a flower for every rifle

you had me open. you could have taken any part. didn't. just mixed things up, emptied my compartments. my cafeful distance. we spanned less than touch, more than also. my suttures are artistic. impressive and unhidden since you pulled out my drawers. everything hardening into one. singular and pathetic. you had me open. scratch. a pure substance.

you. part of the mixture.







i want to be a whole person, now it is a goal, something i see in everyday. and now that i have been made aware of my flaw i see it in other people, and i want them to be aware like i am. i want them to know they are hurting themselves. i guess that is natural, once you know something about yourself you realize it is not so much unique as it is part of human nature. its like a protection device, preservation. everything comes down to preservation. as if we are truly cowardice at our core, because connecting to another person takes so much more than it should seem to. because imagining hurt doesn't compare in the slightest to actual hurting. and when you've been hurting yourself, when blame is removed, it is all the worse. and all the more poetic.

or tragic.

lullaby(e) appetite

i haven't slept in the past 4 nights. not well anyway.

is it too cliche to want to breath with someone? to want mutual stillness?
probably:




wholeness; a blanket
my coma.
stranded sleepless,
revolving door scences
play to you;
dry and dark.
disapointment, morphine
sweating under stillness.
lovesongs for the ceiling,
a lullabye i didn't write.
contours and stucco
lay down and relive you
awake. absent touch.
weigh me down
make me heavy.

graceful misspellings

i think that even when you decide to be a whole person people will still walk away. or maybe they are running.

you can't preserve anything with wholeness can you? nope, you can't.
not even yourself.

what is it about the constant threat of disapointment that makes us skiddish around an unmistakable display of reality? is it resentment? hindsight?

is it self sabotage? i had contact with "my" addiction and therefore by confronting my compartments and finding a small amount of comfort in them i screwed myself over? i projected my fear of a good thing - self fulfilling prophecy?

i refuse to believe there is a perfectly good reason why i should be ok with this. i'm not ok with it this time.
maybe because i found someone to blame for the development of my biggest flaw? is it his fault that this good thing is slipping out of my hands and i can't hold it? or is it my fault for not realizing it sooner?

could i have done anything?
it couldnot have simply been his function to present to me my inner flaws and then not be the one to help me correct them. why would someone fall into your path to write you a song and pull you togther just in time to break you back into pieces when he leaves with someone else.

there is someting wrong with this.
i don't want to be whole to hurt. i want to be whole to feel right. i want to pull myself together for a reason.

myself is not reason enough.
but should it be?

mutual

3 AM exhales
poetry under your skin
punctuated
stolen from my tounge





. . .

change me back

"when we're together pieces of me keep falling off and it's not supposed to be that way - 'love' is not supposed to be that way."



i realized a fairly worrisome thing about myself the other day. . i compartmentalize.
emotions, people, situations, i seperate them with a fair amount of subconscious accuracy.

i think it's a learned behavior . . in order to seperate myself from "his" addiction i had to seperate the part of myself that cared for him from the rest of my life. i shut parts of me down to deal with the rest. and when other people came into the picture i turned off half of myself inorder to give them what they diserved.

survival insinct turned habbit. all of a sudden you fuck 3 guys in a weekend and its not a problem . . all of a sudden you don't feel anything. (atleast not on your own) the only reason you feel is because that is what the scene calls for, you have so many pieces that you can't justify a whole person that feels independantly.

i want to feel something again.

thats why i am so scared i'm going to fuck up this good thing. i want this person to be able to know a whole me. organic and sincere. i don't want to give him pieces and i don't want to break into smaller parts either.

now that i am aware of how i defend myself can i shut if off? i can stop, i can avoid spliting myself physically to protect myself emotionally. i can see this one out. honest and upfront like normal people.

i think part of this "fear" that i am suddenly obsesed with is a fear that i cant break old habbits and be all things to one person. i try to help people, please people, save people. so what happens when they don't need saving? don't need touching?
just need me?

i'm scared i can't be all things to one person.
but thats normal. . if can break my habbits . . my subconsious ritual. . then can't i be a whole person for this one.

and isn't "all" really "whole?" you cant be everything to one but you can be everypart of yourself to another persons wholeness.

can't you?

splintered inside

you'll take me now
behind these strings
trap me here
a niche, abandonment
a song you sing me
steals against desire
preservation in your melody
deteriorate me
break down and harmonize me
i'm your riff, rythm, 6 string symphony
do what you can
keep me at your hand
change your mind
paint me on this canvas
save me to play to
i want to feel you
leave this taste in me
i don't want to forget
these words you wrote resist me
hiding from alone again
write this song for you
tell me i belong

paperweight

why do i judge progress on physical thresholds?

why in heavens name can't i just be happy with someone who appreciates my brain and my sarcastic charm and not worry about the frequecy of physical conact? why do i take this as such a rejection when really it is the biggest guesture of acceptance i have recieved in years?

have i really relied soley on physical gratuities as a measure of connection? pathetic.

i want to be happy with this. i want to be? i am, but i don't know how to enjoy it without the fear of losing it. i have noticed the patterns that plauged me through school and i can't shake the feeling that they are doomed to repeat. which of course is ridiculous. but can you blame me from fearing that the past will repeat itself . . esspecially since it has so often before?

maybe it's intamacy issues. we are both terrified of being trampled on, which if you think about it is fairly redundant because if we both fear it we will save eachother from it at all costs. but how can we "save" eachother from anything if we are continuously dancing around the subject of intamacy.

