passive pressure

I feel like I am writing from nowhere and with nothing. I lay my hand down, have it move but cannot read what has been affected. Something may not be there, but my hand is moving, still, an untraceable gesture beneath my eyes. I capitalize myself, seize the day and subject it to scripture. To no deny, I am tempted by narcotic’s aid, help me help me, they run through blood and say. But I inhale only purity, a toxin here and there—shallow sharp tastes, only when I have to. Bodies try for balance across the plank, we watch, wrestling with our hearts. Gold embedded across your lids, stands out against a white washed background of sky. Until they lash backwards and my eye sees blue hanging, centered in the cloud of your eyes. Large enough to contain a world, and they do. Tell me what you see there, all your happenings that I do not know. Please tell me only once.
I lay naked against the sand’s skirting. Your body pressed against my folds, secretions drowning around my edges. Internalizing until my pores secrete you. And then, will I be emptied, will you be gone? No, not ever. “Read me something in the language your eyes spell out,” he wishes, and I follow to please.

The candescent sea collapses against the small curves of her body. Her body, hanging like a canopy on the sensuous shore of throbbing solitude. She remains there, visibly and audibly, as if she were one long sigh. No part of her shows an inclination to move. Except for her fingers that press deeper into the coating of the beach. Shells crumble and break like glass. Clouds hang like ornaments in a blue stretch of time. And I, I resemble a future self with a body that melts in the shoreline, a fabricated figure woven into hanging arms and a torso trunk. My strangling legs wrap around this mounting form and at a distance a difference of selves cannot be figured. I do not mind this tangle, how I have been caught, submerged into temperatures that shock more than physicality. My only wish is to hold on—to stay—on the border where the sea meets the shore and falls desperately on to the body of the beach—where the silken sea is like a ribbon rippling to the rhythms of the fleeting birds who sing their poetics to the wind who is moving too fast, to stop and reply. Landscape imagery grows around me, as the water breaks inside my hand, scraping my palm and leaving another scarred wrinkle (I have been effected). The sun drips on to my lids. Eyes poke open to avoid the burning sensation of sight, as a lash falls uselessly. I see blue marble eyes (my fixation is unbreakable) that match the cloth of the sky that has been designed behind him, for him. I feel pacified and can no longer tell whether his eyes stand before the sky or the sea, for I am high above both, yet inside of them too.

My lips take pause. His body falls from mine. He becomes useless, now. Waves change their pattern—nothing falls, nothing breaks, nothing touches me. Silence becomes a new sound and that is the only thing I feel—a texture, a weight, I cannot breathe against. “Your prose could have been about anyone.” What? I don’t understand him. “The male with the blue eyes. The body your legs were wrapped around. It may not be me, but any figure you wanted to romanticize, idealize, isolate. How am I to know who it is your eyes see, your mind remembers, you think is special?” He knows it has not been about him solely. Not all scenes can be uniquely distinguished, but there is a closeness—a quality in gesture—that preserves a place, that characters can feel in and out of time. It is very rare that a story is secluded for and by one soul. It often comes because of everyone, or at least so many. 

The Chelsea Hotel

but better than rearranging my room was the surprise of siggy, wireless internet (at last), my purchase of lavender incense and the discovery of carole maso who i imagine will substantially effect my writerly mind.

