty in your ability to let the world fully take hold of you, and how you can find yourself in any story.
there is such beauty in how you're so delicate, but so tough, and i love you.
i liked the way you impulsively painted the bathroom with periwinkle stripes. the way you crush your christmas candy cane and eat its crumbs with a spoon out of a bowl. the way you seem to consistently finish the last piece of other people's puzzles, despite angering them, you find it funny, and so do i. not to mention the passion with which you built my history project, quilt me beautiful warmth, and paint my life with such scenery.
and i especially love the contrast between you telling me if anyone ever hurt me, to punch them, yet you watch almost every television show with tissues in hand to wipe clean your crying eyes. there is such beauty in your range of emotions, and how they are subtle and sound when i need someone strong, yet the most mundane things can create such feeling in you. there is such beauty in your ability to let the world fully take hold of you, and how you can find yourself in any story.
there is such beauty in how you're so delicate, but so tough, and i love you.
24 November 2013
besides i love you
we are in poland, it is your birthday. you are drunk, and so am i. it is terribly cold, and everything is terribly polish. i forgot my gloves at the hostel. we walk together to a bar somewhere. all of us. but i walk nearest to you. my hands are frozen. i probably say this aloud. i put my hand in your coat pocket where your hand was. so i hold it. and i say i feel better this way. and we walk holding hands in your pocket. and later you'll be crying about being old and i'll kiss your face.
i'll say everything's going to be ok.
we are in poland, it is your birthday. you are drunk, and so am i. it is terribly cold, and everything is terribly polish. i forgot my gloves at the hostel. we walk together to a bar somewhere. all of us. but i walk nearest to you. my hands are frozen. i probably say this aloud. i put my hand in your coat pocket where your hand was. so i hold it. and i say i feel better this way. and we walk holding hands in your pocket. and later you'll be crying about being old and i'll kiss your face.
i'll say everything's going to be ok.
18 November 2013
FEELINGS FROM THIS NOVEMBER
the harshness of the final fight because it really does not get easier. i've held onto empty bottles of european products for the mere sake of something tangible. i really did live this, and it really was. (but my conscious self, it cannot believe it anymore.) all of these meaningless spanish and swedish beauty products are just nonsense taking up space under my bathroom sink, but i can't bring myself to throw them out. it all feels like a dream that i can't remember any details of. "and now you can't even recall any of the names, faces, or lines, it's more the feeling of it all." i'll read the fine swedish print on the bottle. i read this for six fucking months. these combinations of characters that i didn't even take notice of after some time, which i'm now clinging to as if it is a vital organ.
EVERY DAMN GOOD THING IN THIS WORLD IS SOMETHING WHICH ISN'T TANGIBLE.
and that's what makes it so difficult
to feel,
see,
to understand,
so hard to love,
appreciate,
and to scream about
anything of importance
these important things, well, they cannot be contained in glass jars, neither pressed into an overflowing suitcase, neither plastered to a wall, neither preserved in paint, nor written in a journal. they have to be felt, seen, understood. loved, appreciated, and screamed about in the moment they occur. because now they are over. smells of smiles so faded, dumb photographs on my wall, drunken signatures sprinkled across a world map, forgotten voices and dispositions of people i love. there's nothing left besides paralysis from empty feelings and empty bottles.
EVERY DAMN GOOD THING IN THIS WORLD IS SOMETHING WHICH ISN'T TANGIBLE.
and that's what makes it so difficult
to feel,
see,
to understand,
so hard to love,
appreciate,
and to scream about
anything of importance
these important things, well, they cannot be contained in glass jars, neither pressed into an overflowing suitcase, neither plastered to a wall, neither preserved in paint, nor written in a journal. they have to be felt, seen, understood. loved, appreciated, and screamed about in the moment they occur. because now they are over. smells of smiles so faded, dumb photographs on my wall, drunken signatures sprinkled across a world map, forgotten voices and dispositions of people i love. there's nothing left besides paralysis from empty feelings and empty bottles.
31 October 2013
COME ON HOME
i
move like a tourist
blind and optimistic
so homesick
and ok so this has happened before
but this time it is about an expired adventure
(it is not a person who left me feeling empty this time)
(nope)
(i have done this to myself)
(i have willingly walked away)
(again)
(from the only place and the only people who have ever felt like home)
move like a tourist
blind and optimistic
so homesick
and ok so this has happened before
but this time it is about an expired adventure
(it is not a person who left me feeling empty this time)
(nope)
(i have done this to myself)
(i have willingly walked away)
(again)
(from the only place and the only people who have ever felt like home)
i'm so numb
30 October 2013
A WHITE LINE PAINTED ON THE SAND AND ON THE OCEAN
everything is illuminated
this is love, she thought, isn't it? when you notice someone's absence and hate that absence more than anything? more, even, than you love his presence?
the more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them. it surprised him that strangers didn't stop each other on the street to say 'i love you'
when i was a girl, my life was must that was always getting louder. everything moved me. a dog following a stranger. that made me feel so much. a calendar that showed the wrong month. i could have cried over it. i did. where the smoke from a chimney ended. how an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table.
i spent my life learning to feel lies
every day i felt less.
is that growing old? or is it something worse?
you cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.
from space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. not light, exactly, but a glow that could be mistaken for light--a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut's eyes.
in about one and a half centuries--after the lovers who made the glow will have long been laid permanently on their backs--metropolises will be seen from space. they will glow all year. smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. shtetls will be virtually impossible to spot. individual couples, invisible.
... we're here, the glow will say, in one and a half centuries. WE'RE HERE, AND WE'RE ALIVE
this is love, she thought, isn't it? when you notice someone's absence and hate that absence more than anything? more, even, than you love his presence?
the more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them. it surprised him that strangers didn't stop each other on the street to say 'i love you'
when i was a girl, my life was must that was always getting louder. everything moved me. a dog following a stranger. that made me feel so much. a calendar that showed the wrong month. i could have cried over it. i did. where the smoke from a chimney ended. how an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table.
i spent my life learning to feel lies
every day i felt less.
is that growing old? or is it something worse?
you cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.
from space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. not light, exactly, but a glow that could be mistaken for light--a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut's eyes.
in about one and a half centuries--after the lovers who made the glow will have long been laid permanently on their backs--metropolises will be seen from space. they will glow all year. smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. shtetls will be virtually impossible to spot. individual couples, invisible.
... we're here, the glow will say, in one and a half centuries. WE'RE HERE, AND WE'RE ALIVE
29 October 2013
A GOOD DAY
"Yesterday, I spent 60 dollars on groceries,
took the bus home,
carried both bags with two good arms back to my studio apartment
and cooked myself dinner.
You and I may have different definitions of a good day.
This week, I paid my rent and my credit card bill,
worked 60 hours between my two jobs,
only saw the sun on my cigarette breaks
and slept like a rock.
Flossed in the morning,
locked my door,
and remembered to buy eggs.
My mother is proud of me.
It is not the kind of pride she brags about at the golf course.
She doesn't combat topics like, "My daughter got into Yale"
with, "Oh yeah, my daughter remembered to buy eggs"
But she is proud.
See, she remembers what came before this.
The weeks where I forgot how to use my muscles.
how I would stay as silent as a thick fog for weeks.
She thought each phone call from an unknown number was the notice of my suicide.
These were the bad days.
My life was a gift that I wanted to return.
My head was a house of leaking faucets and burnt-out lightbulbs.
Depression, is a good lover.
So attentive; has this innate way of making everything about you.
And it is easy to forget that your bedroom is not the world,
That the dark shadows your pain casts is not mood-lighting.
It is easier to stay int his abusive relationship than fix the problems it has created.
Today, I slept until 10,
cleaned every dish I own,
fought with the bank,
took care of paperwork.
You and I might have different definitions of adulthood.
I don't work for salary, I didn't graduate from college,
but I don't speak for others anymore,
and I don't regret anything I can't genuinely apologize for.
And my mother is proud of me
I burned down a house of depression,
I painted over murals of greyscale,
and it was hard to rewrite my life into one I wanted to live
But today, I want to live.
I didn't salivate over sharp knives,
or envy the boy who tossed himself off the Brooklyn Bridge.
I just cleaned my bathroom,
did the laundry,
called my brother.
Told him, "it was a good day."
-Kait Rockowski
took the bus home,
carried both bags with two good arms back to my studio apartment
and cooked myself dinner.
You and I may have different definitions of a good day.
This week, I paid my rent and my credit card bill,
worked 60 hours between my two jobs,
only saw the sun on my cigarette breaks
and slept like a rock.
