Life on Mars

I used to have insomnia nearing the end of my high school career and three years following, on and off. That time was met with tumult and ugliness, but more importantly, really weird pieces.

excerpt posted: 12/30/2008

oh, Bowie, Bowie!
Genetalia & confusion. Bad backs and sore throats, in addition to sour moods and pained gums. Futures look bright evermore in glitzy glam and glimmery gold.
Who knew?
I never knew you, nor your pretensions.

It’s 2AM and a little more than a dozen eggs. Bad pop-rock and broken situations, just get me the fuck out of here!
Framed Chinese calligraphy; pools and pools of clutter. More alcohol.
Whatever it is, it’ll never end.
Love is stronger than dislike, disdain, disappointment, disgust.
Blood is none more than a chemical concoction, is it not?
Ties that bind, ties that destroy.

The more sense it makes, the less it means.
I always said otherwise, but it looks like I WILL be a 9-5, boring office job, I-want-to-get-the-fuck-out-of-here, piece of shit who’s stuck.

Situations run amuck, and I only fly via illusions of what can never be.
Clouds of smoke, rings of exhaust; Snow White, I don’t want you.

Narcoleptic kind of mood.
Where is my mind?

exaction (raw)

it’s just another whisper through the vines, a soft breeze that chills your spine
and you’ve completely stopped in time
as your hips sway in line
to the beat of the song playing in your little head
and you think oh, oh, as you’re rocking in your bed
and suddenly you’ve landed in a trench
no tricks, no flick flack
no ass
just cracked up
and blind

pure and delicious, no content is malicious as you’re sipping your tea in oblivion.
as you’re knocking back drinks without a cherry in
your glass, some sherry in your lap, chipper, unaware
giggling

bitch you’re still blind
but you’re loving it
and that’s that
no stopping you
looking back?
that’s the old you
bullet wounds ricochet
off your chest
and it shines through
your vest

it’s a risk that you’re willing to take, fuck it, eventually everything breaks
replace it, or just recreate
what you’ve lost in the mud
in the trench
underground, dried up blood
rotted flesh
forgotten, until the flood
horizon, horizon

we’re starting again, aren’t we?
you’re losing your marbles again
to whom is this letter addressed
as you’re screaming my name,
gyrating
pulsating
you find me invigorating
captivating

heartbreaking.

and I think it’s sad that you’re burrowed
in that furrow
that you promised you’d never make for yourself,
but now you’ve gone and neglected all else
except the imagery of misery
singing songs of beauty and class
that you had
swaying back and forth
like you’re overtaken by a force
that denies you of your worth
like you’ve never been birthed
and your pain becomes your pleasure
that’s the only measure
that you’ll ever remember
because you thought we’d be forever

but like buried treasure
just leave us six feet under

love is no big truth

six degrees to the left, eighteen feet out, four steps out of your way to make it to the sweet spot. These numbers don’t make sense, do they? They never do, they’re all made up, because they’re always made up. But we go with these numbers and we try to make something of these numbers because we came up with them. Somehow.

In the same way that numbers are made up, so are ideas and theories, thought processes, and even money. These things I think in my head, they are all parts of my imagination, and sometimes I fear that even you are a figment of such. Number me here, touch me there, feel the chill of the sun, the warmth of the breeze. I want to die on a sunspot, I think to myself.

Somewhere warm, I’d like to go. Somewhere without the cold, I’d like to stay. Somewhere with you would be the ideal, but I am trying to figure out whether or not you are real. Ahh, here goes again my daily spiel. On a happy little reel. Of filmographic glory, of photoconscious memory, we are writing our story.

Ahh, I think to myself. You must be real, unlike these numbers with which I count myself to sleep. The cold, cold night that I reluctantly open up to. In these moments I think of the sunspots, and I wonder if it will become my sin spot, wherein I will be embraced by lust and love, and all things relating to warmth.

Reality. Reality is real, it is warm, it is embrace. Numbers, what do they reveal? They are facts, factoids, truth, capital T truths. Realism is truth. But it is not reality. Numbers represent truth, but it is not real. It is cold, and it is unyielding. It is unreal.

When you act cold, what does that become? What are you, where are you, who are you when you advance towards me with those distant eyes, blank, blank expression and calculated steps? I wonder what words will come out of your mouth, but I realize that no words can be spoken when it is not in reality. I am in a daze as my gaze is fixated on one single state

of mind.

That is you, and I hope to never wake

from this dream.

Bohemian sunrises, Moroccan sunsets, sweet afternoons of tiger lilies and shallow breezes.

