Is there for honest Poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that;
The coward slave-we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that.
Our toils obscure an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The Man's the gowd for a' that.
What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an' a that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man's a Man for a' that:
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, an' a' that;
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.
Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that:
For a' that, an' a' that,
His ribband, star, an' a' that:
The man o' independent mind
He looks an' laughs at a' that.
A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that;
But an honest man's abon his might,
Gude faith, he maunna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities an' a' that;
The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.
Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That Man to Man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.
Robert Burns.
— `phfina analysis:
Oh, to be a man, and to laugh at princes, and titles, and what comes what may, and still to be a man, for a' tha'.
But to be a woman. To be me. When what comes what may, but what is left to fall back on?
It's Christmas season, when Santa makes his list, and checks it twice, and all good little girls and all good little boys think about game consoles, bicycles, with training wheels, and maybe a pony.
And `phfina's thoughts, traditionally, turn to suicide.
I caught myself. Thinking that, and all that, and I just went right there, spiraling down into the circle of despair.
And then I said: no.
I said no. I am not determined by ... by anything, Ladies and Gentles. I am not determined by my chemical composition, by the faux-festive 'holi'day season ('Buy more! On sale!'), by other people and what they do, or don't do, to, on, around, or near me.
And so, I was riding home on the bus, and I cranked it, my ghetto iPod. You know that loud music Bella Swan was listening to as she was figuring it all out in Twilight? For legal reasons, Steph couldn't mention it in the book, but she's given interviews saying it was Linkin Park's Meteora. So, it worked for Bella Swan, so I cranked that puppy, got off the bus, and screamed out the lyrics as I ran home, full tilt.
Heh, must of been funny, for oncoming traffic to see this, what?, this little banshee just running, and screaming and smiling so hard, so full of joy. I may have it bad, but not as bad as those guys, with all their millions (of fans) (and dollars), and a' tha' spewing their lyrics of self-hate:
"It's easier to run
Replacing this pain with something more.
It's so much easier to go
Than face all this pain here all alone.
Something has been taken from deep inside of me.
The secret I've kept locked away, no one can ever see.
Wounds so deep they never show, they ever go away,
Like moving pictures in my head for years and years they play.
If I could change, I would. Take back the pain, I would.
Retrace every wrong move that I made, I would.
If I could stand up and take the blame, I would.
If I could take all the shame to the grave, I would."
Linkin Park, Meteora, "It's easier to run" © ™ ® ... don't sue me, it'll cost you way more money to do it than you'll ever get out of me, anyway.
But check the vid (and, yes, do I ever check more than a few vids) of them making the album, there they are, these kids, about my age? older? younger? with a graffiti artist with their wives and babies and fan girls and production team. Happy, active, creative. Being. Doing what they are doing because they are following their vocation.
I mean, Meteora, right? It came right out of Heaven into our hands, and there it was, perfection, from beginning to end, for every goth grrl with combat boots and a convincing snarl ...
(... which I am so not ... there was just such a girl on the bus ride home: big, tall, black nail polish matching her black combat boots and black leather jacket, and henna in her hair, and little me was more than a little fearful of yon warrioress) ...
And for everyone who listens to that album for whatever reason.
And then there's Gorillaz Plastic Beach and, of course, being Gorillaz, it's ... 'alternative' and ... 'experimental' ... and perfect, coming down from Heaven in a pristine jewel case right into my ear buds.
But then, looking at the making of Plastic Beach vid (again, `phfina, watching vids ... yes, I am a perv, and thank you for sharing), you see how hard it was.
How hard it was.
See, we have Plastic Beach to listen to and to admire.
Gorillaz? They had to make it. Just like Linkin Park had to make Meteora.
And what did they make it from?
Watch the vids.
They made it from absolutely nothing.
They had nothing to start with. Nothing at all. And they struggled, and fought, and discussed, and revised, and threw away a ton of stuff, that they kept trying and trying and trying to make it just right and just perfect starting from absolutely nowhere and not having a clue of where they were going with all this.
And.
I mean, it's not enough, the terror of the blank page staring at you, my dear authoresses, even though that is enough to kill more than 90% of us, and with that figure I'm being generous ... or conservative, ... or whatever.
No, it's not just that, the absolute terror of emptiness that creativity faces when it stares at the blank page or canvas or staff.
Although it's more than enough to kill us, right, Vincent? Seymour?
No, what's worse is that there is all that. All that.
A man's a man, for a' tha'.
But there is a' tha'.
A man, or even a little girl like me, has to face a' tha'. Linkin Park had [Hybrid Theory] and then the even more awesome [Reanimation] and in the face of all that success and expectation they had to create Meteora (without the brackets). Gorillaz, omg, Gorillaz with album after album of success and praise, and they had to throw it all out, all of it, and then they had to create Plastic Beach.
Men. All of them. And one little girl named Noodle, facing all that, all that expectation (which translates as: if you don't measure up, we will be disappointed, and you are worthless and should just kill yourself), and the blank page.
And creating.
And when I say, 'creating,' I mean 'creating.'
Do you know what I mean?
No, you don't. Because you're stuck in your life being a human being. "What can one person do?" you justify.
Creating. Doing something other than what the already almost certain future contains for you. Seeing your past, clearly, for what it is, and what it isn't, and putting the past into the past, and seeing the future for what it is ... not.
Because the future? It doesn't exist until you create it. It truly is really 'not'. But then you create it, and then it is: and right now. And, ladies and gentles, make no mistake, you create your future, every second of every day. You choose to continue doing what you've always been doing, living the life you've always been living, or you choose to step out, on faith.
Into the abyss of the new.
Scary there. I know.
... sometimes.
And the new? Funny thing about the new. It's right here. It's right here in front of you.
All you have to do, is to see it. And it's there.
Even in a' tha' ... even in the every day humdrum. It's there. The new.
The time is now 1:34 am. I'm going to go to bed. And then I'm going to wake up tomorrow, and do exactly what I did yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. And so are you.
Or.
Or I'm going to surprise myself, and wake up, and do the same-old, and then, when I settle in/down/for, I'm going to perk up and say, 'hey, I'm going to ...'
And surprise myself. And be. And live. And see things, really, for the first time in my life.
And so can you.
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
I'm Free
I was in a sammich shop, getting a sammich, when this oatmeal and barley guy (definitely granola) starts strummin' away on his guitar the following song:
She's a good girl: loves her mama
Loves Jesus and America too
She's a good girl, crazy 'bout Elvis
Loves Horses and her boyfriend too.
This doesn't describe me at all. I'd have to be a good girl, now, wouldn't I, for this song to be about me. But then he sang this:
Now I'm free, free fallin'
I wanna glide down over Mulholland
I wanna write her name in the sky
I wanna free fall out into nothin'
Gonna leave this world for awhile.
And I'm free, I'm free fallin'
Free fallin' now I'm free fallin' Free fallin' now I'm free fallin'
"Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty
— `phfina analysis:
You really do want to know, so I'll tell you. Why you want to know, I have no IDEA! But you do, so you can tell me how fucked up I am, and so I put in all this effort to tell you, really and truly, what's going on in here in this nothing that is me, and what do I get for it? I get punished for trying, so why even try?
Why. even. try.
When I heard that song, the unchewed food in my mouth turned to ash, and I had to go. There are anvil clouds overhead and a good, cold stiff breeze, and I should be happy, as I am the wind and I am the water, and I am in my elements.
So why are there tears falling down my face. 'I am water,' I say, and all I do is cry, but I haven't cried in weeks, and now it's hitting me. Hard. 'I am air,' I say, so all I do is talk-talk-talk, that's all I do, that's all I am, wind and water, tears and air. Nothing.
I saw it, a vision so hard, in that sammich shop that I had to leave my unfinished meal, I had to get out of there away from people.
I was ...
Remember "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"? At the very end, that little waif of a girl at the temple carved into the cliff's edge, looks out into the air, whispers
"Goodbye"
and jumps.
I am on the edge of the cliff, looking over, looking forward, looking down into the abyss. I don't have to look back. I am not that girl who had a devoted lover calling out for her to stay, willing to help, to be there for her. I have nobody behind me.
And then I raise my arms and I ...
It's a chemical imbalance. I tell myself. I'm chemically imbalanced, and the silence has worn me down so I listen to that not so little voice in my head telling me exactly what I am and exactly what I have to look forward to, and those two things are the same thing.
And I know who to blame for keeping myself an arm's length from any and everybody trying ... or not trying ... to reach out to me, to tell me that I am lovable and loved. I won't let anybody that close to me. I tried looking into a friend's eyes today from group, as she was teasing me about ... about what? my sammich, my silly tiny little mushroom sammich for silly tiny little mushroom me.
Yeah, I'm a mushroom. I can't go out into the sunlight, just like a morlock, and I eat girls, but the girls I eat do scream and moan, but it's not 'cause they're complainin' nosirree, bob!
Hm, the medication is starting to work. Starting, `phfina?
But I couldn't look into her eyes.
I couldn't.
I couldn't look into her teasing eyes, I couldn't look at me in them. I couldn't.
And I had to go, leaving everybody because some stupid song was playing by some stupid granola guy, ...
... and I never say stupid.
And I had to leave them.
And here is where I complete ch 2 of Sirens, and I go to that cliff's edge, and I ...
and I go home.
I return to the dust. Oblivion awaits.
You know: I have this post all prepared. It's here, right in my back pocket. It's a one-liner. It's entitled "The Sublime Art of Suicide" and the body of the post is just one word: "goodbye."
No note. No 'explanation.' No nothing.
'Goodbye' ... 'God be with you' because He won't be with me anymore.
Not where I'm going.
So when you see that post, you'll know what happened.
So I was supposed to finish here with 'Goodbye,' and fuck the special title.
But I took a walk, and okay, I have a chemical imbalance? I'll self-medicate. I saw Thor. I (now) know what a boilermaker is. I'll rebalance, and then rebalance again, then rebalance again, until I lose my balance.
A can of guinness with that cute little fizzy ball inside is a full meal, and only costs two dollars at the supermarket. AND happy hour is in full swing now.
Warm up exercises, you know.
And then after I rebalance (after which I will have obviously hit the hay and have that ashen taste of dehydration in my mouth when), I'll wake up tomorrow, and we will see from there.
We will see.
This isn't a cry for help. So don't bother. I don't want your help. You have to be something to want something, and I don't want anything.
Or maybe I have it backward, and I'm so full of ... something, that I've filled the space that is me, that is: I'm not a clearing, I'm just this big huge blockage, so I have no room left to want for anything.
Do I want anything? No, unless 'wanting nothing' is something. No, unless oblivion is a desirous state.
It isn't. Oblivion is the abyss; it isn't a state, it's a ... dis ... what is it? A disintegration, a rending, a destruction. It's not a state, it's an end.
Shiva. Kali. Lila.
Me.
----
οἰκτροτάτην δ᾽ ἤκουσα ὄπα Πριάμοιο θυγατρός,
Κασσάνδρης, τὴν κτεῖνε Κλυταιμνήστρη δολόμητις
ἀμφ᾽ ἐμοί, αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ ποτὶ γαίῃ χεῖρας ἀείρων
βάλλον ἀποθνήσκων περὶ φασγάνῳ: ἡ δὲ κυνῶπις
νοσφίσατ᾽, οὐδέ μοι ἔτλη ἰόντι περ εἰς Ἀίδαο
χερσὶ κατ᾽ ὀφθαλμοὺς ἑλέειν σύν τε στόμ᾽ ἐρεῖσαι.