Flossed in the morning,
locked my door,
and remembered to buy eggs.
My mother is proud of me.
It is not the kind of pride she brags about at the golf course.
She doesn't combat topics like, "My daughter got into Yale"
with, "Oh yeah, my daughter remembered to buy eggs"
But she is proud.
See, she remembers what came before this.
The weeks where I forgot how to use my muscles.
how I would stay as silent as a thick fog for weeks.
She thought each phone call from an unknown number was the notice of my suicide.
These were the bad days.
My life was a gift that I wanted to return.
My head was a house of leaking faucets and burnt-out lightbulbs.
Depression, is a good lover.
So attentive; has this innate way of making everything about you.
And it is easy to forget that your bedroom is not the world,
That the dark shadows your pain casts is not mood-lighting.
It is easier to stay int his abusive relationship than fix the problems it has created.
Today, I slept until 10,
cleaned every dish I own,
fought with the bank,
took care of paperwork.
You and I might have different definitions of adulthood.
I don't work for salary, I didn't graduate from college,
but I don't speak for others anymore,
and I don't regret anything I can't genuinely apologize for.
And my mother is proud of me
I burned down a house of depression,
I painted over murals of greyscale,
and it was hard to rewrite my life into one I wanted to live
But today, I want to live.
I didn't salivate over sharp knives,
or envy the boy who tossed himself off the Brooklyn Bridge.
I just cleaned my bathroom,
did the laundry,
called my brother.
Told him, "it was a good day."
-Kait Rockowski
10 October 2013
TAKE THIS TO BE ABOUT CAPSIZING
take this to be about capsizing
thanks to a call from a hotel bathroom
and the very final resistance
to verify my existence
i will vilify this
fucking
distance
so you can crush my revisionist insistence
on our unfortunate persistence
okay cute
and well - i think it must be sometime after christmas,
and well - you are throwing up in a fucking sink
living numbly over coffee
from half ten to four in the afternoon
sometimes my eyes go like my father. distant
sometimes i hold my tongue like my mother. not enough
i am done speaking and writing for awhile.
feelings exposed makes me feel like an awful human and it is too exhausting to live that way.
thanks to a call from a hotel bathroom
and the very final resistance
to verify my existence
i will vilify this
fucking
distance
so you can crush my revisionist insistence
on our unfortunate persistence
okay cute
and well - i think it must be sometime after christmas,
and well - you are throwing up in a fucking sink
living numbly over coffee
from half ten to four in the afternoon
sometimes my eyes go like my father. distant
sometimes i hold my tongue like my mother. not enough
i am done speaking and writing for awhile.
feelings exposed makes me feel like an awful human and it is too exhausting to live that way.
07 October 2013
29 September 2013
GLASS EYE
i am still trying to focus on falling back into life here. reverse culture shock is thousands more difficult than the initial change. strange that it is so trying to find a place i belong in my own home. this isn't as hard as the first return last spring, but it certainly hasn't been easy. living with the idea that i really don't know when or if i'll return again is undeniable and makes everything hard to be worth it at all. i just keep telling myself, "only one year and a half, and you'll never have to come back," but it's not doing much so far. it's not as easy as it seems to just get up and go-quite the contrary to how i've been living my life the past year. but after college, then what? in an ideal world, i'd take a year off just to learn spanish in spain, be with my best friends, and eat tortilla and drink sangria and expand a bit. you know. but is that so realistic? i don't know. would it be worth it? certainly so.
now i'm just immersed in studying, which currently happens to be neuroscience. which i'm also currently avoiding. the thing about school is, more often than not, i can't seem to find the purpose in what i'm doing. i'm not actively learning anything worthwhile. all of this is shit. i learned more in six months of partying in a foreign country about life and myself than i probably ever will in that short of a time span again. especially at university. none of this matters to me at all and it's part of the reason i'm quite unhappy here.
but i am happy. there are just things. you know. like the distance that grows between people. how there's not a real way out of here, at least not for another year. saying bye and not knowing when i'll be able to say hello again. forgetting people's faces, voices.
the one year anniversary mark has really hit me hard. this wasn't something i anticipated but it's certainly true. i still can't believe it's been more than a year. i am so scared i'm forgetting everything. i have nothing else to say. i suppose my head will always be in stockholm eating dinner around a table with four spaniards who argue like it's poetry. shopping in drottninggatan. hearing årstaberg and nästa on the metro. partying with thirty people from so many different places. sledding down the björnkulla hills in the nighttime. naked saunas. hookah in my bedroom and the xx. walking back at five in the morning with everyone, in knee deep snow, sun just rising, possibly still drunk. i'm forgetting everything. but i guess mostly sharing all of these experiences with such beautiful people. i still can't get over it. and knowing i was living the best six months of my life thus far just one year ago is overwhelming; it's so far away and it's never, ever, ever, ever coming back no matter how much i want it.
so for now, i have a new pup. i speak spanish with him because he listens and he doesn't laugh at me. but he also doesn't know if i'm making a mistake so he isn't much of a help in that aspect. also, i suppose the most exciting thing on my camera (since the past month) is this photo of the veins in my mouth. actually cool
weekends are full of converse shoes (and conversation), bottles of wine, running through yard sprinklers, chinese delivery, table dancing, sofa sinking
so to come in this month: the national, neutral milk hotel, midterms, and halloween. i have no time, my days are scheduled by the minute, but i still find time to run (i've been running a lot and i feel really well!) and to be with jesse in the evenings. when he's gone next semester i suppose it will be yet another shock entirely. and i suppose that's almost everything. reed before the wind lives on, while mighty oaks do fall
24 September 2013
//
i won't be vacant anymore
i won't be waiting anymore
i won't be vacant anymore
i won't be waiting anymore
i won't be vacant anymore
i won't be waiting anymore
i won't be vacant anymore
i won't be waiting anymore
i won't be vacant anymore
i won't be waiting anymore
i cant blame you for losing your mind for a little while (so did i)
i won't be waiting anymore
i won't be vacant anymore
i won't be waiting anymore
i won't be vacant anymore
i won't be waiting anymore
i won't be vacant anymore
i won't be waiting anymore
i won't be vacant anymore
i won't be waiting anymore
i cant blame you for losing your mind for a little while (so did i)
11 September 2013
READ
1. everything is illuminated x
2. book of longing leonard cohen
3. unabridged journals sylvia plath
4. animal farm x
5. tale of two cities x
6. through the looking glass x
7.brave new world x
8. anne of green gables x
9. secret garden x
10. leviathan; paul auster
11. the book of illusions; paul auster
12. the brooklyn follies; paul auster
13. city of glass; paul auster
14. the invention of solitude; paul auster
15.
16.
2. book of longing leonard cohen
3. unabridged journals sylvia plath
4. animal farm x
5. tale of two cities x
6. through the looking glass x
7.brave new world x
8. anne of green gables x
9. secret garden x
10. leviathan; paul auster
11. the book of illusions; paul auster
12. the brooklyn follies; paul auster
13. city of glass; paul auster
14. the invention of solitude; paul auster
15.
16.
10 September 2013
I SAW LOVE DISFIGURE ME
some say love is a burning thing
that it makes a fiery ring
but i know love as a fading thing
just as
fickl e
as a feather in a stream
honey, i saw love. you see, it came to me
it put its face u p to my face so i could see
yeah,
then i saw love disfigure me
into something i am not recognizing.
see, the cage, it called. i said, "come on in."
i
will
not
open
myself
up this
way again
but my heart is wild, and my bones are steam and i could kill you with my bare hands if i was free.
that it makes a fiery ring
but i know love as a fading thing
just as
fickl e
as a feather in a stream
honey, i saw love. you see, it came to me
it put its face u p to my face so i could see
yeah,
then i saw love disfigure me
into something i am not recognizing.
see, the cage, it called. i said, "come on in."
i
will
not
open
myself
up this
way again
but my heart is wild, and my bones are steam and i could kill you with my bare hands if i was free.
04 September 2013
THE LAND OF LIGHTNING BUGS AND NIGHTMARES
I have spent just nearly over two weeks back in Missouri now. And so, just like that, back to the monotony that comes with a trying schedule, back to the hassle of the average American citizen's social and habitual aspects, and back to the bubble that I live in here. Leaving wonderful cityscapes with life at every hour for a dismal college town in the midwestern United States is never the romantic idea of a welcome home you might imagine, or ones you've seen depicted in romcoms.... mostly it means I spend much of my time alone in a place I don't want to be stuck in.