When I awake, I am on a ring, on the fourth dimension, a pale blue and dark, vivid orange. It is so cold here, and the skies are no longer sunny, but pitch black. I am scared, and I call out your name, I call out all the names, I count numerous names, and I remember that this is not reality. I am on a lifeless platform, but my reality lies in the warmth. Next to you.

cowardice

I inch forward towards you wondering what lies beneath that exterior, wondering why I keep moving in your direction even though my mind tells me that you’re not the one. I’ve been displaced into 15th century Central America, and I play the part of the Spanish conquistador, and you have become the lush land that lies before me. Had I a conscience, I would retreat, but something draws me closer and closer in.

And I am suddenly pushed back into my reality because I don’t have the audacity to trample upon you, to even lay a finger before I know that it is okay to do so. But even then, I will probably not approach you, even though I desperately want to, to get behind that illustrious expression, to know what goes on inside that head.

To be honest, I am scared of you. I am scared of the scars that you can leave, scared of the scars that I can leave, scared of the disasters that have yet to happen and the times of absolute tranquility and comfort. Most of all, I’m scared that everything that could have happened will eventually be sealed in a little airy bubble that will disintegrate in the wind, and fly away into the abyss. So perhaps I don’t step forward and decide that I will snoop because I am afraid of losing something that I have not even yet obtained, which sounds outlandish in so many ways, but yet is the biggest contributing factor in my hesitance.

I want you, but I’m scared of you.
I want you, but I’m scared of me.
I want you, I want you, so want me first.
I am not the bold conquistador. I want to be the Native, who loves the land like it is her own flesh and blood. I want to be the Native, who appreciates all that the land has given her. I want to be the Native, who wants to give back to the land. I want to be the Native that would never lay a hand, but gently run my fingers through the moss.

But I am scared of you and what power you could have over me. I am scared that the picture book my eyes see will only be photos of you, even when you cease to exist except in my memory. I am scared that everything I knew will become a lie, and that all you showered me with was never really there.

So, hold me, want me, etch me in your memory. Tell me that your mind says that I am the one. Do it because I cannot.

forgive me for my trespasses.

strength of.

In the darkest of night, do you seek not the light of day? the bright is before you, the inky skies soon to be just a fleeting memory of what once was.
But how is it that in this oncoming light, I am shrouded by unforeseen?
How is it that in the best of times, is hidden the worst of times?

Whenceforth had I asked of you to judge me on not my character, but what lies before thine eyes? No, I asked you of my beauty, and how this wretch could be more cultivated for you.

And I hope that the past you is different from the present you, who should be different from the you I encountered half a day ago, which I sure do hope I never meet in a future you, ever, never.

How you can make me feel so broken in my quest for strength, when I have spoken not a word to you? When I do not know your face? What right have you to take away from me the security that belongs to me and me alone? And while I chant the word of strength, my body tingles knowing how untrue it is. I am humiliated and I am shamed, and I will never forget you. But to you, that instance was the only one such that has crossed your mind. In powerlessness, I look for strength, and I cannot say I have it.

Why have you drained me so, when I have not committed deeds worthy of such condemnation? I have no words but spite for you, in ways that those who experience my plight will seek you, plea for you, need you endlessly, hopelessly. In the throes of my deep conscience, I have been turned into Jephthah’s daughter, taking blame, and ironically being ill-fated. I ask you why I have been forsaken, why you have turned me into Tamar when there is no Absalom in my wake. Have you forsaken me because I am not shamefaced? Is my adornment not modest enough for you?

But in the quiet of what follows, I ask why you have not forsaken the one who has taken my security and shattered it. And I ask of you to allow me the audacity to remain still in my scalded core. How a lesson could be so cruel.

today

“What are you doing today?”
“Avoiding life.”

As the year draw to a close, that seems to be the best summation of what I’ve done throughout this year. And when I say that to people, it’s not because I want to come off as funny or clever or anything that I’m usually trying to seem like–this is my reality.

I’m a chronic underachiever, an unlover, a tourist, a tourist, a goddamned tourist. And it pains me to watch people overachieve, excel, and be great, because they don’t know how not to be great. They don’t know how to come from broken families and they don’t know how to fall off the bandwagon, and they don’t know how to barely get it, and they don’t know how to not try.

And then it occurs to me that this once-internal anger has been since pushed out and onto those that I once admired, those I aspired to be like.

I want to fuck up, and then I want everything to fix itself.

Actually, I want to ruin everything to the point where nothing can be salvaged so that maybe I have a definite place in this cosmos, somewhere I can look from and say, hey, this is where I’m coming from, and I say this because I can.

Why do we climb some invisible social ladder to legitimize our self-worth? Why does your societal stance come from your academic prowess? Why am I being pigeon-holed into singled out area based upon some choice that I made when I was nineteen? Why do I feel so unworthy?

I don’t resent those that do better than me. I don’t scoff at people who don’t achieve as much. There will come a day when I decide that enough is enough, and that I must accept that I am capable of producing good, if not great, things. I will stop running away at that point.

