cheshire

"the loneliness, it's palpable"

what resonates is significant to what is hidden in our core. the very things that move us can keep us from moving, from breathing. what is it about these things? i can't find the words to pin down or define explicitly what they are, but there are things there within our own selves that are instinctual and so much a part of who we are... what sort of things have we kept from our own animal instincts that we can no longer tap into? what sort of things move and halt us that we are so programmed to overlook as animals that use (and maybe overuse) our intellect?

it's a curious and beautiful heartache all at once.

it's not a loneliness of human contact, because that is for certain something i do not have. is it recognition of things that i know i will never have? i know i'm a stubborn hopeless romantic. it's something in the air breathe in and out when i walk down the streets of seattle in the early morning and fall in love with. it's something i feel underneath and throughout lovely songs that is separate and still entirely a part of the music.

"i wear my garments so it shows, and i know only love is all maroon..."

it's nothing i can write about honestly right now, first because i don't know, and second because i do.

hush that fuss

it's been a rough week or so.

i don't know why, i just don't feel like type-writing. i haven't been inspired enough to write a letter to one of my dearest friends, and i have writing just to fill space. i've been getting my fill of creative outlets: i've been dancing more (again, thank god), reading, drawing, and taking a hell of a lot more photography than usual. i've been working a whole hell of a lot, and i've been broke as all hell for the last few weeks.

i have to psyche myself out to eat top ramen.

that broke.

but it feels good, you know? it feels good to be on my own, to figure out how to take care of myself.

soundtrack for the latter part of this day:

1) "my lovin' (never gonna get it)" - en vogue

2) "i wanna be down" (remix) - brandy featuring mc lyte, yoyo, and queen latifah

3) "if your girl only knew" - aaliyah

4) "the rain (supa dupa fly)" - missy elliott

5) "rosa parks" - outkast

6) "don't walk away" - jade

7) "whatta man" - salt 'n' pepa featuring en vogue

8) "no scrubs" - tlc

9) "try again" - aaliyah featuring timbaland

you know.

early 90's sort of evening...

i'll write about a love i never had.

in the morning i'll give you a call

when i decide whether or not we can still talk

(or be in love)

or any of the other half-winded movements

we made up to get by, and then...

and then maybe we can talk about how i loved

(and you loved)

and how we almost always fell in love with

how

we both wanted the whole stretch of the universe

(for ourselves but not for us, my love).

and then we can sift through the silence and the static when

we can both touch (and go) on how

it never came to us because we dreamt

with our eyes open

and breathed in a stagnant air

we only caught in between dreaming and living.

and i hate you for everything you made me give up

to be anything but myself

and i love every goddamned false image

i built up around you

so i wouldn't have to think about what we aren't.

and i'll write about a broken heart i never had,

but maybe then i can figure out why you stop and start

the way you always did

and never will around me again.

and why'd we stretch so far?

i could never not love the way

you move in the morning

and i could never love the way you won't.

love me love me

one more for good measure

"fuck this is awesome"

out finding life.

i need to develop my film and my heart.

finally found me

I can't believe this came out of the 90's.

This is absolutely everything I'm listening to right now.

It makes me wonder what other music I could fall in love with

that I might never find?

night terrors

the last few nights i've been having this same dream play over and over again:

i'm at my high school prom with this guy i was crazy about when i was 14...15....16..... and every night it takes place in a castle or a large, large house... think harry potter or beauty and the beast but no fun. every night i run up and down the hallways looking for someone, dragging my prom date around trying to convince him that something really really bad is going to happen, but never able to tell him what because i don't know. one night i walked into a room with no floor or ceiling or walls or anything, just pitch black... nothingness. another night i walked outside to a flogging molly concert underwater, and i couldn't breathe and there was no way to get out of the water so i was drowning. one time everything just froze and i couldn't move or breathe or talk.