I spend my time capturing photos of light patterns. Speaking to myself in broken Spanish. Lying around my house without clothes, because, thus far, am living alone. Studying neuroscience, articulation and phonology, language development, and audiology. Attending happy hours. The occasional drink, the occasional netflix marathon, sleepovers, you know, the normal life.
I'm back to the land of many lightning bugs, a vast number of stars above, views of fields, and a bed full of nightmares. Last night I dreamt that I was alone, flying next to a train. It was cut in half, and I could see the inside. It was decorated such as a house in the 1920's, and I saw a portrait of an older woman, a mustard yellow wall, wooden door. (I now know that I dream in color.) There was a ballroom, and a kitchen, where the oven caught on fire. I flew above the burning train. Rested upon a dirty island; there was a cave filling with sand and water, and people were getting trapped inside. I saw their heads trying to reach the surface but they failed again and again. I've never dreamt like this. So vividly or so disturbingly.
I find myself distracted by all the English surrounding me. I no longer have moments of excitement when I hear my own language spoken in public. Instead, I hear things I don't want to hear, listening in on details about people's lives I would rather go on not knowing at all. I begin to stop listening to people all together. I don't hear the words anymore, I hear the rhythm. I don't know if I do it because I'm bored or because I am absolutely used to zoning out when I've lost interest (though it's not as easy now, when no one is speaking Spanish anymore. Because this takes every ounce of effort I have to understand something, it is much easier to forget to listen....) I just hear the sounds. The patterns that form in language. I even do it when I'm talking to myself sometimes. I'm just talking to hear a voice, and the intonation.
I'm not sure if time here goes faster or slower. I don't count the days anymore. I have no timeline and I don't know how much longer I'll be here. For the first time in over one year, I have no prospects of traveling. Katelyn and I are hoping to go to Chicago in November or December; we found a bus ticket for $6. For Spring Break, I have aspirations to visit Andrea in L.A., and in May, Tina and I are planning a trip to New York City. But all of these are just ideas and hopes. But I suppose eventually they will turn into, "get. me. the. fuck. out of here's."I'm missing a lot of people and a lot of things. I've left a lot of myself behind, once again. My friends here are just as well, but life here is hard when neither my heart nor my head are in the present.
I spend my time capturing photos of light patterns. Speaking to myself in broken Spanish. Lying around my house without clothes, because, thus far, am living alone. Studying neuroscience, articulation and phonology, language development, and audiology. Attending happy hours. The occasional drink, the occasional netflix marathon, sleepovers, you know, the normal life.
I'm back to the land of many lightning bugs, a vast number of stars above, views of fields, and a bed full of nightmares. Last night I dreamt that I was alone, flying next to a train. It was cut in half, and I could see the inside. It was decorated such as a house in the 1920's, and I saw a portrait of an older woman, a mustard yellow wall, wooden door. (I now know that I dream in color.) There was a ballroom, and a kitchen, where the oven caught on fire. I flew above the burning train. Rested upon a dirty island; there was a cave filling with sand and water, and people were getting trapped inside. I saw their heads trying to reach the surface but they failed again and again. I've never dreamt like this. So vividly or so disturbingly.
I find myself distracted by all the English surrounding me. I no longer have moments of excitement when I hear my own language spoken in public. Instead, I hear things I don't want to hear, listening in on details about people's lives I would rather go on not knowing at all. I begin to stop listening to people all together. I don't hear the words anymore, I hear the rhythm. I don't know if I do it because I'm bored or because I am absolutely used to zoning out when I've lost interest (though it's not as easy now, when no one is speaking Spanish anymore. Because this takes every ounce of effort I have to understand something, it is much easier to forget to listen....) I just hear the sounds. The patterns that form in language. I even do it when I'm talking to myself sometimes. I'm just talking to hear a voice, and the intonation.
I'm not sure if time here goes faster or slower. I don't count the days anymore. I have no timeline and I don't know how much longer I'll be here. For the first time in over one year, I have no prospects of traveling. Katelyn and I are hoping to go to Chicago in November or December; we found a bus ticket for $6. For Spring Break, I have aspirations to visit Andrea in L.A., and in May, Tina and I are planning a trip to New York City. But all of these are just ideas and hopes. But I suppose eventually they will turn into, "get. me. the. fuck. out of here's."I'm missing a lot of people and a lot of things. I've left a lot of myself behind, once again. My friends here are just as well, but life here is hard when neither my heart nor my head are in the present.
01 September 2013
COMMITMENTS TO CURTAIN LIGHT
hi! if you met me and i met you and we were meeting in some mildly cute and romantic public setting (well, i imagine some quaint bar with blue lights, delicate-to fancy-to tacky decorations, and wooden furniture)
okay, so i ask you, because i'm wondering what you like. "what would you say are your interests?"
"well. i spend a lot of my time studying. i don't think it's an interest per say, but i do like learning. learning makes me feel older, yet i stay the same age, i suppose. i think about the things i've learned since one year ago, and it's at least, something i feel, that is ten years worth of knowledge and experience! i love to learn. i love to talk with people because it is another way to learn. anyone, everyone, and the most important ones are people who are different from myself."
"i like to wake up early, stretch. (must stretch and scream. it's the only way.) make my bed, light candles, make coffee, have a shower, mix peanut butter in my oatmeal. check the weather, dress accordingly. check my schedule, pack accordingly."
"i walk everywhere. i don't like to drive because it makes me anxious. i think it's because other people make me anxious when they're driving. you never know when they're gonna fuck up. i walk to campus. drink my coffee. take note of the clouds, the heat, bird noises, people noises, music noises."
"reading. i like to read. writing, but not really writing just thinking and jotting down those thinks. never following story or plot lines, they become overwhelming and are such a commitment once they're started. i like to photograph things. lately it has been the reflection of light onto surfaces....my bed and blankets, my leg, a wooden floor, a navy wall, through the curtains. and the way the surface creates an image of the light depending on what it passes through to reach it."
okay, so i ask you, because i'm wondering what you like. "what would you say are your interests?"
"well. i spend a lot of my time studying. i don't think it's an interest per say, but i do like learning. learning makes me feel older, yet i stay the same age, i suppose. i think about the things i've learned since one year ago, and it's at least, something i feel, that is ten years worth of knowledge and experience! i love to learn. i love to talk with people because it is another way to learn. anyone, everyone, and the most important ones are people who are different from myself."
"i like to wake up early, stretch. (must stretch and scream. it's the only way.) make my bed, light candles, make coffee, have a shower, mix peanut butter in my oatmeal. check the weather, dress accordingly. check my schedule, pack accordingly."
"i walk everywhere. i don't like to drive because it makes me anxious. i think it's because other people make me anxious when they're driving. you never know when they're gonna fuck up. i walk to campus. drink my coffee. take note of the clouds, the heat, bird noises, people noises, music noises."
"reading. i like to read. writing, but not really writing just thinking and jotting down those thinks. never following story or plot lines, they become overwhelming and are such a commitment once they're started. i like to photograph things. lately it has been the reflection of light onto surfaces....my bed and blankets, my leg, a wooden floor, a navy wall, through the curtains. and the way the surface creates an image of the light depending on what it passes through to reach it."
28 August 2013
(AYER)
the things that i learned with you
how bodies can be used
how people can sometimes become a deadly drug
the ease with which i can fall in love on a mattress
not to be in love simply because it is easy in the moment
how to reconstruct my life and learn from these things and never again make blind errors
and the next time i will not lose myself.
how bodies can be used
how people can sometimes become a deadly drug
the ease with which i can fall in love on a mattress
not to be in love simply because it is easy in the moment
how to reconstruct my life and learn from these things and never again make blind errors
and the next time i will not lose myself.
13 August 2013
A FEW WEEKS WITHOUT WRITING
I've been doing a lot of thinking and I've had a lot of ideas but I haven't drawn any certain conclusions (negative or positive) and everything is still a bit of a mess (which I suppose can also be an overused metaphor for life, but no, not this time. at least not this particular life.) Now, I have figured me out. For today, yesterday, tomorrow, next month, and ideas for the next few years. A clear perspective on what's important (to me), and it's important to know what's important (to you) at the meager age of twenty, when most of the rest of your life is based on minuscule decisions you will make in these years, which weigh heavy on your shoulders now. I'm off topic now.
