Molasses and Moby, "Porcelain"

Moby, “Porcelain”

In my dreams I'm dying all the time
As I wake its kaleidoscopic mind
I never meant to hurt you
I never meant to lie
So this is goodbye
This is goodbye

Tell the truth you never wanted me
Tell me

In my dreams I'm jealous all the time
As I wake I'm going out of my mind
Going out of my mind

— `phfina commentary.

Why didn't Moby just name the song: "Me," that is: "Me," as in: "Melissa"?

Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm not what you think I am or what you think I can be, even as I try to say it. I'm not this prancing prowling panther who can be strong and powerful. I'm not well. I'm not happy. I'm not fine.

Look, all I am is a little China doll, all Porcelain ... I'm the hero in Unbreakable ... that is: Mr. Glass, as fragile as that. You look at me, you breathe at me, I turn into the dust and ash that I am, and float away, in a million pieces.

So, when you ask me to be strong, when you say, 'I don't believe you're fine like you say you are,' ...

Well, no duh!

And then, ... okay, then you guess the town I live in, and the exact fucking sbux I may or may not have worked in ...

And then, you say, 'oh, I'll just pop by for a visit and say hi ...'

Brenda popped by to say hi at the sbux I worked at ...

... once.

That's when I changed my name and changed where I worked.

After I almost ended back at the hospital.

And what did she do? Nothing! okay? Nothing. But you know, after what happens happened and ... well, she wanted more from me ... she wanted me to be more than I could be, what I can be ...

I can't be her dead husband from Desert Storm, or whatever, okay? I can't be this person that gives you all this strength. I can't be this person who was you so broken over whatever but who overcame her stuff and prevailed and look, `phfina made it, and wrote exactly what I went through, and if I could just talk with her, or not even that, but just order a coffee from her, and say, 'hi, I know who you are, and what you wrote touched me so much, and thank you!' and not be all fan-girly but just say that to her, and maybe touch her hand, and maybe ask was she's doing after she gets off work, and maybe just go out with her to an art gallery this weekend like she so bravely did instead of staying in her apartment, you know? Just go out with her, and hold her when she's got the shakes and pull her hair back when she's puking, and hold her through the night, telling her how much I love her, and how I would take care of her, and check in on her, and make sure she's everything she can be, everything I know she can be, because she's so timid and fragile, that she needs somebody like me to push her out of her shell and push her out into the world, where I'll publish her book and she'll be world-famous and rich, and millions of people will know her like I do so they all can ask for her autograph and her advice on their life and identify with her and scrutinize her every move and advise her what's wrong with everything she does: when she hides, she's withholding, when she talks with the paparazzi, she's stupid (you answer questions right off the cuff about 'your career' or 'the situation in Haiti' or 'politics in Washington D.C.' quote-correctly-unquote every time and perfectly!), when she goes out with a friend, they are going to get married (!?!?), when she goes to a charity thing, she's fake (!?!?!)

Fuck, how can Kristen Stewart or Stephenie Meyer do this?

And you're just one person, deeply touched by my words, caring for me, offering me your advice and your heart. You're just ten people. You're just one hundred people. You're just one thousand people. You're just ten thousand people.

Every month. More than ten thousand people visit my profile, reading my stories, whether I 'update soon' or not. And look, okay? I'm griping, ... AND I'm grateful!

Okay?

Look, Ten-fucking-thousand readers ... every month?!?!

How many ffn writers want that, besides every single one of them? I'm more popular than better writers than me. AND I don't write ExB AU/AH smut fics with a mention of Sartre to get the guaranteed 10K+ review-love. I write fucking Rosalie femslash guaranteed fail-fics.

Who wants to read about that bitch?

You do.

And thank you.

But.

I'm not ...

I'm not win. I'm fail, okay? I'm a fucking loser. And that means I'm not you, bc you're making it, somehow. Maybe you don't know how, and maybe I don't know how, but you're making it.

So ... me? Pinning your hopes on me?

Do you know what you're doing for me? Hoping me into something I'm not? That I'm so not? Wishing me well?

Listen, I'm not "a good example" for the next generation. I'm not somebody to look up to. I'm not a project. I'm not something you can fix or make better.

I'm a lost cause. And when you hope for me, it's so, so sweet of you, and this is my reaction ...

"This is goodbye."