Until then, I am avoiding life with everything I’ve got.

on dating

Now, I don’t like to get “truthful” on the blog, because, well, it’s a public forum. I still use my livejournal account and I get as open as I want on it because no one knows the domain and it’s a pretty privatized community. But this post isn’t about which host is the best and which sucks, it’s about my two cents on this season’s intrusive buzzword: dating.

When I was in middle school, I liked this one boy. He paid attention to me. It was kind of a big deal, because I only liked one boy before, and that was in the 5th grade when I couldn’t stop staring at his big blue eyes. Two years down the line, it happened again, but this time around, I couldn’t stop thinking about that stupid scoff and that awkwardly maturing voice and his fucking fancy ass shoes. He liked my pretty friend, but he paid attention to me, so I guess it didn’t matter. Later that year, he ended up “going out” with another pretty friend of mine, and while I was definitely peeved because she knew I liked the kid, it didn’t matter all too much because I was losing interest anyway.

Skip ahead a year and I had my eye on another kid, one with really nice legs and short speech. He was nice to me, one on one, but definitely an asshole in front of his friends. Oh, and of course, he was dating a pretty-ish girl from class. Whom he fucking hated on occasion.
This one would die hard. I totally recollected our conversations over and over again for two years, and I couldn’t get him out of my head. Ever. Seriously, it carried on from middle school to high school. What was more difficult was that I was heavy in my formative years and I couldn’t shake off the weight until well after high school. So it inevitably led to a cycle of wanting him, and then seeing him with other more attractive girl(s?), becoming even more self-aware of my appearance and then hating how I looked, and then feeling undeserving because I was fat, and then wanting him again. I finally ended this ugly cycle of wanting people like that after my first year in high school. I didn’t like the kind of person I was becoming as a result of this obsessive “crushing” and so I decided that it was time to end it. I was ready to stop, and tired of looking at boys and liking them and wanting them, just so damn tired. So I decided to stop.

Which I did.

Fastforward to college. I’m still in college now, so I don’t know how this portion of my life will end. Through much self-determination, followed by a stint of orthorexia, further followed by serious anxiety and mild depression, I dropped maybe 20-30 lbs. I normalized mentally and somewhat emotionally, but physically I stayed the same. And became really comfortable in my skin.

During this time, I found that I could actually be found pretty attractive to the opposite sex, and it was exciting for me, though it made me nervous and scared all at the same time. After all, I promised myself at sixteen that wedded bliss was never to be a part of my future. So I decided, what’s the point of dating if I never wanted to get married anyway?

I remember one time in the sixth grade, I found out that there were couples forming in our class and I thought it was the weirdest thing ever. We were in PE one day, hanging out behind the locker room building, and someone said, “OMG did you hear so and so are going out now?” I didn’t say much in this conversation, but afterwards, I asked one of my close friends how that was even possible. I mean, who “dates” at twelve? Really? Anyway, it was a strange idea to date around back then, and it is even now. Dating is weird. So when these members of the opposite sex suddenly started to take interest in me, I didn’t date. I didn’t make friends with them. You can only imagine what else could have happened. Okay, so I befriended a couple of them. But even then, we’re “friends,” not actually friends. Regardless, I suppose the “glow” of newly found self-confidence boost eventually wore off.

And here we are today. It’s a lot of back story to finally get to my main point, but it was worth my fun little trip down memory lane. There’s been a lot of dating talk in some of my circles lately, and some of my newer friends find it incredibly surprising that I have never been in a relationship before. And then I remind these friends that they have never seen me “talking” to someone or talking about someone that could potentially be interesting. And then they say, “Ohhhh. You’re totally right. But why?” And usually I give them my thirty second spiel on my dating philosophy and pretend that I don’t believe in connection and love, but these days, it’s tiring. I just don’t feel like talking about how jaded I am–maybe because I am starting to believe that these things exist.

What’s taken place of my jadedness is my desire for the perfect individual. I am only willing to talk to someone if he lives up to my very stringent ideals. There has to be some initial attraction, and then there is a long laundry list of criteria that this male has to live up to…which no one can. To sum things up, it requires said male to be me. But with a penis. Though I’m sure if I were to meet this perfect individual, I would not be attracted to him.

Funny thing is, one day I was talking to a gentleman who’s some years older than me. We don’t know each other very well, but enjoy these random drunken conversations every now and again. He was telling me that it was weird that I’ve never casually dated before. Most of our conversation is fuzzy, but one thing I remember pretty clearly is him saying that hesitating will get me nowhere. He said, “If there’s one thing I’ve noticed, it’s the girls that are constantly dating around, with Mr Right Nows that end up with Mr Right Now and Forever. They find the ones that they want to be with and settle down, get married a lot earlier than those that don’t really date.