I'm not all here. I'm not all there. I feel completely split between various points of the world and my heart has extreme difficulty with the situation. My parents are eighteen hours away by airplane (on a good day) and I have a handful of friends in Spain and Missouri. My favorite memories are lost forever in Stockholm, and time has robbed me so fast. I can't be all together in one place ever again after expanding my soul this much in a different country. In three different countries. And I never feel at home anywhere anymore. Because for so long I found a home in one person, and now, I am my own home, but I am everywhere. My heart always wants to be somewhere else, in someone else's company, under a foreign sky, breathing in the salty mist of an ocean, eating (tasting) flowers, swimming in cold water, feeling something more. I lose a part of myself in every place and I cannot put myself together again because then my worlds collide and that is even worse than countries breaking me apart.
I feel good being alone. I feel too good. I am worried about how much it is okay for me. I think that maybe it isn't normal. I enjoy company. I love company. I prefer to have people I love around as often as I can, but when I am alone I feel different. The purest me. This music, these words, these clothes, these sounds, I don't know. I want to share solitude with someone else but I don't know where to start and I don't have the attention to do so. This is where relationships with others get messy.
This week I went to the beach in A Coruña. I have so many thoughts about the water. I am in such astonishment about the vastness, infiniteness of the blue. The sky and sea becoming one ethereal entity before me. I ask "how could anyone ever, ever get used to this?" (I want someone who I will never get used to. Surround my life with people from whom I never know what to expect. Unpredictability. I want to live somewhere I never get accustomed to. I never ever want to overlook the beauty of a relationship or a city or a landscape.) but people do get used to it. Just as I am used to looking out from a Missouri balcony and seeing for miles and miles every building, every house, every tree, the flatness of the land displaying everything before me for acres. Just as I am used to the boundless blue sky, the biggest sky I've ever seen, and just as I am used to seeing every single star in the night above me. And the ocean, how can anyone ever find this normal? It is the only thing in nature which shows itself. It demonstrates its strength against the stone, the sand, or the legs of a daring human. Beats against tourists picnics, their bodies, their beach shoes. It is infinite, never gets tired, always performing for me. And it is so proud of itself. You can see it in the way the white foam forms from the force projected onto the stones, the way it protects its creatures, the way the light dances atop its current. I can never contain it, humans can never contain it. It will go on clamoring with the shoreline long after humans have offed themselves. Thus, it is more everlasting than love, or stories, or ideas, and especially humanity.
Reading a book, propped up between my stomach and my legs, I got distracted by the movements of my diaphragm. I see the movements my body automatically creates to stay alive. Inhale, exhale, grow, expand. Return. The body's idiosyncrasies maintaining nations. Toward the sky, back into my body. This is when I realize someday this will all stop. All of the bodies will stop breathing, and we will all decay incredibly still against the raging sea.
I need a video camera. To record the routes that millions of ants take along the sidewalk. The smart colonies working seamlessly together. I think we could learn something from them. To record the speed and style and which a raindrop descends onto a leaf the size of my palm. To record the sway of trees with long arms and unique shapes. To find the colors and the sounds. To create something out of the world around me. The patterns in the wooden floor. The similarities in height and color, from smallest to tallest, from lightest to darkest. I can find space for every color and appreciate the movement in every object.
I'm not all here. I'm not all there. I feel completely split between various points of the world and my heart has extreme difficulty with the situation. My parents are eighteen hours away by airplane (on a good day) and I have a handful of friends in Spain and Missouri. My favorite memories are lost forever in Stockholm, and time has robbed me so fast. I can't be all together in one place ever again after expanding my soul this much in a different country. In three different countries. And I never feel at home anywhere anymore. Because for so long I found a home in one person, and now, I am my own home, but I am everywhere. My heart always wants to be somewhere else, in someone else's company, under a foreign sky, breathing in the salty mist of an ocean, eating (tasting) flowers, swimming in cold water, feeling something more. I lose a part of myself in every place and I cannot put myself together again because then my worlds collide and that is even worse than countries breaking me apart.
I feel good being alone. I feel too good. I am worried about how much it is okay for me. I think that maybe it isn't normal. I enjoy company. I love company. I prefer to have people I love around as often as I can, but when I am alone I feel different. The purest me. This music, these words, these clothes, these sounds, I don't know. I want to share solitude with someone else but I don't know where to start and I don't have the attention to do so. This is where relationships with others get messy.
This week I went to the beach in A Coruña. I have so many thoughts about the water. I am in such astonishment about the vastness, infiniteness of the blue. The sky and sea becoming one ethereal entity before me. I ask "how could anyone ever, ever get used to this?" (I want someone who I will never get used to. Surround my life with people from whom I never know what to expect. Unpredictability. I want to live somewhere I never get accustomed to. I never ever want to overlook the beauty of a relationship or a city or a landscape.) but people do get used to it. Just as I am used to looking out from a Missouri balcony and seeing for miles and miles every building, every house, every tree, the flatness of the land displaying everything before me for acres. Just as I am used to the boundless blue sky, the biggest sky I've ever seen, and just as I am used to seeing every single star in the night above me. And the ocean, how can anyone ever find this normal? It is the only thing in nature which shows itself. It demonstrates its strength against the stone, the sand, or the legs of a daring human. Beats against tourists picnics, their bodies, their beach shoes. It is infinite, never gets tired, always performing for me. And it is so proud of itself. You can see it in the way the white foam forms from the force projected onto the stones, the way it protects its creatures, the way the light dances atop its current. I can never contain it, humans can never contain it. It will go on clamoring with the shoreline long after humans have offed themselves. Thus, it is more everlasting than love, or stories, or ideas, and especially humanity.
Reading a book, propped up between my stomach and my legs, I got distracted by the movements of my diaphragm. I see the movements my body automatically creates to stay alive. Inhale, exhale, grow, expand. Return. The body's idiosyncrasies maintaining nations. Toward the sky, back into my body. This is when I realize someday this will all stop. All of the bodies will stop breathing, and we will all decay incredibly still against the raging sea.
I need a video camera. To record the routes that millions of ants take along the sidewalk. The smart colonies working seamlessly together. I think we could learn something from them. To record the speed and style and which a raindrop descends onto a leaf the size of my palm. To record the sway of trees with long arms and unique shapes. To find the colors and the sounds. To create something out of the world around me. The patterns in the wooden floor. The similarities in height and color, from smallest to tallest, from lightest to darkest. I can find space for every color and appreciate the movement in every object.
21 July 2013
BEING BORED WITH PERFECTION IS MY GREATEST DOWNFALL
i'm not sure who i'm writing for anymore; i want to live more to write more to understand more to feel more. i want to write with something more in mind; some total nonsense that even i can't determine the structure of or fixate a connection with the outside world; which exists purely inside of me, from mouth to mouth, tongues over and under, ear to neck to fingertips, hollowing out what's inside and tossing it to the page in a legible manner; i need and i don't need this.
i spend my time cursing about the pain in my eyes and i spend my time wondering if this is an appropriate use of my time.
15 July 2013
I HAD SOME WINE
think it
create it
give it
take it
touch it
hold me
shut it
lock it
fuck it
take it
close it
empty it
throw it
sing me something
tell me something you're thinking under there
every detail
how have you been
i think that i cant spend more time her e in this car
the problem lies in the way your face changes. in the way that it will never be the same as it was and it never was the same as it is.
the problem lies in the way your face changes. in the way that it will never be the same as it was and it never was the same as it is.
09 July 2013
WHILE WE'RE FLOATING IN SIESTAS
what am i doing? applying lipstick. drinking a coffee with ice because the spanish heat could kill. i'm listening to the kind of music that's been on my computer forever, but is always ignored. maybe to discover some hidden gem
give me one day to breathe in an extravagant cityscape
investigate, create
conundrums in space and discussing how to manage what's on my plate, heLP?
my hair is drying
the lifeguard is crying
that wasnt even intentional rhyming
but i think it might be true. to my left out the window and there he is. wiping his arm from left to right across his face, but maybe it's his brow. it's hard to tell in spain if it's sweat or tears
let's just have a drink and we can discuss the sweat and tears of our nations
and now my words are beginning to sink under my skin, so you eat my afflictions
you know what i think of you, nine eight seven two two seven five one three three three twelve?
i think you are going to die sad and die alone some day and not understand why. but what did you expect. thanks for listening now, you were nice for a very long while, but you left me underneath in the sea and now im disposing of your ghost here, in the abyss, along with the other creatures of the night
give me one day to breathe in an extravagant cityscape
investigate, create
conundrums in space and discussing how to manage what's on my plate, heLP?
my hair is drying
the lifeguard is crying
that wasnt even intentional rhyming
but i think it might be true. to my left out the window and there he is. wiping his arm from left to right across his face, but maybe it's his brow. it's hard to tell in spain if it's sweat or tears
let's just have a drink and we can discuss the sweat and tears of our nations
and now my words are beginning to sink under my skin, so you eat my afflictions
you know what i think of you, nine eight seven two two seven five one three three three twelve?
i think you are going to die sad and die alone some day and not understand why. but what did you expect. thanks for listening now, you were nice for a very long while, but you left me underneath in the sea and now im disposing of your ghost here, in the abyss, along with the other creatures of the night
06 July 2013
THE MAGIC HOURS
[drinks coffee at table. leonard cohen's "suzanne" plays a bit too quietly. the light is off. the windows are flushed with white. curtains, lacy. pours into a mug. slides silently across table. deep breath.]