memorized exterior

I leave my apartment, wave thoughtfully to the doorman and fall through the day. The doorman will smile, religiously, although I have begun assuming he is inspired by an effort to draw attention away from what he has to say. I will never know what he is thinking all the afternoons I pass him—collecting my newspaper or guiltily neglecting the boxes filled with popcorn kernels that he constantly reminds me about. “In an hour, I promise!, I’ll be down to collect them”—but I won’t be, those popcorn kernels stick to my hands and make me want to throw up. I won’t know what he thinks about me when he sees the same face that signed in the night before, leave the following morning. He may not think of me at all. He may just smile because he has forgotten my name or because he has been told it is part of his pay (I doubt that, he is too genuine). I won’t ask and in truth, even if I did, I still would not know substantially more. Inside the Whitney Museum, I trace the edges of an exhibit in the backroom. I try and take my time because this is, in fact, what I came and have been waiting all summer for. But it is difficult spending too much time when the room is so small. I wonder whether the room is smaller than the photographs hanging at eye level and wrapping the walls like lace on the outside of a package. Six minutes go by—max—and I stand in the center of the room, trying to take in something more. I watch people watching me—they do not know I see them seeing me, but I do. They think I am interested in the exhibit, perhaps writing descriptive notes furiously for an article I am assigned to write—maybe for a job where you receive three cents for each word or maybe just for a course in school. They think I am moved, either personally or critically, but they do not know how under whelmed I feel. Instead, I stand there, less aware of my physical presence and more aware of my mental digressions. I realize how invested in curiosity I am by this doorman of mine. Then I realize how little I actually care, and admit that maybe if I continue this thought long enough, I will have something to write about—some point that will lead me into a more substantial perspective. I leave the exhibit and am emptied on to the third floor. The room is lined in mirrors, doors hang from the ceiling, opening and closing with a thrashing sound. Allegedly this is art. I don’t fight its title—just think what a big umbrella things seem to fall safely under nowadays. I do not have any desire to remain neutral and I most certainly do not have any desire to be a pompous muser. While at the Armory Show, I finally spoke over some pretentious observer who, baffled by the chosen work, claimed his own was just as good. I said I believed art—photography especially—was less about the one incident that was framed and more about the story and scenes that evolved around the photograph—the moments that were not captured—the mystery saved for the mind. Art says more about the eye behind the lens or canvas, than it does about the subject captured, depicted, established. My photography does not hang in the exhibit because I did not take advantage of the opportunity to do so—I did not seek out the sensational these scenes have extracted. Photographers need to be applauded and respected for the fact that they are explorers, opening their eye and leaving it open so viewers can see through it. I enter a space that projects the movement it is enclosed by. I do not see myself, but being that is a plea for instantaneous gratification of this generation, I am told there is a time delay—and all of a sudden I begin appearing before myself. I do not recognize my being there—how natural I am—how flawed and perfect. The images chase each other in circles around me and I try to follow their direction, their speed, twisting through time and slicing space with my effort. All the while, I wonder whether my doorman realized that I was wearing the exact same outfit I had worn yesterday. I wonder whether he thinks I did not see anyone yesterday and therefore, can continue to wear the same clothing until I do. I wonder whether he thinks I am seeing someone different today than I did yesterday, and this means I am living two separate lives. I wonder whether he begins to think that all the boxes that are being shipped to me are actually filled with the same leopard “thongtard” and red mini skirt that comes high above my navel. Or maybe he thinks I just do not care what I wear, when I wear it and how often I have it on—and maybe that is why he smiles. I stare into the screens and see two of my past selves chasing after each other. I am smiling in both. A woman standing next to me tells me how I am appearing everywhere and looking so good. “No, your image is appearing everywhere. Look!” and I point at her double. “Oh, wow, I guess I hadn’t seen myself.” I wander out of the exhibit and think about all the times the doorman and I have smiled to each other. Why? Because I think we both know we just get it—no one truly sees his self or memorizes his exterior.

I, eye, I, Me, me, Me.

I spend the day in and out of my apartment—mainly in than out. My sister stays transfixed on her computer screen all during this time. Every time I pass through the living room, I see her there, crying. Politics. Crying. Power. Tears. The world. Debate. Election. Outside on the balcony with a cigarette burning down between her fingers, her voice yelling through the phone. I have become concerned with myself—with my own daily focuses—what I decide to take in from my exteriors. I have fifty pages left of The Waves by Virginia Woolf. As can be seen from the underlines that rule the pages, I have read this novel before, but do not remember it. Still, after a second read, I do not remember it. I adore and will go so far to say, live by, some of her passages but cannot ignore the fact that I have no idea what the novel has been about. The truth is I never can provide a synopsis and I do not read for plot. I read for language, for design, for sensibility. I have just begun reading The Implacable Order of Things by Jose Luis Peixoto. My goal is to follow the story, even though I already can tell I am extracting the essence. I am searching for soul while my twin sister sits crying on the couch. She does not follow me and I do not follow her. I wonder whether I am truly missing the mark. Supposedly we both are intense; she is serious, I am passionate. The political versus the personal—although one influences the other. She is firmly opposed to consumerism, while the only way I know how to live is by absorbing this thing called "living" in "life". We are both constantly overwhelmed by and in our separate ways. She focuses on the mechanics the world runs on and I focus on the mechanics of the individual’s interior. We both have an intense interest to be masterminds on human operations. Her study is tangible. Mine is metaphysical. I find what is not said or shown, but thought, and subject it in order to give it presence. Am I an idiot?

dancing fingers.

I come home, after days spent away, where time could be cast off into a place void of purpose. She heard me say to him that this was home. She looked confused—confused by her own grounding compared to my fleeting nature. She did not know that within my words, I wondered how—how it could be considered home. I resist reason, finding there may not be one or just one. On the car ride in, I watched rain pierce my surrounding state. Drops kept their balance on the shoulders of my coat, but falling from the corners of my eyes was a product of my present being that could not stay still. I wrote on the edge of my mind something to remember: “The weather made me do it.” And I cried with the sky, while traveling away from my house and toward my home. “I feel like my self is being stretched across states, separated by distance so I remain nowhere specific.”