Homer, Odyssey, Book XI, ~400-430
She's a good girl: loves her mama
Loves Jesus and America too
She's a good girl, crazy 'bout Elvis
Loves Horses and her boyfriend too.
This doesn't describe me at all. I'd have to be a good girl, now, wouldn't I, for this song to be about me. But then he sang this:
Now I'm free, free fallin'
I wanna glide down over Mulholland
I wanna write her name in the sky
I wanna free fall out into nothin'
Gonna leave this world for awhile.
And I'm free, I'm free fallin'
Free fallin' now I'm free fallin' Free fallin' now I'm free fallin'
"Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty
— `phfina analysis:
You really do want to know, so I'll tell you. Why you want to know, I have no IDEA! But you do, so you can tell me how fucked up I am, and so I put in all this effort to tell you, really and truly, what's going on in here in this nothing that is me, and what do I get for it? I get punished for trying, so why even try?
Why. even. try.
When I heard that song, the unchewed food in my mouth turned to ash, and I had to go. There are anvil clouds overhead and a good, cold stiff breeze, and I should be happy, as I am the wind and I am the water, and I am in my elements.
So why are there tears falling down my face. 'I am water,' I say, and all I do is cry, but I haven't cried in weeks, and now it's hitting me. Hard. 'I am air,' I say, so all I do is talk-talk-talk, that's all I do, that's all I am, wind and water, tears and air. Nothing.
I saw it, a vision so hard, in that sammich shop that I had to leave my unfinished meal, I had to get out of there away from people.
I was ...
Remember "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"? At the very end, that little waif of a girl at the temple carved into the cliff's edge, looks out into the air, whispers
"Goodbye"
and jumps.
I am on the edge of the cliff, looking over, looking forward, looking down into the abyss. I don't have to look back. I am not that girl who had a devoted lover calling out for her to stay, willing to help, to be there for her. I have nobody behind me.
And then I raise my arms and I ...
It's a chemical imbalance. I tell myself. I'm chemically imbalanced, and the silence has worn me down so I listen to that not so little voice in my head telling me exactly what I am and exactly what I have to look forward to, and those two things are the same thing.
And I know who to blame for keeping myself an arm's length from any and everybody trying ... or not trying ... to reach out to me, to tell me that I am lovable and loved. I won't let anybody that close to me. I tried looking into a friend's eyes today from group, as she was teasing me about ... about what? my sammich, my silly tiny little mushroom sammich for silly tiny little mushroom me.
Yeah, I'm a mushroom. I can't go out into the sunlight, just like a morlock, and I eat girls, but the girls I eat do scream and moan, but it's not 'cause they're complainin' nosirree, bob!
Hm, the medication is starting to work. Starting, `phfina?
But I couldn't look into her eyes.
I couldn't.
I couldn't look into her teasing eyes, I couldn't look at me in them. I couldn't.
And I had to go, leaving everybody because some stupid song was playing by some stupid granola guy, ...
... and I never say stupid.
And I had to leave them.
And here is where I complete ch 2 of Sirens, and I go to that cliff's edge, and I ...
and I go home.
I return to the dust. Oblivion awaits.
You know: I have this post all prepared. It's here, right in my back pocket. It's a one-liner. It's entitled "The Sublime Art of Suicide" and the body of the post is just one word: "goodbye."
No note. No 'explanation.' No nothing.
'Goodbye' ... 'God be with you' because He won't be with me anymore.
Not where I'm going.
So when you see that post, you'll know what happened.
So I was supposed to finish here with 'Goodbye,' and fuck the special title.
But I took a walk, and okay, I have a chemical imbalance? I'll self-medicate. I saw Thor. I (now) know what a boilermaker is. I'll rebalance, and then rebalance again, then rebalance again, until I lose my balance.
A can of guinness with that cute little fizzy ball inside is a full meal, and only costs two dollars at the supermarket. AND happy hour is in full swing now.
Warm up exercises, you know.
And then after I rebalance (after which I will have obviously hit the hay and have that ashen taste of dehydration in my mouth when), I'll wake up tomorrow, and we will see from there.
We will see.
This isn't a cry for help. So don't bother. I don't want your help. You have to be something to want something, and I don't want anything.
Or maybe I have it backward, and I'm so full of ... something, that I've filled the space that is me, that is: I'm not a clearing, I'm just this big huge blockage, so I have no room left to want for anything.
Do I want anything? No, unless 'wanting nothing' is something. No, unless oblivion is a desirous state.
It isn't. Oblivion is the abyss; it isn't a state, it's a ... dis ... what is it? A disintegration, a rending, a destruction. It's not a state, it's an end.
Shiva. Kali. Lila.
Me.
----
οἰκτροτάτην δ᾽ ἤκουσα ὄπα Πριάμοιο θυγατρός,
Κασσάνδρης, τὴν κτεῖνε Κλυταιμνήστρη δολόμητις
ἀμφ᾽ ἐμοί, αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ ποτὶ γαίῃ χεῖρας ἀείρων
βάλλον ἀποθνήσκων περὶ φασγάνῳ: ἡ δὲ κυνῶπις
νοσφίσατ᾽, οὐδέ μοι ἔτλη ἰόντι περ εἰς Ἀίδαο
χερσὶ κατ᾽ ὀφθαλμοὺς ἑλέειν σύν τε στόμ᾽ ἐρεῖσαι.
Homer, Odyssey, Book XI, ~400-430
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Just one more
... or I could go on ... 'forever'? 'Forever' is such a very long time (actually, it isn't, as eternity is beyond time), so how about 'for as long as I live'?
Yes, for as long as I live.
There are so many things to say about every single woman in the world, about every single one of you, that I will never finish, nor ever plumb the depths. It's not that there isn't no end to the women in the world (there isn't), because that's just superficial ... 'oh, I could go on forever just naming names.'
Do you know somebody, just by hearing their name? And go no farther than that?
It's that there's no end to the depth, of even just and only one person. I will never 'complete' with a person: knowing them.
When that happens, they are dead to me. I hope I die before I kill anybody off like that.
I have died a thousand deaths. At least.
So I keep bringing stuff up. The same stuff? I don't think so. I think different stuff, or the same stuff, but I hope I'm carried forward, even just a little bit, in bringing up my shit, and hers, and saying, okay, what happened here? What did I do? Who was I being here?
And do I succeed? Well, the funny thing about life is ... that it is a game, and I can keep playing the same game until I win, that is learn from it to play a bigger game with me in my life, or I can keep playing this one. Life doesn't care. Life is life. What's left is my choices, and how I choose to be while choosing them.
So.
So Saga asks me: "What are you going to be writing about me when you leave me?"
Saga's smart, dummy that she is, and she knows me better than I know me.
Because ... because in all my relationships, I was the one who left.
I was the one who left, all of them. They all recognized in me something that they needed, something that they saw in me that they had never seen before in anybody else in their lives, and they clung to me, all of them, so desperately, trying to keep me, even as I was in their arms in bed, they clung so desperately, the desperate women I've left and left and left.
Because I've loved them, but I am not strong, as I try to pretend to be, and I feel ... what? Them pulling me down, or ...
Let's get on with this.
There are the relationships that we parted mutually. We both went into the relationship looking for something, and we both left, satisfied. I'm not talking about those, because ... well, really: those weren't relationships, those were both me and her satisfying our own needs and moving along, even if those needs were for intimacy, or good conversation and companionship, or ... or a good, hard fuck. Or two. Or three. Or more. And tender holdings afterwards, so maybe that's what I was looking for really, and the animal, the panther in me needed to be satiated first, fully tamed, before I would allow myself to hold and to be held?
I don't know. I look in the mirror every day, but I still shy away from most everything I see in my eyes.
And there was one relationship ... well.
Well, Julia left me. Julia was strong enough to get away from me before I dragged her down to my level.
Heh. 'My level.' How low is 'down'? Every time I hit the bottom, the bottom drops out.
So Julia left me, and found happiness. Julia is smart, smart enough to see where her happiness lay ... and where it didn't.
Saga isn't that smart, or doesn't care. And I'm so grateful for that, and so sad for her, clinging to me, cleaving to me, really, even though she sees me better than I do, and, okay is so blind as to see the good in me and ...
Okay, getting carried away here.
So Saga's not going to leave me, and she does see the trail of skeletons in my wake, and has read my stuff, and she is clairvoyant in that she can connect the dots and can look, clearly and with a level head, into the future.
And still hope for today.
So this is what I write, Saga, about my exes. This is what I write about you.
I am a writer: I write what I write. I see what I see.
And what I see is this: human beings, flawed, striving human beings, so desperate, so hopeful. So loving, so spiteful.
So, you've seen me love a person you've all hated: Traci. Now, what do I have to say about ... Brenda, now.
Brenda.
You know what? Brenda so desperately wanted me, all the time, in our relationship. I don't know what I was to her. I don't know if she does, or even if she asked herself the question. Was I to be her husband that died in the Gulf? Was I to be her daughter that she never had? Both? How did her son feel about this? And she wooed me, and played with me, and touched me and kissed me and held me and held onto me as a woman does: desperately, but despairingly, knowing that she'd have to let me go, someday, when I left her, so she held all the more tightly.
And she taught me the art of spooning, and the strap on. Do you think Julia and I made that discovery in ultra-Puritanical Connecticut? No, it was the college position for us, and I sometimes, now, wonder if the sex wasn't ... fulfilling for her and that's why she left me?
But of course, that really wasn't the issue at all. The issue with Julia was that I was there, but I wasn't there, I was in an intense relationship with myself and my precision and perfection and my failings that instead of reaching out to her for help, I shut her down (by shutting down) and shut her out.
So when Brenda, sweet, motherly Brenda, attached the straps to me ("This is weird," I thought) and eased me into the bed with her and put me behind her and slid the dildo I was wearing into her, I was like, what is going on here?
I felt dislocated, confused. Was I supposed to be a man? Was I ... I don't know but then she wrapped my arms around her and she put my hand over her tummy, pressing her hand into mine into her, and she asked, "Do you feel that?"
And I did.
And she said, "That's you, filling me."
And suddenly, it wasn't a belt with a foreign object attached, it was me. It was me, and I was in her. And I started thrusting, much harder, and she moaned, and cried out and begged me to fuck her, her pressing her hand into mine into her, and she came rather quickly after that, and I ...
And I became possessed, needing to fill her, needing to pleasure her, and I took her, and then I came, o, God, did I cum when I was pounding on top of her now, her legs locking me into her as I thrust with my strength, wanting to, no: being in her.
And afterwards, she held me, and caressed me, and cooed over me, as I panted, a girl-child-man, on top of her, and she rolled me off to her side, and said, "Sleep now, sweetheart; I will hold you." And she held me, me still in her, and I could even feel her squeezing me? Is that possible? I felt it.
And I didn't have the courage to ask if I could suckle at her breast. I didn't have the courage to ask myself that I could ask her. I was so lost from my loss of Julia, and so lost in what I was to Brenda, I didn't have ...
I didn't have the strength to know who or what I was, even just for myself, or to be okay that I could be Brenda's baby, suckling at her breast, and let her love me, with motherly love, and hold me to her breast, and hold the whole world at bay as she held me, her baby.
How could I be her baby daughter, when I was just now her 'husband'?
And you know what, `phfina?
No, ... what, `pfhina?