the same "outline" of events always happen: going to prom with so-and-so, getting lost in a large house franticly looking to stop something "bad" that i can't predict, walking into an area where i lose all of my senses... but after what seems like forever i always manage to get out of the third "leg" of my dream when i discover what the awful thing is that is about to happen: everyone is being murdered.

at this point i rush backwards through all the events of my dream that had happened that night. if before you die your entire life flashes before you, this is similar but backwards... does that make sense? things stop racing backwards when i get back toward the beginning of my dream when i just arrive a "prom". it's horribly morbid: i walk into the room where prom is taking place to find people across the ground, and i'm never sure if they're all actually dead or just passed out, but the other guests keep dancing and having a good time like nothing's gone wrong. sometimes the people on the floor are missing limbs or their innards, sometimes they're not. sometimes i'm certain a handful are dead, other times i'm watching from a distance and can't really be certain (my eyesight it poor both in real life and in my dream world). i'm never after who or what has caused this to happen; the dream always ends with my looking over all the people wondering what the hell is going on.

at this point i wake myself up either crying or trying to yell or whimpering.

these dreams are terrifying, not only because of all the obviously morbid events, but because they're different from what my "normal" dreams consist of. usually at night i dream i'm running away from someone or something, and sometimes it's a fantastic adventures, sometimes it's flat out boring, sometimes it's a nightmare, sometimes it's just trying to avoid running into an ex on the street. the thing is... i always know what i'm running from and that i'm running from something... hardly ever am i entirely unaware of what IT is, much less am i ever running toward something.

dreams are odd.

last night prom was in russia on top of some sort of eiffel tower structure.

it was a nice change of scenery at least.

performance art

dear readers, after five years of making coffee i have taken my first job doing something entirely different: i am a maker of sandwiches. the best part is that it's still performance art.

this is what i'm listening to and falling in love with

right the hell now.

big things are coming

now that i have funding for life again.

more later...

bread and butter

cheering with a stranger for nothing in particular,

and too disowned to know you're never alone.

but there it stands: a breathing end

counting seventy times back again.

i think i heard the birds calling

your name

in the quietest moment of the daytime

when i'd forgotten about you.

if i could write lovely things about you all day

i guess i'd spend my time wondering if you really existed

or if

i was in love with the honest things that weren't

about you; the things we hold onto anyway

because it reminds us that

love is more than just a verb

and maybe then that

it's there if we're patient and...

maybe still...

a whole lotta nothin

it's a shattering feeling, but not leaving me feeling broken. it's a shattering feeling like... like the earth or the sky or my self broke open and i can finally get it.

it's something.

it followed when i realized "this is something everyone's doing right now and i can't do this". but who is everyone?

more later.

It's a Draw

it's a toss up really. a draw would mean both sides would have given a good fight.

oh you make lists, too?

things i absolutely have to do today:

1) finish my homework

2) go grocery shopping

3) put my belongings where they belong

4) do the dishes

5) buy film for that camera i fell in love with and then fell out of love with and then fell in love with again

6) follow up on those people i bothered about hiring me.

what? you don't make lists?

oh lord have mercy on my soul

"she's the devil."

i had no idea what she meant, mostly because it'd been a long time since i'd had a belief that involved a satan in a personified form. theology does that to you i guess... or maybe it doesn't, but it did that to me. "she's the devil," she kept saying, like maybe i would begin to believe it if she said it more. i didn't, but i loved her all the same. if there's any evil forces in my life, they're the ones that creep up on me when i don't have enough sleep, when it's early in the morning, and i can feel a hangover coming on. it would be the things that sneak up on me in my weakest hours when i'm certain all that's connecting this moment to the next is my chain smoking and the coffee brewing.

nobody is the devil and

g-d didn't put shackles on our feet, they sang.

no, we do that ourselves.

no. she's not the devil. nobody is. if there's something evil in this world it's our inability to let our instincts kick in. it's the thing that forces us to think too much and not at all. it's the thing that reasons we'll feel better in the morning when we know we won't. it's the fear you build up and never want to let go of because you're afraid there might be nothing left when you release it. it's the walls you build up when you're afraid to believe in something greater than yourself. it's everything you use to hold yourself back, but it's something you make up... not something that's forced upon you.