Personally, I find, serial monogamists (dating, not marriage) are people who cant stand being alone and always need someone. Of course because they always rush into relationships, they are more likely to break up and then go on the hunt again, and then finally settle because they are too damn tired at that point to continue on with the cycle. So they settle.

But I could be wrong.

I could be incredibly wrong.

I have no idea where I stand right now. I like to think that whatever comes along will come along. I will probably continue to become friends with the males that I get along with well and be attracted to seriously stupid morons and not be able to even be friends with them because they are tools. It’s funny how I liked these boys when I was younger, but I would never actually date them. I never imagined myself with them (albeit I thought it creepy to do so), and thinking back, even if I tried to imagine having a “boyfriend,” it wouldn’t make much sense. Not that they weren’t good kids. They were.

I want to think that I was a pretty good kid too.
In fact, I want to think that I’m still a pretty good kid.

I’m going to laugh at whoever becomes the first person to break my anti-dating sentiments. Chances are, he wont be anything special.
I’ll just be tired of continuing this cycle.

regard

Dear friend,
This is how I express the extent of my understanding, not of the situation, but of the person you are. You are beautiful, as is your pain. I am here for you.

Your rock, your shoulder, but mostly your friend,
petitsmorceaux.

The waiting is pressing, and I feel it, watching while you’re undressing, and I know it’s near, but I refuse to fear. you’re going, going, going, gone, and you tell me you’ll still be here

in spirit.

We don’t speak it, but we both know it’s bullshit, and in actually, the distance will eventually kill it. Whatever we had, whatever we didn’t, the good, the bad, the imagined. To not cry is what I must not try, fear is not to which I will adhere, and you will be you, even if it is distance I wish not be true.

Listen to my words, their associations, and tell me there is no prescription. Throw my head against a brick wall, and I pray, dear god, don’t let me become a deadbeat doll.

There is more to me than pain, there is more for me to gain, but there is endless pain, and it is only emotional weight I gain. I move thoughtlessly, but I cannot deny that without we, the body, the soul inside is not me. But there is hope because I try; I cope though my eyes will not dry, because in me there is a growth, of which otherwise I’d have never known.

A caged bird does not sing, and I thirst for those wings that will keep me from my worst. In the end, it is the fear that brings such drear, because neither you nor I can say whether the end is really near. Is it the end if it is not the end, if it is the end? From far beyond the river bend, I know. It is not when.

Never will I be broken, but I am ever bent.

where the truth lies.

dost it speaketh truth in thine own heart? beauty lies in the heart of he who knoweth of his truths.

or so they say.

what a loaded message.

think about it.

lust

Those sideburns sit well on your face. I hate your posture and I hate the way you talk, but there’s something so sexy about it at the same time. And why the fuck am I always awake to eat at eleven o’clock at night? And staring at the green spoon that sits beside me, as the light in the room starts to get more and more blinding, I fear to death for our future, and I fear that the thoughts I have about everyone who surrounds will slowly merge to the person you are.

You don’t deserve it, but I don’t mind giving you empty compliments, because I don’t mean them, and I have no problem lying to people I never really cared about. But it hurts every time I lie because I know you’ll find out, because you always do, and it hurts you. Everything is a lie, and I pretend that the only thing I’m imagining is not those red apple lips of yours, so glossy like the twinkling of the night sky, your illustrious smirk, that look, dim, dim, dim like it’s going to suck away my soul……..

was this a dream or did I actually feel you taking life away from me?

And then we’re suddenly racing down the highway, top down, my right hand tightly gripping the wheel at the very top, I can see up your skirt, but I’m so distracted because you’re screaming so loudly out of the car. Why are you standing?

Standing, standing, so tall like the evergreen tree I saw in the middle of the forest, by itself, you have suddenly turned into a tree, so tall and majestic, breathtaking and perfectly soaking in the sunbeams that rest upon your shoulders. I stare and stare and stare because you are so incredible, you know? Mother Nature sculpted something that is so incomprehensible.

I hear God does that to animals, but that he doesn’t create humans because we’re all fucked up in the head and no one wants us after we’re dead. Dogs go to heaven, but humans live like dogs in the afterlife. We’re mean as children, jaded as youths, drugged up as we come of age, cheating bastards in our middle ages, and pray for death as soon as our lives start to get boring.

The devil made us. We take after the serpent. Slithery, sly, malicious. That’s why God doesn’t love us, because we’re not his children, just clones with bad wiring. But I look at you, and I think, maybe, just maybe. You are a child of the man upstairs. And so I must be zen so that maybe the guy upstairs can get to like me a little too.

And then I see that little smirk in your face, that glistening in your eyes, and I know.

you are the fucking devil.
And I want to feel you like a rush of heroin, in every vein, in every memory, in every morsel, in every breath.

the green spoon, the green spoon.