Maybe that was exactly what she wanted, and she was too shy to offer herself to me that way, too? But maybe if I had asked, maybe she would have gladly surrendered, offering herself that way, and held me to her, and maybe she would have cum again, so hard, with my lips latched onto her breast and my fingers playing, probing, plunging into her pussy that she might have screamed instead of moaning and whispering, "Oh, God!" as I pounded into her with the strap-on?
Or maybe not. Maybe she would have said, "Melissa! That's too weird! What would my best friend, your mother, say if she found out I was nursing you!"
As if me fucking her with a strap-on was ... okay?
I don't know.
I do know this. All that. And all I have written.
And.
And she took me in. She took heart-broken me, and yes, she took something for herself and her needs from all this, yes, she doggedly and determinedly seduced (very not unwilling) me, but she did take me in, and loved me, and cared for me, when ...
When nobody else did. And she cooked me meals, and she took me to a JazzFest, and she waited for me over a cooling supper and then when I walked in, two hours late, she wasn't (too) angry, but when finding my car ran out of gas miles away, got her gas can, drove me to my car, and we drove back to her place, and she took me in her arms. And she held me, as long as I let her hold me, for days and weeks, and when I left her, she let me go, and ... wrote, and looked for me, and that freaked me out, so I ran hard, changing names and States, and her last note was a sad, 'I hope you are happy and in a loving relationship' delivered right to the sbux where I was working, under a pseudonym. She could have walked right in, I suppose, but she didn't.
Brenda wanted to love, and be loved in return.
When she found this little girl, this broken little girl, she loved me, with all her might and all her strength and all her heart, and she held me, so tenderly, just reveling in it, savoring each moment we were together: me in her arms, and in her, her, holding me, feeling my weight press down on her, my sweat mingling with hers, my breath lifting her arm up and down, like a ship riding the waves on the ocean.
Brenda was too much for me. Brenda was too good for me. She gave me all of her, she took what she could from me, what I could give, and was happy with that and the moments we had together.
Saga, what will I write about you, when I've left you?
I'm not as clearsighted as you? Nor as ... practical about life? Or the present? Or me? I can't see that future.
So, let's pretend. Let's pretend this is that future.
Saga, I love you. I treasure the moments we had together. I savor them. I remember them. I remember you and how good you were to me, and I wish I could have been a person that was good enough to make the world and its concerns not matter and never matter, but I'm not good enough for that, or for me to be worthy enough to be good enough for you.
Saga, I'm sorry I was not ... Saga, I'm sorry. I love you and I want you to be happy.
Do you see how irrelevant the future is? Do you see the now is all we have in what I say to you in that pretend future, of what I say to you now?
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
e.e. cummings
&mdash `phfina commentary:
I put the analysis before the poem. I hope you don't mind.
Yes, for as long as I live.
There are so many things to say about every single woman in the world, about every single one of you, that I will never finish, nor ever plumb the depths. It's not that there isn't no end to the women in the world (there isn't), because that's just superficial ... 'oh, I could go on forever just naming names.'
Do you know somebody, just by hearing their name? And go no farther than that?
It's that there's no end to the depth, of even just and only one person. I will never 'complete' with a person: knowing them.
When that happens, they are dead to me. I hope I die before I kill anybody off like that.
I have died a thousand deaths. At least.
So I keep bringing stuff up. The same stuff? I don't think so. I think different stuff, or the same stuff, but I hope I'm carried forward, even just a little bit, in bringing up my shit, and hers, and saying, okay, what happened here? What did I do? Who was I being here?
And do I succeed? Well, the funny thing about life is ... that it is a game, and I can keep playing the same game until I win, that is learn from it to play a bigger game with me in my life, or I can keep playing this one. Life doesn't care. Life is life. What's left is my choices, and how I choose to be while choosing them.
So.
So Saga asks me: "What are you going to be writing about me when you leave me?"
Saga's smart, dummy that she is, and she knows me better than I know me.
Because ... because in all my relationships, I was the one who left.
I was the one who left, all of them. They all recognized in me something that they needed, something that they saw in me that they had never seen before in anybody else in their lives, and they clung to me, all of them, so desperately, trying to keep me, even as I was in their arms in bed, they clung so desperately, the desperate women I've left and left and left.
Because I've loved them, but I am not strong, as I try to pretend to be, and I feel ... what? Them pulling me down, or ...
Let's get on with this.
There are the relationships that we parted mutually. We both went into the relationship looking for something, and we both left, satisfied. I'm not talking about those, because ... well, really: those weren't relationships, those were both me and her satisfying our own needs and moving along, even if those needs were for intimacy, or good conversation and companionship, or ... or a good, hard fuck. Or two. Or three. Or more. And tender holdings afterwards, so maybe that's what I was looking for really, and the animal, the panther in me needed to be satiated first, fully tamed, before I would allow myself to hold and to be held?
I don't know. I look in the mirror every day, but I still shy away from most everything I see in my eyes.
And there was one relationship ... well.
Well, Julia left me. Julia was strong enough to get away from me before I dragged her down to my level.
Heh. 'My level.' How low is 'down'? Every time I hit the bottom, the bottom drops out.
So Julia left me, and found happiness. Julia is smart, smart enough to see where her happiness lay ... and where it didn't.
Saga isn't that smart, or doesn't care. And I'm so grateful for that, and so sad for her, clinging to me, cleaving to me, really, even though she sees me better than I do, and, okay is so blind as to see the good in me and ...
Okay, getting carried away here.
So Saga's not going to leave me, and she does see the trail of skeletons in my wake, and has read my stuff, and she is clairvoyant in that she can connect the dots and can look, clearly and with a level head, into the future.
And still hope for today.
So this is what I write, Saga, about my exes. This is what I write about you.
I am a writer: I write what I write. I see what I see.
And what I see is this: human beings, flawed, striving human beings, so desperate, so hopeful. So loving, so spiteful.
So, you've seen me love a person you've all hated: Traci. Now, what do I have to say about ... Brenda, now.
Brenda.
You know what? Brenda so desperately wanted me, all the time, in our relationship. I don't know what I was to her. I don't know if she does, or even if she asked herself the question. Was I to be her husband that died in the Gulf? Was I to be her daughter that she never had? Both? How did her son feel about this? And she wooed me, and played with me, and touched me and kissed me and held me and held onto me as a woman does: desperately, but despairingly, knowing that she'd have to let me go, someday, when I left her, so she held all the more tightly.
And she taught me the art of spooning, and the strap on. Do you think Julia and I made that discovery in ultra-Puritanical Connecticut? No, it was the college position for us, and I sometimes, now, wonder if the sex wasn't ... fulfilling for her and that's why she left me?
But of course, that really wasn't the issue at all. The issue with Julia was that I was there, but I wasn't there, I was in an intense relationship with myself and my precision and perfection and my failings that instead of reaching out to her for help, I shut her down (by shutting down) and shut her out.
So when Brenda, sweet, motherly Brenda, attached the straps to me ("This is weird," I thought) and eased me into the bed with her and put me behind her and slid the dildo I was wearing into her, I was like, what is going on here?
I felt dislocated, confused. Was I supposed to be a man? Was I ... I don't know but then she wrapped my arms around her and she put my hand over her tummy, pressing her hand into mine into her, and she asked, "Do you feel that?"
And I did.
And she said, "That's you, filling me."
And suddenly, it wasn't a belt with a foreign object attached, it was me. It was me, and I was in her. And I started thrusting, much harder, and she moaned, and cried out and begged me to fuck her, her pressing her hand into mine into her, and she came rather quickly after that, and I ...
And I became possessed, needing to fill her, needing to pleasure her, and I took her, and then I came, o, God, did I cum when I was pounding on top of her now, her legs locking me into her as I thrust with my strength, wanting to, no: being in her.
And afterwards, she held me, and caressed me, and cooed over me, as I panted, a girl-child-man, on top of her, and she rolled me off to her side, and said, "Sleep now, sweetheart; I will hold you." And she held me, me still in her, and I could even feel her squeezing me? Is that possible? I felt it.
And I didn't have the courage to ask if I could suckle at her breast. I didn't have the courage to ask myself that I could ask her. I was so lost from my loss of Julia, and so lost in what I was to Brenda, I didn't have ...
I didn't have the strength to know who or what I was, even just for myself, or to be okay that I could be Brenda's baby, suckling at her breast, and let her love me, with motherly love, and hold me to her breast, and hold the whole world at bay as she held me, her baby.
How could I be her baby daughter, when I was just now her 'husband'?
And you know what, `phfina?
No, ... what, `pfhina?
Maybe that was exactly what she wanted, and she was too shy to offer herself to me that way, too? But maybe if I had asked, maybe she would have gladly surrendered, offering herself that way, and held me to her, and maybe she would have cum again, so hard, with my lips latched onto her breast and my fingers playing, probing, plunging into her pussy that she might have screamed instead of moaning and whispering, "Oh, God!" as I pounded into her with the strap-on?
Or maybe not. Maybe she would have said, "Melissa! That's too weird! What would my best friend, your mother, say if she found out I was nursing you!"
As if me fucking her with a strap-on was ... okay?
I don't know.
I do know this. All that. And all I have written.
And.
And she took me in. She took heart-broken me, and yes, she took something for herself and her needs from all this, yes, she doggedly and determinedly seduced (very not unwilling) me, but she did take me in, and loved me, and cared for me, when ...
When nobody else did. And she cooked me meals, and she took me to a JazzFest, and she waited for me over a cooling supper and then when I walked in, two hours late, she wasn't (too) angry, but when finding my car ran out of gas miles away, got her gas can, drove me to my car, and we drove back to her place, and she took me in her arms. And she held me, as long as I let her hold me, for days and weeks, and when I left her, she let me go, and ... wrote, and looked for me, and that freaked me out, so I ran hard, changing names and States, and her last note was a sad, 'I hope you are happy and in a loving relationship' delivered right to the sbux where I was working, under a pseudonym. She could have walked right in, I suppose, but she didn't.
Brenda wanted to love, and be loved in return.
When she found this little girl, this broken little girl, she loved me, with all her might and all her strength and all her heart, and she held me, so tenderly, just reveling in it, savoring each moment we were together: me in her arms, and in her, her, holding me, feeling my weight press down on her, my sweat mingling with hers, my breath lifting her arm up and down, like a ship riding the waves on the ocean.
Brenda was too much for me. Brenda was too good for me. She gave me all of her, she took what she could from me, what I could give, and was happy with that and the moments we had together.
Saga, what will I write about you, when I've left you?
I'm not as clearsighted as you? Nor as ... practical about life? Or the present? Or me? I can't see that future.
So, let's pretend. Let's pretend this is that future.
Saga, I love you. I treasure the moments we had together. I savor them. I remember them. I remember you and how good you were to me, and I wish I could have been a person that was good enough to make the world and its concerns not matter and never matter, but I'm not good enough for that, or for me to be worthy enough to be good enough for you.
Saga, I'm sorry I was not ... Saga, I'm sorry. I love you and I want you to be happy.
Do you see how irrelevant the future is? Do you see the now is all we have in what I say to you in that pretend future, of what I say to you now?
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
e.e. cummings
&mdash `phfina commentary:
I put the analysis before the poem. I hope you don't mind.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Women
The subject of this post may not surprise you, but its contents may.
Or maybe nothing I do surprises. I'm a human being, after all, so I'm predicable, and predictably so.
Maybe.
So: women. God, I love women. I love to bitch about them, I love to cuddle with them, I love to check them out, I love to check them ... in (over and over and over again), I love to ...
`phfina: mind the PG rating of your entries!
Yes'm.