--
tell me what you are. what swims in your brain. what fish do you most closely identify with? have you spent past sundays sleeping in a lawn chair in your grandparent's front yard? is there a lake nearby covered in cattails? have you ever stolen alcohol from your parents? would they care or could you have just asked? who encouraged you to smoke your first cigarette? are you still in contact with this person today? do you wash your hair every day? or just use water? do you believe in always locking the door? what sounds do you hear when you fall asleep at night? what do you see when you close your eyes? how far away are your feet from your head? how far away is your head from the present? what age changed you the most? i never want to stop growing. do you feel satisfied? do you feel perfect the way you are? are you afraid that a new experience will change you and you will miss your old self? do you believe in society? have you ever felt really sad? do you believe in a future? do you care about saving ourselves from extinction?
[moves from kitchen table to sofa]
--
how do you feel about this sofa? do you think maybe it would get too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, this leather? how many people have you kissed that you didnt really want to kiss in retrospect? have you ever hurt anyone's heart before? do you believe in love? in trees? in the summertime? do you notice the colours of the sky? the waves in water? the breeze through the window? can you see constellations? do you believe in astrological horoscopes? do you have any allergies because i love peanut butter. how do you like to eat your popcorn? have you ever been really good at something? what is your favorite thing to do outside? do you like to count when you cant sleep? do you like to count at all? what is your favorite set of the multiplication tables? say the first word that comes to mind when i say: sex. gin. mutation. mutilation. did you ever try to talk underwater? did you ever think you were in love with someone? do you prefer the day or the night? do you prefer to think about your own sadness or someone else's sadness? when did you stop believing in santa claus? what country is the favorite country of all the countries you have ever traveled to? do you think there is a place for you here? when you are alone what does your brain talk to you about? from what experience have you learned the most? do you usually use the elevator? would you prefer to break someones heart or have your heart broken? when is the time you felt the happiest? do you think youll ever feel that happy again?
[shift]
--
i think you talk too much. you smile too much when you dont mean it. you laugh when you feel sorry. you laugh because you want me. you're not here for the right reasons. you're here to psychoanalyze someone to see if they are crazy enough to satisfy you. you listen to classical music when you're studying because that's what your mum told you to do. now it just makes you miss her. why do you want to cry every time you have to study? i am human. you are human. we are all fucked up humans destroying the world one synchronized breath at a time. im stealing your oxygen right now. im fucking up your heart right now. because youll finally have found someone you feel safe enough about your mental state with and i wont want you in return. ill never want you. that's who i am. i dont remember feeling sad. i dont remember feeling happy. i am in the here, and the now, and i dont want to kill you, but if you could just slide over here, and i can create a diagram of your ashes so maybe i can piece my mind back together again with ur brain paste
--
tell me what you are. what swims in your brain. what fish do you most closely identify with? have you spent past sundays sleeping in a lawn chair in your grandparent's front yard? is there a lake nearby covered in cattails? have you ever stolen alcohol from your parents? would they care or could you have just asked? who encouraged you to smoke your first cigarette? are you still in contact with this person today? do you wash your hair every day? or just use water? do you believe in always locking the door? what sounds do you hear when you fall asleep at night? what do you see when you close your eyes? how far away are your feet from your head? how far away is your head from the present? what age changed you the most? i never want to stop growing. do you feel satisfied? do you feel perfect the way you are? are you afraid that a new experience will change you and you will miss your old self? do you believe in society? have you ever felt really sad? do you believe in a future? do you care about saving ourselves from extinction?
[moves from kitchen table to sofa]
--
how do you feel about this sofa? do you think maybe it would get too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, this leather? how many people have you kissed that you didnt really want to kiss in retrospect? have you ever hurt anyone's heart before? do you believe in love? in trees? in the summertime? do you notice the colours of the sky? the waves in water? the breeze through the window? can you see constellations? do you believe in astrological horoscopes? do you have any allergies because i love peanut butter. how do you like to eat your popcorn? have you ever been really good at something? what is your favorite thing to do outside? do you like to count when you cant sleep? do you like to count at all? what is your favorite set of the multiplication tables? say the first word that comes to mind when i say: sex. gin. mutation. mutilation. did you ever try to talk underwater? did you ever think you were in love with someone? do you prefer the day or the night? do you prefer to think about your own sadness or someone else's sadness? when did you stop believing in santa claus? what country is the favorite country of all the countries you have ever traveled to? do you think there is a place for you here? when you are alone what does your brain talk to you about? from what experience have you learned the most? do you usually use the elevator? would you prefer to break someones heart or have your heart broken? when is the time you felt the happiest? do you think youll ever feel that happy again?
[shift]
--
i think you talk too much. you smile too much when you dont mean it. you laugh when you feel sorry. you laugh because you want me. you're not here for the right reasons. you're here to psychoanalyze someone to see if they are crazy enough to satisfy you. you listen to classical music when you're studying because that's what your mum told you to do. now it just makes you miss her. why do you want to cry every time you have to study? i am human. you are human. we are all fucked up humans destroying the world one synchronized breath at a time. im stealing your oxygen right now. im fucking up your heart right now. because youll finally have found someone you feel safe enough about your mental state with and i wont want you in return. ill never want you. that's who i am. i dont remember feeling sad. i dont remember feeling happy. i am in the here, and the now, and i dont want to kill you, but if you could just slide over here, and i can create a diagram of your ashes so maybe i can piece my mind back together again with ur brain paste
04 July 2013
BOOK OF LONGING
i dont remember lighting this cigarette and i don't remember if i'm here alone or waiting for someone
03 July 2013
THANKS SPANISH AMERICAN GIRL WHO TAUGHT ME SOMETHING SO INTRIGUING
a few days ago i spoke with an american (in person) for the first time in nearly two months. it was an eleven year old girl from spain who has lived in the US for two years. so i wouldn't even say 'american' but while speaking with her, without previous knowledge, it would have fooled me. but how insightful, what a relief that i didn't even know i needed, if even for just a moment. her intonation. the pragmatics. proxemics. pauses. the rhythm. gestures. the closure. these are things i never totally took notice or made an account of when speaking at home. though all of my friends from spain are fluent in english, these are things i never noticed that they lack. i am completely comfortable speaking with them and never feel the need to alter my vocabulary or simplify my sentences. but these are moments in which culture and language are intertwined. and while they are fluent in english, they will never be 'culturally' american neither will i ever be 'culturally' spanish. and even if i became as fluent as i could ever possibly become, these small but so obviously different cultural aspects reveal everything i could never hide
dammit! i want to live every culture and every language wholly
dammit! i want to live every culture and every language wholly
24 June 2013
2 MONTHS IN MADRID IN ORDER TO FEEL BRAVE
today marks the beginning of a new experience! something i have needed desperately! sure that i have lived since may 18 again in stockholm (but mostly for resuming old friendships and saying hello again to a city that i am enamored by..) but now, here, today, tonight, this moment! i am living in madrid! until the middle of August! joder! JODER!
i never write things of this nature here. but now that i am living alone (again, as per usual) after a month and a half of living with an insane (albeit wonderful) spaniard, i have access to quiet thoughts again and feel it's necessary to write again (due to the utter lack of someone to share each moment with)
a ver here is the deal. part 1: tomorrow, i will wake up. topple through a toddlers room (given up for me!) dodging suitcases, articles of clothing, random cosmetics strewn across the counter.... and go to the supermarket with my host mum. her english is the same level as my spanish (almost nothing) pues. this is what i need. i need to be uncomfortable. i need to feel
discomfort in being so comfortable. i dont know when i got so comfortable in my life and it is something that i furiously detest. GIVE ME SOMETHING MORE! THROW ME INTO A SOCIETY WHERE I KNOW AND UNDERSTAND ALMOST NOTHING! GIVE ME A METRO MAP TO A CITY I CANT PRONOUNCE ANY OF THE NAMES OF! FORCE ME TO ORDER A COFFEE IN A LANUGAGE I STRUGGLE PROFOUNDLY WITH! FORM RELATIONSHIPS WITH THREE CHILDREN WHO DONT SPEAK ENGLISH! LEARN TO COMMUNICATE IN WAYS MORE MEANINGFUL THAN WORDS! I WANT TO FEEL BRAVE AGAIN!! FEEL ALIVE!! UNTO THE UTTERMOST, I AM STILL ALIVE!!!!!!!