My door opens and I enter an emptied room that use to be my own. Now it is only a collapsed bed between walls tinged rose. My belongings have been cleared out and with that, my character. I am assured this is good news—a chance to reinvent myself, to fall beneath a different pocket of rest, to wake and see myself differently, staring ahead. I get started immediately, despising how fragmented I feel. And stepping back from my design, while speaking to my sister, my voice jokes, This room is not meant for single sleeping. But I am not joking. “I cannot believe what a sexual being you are,” she tells me. “I worry that you depend on romance.” My work depends on romance and I do not want to stop working, I correct her. “Well you need to change that. It is esoteric.” I hear her, but have trouble taking her in, knowing she openly confesses she has not experienced love and its ability to empower your interior—an effect caused by the world falling away (we need nothing but small bites of each other to survive).

Our discourse stops, so I have spaces of silence to wonder what else there is after the self, the other, a stage, a performance, scenes and quotes we remember each other by. I do not know what I will write about during the coming time. I worry I have nothing. I worry this even when I am writing. But whenever I worry that I am situated upon nothing substantial to say—that I have not experienced a sensationalized scene to reinvent and reveal—something comes, something that surprises me and shocks my fingers into an impressionable dance of script.

There is a dialogue, in the way we move, to be heard. I do not take nuances for granted.

fasten yo self.

this guy's moves fascinates me.

dreamy?

is mankind taking a nap break? "dreamy"? i can't remember the last time anything earth shattering happened as a result of someone with their eyes closed. and yes, i do admit, i have taken one too many sleeping pills, i have written scrolls and scrolls of dream state ideations and can become quite fascinated by the surrealities of sleep but i will also tell you, spending time wrapped up in your covers is a guaranteed way to waste your time. would coastin' be better? listening to this song is a good alternative.

the characters of paris.

If you knew me then, would you remember me now.

Suspicion spreads through my mind like a rodent dodging into corners. I sweep myself through this very day, trying manically to avoid clearing my memory of our moment entirely. You cannot see, but I wish you would know, I am trying to keep you. And although I am moving rapidly, believing a constant spree of motion will produce a change within me, I am holding us still. 

Morning breaks through my blinds and I am without you, but no more alone. Who is to know now, whether in darkness I will see you then, and try to know you better there. Our relation (no, not a relationship as you assume in dream) falls under the thematic veil of my undertakings, which helps me use the distraction of our distance as a reason to resolve what would otherwise be a rising indifference. Yesterday, you were in front of me, but I did not see you there. It was more like a figure wafting through time with no permanence at all. Someone reduced to something, which I would rather not remember you as being. These are the times I filter out acts of living through the hole in my eyes, so I am only left with substance soaking in the sponge of my mind. We are all made to believe, but instead we just make. Changed after each minute and changing at the start of the next, these alterations make it impossible to be made and kept as one. “Have you ever been had?” I cannot forget it. And yesterday, with your hand dropping down into existence over my own, I could see how you were looking to achieve permanence. As if the subtle stretch of your fingers across my paling skin was silence speaking in and of itself, “I cannot forget it either.” Then, just as I felt I was seeing you, as my memory knows you, you became absent. But your touch is how I keep you, and you know that is how you see me too.

Bon Iver and the music that robs you of your breath.

Bon Iver~For Emma (Live in-studio at MOKB/WEEM) from Tim Wilsbach on Vimeo.

however, my favourite off the album is re: stacks.