Anyway, this post is supposed to be unpredictable, right? Not predicable, you horn-doggie!
Yes'm.
Anyway. A while back I wrote about toxic psycho bitches, remember? How could you forget ... unless you thought that post wasn't about you, that is, and then you instantly forgot about it and went on with your life full of giving and charitable good works.
You know, I was being sarcastic, just then, but I actually do know people like that. And I actually have real examples of women who lives are foils to the toxic psycho bitch archetype.
And that's what's this post is about.
It's about women, the many and various ones I know and the many and various ones that I don't. And the ones you know, too. Stop and think about them with me.
Clothes interlude
Okay, but seriously: why do people wear clothes?
Have you ever thought that thought? No, you haven't. You get up every morning, and I'm willing to lay bad money on the table that you do not think: oh, should I wear clothes today?
No, you don't think that thought, ever! What you think is, "What should I wear today?" "I don't have a thing to wear!" you lament as you look into your overstuffed-to-the-gills closet. And then you choose jeans (C'mon, cut me some slack, maybe some of you are like me and Bella Swan!) or you choose a skirt, knee length? just covering the knees? just above the knees? a leather micro-mini? A demin ankle-length one? And then your blouse over your undergarments (don't make me go there, the list and variety is too long, and then it turns my thoughts prurient as I envision what I will do to those undergarments ... to get to what is under those garments ... and then I'll have to excuse myself and this post will never get finished ... so, yeah).
So you never even think: "Should I wear clothes today?" No, you just wear them, and your thoughts are along the lines of what to wear; what statement you are making with them. And you know why you never think that thought?
Because you were born on the planet Earth.
I thought that thought. Two days ago, it was blisteringly hot, and everybody was just so beautiful, wearing their clothes, and I was like: why?
And then I realized what I was doing. I realized, I'm thinking a thought nobody else in the world would think.
And I know why I do that. I've been told. I'm not of this world. I don't belong in it nor do I belong to it. I am a selkie.
And I felt so alone then, again.
Alice
You know Alice visited me, when I was working at the sbux. I had to clean the little girls' room, and she came in and ...
... well, that was after Rosalie had just cum in ... me.
Yeah.
It gets really crowded wherever I am.
Well, anyway, Alice had come in and helped me clean up the splatter poo that some little girl had left and some mommy was perhaps a bit too squeamish to clean up after, but do people ever think 'the help' might be a bit turned off, cleaning up their explosive poo? No.
Anyway, Alice got to talking to me, you know: a voice of reason and reasonableness ...
... not that I need it; I'm just fine thanks. And as we were talking, I realized some things about her; about Alice.
She's not of this world, either. She always has to keep away from the crowd and the throng, but unlike me, that's exactly where she wants to be, right in the middle of the party and excitement, but she can't go there: she's just too alien, and would draw attention, yes, but the wrong kind of attention that leads to fear, to panic, and to the mob.
So fun-loving Alice has to stay aloof. And at home? With staid Jasper? Sneering Edward? (let's face it:) Bitch-queen Rosalie?
The Cullen family: they are a fun-loving party-hardy group, aren't they?
So that's Alice's world. She revels in the excitement, but all she can do is stand off and observe it from a distance.
Rebecca
There's this woman in group; her name's Rebecca. When she walks into a room, she owns it. Full-length red dress, conservative, tasteful heels, purse worth more than my ... well, name anything of mine, a crown of golden flowing blond hair, commanding, flashing blue eyes, patrician features. Rosalie? No, not at all. Company CEO? You bet. In fact, she goes into companies and cleans house. With a broom.
And she's in group.
So we were talking one day about her family, her hippy husband and her lay-about kids and just how frustrating it is that she has to be the one all the time to make sure everything's right and if it's not who gets blamed for not bringing the kids' swimming goggles?
Is she type A, you wonder? You needn't.
So in our conversation about this ... (we have 'conversations' in group) she realized something:
"I'm being a bitch to my family, aren't I?"
I said not just a bitch.
"I'm being a fucking bitch?"
I smiled at that.
And then she broke into this huge smile and said, "Wow!"
And she saw herself in her family and what impact she had on them.
I don't know anybody who could say 'I'm being a fucking bitch' and get so empowered by that statement that their whole life changes in that one moment ... that is, until I was sitting across from Rebecca, being there with her.
Beki
Then there's my sister Beki ...
there's actually every woman in my family.
You see, the men in the family are just so powerful creatures that everything around them is just blown away, and the women?
The men are strong, but the women are strength. Every one of them, mothers, aunts, sisters, cousins. Maybe it's a New England thing, but there's this unshakable strength in them, this sense of purpose that is, ... well, for me, frankly terrifying.
Beki was sitting with my niece Elena, and Elena was recounting one of her art projects where she had 'spilled paint all over the floor.' Beki queried this, 'all over the floor? so the entire floor was blue?' and Elena said, 'Well, ...' and was backed into a corner of admitting that she just spilled a drop or two which she cleaned.
But I watched this, watched my sister crush my niece, and hers, with her precision and ...
And I just wanted to go up to my sister and scream in her face. She was crushing the will and joy of a child, and for what purpose? to be right? to be correct?
Why?
And all I have to do is look into the mirror, and see what I do to everybody around me, and for what purpose? to be right?
I remember watching a movie where a palm reader was at a party and she told the hostess, so frustrated that everything at the party was not going according to plan or by the schedule and the seer said, 'well, you can either be right or be happy ...'
The woman didn't hear a word, of course, ... the soufflé had to come out of the oven just then, you see.
As the party came to a close, the hostess asked for her fortune be told to her, too.
The seer said: 'Oh, I thought I already gave you your fortune,' and left with a cryptic smile.
Beki, me, Lynda, Aunt Ronalee, Aunt Rolene, Aunt Roberta, Mom, Nana ... we can either be right, or we can be happy.
But ... well, we do have it hard. So hard. Pepe killed himself, and my uncles, two of them dying before Nana ... Nana watching her children die in front of her, and that killed her. And, well, the men are hard men, having to be right, no matter the cost, having to be happy, no matter the cost to the people around them; wanting both, getting neither.
And so Beki ... me ... we have to be so, so strong, her by being right, me, too, and me by running from anything and everyone that I ran away from my family, even ... putting hundreds of miles between them and me.
But you can't leave home; home is always there, waiting, and is always here in your heart. Even if you don't want it there.
We cling to something: strength, or rightness, just to be able to hold on, and it comes out on you or on a little girl telling a story, or our spouses or girl friends.
Toxic psycho bitches? I don't have to look far to find one.
And that's why a connection to you is such a life line, because you reach out, even when you are sick or tired or sick and tired, and you send me a note to ask me how I am doing.
And everybody is capable of charity, sometimes you have to look to see it, though.
Like, for example:
Traci
Boy, did I get some hate mail when I wrote why I left sbux and it was all directed toward Traci and what you were going to do to her if the two of you ever met.
I don't feel that way. I mean, let's look at what she did dispassionately. And maybe you're angry because you recognize yourself in her?
After all: you find out something so incredible about somebody you know, don't you just run to your confidants and blab?
"Hey, you know that thin sickly looking girl who works at the sbux? She's like this really sicko lezzy writer or something, omg! Check out her blog, isn't she like totally the psycho?"
No, you say, you would never do that?
Oh, really? You want to see your PMs to me where you blab about everybody around you, your coworkers, your patients, your girl friends, your siblings and parents, I mean anybody in your life you dump every vicious feeling you have about them not even thinking for one second what life must be like for them.
So let's take one second and think what life actually is for Traci in that moment.
What did she actually do?
I got shit-faced drunk, for which she treated me, and she took the keys from my hand, and drove me home, and put me into bed and didn't take advantage of me, even though I was, like actively, desperately, soliciting she do just that.
Would you have done that for me, a date that snapped? Or would you have excused yourself to the bathroom to make a quick and clean getaway? And let the chips fall where they may, that is: have the police pick me up and charge me and have me cool off in the tank and require me to post bail?
On the other hand, would you have said, 'She's so drunk, she's won't know tomorrow what I'm going to be doing with her tonight ... besides, she's begging, practically forcing herself on me, so I may as well ...'
What did Traci do that was reprehensible? She saw something, found out about it, just like Bella Swan did, then confronted me with it, and, okay, I freaked, but how could she expect that from me when you couldn't get a 'boo' out of me for ... how long we've been working together? Months? More than a year?
I argue that hero of that story actually is Traci. Oh, ... everybody hated Rosalie in the Twilight books, until somebody (bb) asked: 'What did she actually do? Is what she's saying accurate? prudent?' And then everybody's like, 'oh, yeah, everything she said was right, and nobody listened to her.' Traci is no Rosalie, because she's Traci, but I don't think she rates the death sentence for driving an out-of-it girl home and putting her to bed.
Emily
Dickinson, that is.
Here's what she wrote:
There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields -
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!
She wrote that for her little brother, who wasn't little any more, but imagine if she wrote that for you ... for me, the little honey bee, flitting about her garden, suckling the nectar from her rose bushes.
Um ... I have to ... um, take care of something.
Did Emily have beaux? She was a 'recluse' whose poetry is now carved into stones in parks, and whose house is enshrined. She built high walls and if a visitor came, she would literally run and hide somewhere.
Sounds familiar, `phfina?
But her poetry shaped the literature of a nascent nation that the Old World viewed as a savage land populated by a barbarous race.
(Go ahead, it's okay to admit to yourself that you view that statement as accurate now)
Emily Dickinson ... have you seen a photograph of her? I have. I almost fainted when I saw my scared, timid eyes looking back at me.
And out of the flighty hands came words that every school child must read, and because why? because she's a school marm?
No. Go back and read her poetry ... because she dared to look into herself and write and expose her heart to the whole world.
But I am not Emily Dickinson.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Daphne
Why do you follow me?—
Any moment I can be
Nothing but a laurel-tree.
Any moment of the chase
I can leave you in my place
A pink bough for your embrace.
Yet if over hill and hollow
Still it is your will to follow,
I am off;—to heel, Apollo!
Vincent ... she, okay, she lived her life like she was some Norse Goddess and life was the horn holding that elixir of sweet nectar.
And then ...
Well, and she wrote poetry, and she didn't just write poetry, she wrote poetry that earned her the Pulitzer prize: the first one ever awarded to a woman. She wrote poetry so honest, so unvarnished, so bald, so bold that she made the equivalent of $300,000 each year of her life off of it.
Um, what?
For that kind of money, ... well, maybe I could ...
Nah ... you know what my poetry looks like, but if I were to follow form, all I could come up with always starts with:
"There once as a girl from Nantucket ..."
And then the next line, I always get stuck ('stuck-it'?) on one word the rhymes, but do you write poems with that word in it? No. And then I never get to the dénoument, either ...
That's me, stuck-it, fuck-it `phfina.
Some poetess I would make.
Besides which, I read Vincent's ("Ballad of the Harp-Weaver"? Please! How could I write something like that?) and 'Uncle Emily' and Sappho and ... okay, no. Just no.
Well, Vincent's life took a turn for the worse, she lived her life to its fullest and then she was used, spent. She died, soon after her husband had, drunk, despairing, falling down some steps.
I look at steps, looking at them, as they eye me, hungrily, and wonder if their teeth will be gentle as they chew me up (or actually: down), and I wonder if I will taste sweet to them.
Jo March/Louisa May Alcott
So Jo wrote not stories about vampires and fairies and monsters.
No: she wrote p.r.0.n. for women's magazines. And then her professor husband asked, 'Ist das zhe best dat you gott?'