And I look at getting on a plane — something I've never done — and not flying off to another country where I don't speak the language ... like Greece, no: I would get on a plane only with the guarantee that it runs out of fuel over the Atlantic, and everybody on board — especially me! — dies, you got that?

Look, I worked up the courage to wish a fb friend a happy birthday, and my reward for my courage? I got savaged! Okay? She was all like, I have one thousand friends, and "who are you," Miss Nobody? and "Whatever floats your boat." and "lol" and text-speak that I hope nobody in my generation really uses to speak, but there it is.

This is my reward for reaching out, for wishing somebody well?

And you say, "Oh, but it would be different with me."

No, it wouldn't. You so don't understand. You are not the problem, don't you get that?

I know exactly where the problem is. And I know what happens when kind, caring, loving people try to fix it.

I fuck them. I so fuck them up ... that .... that ...

Look. You can't fix what's broken, and you can't make yourself better by making me better, 'cause this is what happens. You get hurt when I pick on your so-visible sores, then you lash out from your hurt, and you get hurt when you see you hurting me.

And I get to say: "See?"

And I shut down.

And I kill you off.

And then you can't do this alone, you need me to be here, and I'm so gone. And you marry a person that is there for you.

Or you say 'fuck off and die, bitch!' and throw the trash out. And I leave, hurt, and you throw me out, furious.

And then you come to your senses, realizing what you did from your hurt, but I'm so long gone already, and have left no forwarding address, and you call my mom every fucking week to ask how I'm doing, hoping I'm doing well.

Hoping. Hoping, hoping, hoping I'm doing well, and maybe, if I'm town again, sometime, I could stop by and ...

Kate, anyone?

Look, you're not up to the job of asking me 'how are you?' or 'I miss you, write something!' or ' ...

Or whatever.

What are you up for? I have no fucking idea, bc if you ... if you dared to be you, and not this constrained, hopeful, helpful, timid person you are ...

Mountains would move out of your way.

But this? Me? This me?

Save your breath, save your effort, save yourself.

You have to be strong enough to be yourself, and be happy with that.

And, honey, most of you aren't, especially those of you who want to know how I'm doing, with the hope that it will make how you're doing better.

How I'm doing won't make you better. How you are doing is the thing. That's what I want to know, and that's what some of you get, sometimes, when you go out and get that gf, or save lives, or say, 'Hey, `phfina, how ya doing? Hey, guess what I just did! I just ...' and you tell me how you moved and changed the world.

Look, I can't save you. The only thing I can do is drag you down to hell with me, and ...

Ha. Hahaha.

The only thing I'm good at doing is writing about it in all its specific and gory details.

I can't save you. You can save you, though. And when you do, you save me. And when you don't, and you depend on me, or fix me, or hope for me, trying to save you by proxy ...

Well, that's all you're left with: a proxy. A proxy is not a rope to pull you out of the sh!t. A proxy is maya, and leaves you stuck down there.

That's all I am, okay? I'm illusion. I'm nothing. I'm chimera. I'm Lila.

And I, Lila, the dance, will dance with you, and it is a wild dance, but it is a dance of death and destruction, and the longer you are in this dance, the more wild it is, for I am quite the dervish, inexhaustible in my ever-enticing novel songs of woe, but the whirling only spins us further down the spiral that has a terminus in only one place.

Hint: you don't need to bring a toaster; it's rather warm down there.

Save yourself. Don't care about me. When I say, 'I'm fine,' don't pursue with inquiry, no: just disengage.

Otherwise ...

I will suck you in and destroy you.

I have proof. Lots of proof. And you may say you are strong, but the strong ones walked away, under their own power, remembering, or not remembering, that wild, sometimes fun, ride they had with that kitten-panther.

How am I doing?

Actually, this is one of my better days. The weather outside is nice and warm with a slight breeze. I think I'll go out for a walk in the park later that is right next to the sbux that I may or may not have or do work at.

Sh!t. Now somebody's going to look that up, figure out it's "Greensprings gardens" and show the fuck up, order a coffee and tell me they know who I am, and how am I doing?

I think I'll move to a State that starts with a "C" ... other than "Connecticut."

... too many dead bodies there, waiting, hoping, for me to come back there.

Or maybe I'll move to a State that starts with "M" ... other than "Maryland," which is too close to where I live now, so you still might find me by expanding your search area by a few miles.

Fuck. I feel sick to my stomach. All I want to do is hide, and there's nowhere to hide, and I can't breathe.