part 2: i will go pick up three children from school in a car in a city that isnt mine. hola hola hola hola hola niñas lokisimas
part 3: we will go swimming y learn and feel sufficient.
part 4: dinner and drinks with aitor and lucia in the city.
i am so damn happy about this process. challenge and knowledge come to me.
i never write things of this nature here. but now that i am living alone (again, as per usual) after a month and a half of living with an insane (albeit wonderful) spaniard, i have access to quiet thoughts again and feel it's necessary to write again (due to the utter lack of someone to share each moment with)
a ver here is the deal. part 1: tomorrow, i will wake up. topple through a toddlers room (given up for me!) dodging suitcases, articles of clothing, random cosmetics strewn across the counter.... and go to the supermarket with my host mum. her english is the same level as my spanish (almost nothing) pues. this is what i need. i need to be uncomfortable. i need to feel
discomfort in being so comfortable. i dont know when i got so comfortable in my life and it is something that i furiously detest. GIVE ME SOMETHING MORE! THROW ME INTO A SOCIETY WHERE I KNOW AND UNDERSTAND ALMOST NOTHING! GIVE ME A METRO MAP TO A CITY I CANT PRONOUNCE ANY OF THE NAMES OF! FORCE ME TO ORDER A COFFEE IN A LANUGAGE I STRUGGLE PROFOUNDLY WITH! FORM RELATIONSHIPS WITH THREE CHILDREN WHO DONT SPEAK ENGLISH! LEARN TO COMMUNICATE IN WAYS MORE MEANINGFUL THAN WORDS! I WANT TO FEEL BRAVE AGAIN!! FEEL ALIVE!! UNTO THE UTTERMOST, I AM STILL ALIVE!!!!!!!
part 2: i will go pick up three children from school in a car in a city that isnt mine. hola hola hola hola hola niñas lokisimas
part 3: we will go swimming y learn and feel sufficient.
part 4: dinner and drinks with aitor and lucia in the city.
i am so damn happy about this process. challenge and knowledge come to me.
13 June 2013
THE ACT OF MOVING MINDLESSLY
pt 1
to just exist doesnt hurt
to be elegantly suspended in air
floating within a golden bubble, arms outstretched, head thrown back and im flying again
the pain comes when an encounter occurs.
the collision of bodies, minds, mouths, desires
i would like to remain golden forever. suspended, untouched, ethereal
for so long, that what damage you had caused becomes nothing but a canyon far below. filled with whiskey, cigarettes, polaroids and letters
pt 2
im scared becasue i can tell that i have become too comfortable. i dont need small thrills anymore to feel alive. because before i would have done anything to feel the cold water enveloping me and filling my senses with something fresh. to sink into something so profound, pure, so soft. pulling my head underneath the surfae and focusing all of my attention on breathing. i would have done anything in an attempt to find something to fill the void. to undestand that, indeed, i am still alive. i am still capable of feeling. i am not totally numb to the world for this instant. to figure out that it is possible to feel alive without you.
but now i wouldnt even jump in and i miss living life like i absolutely need to feel alive or i will just curl up and die. i need it so bad
to just exist doesnt hurt
to be elegantly suspended in air
floating within a golden bubble, arms outstretched, head thrown back and im flying again
the pain comes when an encounter occurs.
the collision of bodies, minds, mouths, desires
i would like to remain golden forever. suspended, untouched, ethereal
for so long, that what damage you had caused becomes nothing but a canyon far below. filled with whiskey, cigarettes, polaroids and letters
pt 2
im scared becasue i can tell that i have become too comfortable. i dont need small thrills anymore to feel alive. because before i would have done anything to feel the cold water enveloping me and filling my senses with something fresh. to sink into something so profound, pure, so soft. pulling my head underneath the surfae and focusing all of my attention on breathing. i would have done anything in an attempt to find something to fill the void. to undestand that, indeed, i am still alive. i am still capable of feeling. i am not totally numb to the world for this instant. to figure out that it is possible to feel alive without you.
but now i wouldnt even jump in and i miss living life like i absolutely need to feel alive or i will just curl up and die. i need it so bad
02 June 2013
ABOUT SPACE TIME AND I AM TRAPPED
suddenly awake. and beside a stranger. in an unfamiliar bed. mysteriously new city, according to the surroundings maybe the east coast. the wallpaper is a modern pixelated bit of color. white and blue but tries to be vintage
and for the first seconds "where the fuck am i"
look to the mirror. it is my face my hands are old my wrinkles have taken over eyes tired mouth sad
"how did i get here" "who the fuck are you"
go downstairs. see a man, maybe twenty, at the table with breakfast.
the objects in the house are absolutely different from anything ever seen before. they seem to serve the same purpose and function but their appearance is something new. the only thing that appears to be the same as before is nature. the setting from the trees and grass. the sky has clouds, a sun, birds. dirt is brown. leaves are green
search for answers. "who is this man at the table" "whose table" "in what city" "whose house" "who did i wake up next to""what am i doing here"
first thought. search for the library
"there, the people cannot judge me for not understanding a computer or computeresque object. it is impossibel here to ask questions without raising suspicion among these 'housemates' more or less. are they my family. do they think i am their family. am i in love with this man. is this my son. i am not in love with this man. does he think i am in love with him. could i, in actuality, love him. i need answers now. i am absolutely not crazy" this cannot be real.
leave. must. leave. leave this job. house. family. city. life. this is not mine. this cant be mine. i am twenty years old and i woke up as a 50 year old. this cannot be. must find the path home. i dont love these people. i need answers
search
questions
help
but im not insane
rejection
help
discussion
hospitals
no answers
but now i AM insane
dream????? with gun
suicide
and for the first seconds "where the fuck am i"
look to the mirror. it is my face my hands are old my wrinkles have taken over eyes tired mouth sad
"how did i get here" "who the fuck are you"
go downstairs. see a man, maybe twenty, at the table with breakfast.
the objects in the house are absolutely different from anything ever seen before. they seem to serve the same purpose and function but their appearance is something new. the only thing that appears to be the same as before is nature. the setting from the trees and grass. the sky has clouds, a sun, birds. dirt is brown. leaves are green
search for answers. "who is this man at the table" "whose table" "in what city" "whose house" "who did i wake up next to""what am i doing here"
first thought. search for the library
"there, the people cannot judge me for not understanding a computer or computeresque object. it is impossibel here to ask questions without raising suspicion among these 'housemates' more or less. are they my family. do they think i am their family. am i in love with this man. is this my son. i am not in love with this man. does he think i am in love with him. could i, in actuality, love him. i need answers now. i am absolutely not crazy" this cannot be real.
leave. must. leave. leave this job. house. family. city. life. this is not mine. this cant be mine. i am twenty years old and i woke up as a 50 year old. this cannot be. must find the path home. i dont love these people. i need answers
search
questions
help
but im not insane
rejection
help
discussion
hospitals
no answers
but now i AM insane
dream????? with gun
suicide
14 May 2013
NORMAN
some classy and elegant affection
i sit on the sofa under a blanket when the bloomin microwave begins to speak to me about rain barrels
i am half awake in the backseat next to a pile of books and the car is treating me like a roller coaster scaling the ocean painted sky
and i realize the depth in which cities are built like bodies
these similarities in structure becoming most evident in the obliteration of the human
i used cranium mouthwash to forget about the excavation of your eye sockets. to forget about the damage from the astroids, the flames, the flooding, the nuclear disasters and each death. to forget about the newfound prominence and the contour of your nose and cheeks. to forget about the crumbling and decaying cityscape. as the sky above becomes more evident
you told me about an orange tree in california
and miscalculating the mileage and mistracking the distance
and posing for a photograph, you drove the car into the Great Salt Lake
so you slept outside
i think ultimately i will glow into you
i sit on the sofa under a blanket when the bloomin microwave begins to speak to me about rain barrels
i am half awake in the backseat next to a pile of books and the car is treating me like a roller coaster scaling the ocean painted sky
and i realize the depth in which cities are built like bodies
these similarities in structure becoming most evident in the obliteration of the human
i used cranium mouthwash to forget about the excavation of your eye sockets. to forget about the damage from the astroids, the flames, the flooding, the nuclear disasters and each death. to forget about the newfound prominence and the contour of your nose and cheeks. to forget about the crumbling and decaying cityscape. as the sky above becomes more evident
you told me about an orange tree in california
and miscalculating the mileage and mistracking the distance
and posing for a photograph, you drove the car into the Great Salt Lake
so you slept outside
i think ultimately i will glow into you
09 May 2013
MY SLEEPING DESIGNS
throughout the day placing you delicately aside. as if this matters now. as if this mattered. you might be empty and i think you might be arduous. there's nothing of you here anymore and i dont care about the odd numbers.