"this is right but i'm scared" honesty, but is it a cop-out too? i can't decide and i think its sad, atleast on my part, that i can't trust the sincerity of another persons fears. how can he judge the legitamacy of mine if i doubt his?

and .. why is it not ok to still be recovering, hurting, and moving on at the same time. why can't we have a good thing while some small parts of us still hurt? will that increase the likely hood that we will unintentionally hurt eachother? no i think it will have the opposite effect. won't we be more conscience of the other and therefore more in tune with ourselves?

i believe you can hurt and heal simultaneously. of course you can - thats how we survive.

why isnt this a good thing? it is.

then why am i so scared it will disapear?

i have to get past this. . really.

hold me any way you can

arms length and groping
white blind minds
drenched stark to feel
live in you moments
find this place in your song
need in breathing
inches spanning hot heat
preservation
a ritual of rise and fall
arms length and clinging
break me into something new.

cropcirlces in the carpet

so it seems i can't put this theory to rest; ritual seals love. it just makes alot of sense to me, and truth be told i've experienced it enough times to know that there is a fair amount of validity in such a statement.

my question now is, is it possible to realize the power of ritual and therefore avoid it in attempts to not be victim of its effects? simply, can this person know, as i know, how ritual effects people and avoid its effects because they are aware that they are already experiencing some amount of feeling before the ritual has had time to substantiate itself.

i mean . . can we avoid ritual in order to deny our true feelings? if ritual seals love and we are already infatuated then we are obviously inclined to fear such "love" because we were not ready for even the infatuation.

if we are not looking for something and suprisingly stumble across it we will steal ourselves against it as a defense mechanism. but, if both people are acutly aware that this technique is a defense mechanism isn't it failry redundant to avoid said ritual.

so it is.

and so, if i am to understand it correctly, this person who is suprised and unprepared will sample the ritual/intimacy and then push it away in order to keep their feelings in check. (all the while preserving their vulnerability behind the vauge excuse of "not wanting to hurt" the other person)

is this a cop-out? a compromise? or even more painful because it takes a constant emotional reassesment of wants/needs/desires. and really, is it worth it? would it not be more gratifying to simply give in and make yourself ready for something before it passes by? or is this simply a away for preserving a situation until you are ready to deal with it?

all of this aside, how do i handle it? one of the best things i have found is running laps around grey area.
why can't we ever decide concisely what we want?

because we are always scared of the present mimicking the past. because people who are aware of their emotional weaknesses avoid being vulnerable. and what is a good situation but two people of equal vulnerability preserving eachother.

so is co-dependance all about preservation? most likely.

laughter; to stand it.

you can't save someone, but can you keep them alive by loving them?

not even loving - not even. can you sustain them by caring? is that too simple of a sentiment? or is that me being dillusional and falling back into the trap i love to hate? i might as well ask if you can presume need though physical action. or is our blood so conveluted with the exsistential predisposition towards lust that such a presumption is an imposibility? and if so how can you tell what is sincere and what is obligatory? what feels right versus what you know should be right.

maybe my real issue tonight is the expression of need. i spent years needing someone to need me - needing to be enough. funny thing, the second i recognized that and stopped needing it, he started to need me back. it was a confession to late and an ommision short lived.

how cliche.
i am at the same place i have been time and time and time and time and time again . . but this time feels different? or pathetically the same. . i have yet to decide which.


* * *

i went back. at one in the morning i went back to find out. its how it should have been to start with but it's too late. or how it's supposed to be. but part of me is curious? or nostalgic? or . . lonely.

i've cared so hard and he's still here; alive and in my life. but what is sustinance? a need or rather something that when obtained fulfills a need. so his need for me to care was fulfilled by my need for him to survive - which was consequently brought about by my caring for him regardless.

it's circular and profound.
and my desire to feel what should be right vs. what is right is in a sense null and void. right?

need is organic, lust is intrinsic but survival is always the goal. so does it even matter what gets us through? what makes us whole - or atleast creates the illusion of wholeness.

anchor: twice removed

how do you know when to worry about an absence of feeling? or about the perpetual presence of simple, superficial annoyance?

i save my emotional intensity for 3 situations. that '73 pinto, my dirty little secret, and the present (whoever/whatever that may be). not the healthiest way to experience things - but honestly what is?

the problem? i didn't feel anything tonight, not with the "secret." in fact i was almost annoyed that i was numb/dry - unfazed. it is simply the passive attempt at faking normalcy which i have come to perfect. tonight i longed for something or anything different. alien; not him.

i despise the present "situation" in its entirety, i don't want to touch it with a 10 foot pole. it's just so androgynous.

nothing i even remotly want.

and the "pinto" is now being used as a catalyst - as inspiration - to meet a deadline. emotionally i have been shut off. (atleast in the sense of living/evolving emotion, as i would hate to contradict the principles of inspiration and all. .) i'm eerily devoid of any sense of right/wrong according to him and flushed of all obligation. which is, as i've said, a long time coming and a good thing.

i pull them toward me; because i am lonely. i crave familiarity when it is at my disposal (which is rare), and i guess this is a desire to feel old comfort, it's taking bits and pieces of myself back after all these years.

(it's good, probably healthy. cut ties and get on with my life from here. but the feeling isn't settling well inside me. at least not right now.)

needless to say fragile identities are broken when the familiar is no longer. i've changed. . true. but so has the gravity of all of these relationships. so has the dynamic of need and want.

it's a poetic obligation?

to me that's fairly sad.

swords and honey

it's profoundly accurate that our memories (or verbal recalls - relaying stories) become a collaboration of what really happened, what should have happened, what we wanted to happen, and what we precieved to happen.

memories, in a profound sense, fuel our misconceptions, our false hopes, even our inacurate apprasal of situations and our actions toward them. if i, therefore, relay an evening, verbally, am i consiously skewing facts to paint a picture of what i wanted to happen? even if i hear myself saying it, thinking i should correct myself with additional information and i don't, is that just the inherint need for me to justify my desire?

i, by telling parts of a story to justify the whole, am there for fueling my own misplaced hopes. the ones that, like clock work, get let down later.

part of this could be my fear of interpersonal confrontation. and the dislike for setting myself up for things i don't want to hear.

but i'm thinking more along the lines of we can prevent, in someways our own heart ache if only we realize that half (potenitaly more) of it is self inflicted. if we declare every situation as raw and as it was. removing the should have and the wanted to we are only left subject to reality and perception. things we know we cannot change anyway.