I remember falling immediately for Bon Iver. Last spring, probably while I was floating in time through the Internet, I became introduced to him. Walking down the same streets in Manhattan—the ones you know will get you from point A to B (either the most scenically or quickly)—music becomes the only reliable companion to take you through your day, to carry you confidently. Voices closely kept inside my ear, the musician’s sensibility is the only kind that matters—then and there. And to a certain extent, the music you choose in turn chooses your character and decides your sense of being. Artists like Bon Iver almost perform a robbing—a robbing of breath. Listening, I wonder whether it is a breathing in I need or a breathing out. Air keeps you sane—a traveling forth, whether mentally or physically—a continual movement, a constant stretch that shows your growth. Music does this, and as a writer, as a visionary, as a translator of interior discourse, I honor the art of music—it’s ability to mingle movement (sound, rhythm, fingers falling against keys…) with words (text that is locked in place). It is impossible for me not to listen to music and hope my writing’s voice will strengthen so it can be heard, so it can move, so it can be played out and inspire an audience (viewer, reader, listener) to perform. I listen to two spectrums of sound and they both rest on opposite extremes. I live for the moments where I can loose myself in song—where I can, quite literally, dance it off—where the music is meant to make you move and challenge the constraints of your body—where you feel similar to a swimmer, weightless in the water. Then there is Bon Iver, Andew Kenny & Ben Gibbard, A Weather, Buddy, Cherry Ghost, Kevin Drew, Le Loup, M. Craft, Marble Sounds, Okay, Pinback, Raine Maida, Rob Crow, Seabear, Titles, Wye Oak, Wolftron, Yeasayer that when I play for others am told how “depressing” the music is, but I am almost offended by that, for I find it to invigorating, motivating and overwhelmingly strengthening. The lyricism is actually what makes me run quickest, work hardest and live for more. I will never forget the seven am walks to work at The Weinstein Company—the ins and outs of metros—the pace Manhattans are expected to maintain and exceed—and how the entire time I was listening to “music that is sad”. I do believe it is how you want to translate the information you are receiving, and I cannot deny that every morning when I walked through the door, I never felt like I was not on top of the world or something other than overcome by ambition. In a week I will be back in Manhattan, and I will miss the speed of sound I traveled with in Miami. There is no doubt that I look like a fool, singing at the top of my lungs with my convertible top down, exposed and unashamed. But I know my alternative: listening to music while walking quickly down Manhattan streets. Driving in Miami, I listen to music while I fly—traveling quicker than my feet will ever be able to take me—covering a larger landscape. One should always chase after euphoria and when it is met, one should always use what it is to continue to produce its effects. Then, what is assumed to be depressing for others becomes your driving force, and you have the capabilities to go further—to have the actual act of living last longer.

Nothing was felt.

Our bodies do not discern a distinct direction. Motions have not been memorized, souls are not in sync with a physical presence. It can be sensed that we do not know each other, the way we need to. Flesh rubs at each’s other like a scratching against a doormat. But what rests on top cannot feel what lies below. Motion can only be heard: the scratching sounds, a sigh in meager dosages. I apply pressure against the doormat, but the owner does not care to let me in. I remain a part of the exterior—grinding, until I dissolve. My hands pass over the fabric of flesh, but I feel nothing. Fingers fall around curving sides, as my hands twist and clutch this mass I am situated upon. I am grabbing—holding on to a changing life, in hope I will keep it from passing out beneath me—there is someone here, but I, I feel nothing. Slide out of my human container like the slippage of sand through the hours of time, I imagine, he is made for no one. Colors come in and out of existence, but my cheeks remain as roses—my eyes as petals, falling open. We turn, so the bareness of my back is hidden by sheets soaked by memories I will never know, nor ask to hear. His gleams like a canal’s coat, tossing off the moon’s face as it falls through the sky. I hear my thoughts say, Appearance is artificial. I know truth speaks when one wishes for fantasies. I cannot fight myself, and so, I believe my thoughts. Letting my eyes cast off into the corner of his room, I hope my mind follows after, even if the counter reaction is it’s a pestering pet. But sight sinks into deeper darkness—a place in time the mind is never taught to conceive—where absence matters most. He pushes his self through me, but the only thing I feel is the engagement’s effect rising words towards my throat. I swallow a third time so they sink into the rest of my waste. We turn again and I am up in the air. But looking back where I was I see my impression imprinted on his sheet like a former self that seeps beneath the surface—reminding me, I will remain, perhaps as a substance, as a body, as a scent that starts to smell old fashion, as a face that spoke over my soul. I fall into him, I feel nothing. I fall into him further, I feel more of nothing. And then something: his name, his name resonating outside my mind and being pushed out by my lips. I hear it being said over and over, but cannot remember having said it. 

Falling on my back, I am unconscious of my self. “I read you recently and it was all romance,” he reveals. I can only write on love when I am out of love. I hear his lashes beating like birds flapping for freedom. “What happens when you are in it?” Nothing. “But what do you feel?” I feel nothing. Silence sounds outside my ear like a fly I want to crush until its blood leaves me with a stain of life. Instead, I lay, because at night one does in hope of turning their back to aloneness. Blackness smothers sight, and I hear him preserving air, trying to resist entrance into what his mind does not know. I keep calm, letting it cover me like an embrace you love for. He struggles, as I think how similar we are. We both know nothing. In the morning, when color takes control and burns a hole through the night’s cloth, he will ask me what romance I will write next. I will tell him this. But this was nothing. If he is in sight, he will see I am avoiding the true telling of truth. If he is intuitive, I will promise him I will write. But I will not tell him how. See, I will have to write within imagination, for I expected more of something other, but I felt nothing.

politics are found within the personal.