And it wasn't. Little Women was. So she said she would try.
So she tried.
Is this the best that I've got?
I'm no Jo March. I'm no Vincent, nor Uncle Emily, nor Rebecca, nor Beki, nor Traci, nor you.
Nor anybody.
I'm just me.
I don't even belong to this world. I don't even belong in it.
And I wonder sometimes, ... what if that was the best that I got? What if my best came and went, and all you can do is read what I've written, because when you ask: "Is that all you got?" so fiercely, daring me to step up my game, and deliver that next chapter you know, you hope will impress you this time, or again, ...
... and all I can answer is, weakly: 'Yes, that was all I had.'
"There once was a girl from Nantucket,
Who looked at her writing; said: 'fuck it!'
She flew down some stairs
With the wind in her hair
Her end: bloody bits in a bucket."
Or maybe nothing I do surprises. I'm a human being, after all, so I'm predicable, and predictably so.
Maybe.
So: women. God, I love women. I love to bitch about them, I love to cuddle with them, I love to check them out, I love to check them ... in (over and over and over again), I love to ...
`phfina: mind the PG rating of your entries!
Yes'm.
Anyway, this post is supposed to be unpredictable, right? Not predicable, you horn-doggie!
Yes'm.
Anyway. A while back I wrote about toxic psycho bitches, remember? How could you forget ... unless you thought that post wasn't about you, that is, and then you instantly forgot about it and went on with your life full of giving and charitable good works.
You know, I was being sarcastic, just then, but I actually do know people like that. And I actually have real examples of women who lives are foils to the toxic psycho bitch archetype.
And that's what's this post is about.
It's about women, the many and various ones I know and the many and various ones that I don't. And the ones you know, too. Stop and think about them with me.
Clothes interlude
Okay, but seriously: why do people wear clothes?
Have you ever thought that thought? No, you haven't. You get up every morning, and I'm willing to lay bad money on the table that you do not think: oh, should I wear clothes today?
No, you don't think that thought, ever! What you think is, "What should I wear today?" "I don't have a thing to wear!" you lament as you look into your overstuffed-to-the-gills closet. And then you choose jeans (C'mon, cut me some slack, maybe some of you are like me and Bella Swan!) or you choose a skirt, knee length? just covering the knees? just above the knees? a leather micro-mini? A demin ankle-length one? And then your blouse over your undergarments (don't make me go there, the list and variety is too long, and then it turns my thoughts prurient as I envision what I will do to those undergarments ... to get to what is under those garments ... and then I'll have to excuse myself and this post will never get finished ... so, yeah).
So you never even think: "Should I wear clothes today?" No, you just wear them, and your thoughts are along the lines of what to wear; what statement you are making with them. And you know why you never think that thought?
Because you were born on the planet Earth.
I thought that thought. Two days ago, it was blisteringly hot, and everybody was just so beautiful, wearing their clothes, and I was like: why?
And then I realized what I was doing. I realized, I'm thinking a thought nobody else in the world would think.
And I know why I do that. I've been told. I'm not of this world. I don't belong in it nor do I belong to it. I am a selkie.
And I felt so alone then, again.
Alice
You know Alice visited me, when I was working at the sbux. I had to clean the little girls' room, and she came in and ...
... well, that was after Rosalie had just cum in ... me.
Yeah.
It gets really crowded wherever I am.
Well, anyway, Alice had come in and helped me clean up the splatter poo that some little girl had left and some mommy was perhaps a bit too squeamish to clean up after, but do people ever think 'the help' might be a bit turned off, cleaning up their explosive poo? No.
Anyway, Alice got to talking to me, you know: a voice of reason and reasonableness ...
... not that I need it; I'm just fine thanks. And as we were talking, I realized some things about her; about Alice.
She's not of this world, either. She always has to keep away from the crowd and the throng, but unlike me, that's exactly where she wants to be, right in the middle of the party and excitement, but she can't go there: she's just too alien, and would draw attention, yes, but the wrong kind of attention that leads to fear, to panic, and to the mob.
So fun-loving Alice has to stay aloof. And at home? With staid Jasper? Sneering Edward? (let's face it:) Bitch-queen Rosalie?
The Cullen family: they are a fun-loving party-hardy group, aren't they?
So that's Alice's world. She revels in the excitement, but all she can do is stand off and observe it from a distance.
Rebecca
There's this woman in group; her name's Rebecca. When she walks into a room, she owns it. Full-length red dress, conservative, tasteful heels, purse worth more than my ... well, name anything of mine, a crown of golden flowing blond hair, commanding, flashing blue eyes, patrician features. Rosalie? No, not at all. Company CEO? You bet. In fact, she goes into companies and cleans house. With a broom.
And she's in group.
So we were talking one day about her family, her hippy husband and her lay-about kids and just how frustrating it is that she has to be the one all the time to make sure everything's right and if it's not who gets blamed for not bringing the kids' swimming goggles?
Is she type A, you wonder? You needn't.
So in our conversation about this ... (we have 'conversations' in group) she realized something:
"I'm being a bitch to my family, aren't I?"
I said not just a bitch.
"I'm being a fucking bitch?"
I smiled at that.
And then she broke into this huge smile and said, "Wow!"
And she saw herself in her family and what impact she had on them.
I don't know anybody who could say 'I'm being a fucking bitch' and get so empowered by that statement that their whole life changes in that one moment ... that is, until I was sitting across from Rebecca, being there with her.
Beki
Then there's my sister Beki ...
there's actually every woman in my family.
You see, the men in the family are just so powerful creatures that everything around them is just blown away, and the women?
The men are strong, but the women are strength. Every one of them, mothers, aunts, sisters, cousins. Maybe it's a New England thing, but there's this unshakable strength in them, this sense of purpose that is, ... well, for me, frankly terrifying.
Beki was sitting with my niece Elena, and Elena was recounting one of her art projects where she had 'spilled paint all over the floor.' Beki queried this, 'all over the floor? so the entire floor was blue?' and Elena said, 'Well, ...' and was backed into a corner of admitting that she just spilled a drop or two which she cleaned.
But I watched this, watched my sister crush my niece, and hers, with her precision and ...
And I just wanted to go up to my sister and scream in her face. She was crushing the will and joy of a child, and for what purpose? to be right? to be correct?
Why?
And all I have to do is look into the mirror, and see what I do to everybody around me, and for what purpose? to be right?
I remember watching a movie where a palm reader was at a party and she told the hostess, so frustrated that everything at the party was not going according to plan or by the schedule and the seer said, 'well, you can either be right or be happy ...'
The woman didn't hear a word, of course, ... the soufflé had to come out of the oven just then, you see.
As the party came to a close, the hostess asked for her fortune be told to her, too.
The seer said: 'Oh, I thought I already gave you your fortune,' and left with a cryptic smile.
Beki, me, Lynda, Aunt Ronalee, Aunt Rolene, Aunt Roberta, Mom, Nana ... we can either be right, or we can be happy.
But ... well, we do have it hard. So hard. Pepe killed himself, and my uncles, two of them dying before Nana ... Nana watching her children die in front of her, and that killed her. And, well, the men are hard men, having to be right, no matter the cost, having to be happy, no matter the cost to the people around them; wanting both, getting neither.
And so Beki ... me ... we have to be so, so strong, her by being right, me, too, and me by running from anything and everyone that I ran away from my family, even ... putting hundreds of miles between them and me.
But you can't leave home; home is always there, waiting, and is always here in your heart. Even if you don't want it there.
We cling to something: strength, or rightness, just to be able to hold on, and it comes out on you or on a little girl telling a story, or our spouses or girl friends.
Toxic psycho bitches? I don't have to look far to find one.
And that's why a connection to you is such a life line, because you reach out, even when you are sick or tired or sick and tired, and you send me a note to ask me how I am doing.
And everybody is capable of charity, sometimes you have to look to see it, though.
Like, for example:
Traci
Boy, did I get some hate mail when I wrote why I left sbux and it was all directed toward Traci and what you were going to do to her if the two of you ever met.
I don't feel that way. I mean, let's look at what she did dispassionately. And maybe you're angry because you recognize yourself in her?
After all: you find out something so incredible about somebody you know, don't you just run to your confidants and blab?
"Hey, you know that thin sickly looking girl who works at the sbux? She's like this really sicko lezzy writer or something, omg! Check out her blog, isn't she like totally the psycho?"
No, you say, you would never do that?
Oh, really? You want to see your PMs to me where you blab about everybody around you, your coworkers, your patients, your girl friends, your siblings and parents, I mean anybody in your life you dump every vicious feeling you have about them not even thinking for one second what life must be like for them.
So let's take one second and think what life actually is for Traci in that moment.
What did she actually do?
I got shit-faced drunk, for which she treated me, and she took the keys from my hand, and drove me home, and put me into bed and didn't take advantage of me, even though I was, like actively, desperately, soliciting she do just that.
Would you have done that for me, a date that snapped? Or would you have excused yourself to the bathroom to make a quick and clean getaway? And let the chips fall where they may, that is: have the police pick me up and charge me and have me cool off in the tank and require me to post bail?
On the other hand, would you have said, 'She's so drunk, she's won't know tomorrow what I'm going to be doing with her tonight ... besides, she's begging, practically forcing herself on me, so I may as well ...'
What did Traci do that was reprehensible? She saw something, found out about it, just like Bella Swan did, then confronted me with it, and, okay, I freaked, but how could she expect that from me when you couldn't get a 'boo' out of me for ... how long we've been working together? Months? More than a year?
I argue that hero of that story actually is Traci. Oh, ... everybody hated Rosalie in the Twilight books, until somebody (bb) asked: 'What did she actually do? Is what she's saying accurate? prudent?' And then everybody's like, 'oh, yeah, everything she said was right, and nobody listened to her.' Traci is no Rosalie, because she's Traci, but I don't think she rates the death sentence for driving an out-of-it girl home and putting her to bed.
Emily
Dickinson, that is.
Here's what she wrote:
There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields -
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!
She wrote that for her little brother, who wasn't little any more, but imagine if she wrote that for you ... for me, the little honey bee, flitting about her garden, suckling the nectar from her rose bushes.
Um ... I have to ... um, take care of something.
Did Emily have beaux? She was a 'recluse' whose poetry is now carved into stones in parks, and whose house is enshrined. She built high walls and if a visitor came, she would literally run and hide somewhere.
Sounds familiar, `phfina?
But her poetry shaped the literature of a nascent nation that the Old World viewed as a savage land populated by a barbarous race.
(Go ahead, it's okay to admit to yourself that you view that statement as accurate now)
Emily Dickinson ... have you seen a photograph of her? I have. I almost fainted when I saw my scared, timid eyes looking back at me.
And out of the flighty hands came words that every school child must read, and because why? because she's a school marm?
No. Go back and read her poetry ... because she dared to look into herself and write and expose her heart to the whole world.
But I am not Emily Dickinson.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Daphne
Why do you follow me?—
Any moment I can be
Nothing but a laurel-tree.
Any moment of the chase
I can leave you in my place
A pink bough for your embrace.
Yet if over hill and hollow
Still it is your will to follow,
I am off;—to heel, Apollo!
Vincent ... she, okay, she lived her life like she was some Norse Goddess and life was the horn holding that elixir of sweet nectar.
And then ...
Well, and she wrote poetry, and she didn't just write poetry, she wrote poetry that earned her the Pulitzer prize: the first one ever awarded to a woman. She wrote poetry so honest, so unvarnished, so bald, so bold that she made the equivalent of $300,000 each year of her life off of it.