i think the only way to overcome what we want to happen interfearing with perception is to acknowledge desire and the reality of that desire in the context of our situation.

by owning up to that desire upfront we have eliminated the extent of its subconcious power, because if you think about it, by rationalizing desire you are neutralizing it. because desire is flimsy, like lust, it only exsists in the realm of possibility and hollow security. if brought into the light and defined, by both reality and personal origin, then we are able to combat desire - for the most part- with rational thought and interventions of reality.

so . . if from memory we rely on what happened and what we percieved, in the imediate - the short run (which we all know evolves into the long run) - we have assesed a situation as purely as we can. from what happened and not what we wanted to happen. by removing the temptation of altering memory to justify desire we can spare ourselves mutual diapointment and misconstructed reality.

really, this turns "i want to be with you" back into "i had a great night"
it turns those flowers from devotion back to decoration.

clearly, im grasping at straws to save myself here.

burn's the same

i felt you
strangely unfamiliar
another shade
to my bleeding grays
extracting trust
a syringe, a threadbare lullabye
we're breathng and breaking
absorbed in gravity
so close to me i feel you running
from a barely whispered apology
the aftertaste of infidelity
scars from other strings
pull me closer to enough
for you
touch me again
i'm shivering.

somewhere to fall apart

so .. the bad memories make us human, the hurt makes us who we are. there is no way that intense emotional stress cannot shape you. your views, future actions, and personality. this i have found is, to most, more than common knowledge.

keeping that in mind what does revisiting the plane of identical emotional stress do to us? how does one revisit a past self and feel progressive? do you pose a detriment to all you have learned from a situation if you go back to it. and better yet, if you forgive someone does that forgiveness take the edge off the resentment? does even the slightest amount of curiosity or forgiveness then make you vulnerable to the same situations over and over.

but how can you function in society without forgiveness? eventually you would be alone and bitter, and while this is a stage we all go through, it is nothing permanent because we forgive.

insert the cliche, forgive but don't forget. it's not forgetting that is the issue, it's seeing clearly similar situations but thinking that because it was once forgiven it is now something manageable. that is to say, the same scene - post forgiveness- is different because of how it is viewed by the individual.

once processed and cleaned up, emotions can become dormant, and by the time they resurface it's to late to turn and run. there is no graceful exit once you realize forgiveness and strength are not synonymous.

forgiving hurt, accepting pain does not have to mean the re acceptance to naivety. in fact it's not that at all . . forgive me if i have not expressed that. i do think that, however personally gratifying and necessary the act of forgiving and accepting is, is it not also selfless. think about it, your saying "you know you stuck my heart in a three speed blender on high and i'm ok with it . . here try it again if you like."

and that is never the intent, i know. i know. but how can you help but not feel that way, even just alittle. don't you, by releaving another of their guilt (or hurting you) give a piece of yourself back to them. doesn't that say that you want them to have access to a part of you. even if it is just alittle part? and how is anyone ok enough with that to forgive whole heartedly?

i'd be willing to believe there are varying degrees of sincerity and motivation in each acceptance. but what i can't quite grasp is how one can be so selfless and so trusting to give someone 5, 10 tries to get something right?

so then how can i demand second chances? and how in heavens name can i turn someone away?

how can i be on both sides of the same coin and not trust either of them.
it's not as easy as an apology, and it's sure as hell not as easy as forgiveness.

but if you can't do either how can you move forward?



you can't. can you?

wine from a jam jar

redefined by never was
a stranger to this history.
sweet sweat we wore
like armour,
sword and sheild
to could be.
night wounds
hurt the guilty,
rusted scars of fidelity.
leave your potential with me
it lingers, it stings.
i've written this before,
same sound, different pen.

heartcenter

there are some people that you will always recognize.

i took the span of last week to go back home. not home like my house, home like the place that shaped my person. my sense of self and purpose. (i went home to Dance)

as i had hoped, the people who shaped my person, self, purpose, also came home. and it was better.

i saw, in a small window, what i had and what i loved. and losing atmosphere and interpersonal connection is a lot like losing yourself. it took me a long time to realize that there is a mourning process for that - you can mourn the loss of familiarity, you can mourn change of self and place and people.

it's a condescending balance.
the give and take of change and resentment.


i saw it, for a few hours a day i could fool myself into thinking that nothing had changed. the delusion of familiarity gave me a profound amount of clarity that i would have otherwise assumed would set me back three years to a person a barely know.

funny thing, things weren't the same, not at all really. sure the people had grown, taller/wiser/more bitter/less optimistic, and that atmosphere was a skeleton of what i should have been - what it was.

and i am a skeleton of what i was. but that even remote recognition made me feel what i was missing, what i was looking for. it cannot be recreated, it cannot be found elsewhere it just is. was.

acknowledging that is somehow now enough. because this time i left loving where i've come from, not hating what it made me. what it destroyed for me.

so yes, sometimes people are enough;
if you let them be.

sing me to sleep

you know those times where words come so easily out of your mouth you don't dare say a word? well that's where i am - and i don't know why.

normally when i am in these moods i retreat to my front porch with a cup of tea and a pen and paper. but my porch is miles away and my inclination to put pen to paper is dwindling. though, worry not, i do have the tea.

i'm at that point where no music, whether it jo stafford or the carpenters, sounds right. where i can't even stand the titles of the songs let alone the songs themselves.

and it took me one very little movement, the slightest nudge, to get me here. maybe it's the guilt of giving up on someone who's been a someone in your life for 5+ years. maybe it's realizing you never should have put effort into him to begin with. or maybe it's just feeling so detached.

that reattaching to something new detached. where you don't know what to define as familiar and what you should recognize as different. transitions i guess.

transitions of feelings? right - that's unfair. setting your mind for something new. well old new. familiar new. that's it: calculated risks.

that's all i am. i read situations too well not to know what i am getting into. its a dance with boundaries. the fred and ginger of free falls.