for me. for now anyway.

these things are manmade, and so is it...

it's the brokenness of our universe at best,

but it's still something we can make and shape and change.

g-d didn't put cuffs on our hands either, i heard.

diet

i'm pretty damn broke.

i'm on this college diet called "buy what's cheap and hope it works", and i'm pretty sure most middle-class twenty-somethings go through it when their thirst for knowledge overrides their hunger for decent nutrition. i go grocery shopping enough to make sure i'm getting enough fruits and vegetables, and i'm learning enough to know i'll care more about where my food's coming from once i can earn enough money to support my concerns. i'm on a diet called "i don't care about anything physically because my mental stability is all that matters". it weans you off the bullshit and makes you think about what actually matters.

you practice it in high school - everything is either so damn important or nothing at all, and the tragedy is that nothing's really that important most of the time unless your adulthood breaches itself on you prematurely and you have to care about adult things before you understand why or how.
and i'm on this diet called "i don't give a shit about you anymore" and it involved feigning interest. i'm slowly weaning myself off caring about anything involving you. breaking it down, i don't know why i still give a shit. i really really don't. half the time i feel like i'm just feigning my care because it's downright in my nature to care about every damn thing. and i do. just not this... or at least i don't want to... badly enough that i just don't care one way or the other what the shit happens. or how the hell i act. or anything. i don't have any way of measuring my progress or knowing whether or not this is worth occupying my precious living-waking minutes, but... hell... if something bigger comes along (and that's not saying much because there's so much more to this world than me or it) i'll have a tougher skin and a better attitude. i'll be able to navigate my concerns in a more constructive manner. i can't tell whether i actually give a shit or i'm pretending so badly so that i don't have to think about anything else, but at this point it's a diet of the mind.

cut out what doesn't matter.

the tragedy of twenty-something is that everything matters.

one hundred truths for every one lost in the cave

i think i know what i want and that scares me...

...because what if it's not what i want at all?

have i conditioned myself to think i want something?

have i convinced myself i don't actually want the things i do?

time flies

let us remember this moment in time

that i was writing about liberation

and feared the morning.

let us remember the moment

i ate cold chili from a tupperware

contemplating my next move on something

that always feels next to impossible,

and the irony that

i'd just discovered oppression is not a response of divine things,

but rather a reaction of people by people

and i was only moments ago frustrated

with something i feel i cannot escape or change.

enlightenment and deliverance comes in all forms,

creatively.

here, through tupperware and cold chili.

sea of words//cortez cortez

it was a combination of everything: music to live for, a crusty venue i'd been existing off of since i was in high school, good company, probably more to drink than i should've had, the city, the nighttime, and a thousand bodies pressed up against the stage to feel and smell and breathe the music.

it was good. really good. not like the "my spirits are lifted" good but like.... "today is the sort of day that's worth living a few more times through, and it's gonna fuel my spirits for a long time" good. good like fresh coffee. good like the sun and the rain all at once.

really good.

"nothing can go wrong" good.

but the sea of words tumbled out as soon as i started getting tired and comfortable and they just... ran far and long and off without me. it was like watching a movie in a dream in really slow motion--- the kind of dream where you try and get up and leave but your feet move too slow. i opened my mouth and the words tumbled out, and i could hear them move faster than my brain could stop them.

the night ended in a terrible argument and honestly? that didn't even matter. all i was hung up on the following morning was the fact that i admitted it.

i downed a few glasses of water mulling over what i'd said. maybe nobody heard. maybe they didn't remember. maybe we can just go on pretending i didn't say anything. i filled my glass again - things were still good... they always are if you let them be.

everything changed since i was eighteen except for that and i had to go on and admit it.

mother of mercy.

more later.

i am in love

i am in love

right the hell now

with this music.

Go Ahead:

ask me what i believe in.

i'm ill, not sick.