Um, what?
For that kind of money, ... well, maybe I could ...
Nah ... you know what my poetry looks like, but if I were to follow form, all I could come up with always starts with:
"There once as a girl from Nantucket ..."
And then the next line, I always get stuck ('stuck-it'?) on one word the rhymes, but do you write poems with that word in it? No. And then I never get to the dénoument, either ...
That's me, stuck-it, fuck-it `phfina.
Some poetess I would make.
Besides which, I read Vincent's ("Ballad of the Harp-Weaver"? Please! How could I write something like that?) and 'Uncle Emily' and Sappho and ... okay, no. Just no.
Well, Vincent's life took a turn for the worse, she lived her life to its fullest and then she was used, spent. She died, soon after her husband had, drunk, despairing, falling down some steps.
I look at steps, looking at them, as they eye me, hungrily, and wonder if their teeth will be gentle as they chew me up (or actually: down), and I wonder if I will taste sweet to them.
Jo March/Louisa May Alcott
So Jo wrote not stories about vampires and fairies and monsters.
No: she wrote p.r.0.n. for women's magazines. And then her professor husband asked, 'Ist das zhe best dat you gott?'
And it wasn't. Little Women was. So she said she would try.
So she tried.
Is this the best that I've got?
I'm no Jo March. I'm no Vincent, nor Uncle Emily, nor Rebecca, nor Beki, nor Traci, nor you.
Nor anybody.
I'm just me.
I don't even belong to this world. I don't even belong in it.
And I wonder sometimes, ... what if that was the best that I got? What if my best came and went, and all you can do is read what I've written, because when you ask: "Is that all you got?" so fiercely, daring me to step up my game, and deliver that next chapter you know, you hope will impress you this time, or again, ...
... and all I can answer is, weakly: 'Yes, that was all I had.'
"There once was a girl from Nantucket,
Who looked at her writing; said: 'fuck it!'
She flew down some stairs
With the wind in her hair
Her end: bloody bits in a bucket."
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Rubáiyát of `phfina
"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness —
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!"
Quatrain XII in the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam
`phfina analysis:
Made myself spaghetti for supper tonight with a red sauce and ground beef. Went simple, so used the sauce from the jar. ... Don't tell my Nana, but ... well, she makes sauces like nobody's business, they tasted so good. This sauce was a little sweet and a little tasteless.
And it really needed a cup of wine to go with it, I mean, it really, really needed a cup of red wine.
And, you know, I've fallen twice already, so, I mean, why not give up and give in, since I've already screwed up twice already.
Just give up the game, and no, I don't have any red wine, but a quick exit from my apartment to the supermarket would remedy that in a jiffy (jiffy, n: 1/100th of second). And, why even bother? Cognac would be fine, too, right?
And I really, really miss bourbon in the nights, when I'm writing. And ...
... and on and on and on.
And well, day two, no drinking.
I hate this. I really enjoy drinking, and I really miss it. Why am I doing this? Why do I do anything?
Friday, October 15, 2010
Nymphs and Shepherds
Published a poem and its response in two parts. It's the standard nymphs and shepherds stuff, you know? Love is a many-splendored thing, and a' that.
en'phfinafied.
en'phfinafied.
Monday, September 27, 2010
A Nonsense Song by Stephen Vincent Benét
ROSEMARY, Rosemary, let down your hair!
The cow's in the hammock, the crow's in the chair!
I was making you songs out of sawdust and silk,
But they came in to call and they spilt them like milk.
The cat's in the coffee, the wind's in the east,
He screams like a peacock and whines like a priest
And the saw of his voice makes my blood turn to mice
So let down your long hair and shut off his advice!
Pluck out the thin hairpins and let the waves stream,
Brown-gold as brook-waters that dance through a dream,
Gentle-curié as young cloudlings, sweet-fragrant as bay
Till it takes all the fierceness of living away.
Oh, when you are with me, my heart is white steel.
But the bat's in the belfry, the mold's in the meal,
And I think I hear skeletons climbing the stair!
Rosemary, Rosemary, let down your bright hair!
— 'phfina's thoughts:
I remember hearing this when I was a little child, I think, or somehow this poem pulls to me in that way. I stumbled upon it last weekend? two weekends ago? and immediately when I read it, I started reciting it out loud in my sing-songy reciting voice:
"Rosemary, Rosemary let down your hair!"
... and I couldn't help but to smile as I sang this silly song.
But, really, this song isn't so silly: it's sweet, and it's, yes: sad. The world around us — around me — is this crazy world where "the cow's in the hammock, the crow's in the chair!" but what is the image called to us in this crazy-life? It's Rosemary, my beloved Rosemary [the poet's wife], combing her hair in the morning, and putting up in a severe bun, and Stephen cries out: "Rosemary, Rosemary, please let down your hair!"
This is so New England, and yes, Stephen's from Pennsylvania, so I'll change that to 'Colonial.' Yeah! Colonial. There's something so ... 13 colonies in this poem, how the Brits came over to the New World, and wrested it from the natives, and wrested it from the French, and wrested it from anything and everything, including itself, so the 'New' England took on a character of the 'Old' England that they fled, and it wasn't even the Old England, it was what they thought they fled from Old England: that cold, unwelcoming, desolate place that the Brits entirely aren't! (I've met a few, and it's hard to find more warm, welcoming, bright, friendly people that the Brits I've met.) But this is what the colonists fled, and this is what they brought with them.
Funny how the thing we are running away from is the thing that is waiting for us when we arrive at our haven.
And so these hardy colonists carved out the land from the land and made it this prosperous, grey, heartless place. And so we have this poetry, from Benét and Frost and Wallace Stevens and other New Englanders and Colonists, so precise, so pragmatic, and so filled with longing for love and affection and something they could so easily have if they'd just do the one thing they cannot: put down the plow of their toil and dare, just dare, to open their hearts.
So.
So there's me, a New Englander, in exile in the South (but in the safe northern part of the South) (but no place is safe, is it, 'phfina?), reading this poem. And thinking about it and the images it calls forth.
And, I, well, is my hair something for my spouse to cry out this line? Well, not really. It's not full-bodied like my sisters' ... and it's not ratty, not really, it's just this straight, jet black "thing" that's this mess in the morning, and after that I don't really think about it until I'm washing the coffee smell out of it after I work out.
I really don't think about hair, except when I'm admiring it or when I'm missing it. Like, one time when I was still in high school, I visited my sister in Vermont, and I was shocked when I saw her because she was all Sinéad, and then she told me she had donated her hair for women who had lost their hair through cancer, and my approbation (had she gone skin-head?) turned to admiration. And I thought: how brave! how giving! how selfless!
Funny that, 'cause now her mom's a blond. Yes, her mom has breast cancer, and the chemo took her hair, and now she's on radiation therapy.
I wonder if I could ever do that: just cut off all my hair. And I don't see myself as vain, but here I am thinking about this little nothing while people are dying, .. and I don't see myself as ... well, I grew up where compliments weren't given, even if they were earned. I did tell you I'm from New England, didn't I? I mean, everything I did to try to make some kind of impression on my parents, what I did at school, what I did at home? But everybody in my family's a Mensan, (really) published authors with national and international accolades, teachers, professors, philosophers, for God's sake, so that makes me an also-ran, I guess, you know?
So I would get, if I were lucky, just a nod from a parent, or a slight smile, but "I love you"? or "You look nice today"? or "Good job!"? Those things weren't said. No, it was more like: "..." No, I'm not going to write it; it's too painful, even now: my family is very, very smart, and very, very critical. And I know they want the best from me, and they tried to offer their constructive criticism gently, not bluntly, ... most of the time, but I never felt I was good enough, you know? So I never saw myself as pretty, or loved even, by my parents. I mean, I know they did, and, ... but growing up was rather austere — rather ... not cold, but cool, you know? very, very cool and distant — and, thinking back to my childhood, it was rather hard, and here I am now, and I won't do this thing that my sister did.
Even though I can't really see somebody quoting this poem to me.
So, singing this silly song to myself softly, I smile, but it's a wistful smile, as I see the lover call to the beloved, seeing her as beautiful, as perfect, and hearing the longing in the voice, and then my smile disappears and I have to wipe away my tears.
You know what I've been reading? Salinger and Sartre. And I wonder: what if they are right? What if they are right, and now is the only thing we have, and it's all vanity?
"Why is Violet crying? I just said to her to look how hard it's raining outside and she runs to the bathroom!"
Yes, it's raining hard outside, and I hear skeletons climbing the stairs...
... and now is all we have ...
So, Rosemary, Rosemary, let down your hair.
The cow's in the hammock, the crow's in the chair!
I was making you songs out of sawdust and silk,
But they came in to call and they spilt them like milk.
The cat's in the coffee, the wind's in the east,
He screams like a peacock and whines like a priest
And the saw of his voice makes my blood turn to mice
So let down your long hair and shut off his advice!
Pluck out the thin hairpins and let the waves stream,
Brown-gold as brook-waters that dance through a dream,
Gentle-curié as young cloudlings, sweet-fragrant as bay
Till it takes all the fierceness of living away.
Oh, when you are with me, my heart is white steel.
But the bat's in the belfry, the mold's in the meal,
And I think I hear skeletons climbing the stair!
Rosemary, Rosemary, let down your bright hair!
— 'phfina's thoughts:
I remember hearing this when I was a little child, I think, or somehow this poem pulls to me in that way. I stumbled upon it last weekend? two weekends ago? and immediately when I read it, I started reciting it out loud in my sing-songy reciting voice:
"Rosemary, Rosemary let down your hair!"
... and I couldn't help but to smile as I sang this silly song.
But, really, this song isn't so silly: it's sweet, and it's, yes: sad. The world around us — around me — is this crazy world where "the cow's in the hammock, the crow's in the chair!" but what is the image called to us in this crazy-life? It's Rosemary, my beloved Rosemary [the poet's wife], combing her hair in the morning, and putting up in a severe bun, and Stephen cries out: "Rosemary, Rosemary, please let down your hair!"
This is so New England, and yes, Stephen's from Pennsylvania, so I'll change that to 'Colonial.' Yeah! Colonial. There's something so ... 13 colonies in this poem, how the Brits came over to the New World, and wrested it from the natives, and wrested it from the French, and wrested it from anything and everything, including itself, so the 'New' England took on a character of the 'Old' England that they fled, and it wasn't even the Old England, it was what they thought they fled from Old England: that cold, unwelcoming, desolate place that the Brits entirely aren't! (I've met a few, and it's hard to find more warm, welcoming, bright, friendly people that the Brits I've met.) But this is what the colonists fled, and this is what they brought with them.
Funny how the thing we are running away from is the thing that is waiting for us when we arrive at our haven.
And so these hardy colonists carved out the land from the land and made it this prosperous, grey, heartless place. And so we have this poetry, from Benét and Frost and Wallace Stevens and other New Englanders and Colonists, so precise, so pragmatic, and so filled with longing for love and affection and something they could so easily have if they'd just do the one thing they cannot: put down the plow of their toil and dare, just dare, to open their hearts.
So.
So there's me, a New Englander, in exile in the South (but in the safe northern part of the South) (but no place is safe, is it, 'phfina?), reading this poem. And thinking about it and the images it calls forth.
And, I, well, is my hair something for my spouse to cry out this line? Well, not really. It's not full-bodied like my sisters' ... and it's not ratty, not really, it's just this straight, jet black "thing" that's this mess in the morning, and after that I don't really think about it until I'm washing the coffee smell out of it after I work out.