(billie holiday's "misty"? a song my indecisive self can hum too? this will be nothing some corona and an audrey hepburn marathon can't cure.)

decisions are for mondays and i have just given myself a 4 day weekend to seclude all prospects of emotional strangulation.

dirtiest clean i know

i'm gone.
i'm sorry
for all thats left of you.
this flame faltered
was fake,
like your need.
i felt,
you stained my hand.
burned low and steaming
you're drunk, i'm leaving.
here's to the last time
i write for you.
i'm running
frost's forks,
golden; thawing.
here's to the most of me
you never knew.
you choose, you choose
futily,
like your scripted to.
i'm sorry.
i'm gone.

cracker jack tattoo's

i would rather be someone to fall back on, than someone.

in the throws of water cooler conversation today i had a profound thought (suprised?)
i noticed that inorder to need people i push them away.

consequently, i thought, one can keep someone at bay with need. because once you have attained what you believe to be needing you have to own up to want. being wanted and doing the wanting. and that there makes for a breeding ground of actual emotions and tangible relations.

because lets face it, needs are much more justifiably in the face of large quantities of whiskey and "for-old-times-sake" two night stands.

if your only defense mechanism is to need then how does one recogonize the development of sincere attachment? they don't.
so then they are sitting here staring at the phone like i am - calculating the chances of getting voice mail vs. an actual person and a miriad of awkward silences.

i guess these past three posts have lead up to this ultimatly profound and anticlimactic thought. but now that this concept has been conqured - or if nothing more called out - i can take the appropriate steps to finally pick up the damn phone.

fences

what is enough?

not love obvously, any great movie will tell you that - ' sometimes love is not enough' (one of those reality meets cliche moments that we can all roll our eyes at)

but how is something enough to motivate us? satisfy? fulfill? convince? inspire? we cannont be convinced in enough - not truely, or for long. because convincing comes from an element of actuallity. one has to draw from the present or from present potential inorder to concoct something convincing.

so can potential be enough? can we subsisit soley on potential. no,eventually it must become an actuallity. because potential evolves into goal evolves into attainment or failure. either way potential is not a constant.

so then, neither is enough. we constantly need more - more of enough?
i feel like i'm in over my head.

you don't love, love is not your enough, and is has not been for a while. but 'enogh' does not even need to exsist in the realm of earth shattering emotion. what if need is enough. needing someone, something, that can need you back? is that a circle or a one sided battle?

i need to be enough for someone. so is my need to be enough intern enough for me? on a personal level?

i feel as though its more like walking up a down escalator. enough for an external variable is redundant until one is enough for onesself.

right.

so if enough is an obtuse concept than how do we fulfill ourselves with potential? if i cannot rationally need to be enough for someone else then how can i fulfill any personal sanity by needing enough.

so really what i've come to after all of that is this: if one cannot acheive fulfillment through the irational search for 'enough' then it is unfair to expect someone outside of yourself to be enough for you.

i just shut up, pick up the phone, and call.
then maybe i would get some sleep. or maybe not.

just stay the night

i feel as though i have a problem distinguishing between making my self happy and 'saving' others.

i use the word 'saving' sparingly because i, as anyone, realize that one cannot save another; the only person you can save is yourself. regardless, i tend to lose sight of this fact when in the thick of everything. this too i guess is partly my fault. - look at the feild i have choosen.

still . . when it comes to the sure thing or the instability of the wild card, i place my bets niavely. what mechanism in my head does not connect securtiy with happiness? in what way have i been happy watching people walk away from me?

but part of me has been happy, because i know each one of these people has heard me. heard what i am saying outside of any clinical boundry. the raw truth and attention to character in an intimate relationship draws you into a different part of a person. unfortunatly that is the part of a person that is skiddish. thats the part that runs. i'm personally aquatinted with a blur. (20,000 blurs and all i'm looking for is alittle clarity.)

so why do i feel like i am failing myself if i take a step towards simple, unabriged, black and white happiness? to easy? i have to work for it? or is it that i don't trust black and white - gray is safer because gray is familiar. it gives you leway, and time to think, time to run if you choose.

but searching for the part of someone to save is also familiar. i'm taking risks but i'm cowering at the same time. if i keep you so close to me, emotionally, you'll never stay. you are miles away on a different plain. delve into someones character, figure them out and know them like no one has tried and you'll be lucky if they stay around a month.

but i know this, and because i know this i am the coward. i keep people so close that i can;t touch them. so when i see someone who presents himself to me, time and time again, as selfsuficiant and uncomplicated. (he needs to be saved from nothing) why can't i take a step?

why can't i advocate a different familiar? a happiness perhaps. a satble routine to build an escape around. i could disapear from the 'resuce me' fucks and late night java hut sob stories and just be happy. maybe have a life outside of my personality?

it's not me. i can't leave a part of my person at "work". and i know this, that is the whole reason i know i am on the right carreer path.

really? is it so much to ask for just someone to step infront of me and say let me take the control for a bit. don't worry, i'll 'save' you.

yes it is. because i'm the only one to get me out of this rut. and if someone just steped in then obviously i would learn nothing about self.

fascinating, truely.

what have we learned jo?
"be an advocate for your own happiness. . step outside the box"

good.