It is often assumed that individuals uninterested in politics are unintelligible. Instantly their humanity is negotiated and with it, even their respect. I have heard the sneering judgments and I am positive that I am not the only member in society that has tuned into the noise. My ears perk up and I can smell the belittlement from a mile away. Individuals who do not speak their opinion, do not have an opinion—furthermore they are not an individual! They do not care about life and therefore I will not care about them! Eyes are cast in an opposite direction and the inhumane-non-individuals become shadows of society. 

I swallow my spit and choose to rise above these triumphant champions. But I have questions about their lifestyle, too. Why is it they think one should wear a sign across their forehead that says, “I am clued into the world at large”? If one has an opinion, why does it need to be instantaneously stated and shouted to the public? Get off your high horse and listen to me! Stand at my level and let’s talk like equals. But I do not say any of that, and I shy away—feeling quite bad about my lack of intelligence. 

Wait—don’t discredit me now. I am intelligent. I am specialized in subjects. I have insatiable curiosity. I crave awareness. I have a subscription to The New York Times. What more can be asked of me to consciously participate? People tell me I read too much—that I am distracted by a preoccupation with perception! I swoon admirers with my perpetual passion and I have dedicated the last half of my life to the study of identity and the power to control the sight cast on one’s self. 

But yet, I silence my voice on the subject of the presidential campaign, the war, environmentalism.... Oh no, now you think I do not have a soul—that I am just a face. I am being held responsible for my biggest fear. The truth is I intersect political conversations with, “I am in no way an expert and do not know all sides of reason, but I believe...” I have an impulsive tendency to want to remain honest and genuine to the material I know—and what I know always revolves around what I have experienced, seen and as a result, feel. My politics are personal. My politics are based on the philosophy of ethics. My ethics are psychological. I pursue the philosophy of psychology—believing that the personal should not be belittled to generalizations, emotions should not be pigeonholed and that the individual should not be held accountable for mental and physical actions that are performed by collective and instated norms. Basically, my politics attest the person within the personality and who is responsible for the personal. My politics speak of one, but hopefully speak to many. And I hope to always establish that—that there are no formal answers because we are controlled by relative rationales and subjective truths. 

You see—I am interested. I am aware. I am moved to action. I want my actions to be moving. And I believe actions rely on the power of voice. We project meaning on to the world and we expect meaning to be derived. But individuals look for meaning in different places. Those that are passionate about the war look for meaning within the territory of countries, states and homes. Those that are a passionate about the environment project meaning on to nature. And me? I read into the physical and am empowered to have an intense understanding on the mechanics of thought—a subject entirely metaphysical. I find meaning within the heart of the body. I evaluate how it spreads upward to the mind. I follow it as it evolves from thought and is verbally projected into space at a certain time. I am impassioned by how individuals are moved to act. I want to know why humans begin to make a stance externally—whether in presidential campaigns, human rights, ect—what material is responsible for the substance produced from their voice. 

My mind is consumed elsewhere and on something that is not concrete. The news I am attracted to concentrates on meaning that is possibly not visually there, but has to be discovered. I literally have to read into what is being said, so I can unleash the essence and uncover the hidden truth. I practice deconstruction. 

But why is the intangible and unanswerable abstractions a theme I try and answer? Why is the reasoning that I am committed to something that does not have physical presence that can be laid before one’s eyes as proof and evidence? Why has the character of language been the political debate that is calling out to me in a voice that I cannot turn my back to? 

It feels impossible and yet, I have chosen it or it has chosen me. I am entrapped by the control of language—and instead of trying to pry loose, look for a way out in panic—I am fascinated. All possible meanings of deconstruction situate the reader, the thinker, the explicator in a situation of limitations. But yet, there is irony in that too—since the limit that language is bound by is the limit of always being able to go beyond, to seek further, to stop nowhere. I say this is binding because language is a discourse that provides an escape of thought, yet withholds attention and time. We need it to explicate the self’s existence—and therefore, it is an escape we seek and which proves to be inescapable. We desire it, we need it, we try and control it yet it controls us and decides the power of control we can have. 

Everything outside our self is beyond our control, and yet assumes relentless power over us. I wonder why external relations are given such responsibility—the ability to impact, influence and manage our life? I understand that one must see to know. And this deduction of the ways of the world convinces me that perception acts in two manners: one, as the instrument to prove that we exist and two, the weapon we fear can judge us. We need it but yet, we wish it would not inflict harm upon us. In other words, we want to control perception because we know it first determines and finally, affects us. 

