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?