'73 pinto

goodbye to the person i thought you could be:

i never knew what you were running from, though i had a multitude of theories, i still don't know. but i see it catching up with you, and that should scare you. or the little piece of you i can almost see. ( i know i'm scared for you) but i owe you an apology, because i fell in love with saving you, and i held on to what i thought you could be.

regardless, this is me walking away. maybe now you can see yourself as you truely are, or maybe you'll deni it. but it's no longer me in the way of you getting the help you need.

i can't save you, i never could.

not quiet love,
most of me.

i discovered, last night while fending off a piss drunk ex, that maybe i have always felt that i was never enough to one person because that one person was to much for himself. i so wanted to save him, so much that his problem became mine. . and it took me seeing him weak and pathetic, begging me to keep loving him, to realize that not only do i not love him any longer, but that i was so consumed with saving him from himself that i prevented him from gettig the real help he needed. i thought that if i turned my back on him that i would be kicking the chair out from under him, after i had already suffered through watching him tie the noose. but i realized, and heaven only knows why it took me 5 years, that my constatnly picking him back up, listening and advising, giving and giving, that i was preventing him from seeking the help he truly needs. whats more, my being there to reessemble his pieces ment no one saw him as he was when he was broken. no one see's his problem because he saves it all for me.

well, no longer.

how is he different from any of the other AA clients i've worked with? why is he suspect to treatment that is strictly unprofessional? is it because i "loved" him? (or loved his disaster)

or better yet . . because i loved who i thought he could be. i saw his potental, i saw the him he didn't want to know. and that is what i could have loved. and last night i looked at him and for the first time, and couldn't see that person. and i knew i had lost.

lost? it was a fight i could never win. it was never even a fight i was able engage in. it was always between him and himself. i just didnt want to see it.

now i see it. clearly. and i am no longer scared for me or my emtions. but i am scared for him, and what comes next. because one thing is certain: i will not be there to pick up his pieces.

dans la gare

fresh off AirFrance from 9 days in london/paris . .



removed
your replacement
spans of language
beg "enough?"

we spoke in movements
damp, together tones.
sane infringment
of consious action

strong and subtle clutch;
a poetic nomade
i carve, escaped,
a mental spotlight

for you, your own.

while you were gone.

it is no secret that perception . . and interpritation . .varies from person to person. i guess that would be part of that whole induviduality thing, of course.

but where is the line drawn from personal perception to the perception of other peoples interpretation? where inlies the beauty in art if one cannot get past the differance from induvidual to induvidual? perhaps this is where art is lost.

i hate to say that this thought came to me while talking to my mother, yes the touchy subject that is parent/child relations, the tense loathing that inhibits too long a stay at home. i had my last performance this weekend: there seemed to be a lack of empathy towards the fact that this was potentially my last show, the atmosphere also happened to be devoid of all artistic apreciation. appreciation towards one of my featured pieces depicting the "origonal sin" (you know that over synthasised 80's chant from the cinematic thriller "shadow")

my, not so bornagain, interpretation was of a corruption, a death in the purity of love, possibly the evolution of deception. still a fairly controversial piece. my mother and her fellow on lookers saw a 5.28 minute dance about a snake, a couple, and horrible brown spandex. why?

why can some people see that and others be moved to tears by what i saw. how can such literal art be lost on people. it comes back to perception; whether its literal, metaphorical or religious. it should evoke emotion. that is why i'm an artist, because as a dancer my job is to evoke an emotion. truth be told, i have yet to comprehend whether or not i just walked away from that job.

so maybe that is why i see the heaviness . .maybe because i see the coruption of my art in the evolution of deception. andhow could anyone else see that, i can't expect others to feel that. yet alone comprehend it. besides, to people like my parents, the only reason they experiance art is because for some mirical i have a proclivity for it.

and i forget too that appreiation is personal, and to share it is one thing but to expect it is another.

to expect it to owe you something is another. ones passion does not owe them anything but fullfilment, so when you are no longer fulfilled, is that a personal growth, or loss, or is it just a phase: to hate your passion.
"they" say love and hate are close emotions, so i can only assume that it is natural to hate what fulfills you. but what if you feel that inorder to maitain apreciation you should quit? stop while you're ahead.

then there must be something wrong? i never want to dispise what i think is beautiful because i feel like it gave up on me. but how do you not feel that way?

dancing owes me nothing, just like my performance owes nothing to the audience or their perception of my art. but then why do i feel like the only answers i value are from something that owes me nothing.

and therefore it won't give me any answers. is passion generous, or are we the genrous ones to it?

i'm supposed to be able to come up with these answers by now. but i'm just too close, to0 emersed, to even see it. if it's even there.

nothing to one

with poison pen

your addendum inked

an epitaph carved in rhyme

sweat black down the page

my fatal sent

choked by veils

shear, revealing

a Mata Hari and her monster.

a long fairwell to the hunger strike.

i'm a prisoner,
cuffed to familiar
with an almost belief
not a enough for religion.
you're the quicksand
of expectation
suffocating under skeletons,
the weight of wasted time.
i almost meant
what i didn't say
to save this place;
rescue possibility.
what we were in the mirror,
neither adequate nor compatible,
clowns among traitors.
we were always dancing alone.

keep me without chains

some one asked me what the difference between being alone - lonely - and isolated was and how could one escape it. i couldn't give an immediate nor decisive answer.

is isolation a byproduct of loneliness or just being alone? and then, is alone something you choose or a circumstance?

it seems to me that isolation is a choice. people don't choose to be lonely, or the feelings that go along with it ( ie. desperation, self pity, etc.). where as i would view isolation as intentional.

on the other hand, some may say they are forced to choose isolation because they force themselves to be alone (this i observed from one of 'my clients'). when one is so (self)absorbed with invisible "demons" how can one maintain a healthy connection with those on the outside. and how can those on the outside be expected to understand?

the conclusion i came to, when answering the above inquirer, is something i learned from one of my mentors when i was interning. ' when people hurt enough, they will change their own circumstance.'

that concept struck me profoundly: when people hurt enough. profound because "enough" is a measure of personal discretion.

enough is a finality, hard for the human conscience to accept. a point that many avoid. because realizing that something that has sustained you is also hurting you - and there for the pain you are feeling is self-inflicted - is debilitating.

but if you can get someone past a certain period of self loathing, or guilt then you can get them to the point of self healing. and is that not the ultimate goal? whether it's addiction, abuse, or simply desperately self inflicted lust or loveless love.

it always strikes me how all encompassing human complexity is.