and one would think, after meticulously parading through my consciousness all day, you could, for my sake and yours, take the nights off. breathe, expand, dream, expand
but here you persist. right here. right in my stupid dreams. asleep with the paralysis of stupid sleep thoughts. i prefer to think it is astral projection, but i can only let my imagination take us so far. and it's not because i have nothing to say, i have lots of things. and it's not because i don't have anything to feel, because i have plenty of that too.
it's just that it's so sure that you are here. i awake, and at once, no longer. and from there, i don't know what my mornings mean at all anymore.
i have so many concerns. how do you even get in there. we're not in communication, we're beyond the limitations of our senses; my nerve endings are disconnected, the vibrations in our eardrums are enigmatic. and actually, i can't even be sure that you exist anymore. so i am wondering, what determines my sleep thinks? i'm wondering what aspects of you are most prevalent and most obvious to my dreaming state. i wonder if i remember things when i'm asleep that i have no conscious recollection of.
most of all, i could sleep better if you just weren't around. and speaking of, everything i dream is too vivid that i am sleeping terribly and i think it is because when i'm inside them, i'm so happy. isn't that scary? just give me some rest or something.
and one would think, after meticulously parading through my consciousness all day, you could, for my sake and yours, take the nights off. breathe, expand, dream, expand
but here you persist. right here. right in my stupid dreams. asleep with the paralysis of stupid sleep thoughts. i prefer to think it is astral projection, but i can only let my imagination take us so far. and it's not because i have nothing to say, i have lots of things. and it's not because i don't have anything to feel, because i have plenty of that too.
it's just that it's so sure that you are here. i awake, and at once, no longer. and from there, i don't know what my mornings mean at all anymore.
i have so many concerns. how do you even get in there. we're not in communication, we're beyond the limitations of our senses; my nerve endings are disconnected, the vibrations in our eardrums are enigmatic. and actually, i can't even be sure that you exist anymore. so i am wondering, what determines my sleep thinks? i'm wondering what aspects of you are most prevalent and most obvious to my dreaming state. i wonder if i remember things when i'm asleep that i have no conscious recollection of.
most of all, i could sleep better if you just weren't around. and speaking of, everything i dream is too vivid that i am sleeping terribly and i think it is because when i'm inside them, i'm so happy. isn't that scary? just give me some rest or something.
07 May 2013
THE STRUGGLE TO LOCALIZE
just some things i've been thinking of
the way honey reacts in cold water, strung out like veins in my apricot tea, and i can watch it solidify in the glass. its own free form, something like golden lightening in my drink.
the rate of reaction from ice into steaming water. instantaneously cracks, pops, shrinks. it takes so many to overpower the heat.
the patterns of incense. smoke swirling and swimming in the air. thickening, smoothing out. dancing for me
driving alone, downing coffee, screaming lyrics where conor oberst has completely lost it and i begin to feel ive completely lost it too. the way the sun feels, the way the wind feels coming in the window, the way i can yell at passerbyers so that maybe they can lose themselves too
to be continued
everything is really wonderful and i want everyone to see it in the simplest details.
the way honey reacts in cold water, strung out like veins in my apricot tea, and i can watch it solidify in the glass. its own free form, something like golden lightening in my drink.
the rate of reaction from ice into steaming water. instantaneously cracks, pops, shrinks. it takes so many to overpower the heat.
the patterns of incense. smoke swirling and swimming in the air. thickening, smoothing out. dancing for me
driving alone, downing coffee, screaming lyrics where conor oberst has completely lost it and i begin to feel ive completely lost it too. the way the sun feels, the way the wind feels coming in the window, the way i can yell at passerbyers so that maybe they can lose themselves too
to be continued
everything is really wonderful and i want everyone to see it in the simplest details.
05 May 2013
OCTOBER 2011
a thing i wrote a few days after ending a four year relationship. this is what i meant by wanting to go around living as a raw nerve again. the vividness in life during times of incredible vulnerability are incomparable.
" i guess i'm just glad that i'm here
still alive
still breathing
i've never been so aware
of my surroundings
of my movements
of my feelings
i've never been so aware that i am a living breathing human
i've never felt so much all at once
i want to feel weightless again
everything back into place
feel secure
i don't know what the fuck i'm doing
but i'm taking one day at a time
and for now
it's working "
there's nothing interesting in the writing. it's not good writing. it was just pure. and i miss feeling so pure. i discovered so much of myself in those few months of destruction and lived so alone and yet so completely and so on edge and so unexpectedly. i've just recovered now, moved on, grown up, and transformed into a much less naïve member of society. i've leveled out. i don't want to feel so level. i prefer to be striving for something every day. self improvement, learning, growth. appreciating experiences in such a way because i knew how badly i needed those experiences. holding onto my friends for dear life. getting lost in my car. screaming. feeling some kind of hatred which can only come from loving someone too much. don't know. just want to grow. i want a process to focus on.
" i guess i'm just glad that i'm here
still alive
still breathing
i've never been so aware
of my surroundings
of my movements
of my feelings
i've never been so aware that i am a living breathing human
i've never felt so much all at once
i want to feel weightless again
everything back into place
feel secure
i don't know what the fuck i'm doing
but i'm taking one day at a time
and for now
it's working "
there's nothing interesting in the writing. it's not good writing. it was just pure. and i miss feeling so pure. i discovered so much of myself in those few months of destruction and lived so alone and yet so completely and so on edge and so unexpectedly. i've just recovered now, moved on, grown up, and transformed into a much less naïve member of society. i've leveled out. i don't want to feel so level. i prefer to be striving for something every day. self improvement, learning, growth. appreciating experiences in such a way because i knew how badly i needed those experiences. holding onto my friends for dear life. getting lost in my car. screaming. feeling some kind of hatred which can only come from loving someone too much. don't know. just want to grow. i want a process to focus on.
03 May 2013
A BIOGRAPHY
im sniffin glue
missing you
in my prison suite
my revisionist alphabet soup
spells out your initials, cute
noodles bamboozle in a language thats truthful
but my words are just human
my verbiage is dooming
me to walk these streets
and fly these kites
and cliche beats
and fuck those eyes
until im just my picture's picture picturin
less real than steel inflictions
read the inscription
and before i leave on my mission
to wage a war of attrition
on this degrading position
of a painful condition
human condition
slap my face
bite my throat
and eat out my affliction
aslongasidream
missing you
in my prison suite
my revisionist alphabet soup
spells out your initials, cute
noodles bamboozle in a language thats truthful
but my words are just human
my verbiage is dooming
me to walk these streets
and fly these kites
and cliche beats
and fuck those eyes
until im just my picture's picture picturin
less real than steel inflictions
read the inscription
and before i leave on my mission
to wage a war of attrition
on this degrading position
of a painful condition
human condition
slap my face
bite my throat
and eat out my affliction
aslongasidream
02 May 2013
01 May 2013
29 April 2013
A REVIEW
what am i doing this for what are we doing this for what is anyone doing this for
dissipating
dispersion
cynics
being cynical
i want to find that love is only for a mountain top.
i would like to be the countess of utopia.
dissipating
dispersion
cynics
being cynical
i want to find that love is only for a mountain top.
i would like to be the countess of utopia.