So do I demonstrate resilience against the oppression of language’s limitations? Have I tried to control perception, so it cannot control me? Are you reading the words of a paradoxical writer whose sentences continue, but yet in circles—whose motifs are controlled by the obsessions that therefore, control her? Oh, I suppose I fall victim to my own patterns—that I would not represent what has not left an impression upon me—that my present presence is a product of my past. I cannot escape what I know and what I do not know will confront me at every corner.

You wonder now, what it is I know and what it is that confronts me requesting my concentration. I know only what I have traveled through and what I do not know is that which I have forgotten or is to be faced in the future—I am constrained by memories. But what came first, the memory or me? This is what I try to configure and refigure. It is motivated by the need to be knowledgeable on the subject of myself—to be intellectually insightful. I ask the same question—and know the two are linked—over whether my politics on persona came before or after my personal attention to my own character. My journals describe the travels of my mind. Therefore, my journals decide me. 

At a relatively early age, I did what was then found to be a brave and unique undertaking—I created an online journal. Eight years later I am one of many, doing something quite normal. Today almost everyone with a computer has an online life and with the rise of networking tools, most individuals—even those one may never have assumed—have created a profile on sites like Facebook. 

In the era of today, we are provided the opportunity to accelerate the awareness of ourselves. Technology awards this advantage. Online a world is stretched out wide beneath our fingertips—doors are opened with a click of the mouse, lives unfold across the screen and identities are exposed within a dot com. All participating cyber-users have the power to bring the world closer in, to see further out and to intangibly exist elsewhere as something. 

However, at the end of the day, the Internet is a resort one seeks out to pacify the addiction of needing control over the appearance of oneself. In my case, it was a chance to reach out and let myself be known as I knew I was, not solely as who I was perceived to be. Even with the rise in popularity, the intention of the Internet has not changed. It is still a medium for truth and genre for tale telling. It is still a chance to be made known. And that is why I took a leap of faith in the 8th grade and with a dot.com address let myself be followed through time in a single place others could rely I would be, my online site. 

It raised attention to not only myself, but the medium I was existing within—an intangible and non material generated model of space, time, memory and existence. The entries’ dates marked the passing time and also, my changing selves. It was remarkable and terrifying. Within a screen, I was contained—I could be seen, I could be read through, I could be decided. No matter how much I knew about myself, the box of words was still only a box that I was constantly changing within. And this box that was giving an account of myself was only an edited version of what I found appropriate for who I needed, wanted, decided or selected I was to be. However, my audience did not know this. They had no understanding that the edited entry that was exposed on the space of the screen was only a certain truth and a section of myself. And so, the multitudes of myself were narrowed down and my appearance online was where I, supposedly, existed wholly. 

In my beginning years online, I cannot remember being troubled by the reality of the Internet. I now reason, that was because no judgment had affected me negatively. Controlling what was explicated on my site, gave me the power to be judged in an according fashion. Readers felt I was deep, insightful and a young woman of faces: at once attractive and intensely internal—amusing and profoundly sensitized. My desire to be genuinely seen and candidly analyzed was judged as refreshing and empowering. And this exposed perspective enlightened and compelled viewers at large to be seen, heard and therefore, valued. 

I, too, felt empowered by my effect. What began as a dialogue with myself, which was read by classmates, had become a worldwide conversation with—mainly—females that were looking for truthful words on subjects that felt personally familiar. My addiction to control my appearance had evolved into a habit of revealing an appearance that resided internally. And by bringing this “I” to surface, I took on a new hope to provide insight on how others could control their emotions—their scars of experience. 

Of course no matter how many moments were dedicated to figuring my online figure, time carried me forth. Outside the Internet—within the real world—I was an active participant in my own experiences, experiences that scarred my skin and altered the landscape of my vision, as well. I went through plateaus of highs and lows—the lows that would not have been made known had it not been for my site, which sighted my spoken words that were comforting me and yet, determining my impression because language was controlling my representation. My boyfriend, at the time, was the first to act in a manner that disillusioned, conflicted and concerned me. He ended our seemingly special relationship because he believed a poem I had written and posted online had been about him. It had not been, but his judgment was out of my control and I could not convince him otherwise. This was the first occasion that reminded me of the control others had over who they imagined you to be. His judgment influenced my own judgment of myself and this effected me for, what can be traced through the journal, months of anguish. But the truth was simple—I had put myself out there to be judged and it had happened, so I had to let it go and embrace my effort. 