"stay sugar, stay"

think of how little thought we put into everyday confrontation. when they're broken down interpersonal relationships are relatively complicated.

this, i realize, is basic psych. 101 stuff but it's one of those common sense subjects that we overlook because it's a natural part of our everyday. why dwell on what we think we already understand.

just because we understand something does not mean we can express the concept to other people, this dawned on me while at work doing exactly that: teaching people how to rebuild interpersonal relationships.

we had the group members break apart the objective, relationship, and self consequence of each interaction, analyze them and prioritize them. what was interesting was that these people, who have been inside their own heads selfishly immersed in addiction., still chose to preserve the relationship with the other involved than to get what they wanted or preserve their own self satisfaction.

this made me think that we are ingrained to need other people, that whether we know it or not we protect relationships on an instinctual level. to survive. this, it is apparent applies even relations of an unhealthy nature - especially ones of an unhealthy nature, simply because the emotional exchange is not as seamless/ more intricate and less subtle.

we need interpersonal connection to survive, not matter how much effort ones puts into denial and independence, and that is why even if we hurt we stay. because we need something to hold on too. we, as living, feeling, beings, need an exchange of emotions and an external expression of thought and feeling.

trust is there for survival? how else can we justify turning the same old painful situations over and over, granting trust to those who disappoint time and time again. maybe this is part of the reason. i'm willing to believe it.

for atmosphere:

how much of our emotions are simply situational?

par example,
you are at a funeral for a family member who might as well have been a familiar stranger yet you are overcome with grief, and you cry and show appropriate - ingrained - emotion at the service.

do you show emotion out of guilt? or compensation? or just because you know you should?

still more common place, what about ambition?
you've wanted something for the greater part of your life, and are ravishly encouraged to go after it, but when you begin to take action those supportive people start putting up the emotional caution tape. "we believed in you until we actually thought you'd try it"
if you all of a sudden doubt yourself were you simply feeding off the enthusiasm of those around you? or did you really love what you were doing?

ie. did i dance because people told me i was good at it or because i loved it. do i need it or just want to need it? and if i need it like i have always believed i do, then why does what anyone else says matter?

am i discouraged and all of a sudden doubting the practicality of my dreams because people and producers are telling me too? do i have conscious control as to what i feel when the atmosphere says to give up? and if that is what the atmosphere says; then is the emotional direction i choose to go - either fight harder or give up - reflective of my character?

what about relationships?
an old and unsuccessful flame all of a sudden looks more than appealing because everyone around you is in a successful and comfortable relationship. should circumstance alone make me feel lonely? and if so, is it possible that this selfconscious loneliness is projected onto circumstances that don't include "happy" couples?

how do you know if that's what you really want. is feeling alone and horny cause enough to re-enter a stable but already proven unsuccessful relationship?
better yet, if these doubts are supported by those around you and these tentative ideas of a reprise are embraced whats to stop you from not wanting it.

so really i just want to know how in control of my emotions i am. and if one is predisposed to uncertainty before confronting a situation how do you make an emotionally sound decision one way or the other?

cards stacked against us? or are we stacked against ourselves?

black cat philosophy

i did alot of travling last month which was, as it turns out, a waste my time.
ironically, i am right back where i started - maybe even a little farther behind than that:


does it humble me
when i drop for you
like storms of glass
in jagged collections
you save for me

your eyes soaked caffine black
i beam with hesitation
a mirror image
our persons pressed to parallel

in us there's a joker
both masters of the trade
clear judgement in the water
the actor and abuser
lusting objective and estranged.

sword and sheild

" the devil you know is safer than the chance you take with something new."

. . of course we are drawn to familiar things, but i think that we can also be drawn to things, people, even situations that we otherwise steal ourselves away from until they are right in front of us.

you say to your self that you will stay away, you won't go back, you don't want "this." but then you run right back to it anyway.

but you know, its safe territory, its ritual. etc. etc.

still, i think it's more than that.
maybe we fall into patterns - not even patterns we like or want - but patterns that are subconscious.

you keep people at bay with physical affection because it is easier than going through the whole emotional connection cycle.
you'd rather be alone and wanting. because if you are wanting something at least you are inspired. when you have what you want you fall into the ritual of comfort and therefor you loose yourself to this thing - this want - and you are unimpassioned.

because having what you want is a much less pleasing a thing than wanting.

and because it is human nature to want and to be impassioned. and one finds purpose in wanting and achieving . . therefor never being satisfied with acquiring what they want.

but then does this not make fidelity a moot point?
and if fidelity is a moot point then what else is? the foundation of human principles of familiarity and satisfaction are negated by our general inclination to constantly want.

so does that make us selfish? or does that make us human?

and if it makes us human . . whats that. really?

oh, hush hush . . voices carry

how is it that in attempting to solve a problem i have become the forbearing force behind it?

i am an "approachable person"
people "trust my judgement and advice"

- i have chosen the correct field of study, this i realize -

but what happens when, because these are your friends, you get too close. when it goes from "i have a perfect relationship but want to say this . . " to "i want out" and " i have realized i have stronger emotions else where"

and you know. you know exactly how good it would be if things were different.
but how do you remain an objective confidant when there is that under current? that tension.

this does not happen in clinical psychology because you patients start out as strangers - at least that is what would make sense to me. . snd the minuet i get out into the real practice i am sure that is inccorect but in a perfect world that would seem reasonable.

but this is different, and your lonely, and you're a little lost right now, and you're consumed by wanting fulfilment. so your natural inclination is to give in to these feelings you have started unearthing and finding reciprocated.