26 April 2013
IMPRESSIONISM
hello my name is édouard manet
i can not dance i can not sing i can
not not art
im too crude for optimism and there are too many windows
stop your pose
stop your posing
you know that the way your neck bends and your chin tilts
the way your fingers
hello my name is édouard manet
i have no voice
i can not prance i can not ring i can not
not not
not
im too true for surrealism and there are too many artifacts
stop your prose
stop your prosing
you know that way your back transcends my fingertips and your limbs will wilt
the way your dreams
hello my name is édouard manet
i can not feeling anything any more
i can not open
i can not fear
i can not sleep or create
i can not dance i can not sing i can
not not art
im too crude for optimism and there are too many windows
stop your pose
stop your posing
you know that the way your neck bends and your chin tilts
the way your fingers
hello my name is édouard manet
i have no voice
i can not prance i can not ring i can not
not not
not
im too true for surrealism and there are too many artifacts
stop your prose
stop your prosing
you know that way your back transcends my fingertips and your limbs will wilt
the way your dreams
hello my name is édouard manet
i can not feeling anything any more
i can not open
i can not fear
i can not sleep or create
24 April 2013
UNDER SOME SMALL LIGHT
disintegrating into a paper thin paste
seeping
and swirling
and swimming
everything is going swimmingly
over and over the flow of patterns
i dont think about the thinks that you think or thought or the ones that i thought
i think im done with those thinks altogether and so i am left-
with dissolving
repeating
sleazing
sneezing
microscopically digesting
sleek and small
vicariously into your eyes
the hallows of your cheekbones
the space between your closed eyelid and brow
the delicate space
i wonder what is between your arms rightnow
seeping
and swirling
and swimming
everything is going swimmingly
over and over the flow of patterns
i dont think about the thinks that you think or thought or the ones that i thought
i think im done with those thinks altogether and so i am left-
with dissolving
repeating
sleazing
sneezing
microscopically digesting
sleek and small
vicariously into your eyes
the hallows of your cheekbones
the space between your closed eyelid and brow
the delicate space
i wonder what is between your arms rightnow
19 April 2013
A SIREN
there comes a point when i'm not sure that calories matter anymore. or when you're at a party and you find yourself in the basement with a goat or a ram or some stone statue in the form of a form. smiling because you feel obligated. laughing because you feel sorry. smoking to feel something different. anything different. the reaction of honey in ice water. falling to the bottom. it molds together and forms, glowing. forming glows. i just want you all to know that good people do exist. they are out there. they probably aren't where you'd expect them not to be but they might be in my stomach.
16 April 2013
THE LEVIATHAN: DESENSITIZING OF THE HEART AND RESISTANCE FOR YOUR MIND
this is about me and this is about me and this is about me. i don't know what to do with my hands anymore. they feel pure, cold, and irrationally calculated. i no longer understand their trajectory. i'm constantly searching for mountains to cling to or a dandelion to pull apart. i found satisfaction in sanding away at the chair; it atrophied into a puddle of dust and feathers and your body parts. and it's all forming to the floor now. you're all forming to the floor now.
soon i find that i am walking on your jawline
sleeping on the palm of your hand
vacuuming away your hair
mixing up your bones with my toothbrush
i found your stomach in the pantry which had swallowed all my photographs
your teeth were hiding under the sofa
and i discovered your kneecaps resting on the windowsill
i heard your voice when i was in the shower
i didn't mean to spill lemonade on your eardrum, but what were you doing forming to the living room floor?
i'm sorry i danced on your heart, but couldn't you have found a better place to diffuse your innards than my apartment?
besides
i am merely a dragonfly made of glass
a life is a life is a life
and i am brittle and bitter
i'm trying to be polite, but what i'm really trying to say is: i'm tired of tip toeing around my bedroom to avoid stepping on your glassy eyes when i'm in a rush in the mornings and i can't always be careful about where i'm stepping anymore and you aren't leaving me enough room in here for building sandcastles which you know is what i have always dreamed of and you are making this small space complicated and here, this is for you: you are free, you are free, you are freezing.
soon i find that i am walking on your jawline
sleeping on the palm of your hand
vacuuming away your hair
mixing up your bones with my toothbrush
i found your stomach in the pantry which had swallowed all my photographs
your teeth were hiding under the sofa
and i discovered your kneecaps resting on the windowsill
i heard your voice when i was in the shower
i didn't mean to spill lemonade on your eardrum, but what were you doing forming to the living room floor?
i'm sorry i danced on your heart, but couldn't you have found a better place to diffuse your innards than my apartment?
besides
i am merely a dragonfly made of glass
a life is a life is a life
and i am brittle and bitter
i'm trying to be polite, but what i'm really trying to say is: i'm tired of tip toeing around my bedroom to avoid stepping on your glassy eyes when i'm in a rush in the mornings and i can't always be careful about where i'm stepping anymore and you aren't leaving me enough room in here for building sandcastles which you know is what i have always dreamed of and you are making this small space complicated and here, this is for you: you are free, you are free, you are freezing.
10 April 2013
EXCERPT OF WINTER JOURNAL
piensas que estas cosas nunca te sucederán a ti, piensas que no pueden pasarte. tú eres la única persona en el mundo a la que ninguna cosa mala no puede sucederle. y así, una por una, todas empiezan a sucederte, de la misma manera que les sucede a todos los demás en el mundo.
tus pies descalzos en el frío piso. te levantas de la cama y caminas a la ventana. tienes seis años. fuera la nieve cae, y los árboles del patio trasero se están poniendo blancos.
tú. hablas. ahora. antes de que sea demasiado tarde.
y luego, esperas seguir hablando hasta que no haya nada más que decir. el tiempo se acaba, después de todo.
tal vez sería bueno poner tus historias a parte por ahora, y tratar de analizar que es lo que has sentido viviendo dente de este cuerpo, desde el primer día que puede recuerdes estar vivo hasta ahora. un catálogo de datos sensoriales. esto es lo que podría llamarse una fenomenología de respirar y la acumulación del alma.
hoy, estaba caminando a casa bajo la lluvia pensando en los lugares poco profundos del hormigón como espacios poco profundos de las personas. nunca te diste cuenta del desnivel del hormigón hasta que apareció la lluvia. nunca me había fijado en las susceptibles cualidades humanas de una persona hasta que las vi desfallecer. hasta las entiendo por completo humanamente. pero encontré mi problema, perdido dentro de la vacilación. porque tengo miedo empiezo a crear una imagen genuina.
me llevas conduciendo a casa. tengo diecisiete años. pienso que nos estamos cantando. pienso que nos estamos besando. reconociendo los patrones en nuestros movimientos. escribiendo palabras en la ventana empañada del coche. sus movimientos me asustan ahora. "how to feel sad because of someone else's choices." "como sentirse mal por las decisiones de otras." realmente puedo sentirme vivo ahora.
tus pies descalzos en el frío piso. te levantas de la cama y caminas a la ventana. tienes seis años. fuera la nieve cae, y los árboles del patio trasero se están poniendo blancos.
tú. hablas. ahora. antes de que sea demasiado tarde.
y luego, esperas seguir hablando hasta que no haya nada más que decir. el tiempo se acaba, después de todo.
tal vez sería bueno poner tus historias a parte por ahora, y tratar de analizar que es lo que has sentido viviendo dente de este cuerpo, desde el primer día que puede recuerdes estar vivo hasta ahora. un catálogo de datos sensoriales. esto es lo que podría llamarse una fenomenología de respirar y la acumulación del alma.
hoy, estaba caminando a casa bajo la lluvia pensando en los lugares poco profundos del hormigón como espacios poco profundos de las personas. nunca te diste cuenta del desnivel del hormigón hasta que apareció la lluvia. nunca me había fijado en las susceptibles cualidades humanas de una persona hasta que las vi desfallecer. hasta las entiendo por completo humanamente. pero encontré mi problema, perdido dentro de la vacilación. porque tengo miedo empiezo a crear una imagen genuina.
me llevas conduciendo a casa. tengo diecisiete años. pienso que nos estamos cantando. pienso que nos estamos besando. reconociendo los patrones en nuestros movimientos. escribiendo palabras en la ventana empañada del coche. sus movimientos me asustan ahora. "how to feel sad because of someone else's choices." "como sentirse mal por las decisiones de otras." realmente puedo sentirme vivo ahora.
08 April 2013
DULL
i could feel alive in a ghost town with you around
and i could feel so dead in a crowded city without you there
and i could feel so dead in a crowded city without you there
05 April 2013
FIRST WEEK OF APRIL RESTLESSNESS
in how many color shades do you think you'll exist in before you die
i hope all of them
ive covered the greys. blacks. the inbetween greyish black fog color, the slightly blue
and every shade of yellow, the greenish tints and the orangish tints and the purest yellow.
it's time for new adventures
i hope all of them
ive covered the greys. blacks. the inbetween greyish black fog color, the slightly blue
and every shade of yellow, the greenish tints and the orangish tints and the purest yellow.
it's time for new adventures
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