I eventually did and carried forth in a different direction with a new momentum. I was never entirely renewed though—in pictures I faked smiles and performed happiness—but people believed only what they saw, and they believed I was indestructible, determined and wiser because of it. As a result, my inbox began consuming another breed of reactions—the voice within the notes spoke with less praise. Hate mail tried to outnumber the sighs of admiration and when I presented myself with perseverance, the “non-fans” of my site—yet definite fans, since they kept frequenting my journal—got creative with their criticism. A separate website was designed and dedicated to quoting my words, featuring my photographs and degrading every realm of my being. This, too, attracted an audience and successfully controlled my own perception of myself. These slandering rejections distracted me and it was not until I swore to never visit the site again, that I was able to leave it behind completely.

Eventually, the attraction to the website lessened and died out completely. But mine never did—and the fact that my words never voiced those that were in opposition to me, enhanced my character and made others more dedicated to knowing or, rather, reading me. I received letters, had visitors from England and unfortunately, became a commodity—a contradiction to what I believed the Internet was devoid of, a material object.

I never wanted to blame matter outside myself though. I never wanted to let myself feel victimized by what was inevitably my own self-doing. I kept with the journal—my life kept being documented and followed—and I continued to offer myself up to judgment, knowing that perception was inescapable. However, the effects of judgment were inescapable, as well—regardless of one’s strength. 

The outside peering in finally scared me. I had arrived at college—and without knowing a single student—was instantly spotlighted as the “mysterious and intimidating creature online”. Before personally meeting me, my roommates believed they knew me—and yet, I was still trying to remember their names. I felt like I was not participating with the world—that I was removed from it—that it decided me before I had focused on paying it attention—and this made me feel guilty. I resorted to my single dorm room and created a world of my own which became known as “Chelsea’s Cave”. Encompassed by bright colors, onlookers envisioned the color of my room to be the temperature of my heart. Windows that stared out onto laughing student dorms similarly stared into my silent situation. Overconfident females knocked on my door and exclaimed they had seen me from across the way and had to introduce themselves because I “seemed hip”. I shook hands and forgot their name, but they continued to look into my empty room and were given the opportunity to glimpse into my heart, which was just as empty. I waited in line for the elevator and would be stopped and told that, “You’re going to win!” Win what?—it escaped me. “America’s Next Top Model!” Such verbal comments were followed by typed reactions on Facebook: “You’re a celebrity!” “Just be famous already!” How was this happening? I hid out in my room and escaped to New York City and Miami every weekend. No one knew me the way I had hoped one would during my college years. But people found this more glamorous—more mysterious—more expected of an infamous persona. But I was escaping because for the first time, I was able to be silent and still be noticed—still be talked over—still be impacting, though I knew I was being boring. 

I resorted further into the Internet but for the first time, I began peering into the lives of other online personas. I feared what I saw, which was relationships that mirrored upon my past: smiles, interaction, social events and activity. But there was no movement in my life and this made me feel all of two things—unlikable and missing the ability to make a friend ever again. The images of the Internet and my image on the Internet made me feel empty. During this time, the female spectacles in the media were falling subject to eating disorders. Spectators were holding them accountable for perfection—and hoping to achieve entitlement, celebrities tried to become what they assumed was expected of their role as a public persona in view to the world. I thought I was exempt from such vulnerability—I imagined I was beyond being controlled by idealizations. But as the ever existing streams of consciousness and photographs of myself depict, I was influenced by the power of eyes and the impression that would result and consequently, directed my behavior within the confines of restrictive eating. I remember explicating myself, “I filled my stomach with what my heart felt—emptiness.” I believed it was my only way of seeing myself differently—of controlling an unfulfilling year with an experience that would change me forever—of slapping an image across the Internet viewer’s face that screamed, You did not know me. You did not see what I felt. 

It worked. And ironically, I felt few feelings over it. I arrived home from college and for the first time, no one could stand to look at me. I needed no words—onlookers had their own that they, without regard, voiced to me. My inbox became filled again with letters of terror, disgust and comments insisting that I had betrayed what they believed I stood for. Whereas my mother left a card by my desk reading, “Don’t let ANYONE – ANYTHING get in your way. It’s yours for the taking. I always believe in you.” And there were a few other concerned individuals motivating me to “stay strong Chelsea” and revealing the reassuring “just know I love you.” All doings were on the surface small gestures, but the depth to which they continue to penetrate is nothing that can be denied. 