. . but can't and won't act on.

so then there is the flip side:

how do you forgive the inclination to turn back to something you had, because you know you are wanted. but you didn't really want this something, per say, the first time . . it just filled some space. so now you are not only looking to fill space but to keep yourself fenced in. and that's not "fair". but reasonably tempting. if you can restore some sense of order, and prevent emotional catastrophe then maybe you could lull yourself into something old for sanity's sake. no?

maybe too, you just want to prove that the reason it fell apart the first time wasn't your fault. or that you can fix your emotions to conform to simplicity for the next 5 months. or is it that you want to go back and take fault for things you can justify. to prevent further fault on your part in a new situation. familiar guilt is better than uncharted guilt right?

but whether it's familiar or desired or spontaneous it's always the what-ifs that keep you turning around.

or keep you tied down.

mock me with praise

i haunt a smoke screen game
ember red hands,
trail black ash lies
a succubus to posses your lust
poisoned porcelain bite
fire in my eyes to burn you
melt like wax for me
I'll shape you into
who ever you want to be
dance in the darkness
don't hold out here
you stole me
wrapped my attention
and purged me
from a Novocaine state
arrested to this
dried heat
this disorienting fog
embarrassingly kidnapped
to the hope
you'll teach me to feel.

i won't be your winter

it's so cold here.
literally and metaphorically:

the snow is so high and blowing so far that you can't see a foot in front of your face, we're class canceled and housebound for the remainder of the night.

on the metaphorical hand, i feel so drained and numb that i can't see a foot beyond anything/one, i drift through routine actives and interpersonal association on autopilot.

if feel like if someone knows they can't make you smile sincerely then they won't find you enticing enough to commit emotional effort to . . or maybe that's my problem.

i don't deem anyone worth getting my hopes up for. (or if i do, i quickly find out that i was wrong.)

how is it that as a person who is prepared to spend her life connecting with people, can't even see the sincerity in the people she has surrounded herself with for the past four - six years?
is it just that you know what to expect? it's boring, unexciting, because know you have know that what you re looking for is something other than what you have.

but if you can't get over that, how are you going to survive these next few months? you have to force yourself to hope? because if you give up looking, you'll be alone. . but looking too hard leaves you alone as well - probably lonelier.

alone is not bad, but to much time inside your own head is, and lonely is five steps away from desperate, which is right around the corner from drunken flirting and a load of poor decisions related to the prior.

so to renew your hope in something you put yourself back out there and get attached, only to realize that who this something see's is not you. - or not how you want to be seen - because you're not feeling, and you always know when you are purposefully hardening yourself to a situation. we all have an asshole we bring out to deal with these kinds of situations, and that's what people see.

i'm detached and frequently face the inability to feel anyone, ive become less approachable . . those are things that i have never been. and maybe it's just that i am waiting for someone to see it, and pull me out of it. but who i am i to rely on other people that way? how selfish, right?

you have to get beyond the coldness, the hard defense mechanism that is routine. and even for a little while, find someone that makes you want to change. there is something to be said for seeing personal potential . . you're old self will always be there . . i know who i was, know i want to know who i am. i think that's fair.


in conclusion, my thoughts have become circular, and consequently redundant.

a two seated vehical

how is it we, as a general speices, keep a lid on temptaion. yes, conscience is a strong arguement, but so is self satisfaction . . what stops us from acting on impulses we know we can get away with?

maybe we like being tempted, enjoy wanting and chasing so much that the catch is underminingly meaningless.
but when one is consumed in the chase, in the flirting and the game playing, does it not make sense for one to be consequently unfuliflled?

and yes, unfulifillment can be intentional for whatever reason but it gets old fast and it takes alot to rely completly on yourself and love happy best friends. eventually you need another person. if nothing more than for a boost of self worth and consistent companionship.

i don't think that being with someone means loving them, or atleast it does not require the intention of loving someone. sometimes its just easier to be the other person.

a consistent "other" person. because relying on a handfull of "booty calls" and once-a-month jackasses leaves something to be desired.

and once you realize that you "desire" more, you will no longer be fulfilled with what you have been living off of. and i guess that makes sense.

i've been a believer that consistency seals love, but the consistency of inconsistency - i am willing to believe - seals bitterness.
in seeking a constant, am i seeking love? - probably - but do you have to want what you are seeking, do you even have to be conscious of it? - no - i'd be willing to believe that unconscious want is something like wishful thinking, we know it's important, but cast it aside.

so maybe if i start to give in to my desire for consistency and less to the inclination that is the chase, i'll land somewhere i should be.
and maybe end up happy, and if not then nothing more than satisfied will do.

leftout greys

if you did not value something the first time you had it, say you just used it for a superficial distraction the first time, how can this same something have value a year later?

when you face the same person, the same general scenario after you've been removed, but not necessarily disassociated from it, how do you not give in to the same perception as before.

is it bad to put yourself into a situation that you have complete control over? simply because you can't seem to control anything else around you.
you purposely search for something to hold on to, some form of mild consistency, just because everything else has disappointed you, changed and slipped away.

or is it worse, that these same feelings ( restlessness, frustration, loneliness, inadequacy, lust, ) lead you to grasp onto false hopes and hold on for dear life.

on one hand, you will be disappointed because you are unfulfilled, bored. and on the other, you'll be waiting and boarding the emotional roller coaster that is hope for the umpteenth time.

either way, only 5 months until i'm gone from here for good.

so i ask myself why it matters. .
and i know that it's simply because
i want it to matter.

it's as though, currently, i am bidding my time. waiting for everything - due to circumstance out of induvidual control - so what about now? what happens to the "me" sitting here right now, who doesn't have anything together.
knowing what you want and having faith you can get it is one thing. but knowing what you want and having to wait for a piece of paper and a plane ride is another.

what happens now? all i know is that i am not feeling anything, except for restless inadequacy, and desperate frustration, i've fallen to a diet of lackluster poetry and cheap beer.

there's more than this. .
something to matter to me, something new and right now.

please, don't you walk away

what's tangible has motion lines
rapid and blurry
a single sound you spin around
watching, reaching, out of habit
envelope consistency
like Alice and the rabbit
chasing what refuses to be caught
sand escapes extremities
reality numbed
watching for too much to care
letting go to feel it
be it
in it
as it slips away

do you ever feel like we're running out of time?
(and not the other way around. . )

romantic how we fail

you won't be the glass
to cover me
claustrophobic bindings intertwine
hands moving backwards
across your Timex face
mechanically watching
these actions far removed
shatter and submerge
miss. trust, miss. take
altered egos with fright and lust
stop but don't reverse it
warnings chime,
the pumpkin arrives
without a slipper, without shame
watch me now,place your bet
i'm a graceful disaster
with a stopwatch on regret

the safer devil

take mannequin hands

cold, smooth, mass produced
without windows and smiles

whitewashed, removed truth

hand painted layers

thick satin vermouth

a shallow fix to leave you hardened

given freezer burned touch

sound an inner time bomb tick

smother this plastic

sincere, hungry heat

swim in this plaster - it melts

touch me flesh to flesh

remember stone what it is to feel

take two to moments

indescribably real.