That's how I feel, thank you so much for asking, and why can't you just be fine with 'I'm fine'?

That not good enough an answer, then how about this one: "I never meant to hurt you / I never meant to lie / So this is goodbye / This is goodbye" and as I sing this, I see the glass, the porcelain, that is me shattering into dust and echos.

How's that for an answer?

You not happy with that answer? You not grateful that I'm being honest and open with you?

Guess where that unhappiness is coming from?

... and you're going to make me all better, coming from where that unhappiness is coming from?

It's been tried before. More than several times.

And I am a panther. The predator is lightning-fast in sensing weakness. I do eat my prey.

... In other news, ... I've thought of a new story. A retelling of a fairy tale. It's a 'one-shot.' A `phfina one-shot.

*sigh* ... that sigh means: 'maybe I'll get to it after I reply to all the reviews and PMs and finish all the other incomplete stories I've got dangling, entangling me, snaring me with their need to be finished.'

I think ... I think the only good thing I can do for myself and the world is finish one thing: me.

Yeah, it's a good day, as long as I don't think about myself and how I'm doing. Thanks for asking and caring. I wish I could measure up to a person who could answer your concern worthily.

You wanna know what set all this off? Besides "How are you, ... really?"

Molasses.

I mentioned molasses in my last recipe, and not one of you said one thing about that.

You know what I've made that mean? If I had molasses in my pantry up North, I would be savaged. I would be asked what the fucking hell was that fucking shit and what the fucking hell was it doing in my house?

That's how people up North talk: right in your face and with the eff word used as a verb, noun and adjective, but do you see how fucked up I am? I say molasses, and you didn't say a peep. That means to me that it's situation normal. I'm a sweet little Southern belle to you, aren't I? I don't have a home to go home to now, anymore, because I've acclimatized to my new environs. I can never go back to that cold, austere New England I grew up in, 'cause I would be a stranger in a strange land, looking for molasses. No, I've blended right into the background here, a little barista — littler than you; littler than me — handing you your drink and wishing you well on your day as you're out the door, not even seeing me as you take your cup, not even missing me when I off myself, 'cause somebody else, just like me, will be handing you your cup tomorrow. I'm just a Southern girl, using molasses in her recipes, writing her silly little smutfics, just like Louisa May Alcott, aka Jo March, wrote her smutfics for women's magazines to make a pretty penny turning on all those ladies in their petticoats, wetting their knickers, and I'm not even getting paid for this, what I'm pouring my heart out into and for what reason, for why am I doing this?

I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know anything anymore. All I know is: "As I wake I'm going out of my mind / Going out of my mind."

That's how I'm doing.

Happy?

I ... it's hard to swallow right now ... I don't know how much longer I can hold it together.

And, no, thank you. I don't want your help. One thing help does: it hurts you, irreversibly, and it hastens my leap over the edge of the precipice. My last suicide attempt was acted out when I was in therapy.

So don't come near me to comfort me. I'm terrified already, and I don't need to add to my burdens and yours, saying the things I see from my tunneled vision when I see you approach, talons extended.

I wonder. I wonder how many people are willing to accept an answer they aren't expecting when they ask "How are you?" I wonder how many people are willing to be fine with the answer given from the heart, and not say, 'no, you don't feel that, nobody could be that fucked up,' or 'no, you aren't that, nobody's not nothing, you're better than that, and you know it,' but can just accept where the person is coming from? Can just see the person where they are, and simply be with that? Just be a body and catch a body in the rye? 'Catch' ... or meet a body in the rye. Whatevs.

I know. I know. It's mirror time for me.

"I am beautiful. I am smart. I am loved. I am a writer. I am a writer like no other. I touch people's hearts. I bring happiness to people's lives, and comfort in their despair and loneliness."

Yes. I know. All that's true. I do. I am of service, and, serving, I do bring something to you, that would be missing, lost, if I didn't dare to step out.

And that is a comfort now, when I think on it.

And someday, maybe, I'll have a good, happy, Spring day, where I will walk in that unnamed (sort of) park, and smell the flowers, and look up at the sky, and be, and be happy, and write something sad, or happy, or smexy, or funny, or serious, and will save another person's life, and I will preen and prance, the proud panther that I am. Today is a nice, warm, grey cloudy, New Englandy day. Maybe that day will be today.

Can you be patient with me, when I am sad? So you can rejoice with me when I am glad?