I really don't think about hair, except when I'm admiring it or when I'm missing it. Like, one time when I was still in high school, I visited my sister in Vermont, and I was shocked when I saw her because she was all Sinéad, and then she told me she had donated her hair for women who had lost their hair through cancer, and my approbation (had she gone skin-head?) turned to admiration. And I thought: how brave! how giving! how selfless!
Funny that, 'cause now her mom's a blond. Yes, her mom has breast cancer, and the chemo took her hair, and now she's on radiation therapy.
I wonder if I could ever do that: just cut off all my hair. And I don't see myself as vain, but here I am thinking about this little nothing while people are dying, .. and I don't see myself as ... well, I grew up where compliments weren't given, even if they were earned. I did tell you I'm from New England, didn't I? I mean, everything I did to try to make some kind of impression on my parents, what I did at school, what I did at home? But everybody in my family's a Mensan, (really) published authors with national and international accolades, teachers, professors, philosophers, for God's sake, so that makes me an also-ran, I guess, you know?
So I would get, if I were lucky, just a nod from a parent, or a slight smile, but "I love you"? or "You look nice today"? or "Good job!"? Those things weren't said. No, it was more like: "..." No, I'm not going to write it; it's too painful, even now: my family is very, very smart, and very, very critical. And I know they want the best from me, and they tried to offer their constructive criticism gently, not bluntly, ... most of the time, but I never felt I was good enough, you know? So I never saw myself as pretty, or loved even, by my parents. I mean, I know they did, and, ... but growing up was rather austere — rather ... not cold, but cool, you know? very, very cool and distant — and, thinking back to my childhood, it was rather hard, and here I am now, and I won't do this thing that my sister did.
Even though I can't really see somebody quoting this poem to me.
So, singing this silly song to myself softly, I smile, but it's a wistful smile, as I see the lover call to the beloved, seeing her as beautiful, as perfect, and hearing the longing in the voice, and then my smile disappears and I have to wipe away my tears.
You know what I've been reading? Salinger and Sartre. And I wonder: what if they are right? What if they are right, and now is the only thing we have, and it's all vanity?
"Why is Violet crying? I just said to her to look how hard it's raining outside and she runs to the bathroom!"
Yes, it's raining hard outside, and I hear skeletons climbing the stairs...
... and now is all we have ...
So, Rosemary, Rosemary, let down your hair.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
maggie and milly and molly and may
maggie and milly and molly and may by e.e.cummings
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
— phfina commentary.
May I tell you about my day yesterday? May I tell you about my day today?
Okay, yesterday.
Yesterday rocked.
I was in group yesterday, and it was my time to share. No, that's not correct. What is correct is that I raised my hand to share (*le gasp!*) and then I got up in front of everybody and said, 'Hi, my name is Violet, and I'm an sbux barista.' and everybody said 'Hi, Violet!' all friendly and expectant.
And then I told them. I told them how I had been suffering. How I was just perfect and everybody else was wrong, and how I was really this ball of spite and suffering, and I didn't want to be around anybody, and that worked really well, because nobody really wanted to be around me, Miss Party Pooper.
And then I told them, my perfection? my smarty pants and remarks? it was really just hiding that I'm really, still, a scared little girl, but all I really want ...
All I really want is for people to be happy.
And this spite and suffering was just protecting me from getting hurt again ... by hurting others first.
And I told them. I told them my new game in life, my hug game, my love game, the game I'm playing to win, where it's not about only me anymore. It's about you. And I love you. And I want you to be happy. And when you're happy, I am so happy ... fit to burst with joy.
And then I sat down.
maggie and milly and molly and may.
may I please tell you about yesterday?
maggie/Marigold came up to me afterwards. She had brought a guest, and she told me that my story of my suffering brought that strong, strict, firm, disciplined woman to tears, and how she had opened her heart to maggie and had shared her own sorrow and asked for forgiveness.
milly/Madison talked with me after group. I'm going to be not participating this weekend: I'm going to be assisting. And milly brought me her mom (dragged her over to us, in fact) and told me she was so thankful I would be assisting, because there would be a friendly face in the room — mine — and she was so glad I would be there because whenever I come into a room, she sees it light up.
molly/Eric talked with me afterward and he told me that he had seen me when I first came to group, and he said — God! — he said he was so proud of me on how I've taken on taking on my life and how he admired me standing for other people now, that whenever I was with somebody, I would see the good in them.
may/Ieva was in the parking lot. She's in her late 60s and she's writing her first book, and she said she thinks about me all the time, how she had sold out on her life up to now and how she was just rejoicing in me that I didn't wait all this time to start to get my life back and how courageous I am to be writing what I do and how she said she was called mousy and how much that hurt, but seeing little me running up in front of group and bouncing and just sharing from my heart gave her courage and how she would be a lion now and follow her dreams with passion.
Can I tell you about my yesterday? My yesterday rocked.
Can I tell you about my today?
It didn't start well, as you can see from my 'your shit' entry. Because I got back from group and I got a PM that just cut me to the quick, and all my happiness just bled out of my cut wrists as I saw what I saw in that PM. And I spent all today just bleak and black and sad! — you know? — just sad. I put it out there: don't be my friend anymore, dear friend. I really would've felt better gnawing off my own arm than write the PM I wrote at lunch break.
And then, instead of calling me the fucking bitch that I am, and telling me I should just jump, just die, ... instead of that, she forgave me.
She forgave me. And she told me she loved me, and that she would always be my friend.
How do you weigh the value of friendship? How can you put a price on it?
You can't, right? You can sing about it, or something, but where love and affinity is, there is life, and where it isn't, there isn't.
Can I tell you about today? Today I had lost a friend of the heart, because I ripped my own heart out and threw it onto the floor. But instead of stomping on it — like I deserved — my friend? — she picked up my heart, and said: "Here, you dropped something," and put it back into my chest, healing my wound.
When I wrote about love, here's what massrié wrote back:
"I love you for your spirit. Your body, while beautiful, is not as precious to me. I love you for the way your hair sticks up in the morning, the same as everyone else. I love that when you close your eyes at night, you spend the same amount of time trying to find your dreams.
I love that you can be exuberantly happy one moment and melancholy and desolate the next. Do you know why I love those things about you?
Because you are the same as any other human on this world. Love is blind. There's no doubt about that. Love doesn't see race / religion / beauty / health / sickness. It just is.
Just as you are. You are yourself. Uniquely individual and at the same time, like any hundreds of others.
Love to me, means loving without reserve. It means baking cookies with your grandma to spend time with her, or giving your mother figure a hug just because she looks sad. Its picking a friend up by the bootstraps, or holding one tight while tears spill down their face. Its late nights on the computer, spent trying to reach out across a distance. Its the most precious gift in the world.
That's love. Unconditional. Supportive. Ultimately given freely without choice.
I love you 'Phfina, just the way you are."
Can I tell you about my today? My today rocked.
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
— phfina commentary.
May I tell you about my day yesterday? May I tell you about my day today?
Okay, yesterday.
Yesterday rocked.
I was in group yesterday, and it was my time to share. No, that's not correct. What is correct is that I raised my hand to share (*le gasp!*) and then I got up in front of everybody and said, 'Hi, my name is Violet, and I'm an sbux barista.' and everybody said 'Hi, Violet!' all friendly and expectant.
And then I told them. I told them how I had been suffering. How I was just perfect and everybody else was wrong, and how I was really this ball of spite and suffering, and I didn't want to be around anybody, and that worked really well, because nobody really wanted to be around me, Miss Party Pooper.
And then I told them, my perfection? my smarty pants and remarks? it was really just hiding that I'm really, still, a scared little girl, but all I really want ...
All I really want is for people to be happy.
And this spite and suffering was just protecting me from getting hurt again ... by hurting others first.
And I told them. I told them my new game in life, my hug game, my love game, the game I'm playing to win, where it's not about only me anymore. It's about you. And I love you. And I want you to be happy. And when you're happy, I am so happy ... fit to burst with joy.
And then I sat down.
maggie and milly and molly and may.
may I please tell you about yesterday?
maggie/Marigold came up to me afterwards. She had brought a guest, and she told me that my story of my suffering brought that strong, strict, firm, disciplined woman to tears, and how she had opened her heart to maggie and had shared her own sorrow and asked for forgiveness.
milly/Madison talked with me after group. I'm going to be not participating this weekend: I'm going to be assisting. And milly brought me her mom (dragged her over to us, in fact) and told me she was so thankful I would be assisting, because there would be a friendly face in the room — mine — and she was so glad I would be there because whenever I come into a room, she sees it light up.
molly/Eric talked with me afterward and he told me that he had seen me when I first came to group, and he said — God! — he said he was so proud of me on how I've taken on taking on my life and how he admired me standing for other people now, that whenever I was with somebody, I would see the good in them.
may/Ieva was in the parking lot. She's in her late 60s and she's writing her first book, and she said she thinks about me all the time, how she had sold out on her life up to now and how she was just rejoicing in me that I didn't wait all this time to start to get my life back and how courageous I am to be writing what I do and how she said she was called mousy and how much that hurt, but seeing little me running up in front of group and bouncing and just sharing from my heart gave her courage and how she would be a lion now and follow her dreams with passion.
Can I tell you about my yesterday? My yesterday rocked.
Can I tell you about my today?
It didn't start well, as you can see from my 'your shit' entry. Because I got back from group and I got a PM that just cut me to the quick, and all my happiness just bled out of my cut wrists as I saw what I saw in that PM. And I spent all today just bleak and black and sad! — you know? — just sad. I put it out there: don't be my friend anymore, dear friend. I really would've felt better gnawing off my own arm than write the PM I wrote at lunch break.
And then, instead of calling me the fucking bitch that I am, and telling me I should just jump, just die, ... instead of that, she forgave me.
She forgave me. And she told me she loved me, and that she would always be my friend.
How do you weigh the value of friendship? How can you put a price on it?
You can't, right? You can sing about it, or something, but where love and affinity is, there is life, and where it isn't, there isn't.
Can I tell you about today? Today I had lost a friend of the heart, because I ripped my own heart out and threw it onto the floor. But instead of stomping on it — like I deserved — my friend? — she picked up my heart, and said: "Here, you dropped something," and put it back into my chest, healing my wound.
When I wrote about love, here's what massrié wrote back:
"I love you for your spirit. Your body, while beautiful, is not as precious to me. I love you for the way your hair sticks up in the morning, the same as everyone else. I love that when you close your eyes at night, you spend the same amount of time trying to find your dreams.
I love that you can be exuberantly happy one moment and melancholy and desolate the next. Do you know why I love those things about you?
Because you are the same as any other human on this world. Love is blind. There's no doubt about that. Love doesn't see race / religion / beauty / health / sickness. It just is.
Just as you are. You are yourself. Uniquely individual and at the same time, like any hundreds of others.
Love to me, means loving without reserve. It means baking cookies with your grandma to spend time with her, or giving your mother figure a hug just because she looks sad. Its picking a friend up by the bootstraps, or holding one tight while tears spill down their face. Its late nights on the computer, spent trying to reach out across a distance. Its the most precious gift in the world.
That's love. Unconditional. Supportive. Ultimately given freely without choice.
I love you 'Phfina, just the way you are."
Can I tell you about my today? My today rocked.
Liebst du um Schönheit by Friedrich Rückert
Liebst du um Schönheit by Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866)
Liebst du um Schönheit,
O nicht mich liebe!