precious little meltdown

feel you move me, use me
harsh focus in the rolling heat
inspired to evaporate
give me something i can use
tear it out of me
i'm screaming
give artistry to bleeding
crave me, blame me
with porcelain eyes
and dahlia smile
replace me.
round my edges
make me see through.
break me like you love to
leave before i'm cold.
your pire to fidelity
exchange me, erase me.
leave a mark, invisible
make it deep, make it breath.
twist this scene into your puppet strings
see how i splinter?
scatter me, rearrange me
suspend me here - make something out of me.

give me somebody to dance for

i think i forgot.
i forgot why i do this, and every now and then when i get a glimpse of someone inspiring and passionate i remember that that is how i was and how i still want to be.
i don't even know how to get back there anymore.

i don't know what happened to me, or my priorities.

i think i need a change of scenery, something new to inspire me. safe from routine and the same nagging voices.

it's not that i am externally motivated necessarily, its just that i am effect by all the negativity i am around. it's atmosphere that motivates me, not people - that's it.

i hate that i am powerless to change my surroundings for another semester and hate that i am subject to these surroundings. the impatience, and the judgment, and the goddamn politics of this place are killing me.

no, you know what's killing me?
i forgot and i can't remember - not without help.

i don't want to be helped. that's the thing of it -
not wanting what you need.

how do you get around that?

hold your breath

need to see the muse in me?
want to find a song in me?

hold your breath
you know how
we've learned not to expect
what we want
burn your bridges with inspiration
clingto starving dreams
and move to the bright lights
where steal turns mute
disbelievers
the roaring smog
full of whats best for you
it's impracticle
to crave believers
please over look these eyes,
these ripping seams.

maybe's not a deep breath
no, could be's not a song.

we put ourselves in these places, where we know we could be happy. where we will be inspired and enticed, even though we know that it can't happen. or that - for what ever reason - it wont happen.
but maybe it's enough to see that you could be happy.
prospect - renews hope? atleast alittle.

i prefer the worst of you

You’re fangs are laced
With poisonous metaphors.
Grace this porcelain
with the scar you ache to leave,
stain this claustrophobic bitterness
with deception.
In low tones
that draw me closer to the kill.
Look at these medusa eyes
craving inspiration from the dark
Grace the light,an invisible shadow.
Meet me half way,
you’re winning my game,
polished marble won’t turn to stone.
Melt me with immortality.
My life in your hands, my heart in your teeth.

who destroys you

people are funny. maybe people are selfish. or just pathetic.

you see someone and expect to get your entire conscience mind seductively ripped out and shoved in a blender, when in fact there is noripping or blending.

but because you had braced yourself for it, and in a sick way almost looked forward to such consistency, you almost craved it.

crave is a delicate term, crave implies addiction, and who are we if we crave what deteriorates us (in an over dramatic emotional sense)
because such deterioration is dependable and comfortable?

but i am not deteriorating, berating myself for a lack of moral sense, or even feeling the least bit betrayed.

it was like storing up the anticipation for a later date, "hey right now i just want to sit next to you and be near you, but i know you know i want to fuck you."

it's a strategy, like in any other game, to keep you wanting more, clever and effective and in some cases completely unintentional.
and maybe i should not analyze these steps and appreciate the fact that i maintained some form of emotional clarity tonight, and realize that monthly midnight phone calls and stolen evenings don't constitute anything near love, but part of me feels a need too.

because over thinking means you are churning emotions, i want to hang on to something that i define as tangible and for once not accept it only to harden myself to it.

i guess that sometimes it's enough just to call, because i know you have nothing to say but wanted to call because a call means "I'm still here, and i hope you didn't forget me" - in both a sentimental and sinister context - because if you are thinking, (or missing? which may or may not equal craving?) then you are still caring. and maybe that is the only point that was important to communicate.

and maybe we are growing up, or maybe we are tired of hurting each other in the same ways.
i know, and have always known that it's okay not to talk, and just have conversations with your eyes. read each others minds, and take pleasure in just that simple fact . . knowing someone without saying a word. even if words are necessary.

sometimes you just want to know that a person is within reach, even if you are not reaching for them.
. . simple minded consistency and all that jazz.

never mind

bare yourself
in/to stolen moments
foster an interal monster
you carry glutton in that basket
feeding something hollow
fading to a distant
. . never mind
starving from the inside
"the better to emaciate you my dear"
attack the numbness
for a curse, for a cure
such foreign novicane
to make you beautiful
thriving on sensation, shatters the mirror
ferocious denial looks through the pieces
you're the wolf.
you're the cape.

almost honest, once

(take two)

hummor the hell out of me "baby"
let's cheapen the act
to stolen moments
before we count back
beats to sleep too
heat to forget our names too
we're hollow, we're cheating
making and breaking
this game apart.
we'll take this to pieces
fragments with which i'll haunt you
i'm poision to your illusions
cowardace brings out your eyes, "baby"
if you won't dance
there are others behind you.


- - - - - -


(take one)

i'm desprately independant
clinging to night mind excuses
we'll push this inclination to belief
don't look for her here
i'm poision to your illusions

no canvas for your paint brush
i'll be exactly what you expected
familiar and disdainfully opaque
i feel what you're to blind to see
but i still turn you on


fill me with whatever you want to say
in this space so bare, hollow
you should try and smile
oh "baby", if you don't want to dance
there are other's in line behind you.

i'm trying to beat this writers block
it's a skitzophrenick idea that needs some work . . but its a start.