"this is bullshit" i thought to myself. i'd been lying in bed for three or four day, only getting up to make the occasional peanut butter and jelly or when i thought i was going crazy and needed air. i'd been sick, but i'd been wondering if maybe i was on the downhill roll toward being depressed.

bullshit.

i don't have time to be sick OR depressed.

it's hard to explain of you haven't really experienced it. being depressed i mean. it's like any other illness, it comes out of nowhere and sort of sucks you dry. it's exhausting being in it but it's exhausting trying to pull yourself out of it, and even though people say "just snap out of it"... you.... can't. either way, i didn't have time for any of it, i had a shit ton of deadlines to make and i didn't have time to be sick. or depressed.

dammit.

i walked to school a few times just to pretend i was okay. do you ever do that? just try and pretend you're fine even though it's obvious nothing's alright? i could feel my eyes bloodshot from allergies and sinus infections, my nose was running and raw from blowing it every other minute, my whole body ached.

"i'll just pretend i'm fine," i told myself. who the hell doesn't do that, right? i got dressed, put on make up, packed my backpack and went to emerald city smoothie. perfect. energy boost, vitamin c, and some protein: just what i need. i'd be fine in no time!

"i'm great! i'm doing fantastic! i'm terrific!" i kept telling myself, "i'll just trick myself into feeling better! this is gonna be easy!" after i finished my smoothie i realized drinking it had worn me out. always stubborn to admit when anything's wrong, i kept trying to remind myself everything would be okay soon. "i'm great! i'm doing fantastic! i'm going to make all my deadlines for homework! i can do this!"

i finally made it to the school library and got to the stairwell- i ALWAYS take the stairs over the elevator. i looked at all of them and all of a sudden i felt like i was in one of those really bad dreams where you're trapped running up or down stairs forever, and it's really a pain-in-the-ass sort of nightmare.

they all are.

"this is bullshit. i'm sick and there's nothing i can do to pretend i'm not."

soup&salad

since i'd moved out, we'd made a point to have dinner together at least once a week, but she'd been gone down to the city i'd left pieces of my heart all over, and so it'd become less frequent than either of us had hoped.

we were splitting something pretty normal: salad and chicken noodle soup. neither of us really had the energy for much creativity, and we were more focused on just existing off of each other. it's been pretty rough for all of us.

"those girls were always so condescending, weren't they..." she said, more an observation than a question. it was true. i'd been mulling over a friend's birthday this weekend and was bouncing my thoughts off of her. i love my friend dearly, but i'd always got the impression a friend of hers looked down at me because i never treated high school like a grand competition. pettiness aside, my friend was the most important thing, so i'd decided to go. screw what other people think.

"yeah, kinda. i don't know. they liked to compare grades in high school and this person was always really shocked when i did well." it was true. how can high school girls be so mean? it's been ages since high school, but i was more than certain some things wouldn't change... why do people hold on to bullshit things like that? life's not a competition, and as the great words of baz luhrmann, "in the end it's only with yourself."

"you know..." i started, "...theres a kid in my theology class that seems pretty shocked when i turn in homework."

"why? you're pretty smart, you just always put yourself down." truth. when i was younger i was shipped around the state so i could take tests and be tested for my "intelligence". i blew everyone out of the goddamned water every time, but it just never seemed important if i wasn't doing anything with it... like helping people or changing the world or something.

"it's my attitude."

"what do you mean? i mean i know, but..."

"i just.... i'd rather people think i don't give a shit than know that there's things in my life i can't handle that are a million times more important." another truth - my life has always been like this. i basically sabotaged my grades my senior year of high school when my best friend was raped... how do you help someone through that? that was the first time i realized life can be (and often is) more important than a gpa. when a friend took his life two years ago..... even though we'd only recently made amends i still dropped out of school for a while to figure out how to deal and be the support for our best friend (there's never a way to "deal" with these things by the way).

and now.... now things are really bad, and i'd really rather everyone just think i have an attitude than know my world is falling apart.

she knew exactly what i was talking about.

more later.