Liebe die Sonne,
Sie trägt ein gold'nes Haar!
Liebst du um Jugend,
O nicht mich liebe!
Liebe den Frühling,
Der jung ist jedes Jahr!
Liebst du um Schätze,
O nicht mich liebe.
Liebe die Meerfrau,
Sie hat viel Perlen klar.
Liebst du um Liebe,
O ja, mich liebe!
Liebe mich immer,
Dich lieb' ich immerdar.
— phfina commentary.
Okay, here's my translation (deep breath):
If you love me for beauty, don't love me.
Love the sun, for her golden hair!
If you love me for my youth, don't love me,
Love the Spring, it's young every year.
If you love me for my money, don't love me.
Love the mermaid, she has clear pearls.
But if you love me for Love. O, yes, love me.
Love me for ever, and I'll love you forever, too.
Okay, here's my take:
God, this is so beautiful! And Mahler's setting to music? I'm crying, just listening to it (à propos de rein I just so love lieder! I'm feeling a little melty right now ... TMI? Oh, well). And the thing is this. Do you love me? Why? 'cause I'm pretty? 'cause I'm young? 'cause I'm (not) rich? (yet)
Honey, all of these things are temporal and shallow! They will pass, you know? "For richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health 'til death do us part."
But do you love me because you love me? O ja, mich liebe! Lieber mich immer and I will love you forever, too.
I can't help that. Can you get that? I still love Julia; I will always love her. Yes, she gave me my heart back, but she had it for a while. So did Cate, so did Brenda, so did ... and the list goes on ... and if you love me, truly love me, so do you. You have my heart, my love: always.
So, if you love me for this or for that, guess what? I'm so going to smell that! You think you can hide anything from me, or from yourself? I know I can't hide anything from you, I'm really bad at hiding from just myself. You love me for something, I'll know. And, on top of that, then this or that that you love me for passes away. You love me because I'm weak and sad? Well, I'm strong and happy and fierce today. You love me because I'm young ... well, I'm gonna be old and wrinkled soon ... and that soon will be today before we know it. You love me cause I'm a smart little thing and write all this neat stuff? Well, guess what, I say more stupid things when I open my mouth than anybody else I know (so I tend to keep my mouth shut and be really, really shy ... unless I'm being a real b!tch). You love me because I'm pretty? How shallow is that? Every person is beautiful, but I think I'm only beautiful when I'm loving and I'm loved, and loved not because (of this or that) but loved just because.
And if you love me like that, if you love me no matter what, if you look into my soul and see me exactly as I am, and exactly as I'm not, and love me anyway, not 'because,' but 'anyway' ...
... then, in the face of that love, I am helpless but to love you back, and oh, what love! You love me regardless of the fact that I'm a b!tch or that I'm sweet. You love me regardless of the fact that I'm a proud prowling panther or a scared little mouse. You love me. Regardless. And I cannot but help to love you, and to love you as (toppy) George Sand loved Chopin (so! the fem) — she told him: "I am not full of virtues and noble qualities. I love. That is all. But I love strongly, exclusively and steadfastly" (quoted from the movie Impromptu).
You know what? I just realized something. Bella, in my stories, loves Rosalie that way. Regardless. Regardless of her external façade of cold beauty, regardless of her black soul. Regardless. And in my counter-story, Bloodbuzz Rosalie loves Bella that way. Regardless. Regardless of her fatalism, regardless of her atrocities. Regardless.
You know what 'regardless' means? It means 'blindly.' "Love is blind"? No. Love sees the other person clearly, exactly as they are, and exactly as they are not, and still loves: "strongly, exclusively, steadfastly."
I'm not asking you to love me. I'm not. But I do ask this: if you do choose to love me, love me.
Liebst du um Schönheit,
O nicht mich liebe!
Liebe die Sonne,
Sie trägt ein gold'nes Haar!
Liebst du um Jugend,
O nicht mich liebe!
Liebe den Frühling,
Der jung ist jedes Jahr!
Liebst du um Schätze,
O nicht mich liebe.
Liebe die Meerfrau,
Sie hat viel Perlen klar.
Liebst du um Liebe,
O ja, mich liebe!
Liebe mich immer,
Dich lieb' ich immerdar.
— phfina commentary.
Okay, here's my translation (deep breath):
If you love me for beauty, don't love me.
Love the sun, for her golden hair!
If you love me for my youth, don't love me,
Love the Spring, it's young every year.
If you love me for my money, don't love me.
Love the mermaid, she has clear pearls.
But if you love me for Love. O, yes, love me.
Love me for ever, and I'll love you forever, too.
Okay, here's my take:
God, this is so beautiful! And Mahler's setting to music? I'm crying, just listening to it (à propos de rein I just so love lieder! I'm feeling a little melty right now ... TMI? Oh, well). And the thing is this. Do you love me? Why? 'cause I'm pretty? 'cause I'm young? 'cause I'm (not) rich? (yet)
Honey, all of these things are temporal and shallow! They will pass, you know? "For richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health 'til death do us part."
But do you love me because you love me? O ja, mich liebe! Lieber mich immer and I will love you forever, too.
I can't help that. Can you get that? I still love Julia; I will always love her. Yes, she gave me my heart back, but she had it for a while. So did Cate, so did Brenda, so did ... and the list goes on ... and if you love me, truly love me, so do you. You have my heart, my love: always.
So, if you love me for this or for that, guess what? I'm so going to smell that! You think you can hide anything from me, or from yourself? I know I can't hide anything from you, I'm really bad at hiding from just myself. You love me for something, I'll know. And, on top of that, then this or that that you love me for passes away. You love me because I'm weak and sad? Well, I'm strong and happy and fierce today. You love me because I'm young ... well, I'm gonna be old and wrinkled soon ... and that soon will be today before we know it. You love me cause I'm a smart little thing and write all this neat stuff? Well, guess what, I say more stupid things when I open my mouth than anybody else I know (so I tend to keep my mouth shut and be really, really shy ... unless I'm being a real b!tch). You love me because I'm pretty? How shallow is that? Every person is beautiful, but I think I'm only beautiful when I'm loving and I'm loved, and loved not because (of this or that) but loved just because.
And if you love me like that, if you love me no matter what, if you look into my soul and see me exactly as I am, and exactly as I'm not, and love me anyway, not 'because,' but 'anyway' ...
... then, in the face of that love, I am helpless but to love you back, and oh, what love! You love me regardless of the fact that I'm a b!tch or that I'm sweet. You love me regardless of the fact that I'm a proud prowling panther or a scared little mouse. You love me. Regardless. And I cannot but help to love you, and to love you as (toppy) George Sand loved Chopin (so! the fem) — she told him: "I am not full of virtues and noble qualities. I love. That is all. But I love strongly, exclusively and steadfastly" (quoted from the movie Impromptu).
You know what? I just realized something. Bella, in my stories, loves Rosalie that way. Regardless. Regardless of her external façade of cold beauty, regardless of her black soul. Regardless. And in my counter-story, Bloodbuzz Rosalie loves Bella that way. Regardless. Regardless of her fatalism, regardless of her atrocities. Regardless.
You know what 'regardless' means? It means 'blindly.' "Love is blind"? No. Love sees the other person clearly, exactly as they are, and exactly as they are not, and still loves: "strongly, exclusively, steadfastly."
I'm not asking you to love me. I'm not. But I do ask this: if you do choose to love me, love me.
Friday, August 13, 2010
This is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams
This is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
— 'phfina comment: Got nothing, m'dears. I got nothing. But how come I want to cry when I read this poem?
Okay, I do got something. Breathe after each line. "I have eaten [breath] the plums [breath] that were in [breath] the icebox [breath] [breath] ..." This poem's soul is in its breaths. It says so much in its silence and pauses. So little is going on in the foreground, and behind it, behind the apology and regret is an entire world, a well of sadness than I can only take a tiny sip from the ladle drawn from just a bucket-full pulled from this infinite depth that is this poem. To read this poem is to die.
Damn it, my eyes are leaking! Excuse me a sec while I go to the bathroom (a.k.a. 'phfina's crying/recovery room), your drink will be on the bar momentarily, sir.
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
— 'phfina comment: Got nothing, m'dears. I got nothing. But how come I want to cry when I read this poem?
Okay, I do got something. Breathe after each line. "I have eaten [breath] the plums [breath] that were in [breath] the icebox [breath] [breath] ..." This poem's soul is in its breaths. It says so much in its silence and pauses. So little is going on in the foreground, and behind it, behind the apology and regret is an entire world, a well of sadness than I can only take a tiny sip from the ladle drawn from just a bucket-full pulled from this infinite depth that is this poem. To read this poem is to die.
Damn it, my eyes are leaking! Excuse me a sec while I go to the bathroom (a.k.a. 'phfina's crying/recovery room), your drink will be on the bar momentarily, sir.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
l(a leaf falls)oneliness by e.e. cummings
l(a leaf falls)oneliness by e.e. cummings
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
— 'phfina comment: You know in japanime (you know ... yuri *blush*) when a character is so overwhelmed by whatever, by emotion, by the other person, by the circumstance, she is supposed to say something, but she can't so the speech-bubble shows this: "..."
Have I experienced loneliness like this? Like in ch 2 of BloodBuzz? Sure. But it's also so easy to snap out of that feeling. How do I do it? Well, sometimes (okay: a lot of times) I just wallow, and I waste the night in tears. But sometimes I get fed up with my emo angst, and I just get off my butt and just go out, you know? Go out to eat (mmm, grilled salmon salad!), or go to a bookstore or go ... Clubbing ... and get picked up by this really pale cutie (but why are her eyes so black?) or not ('cause she dumps me for her famous cousins ... b!tch, who cares if she's related to the great C.J. Rae and Vogue cover model Rosalie Hale? What am I? Chopped liver?) and just people watch, and even just doing that, I feel a bit more connected and alive.
So, yeah, I'm a good moper (one of the best), but I'm actually finding out I can choose not to do that if I don't want to. And finding that out? Trying that on? It's pretty cool, sometimes.
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
— 'phfina comment: You know in japanime (you know ... yuri *blush*) when a character is so overwhelmed by whatever, by emotion, by the other person, by the circumstance, she is supposed to say something, but she can't so the speech-bubble shows this: "..."
Have I experienced loneliness like this? Like in ch 2 of BloodBuzz? Sure. But it's also so easy to snap out of that feeling. How do I do it? Well, sometimes (okay: a lot of times) I just wallow, and I waste the night in tears. But sometimes I get fed up with my emo angst, and I just get off my butt and just go out, you know? Go out to eat (mmm, grilled salmon salad!), or go to a bookstore or go ... Clubbing ... and get picked up by this really pale cutie (but why are her eyes so black?) or not ('cause she dumps me for her famous cousins ... b!tch, who cares if she's related to the great C.J. Rae and Vogue cover model Rosalie Hale? What am I? Chopped liver?) and just people watch, and even just doing that, I feel a bit more connected and alive.
So, yeah, I'm a good moper (one of the best), but I'm actually finding out I can choose not to do that if I don't want to. And finding that out? Trying that on? It's pretty cool, sometimes.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Grown Up by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Grown Up by Edna St. Vincent Millay
WAS it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?
— 'phfina's comment: Heh! "retire at half-past eight"? I should be so lucky! ... Yes, I am writing again, m'dears.
WAS it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?
— 'phfina's comment: Heh! "retire at half-past eight"? I should be so lucky! ... Yes, I am writing again, m'dears.
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