Thinness had become the new ideal and for the handful of people that hated me, there were even more that loved me. Dedicating communities to my figure and stealing my pictures for their own identity, females predicted that I was the up and coming model and with such a title, felt they wanted to be me. This was the first time I truly saw myself online. And recognizing what I had become, I did not return to my journal the entire summer—this was my first disappearance in six years. My best friend turned into my boyfriend and our romance took on its own element of fascination that distracted attention from my plummeting weight. Our photographs and presence captivated crowds of viewers; and they once again believed what they saw—a smiling face and mystifying eyes. It was then I knew that I was inescapable from myself. I would be seen—in words or no words, with curves or bones—the way others felt they wanted to perceive me. 

My weight dropped to 80 pounds. But it was not until months after the doctor told me I could die if I continued with the same mentality, that I actively attempted to let the perspective that was controlling me die. I came back to the journal after a year and a half. The world-wide-web had been my home for so many years and to an extent it was me—it still echoed my voice and it still told of my existence. But this time I relocated myself—distancing myself from my original website, I positioned myself in the dot.com of a new one. There are no entries that date my past selves—although I am entirely open to their memories. Being figuratively born anew, I am assumed to be a new persona framed by a different time, that does not document a glorified adolescent nor a starving soul; although they are present within the thoughts behind my words, whether I am conscious of it or not. 

But why would I come back? Perhaps because I have a new body of words that represent my passion to perfect myself as an author and not as a socialite. Perhaps it is to gain control over the lasting impression that existed so vividly in the minds of my viewers. Perhaps I am still working through a debate with myself. Perhaps I need the material that is documented on the website to even have a debate with myself. Perhaps my past incentive still takes precedence over my present. Perhaps I know I had always been perceived a particular way because the language on my website controlled who I was believed to be—and now I cannot escape my relationship with language. Perhaps the memory of the power I had to genuinely influence the perspectives of others gives me hope that I can continue where I left off. Or perhaps I need a record of myself to know my self at all; and I am only driven by the pressure of other’s perception on and over me. 

The possibilities are inescapable. There is no definitive answer. There is no absolute in the analysis of memory, language or existence. But there can certainly be reason. People can claim my attention and attraction to online journaling is egotistical, but I see myself beyond such terms. I know there has been appreciation and criticism that, thankfully, inspired me. Therefore, I know there is an audience my voice has and hopefully can continue to speak to. I hope I represent a quality of relativity and can use my experiences to address universal concerns that are internalized. I hope those that are using their perception can tell that one must be committed to achieving knowledge, if one is to feel anything at all. And one must feel in order to make action—in order to move a soul—in order to empower one’s self and those that are looking for elevation, as well.

criticism is inspiration.

garden party trailer

finally catching up on all my old reading aka going through my newspaper clippings that have been piling up for a second read through (i will try and scan articles soon). and boy are they a read - it is quite often that i feel the new york times and wall street journal are sharing secrets - secrets that most everyone has access to, but must have curiosity for. although it may sound cliche, i have felt an interior change since turning 21 on july 18th - trust me, this was unexpected - to one extreme i believe i see an acceptance of my self character (and with that, most importantly, a pride) and of course with that comes a responsibility - to and of yourself - a responsibility with "becoming an adult" (indeed, cliche, but let's face it - it's a cliche because the majority lives by it) and a responsibility that comes with having pleasure with my past and future achievements. but with that has come manifestations of concerns. spread out across my bedroom and kitchen table, is the business section and there is me, internally and externally pacing - wondering whether i should pursue what i was studying at the FIT's business school (marketing, advertising and publicity). traveling through time, it is close to impossible to remember the thoughts that you were digesting at an early age - let alone as a "child" - one may even wonder whether he was thinking at all. but i do remember one specific thought. i remember knowing that the only reason i was alive was to leave a trace for the coming generations that would not believe my being here, need to know or even think to know of my experiences. i remember feeling it was a necessity - my job - my role - my passion - to record, to make a stamp on the timeline, to leave an impression in the sand of time. i knew i could not just be living and then cease to live, a dying away, an in and out. i live for presence, i aspire for permanence, i desire preservation. in elementary school, i remember the corner in the cathedral where i was tutored after school for reading. i remember the sepia tonalities that saturated space as it bled through the murals. i remember the difficulty of mastering any efficiency. i remember learning of my father's fear that his child could end up dyslexic as well. i will never forget the christmas morning and the hooked on phonix underneath the tree. from then on i studied and became mesmerized with overcoming adversities. i will never forget walking down the bleachers to receive the english award in middle school - hugging my professor and hoping to hold on to the moment forever. i remember moving into the garage and being (somehow) inspired by p!nk's lyrics about her parent's arguments. i remember writing my first poem about a child witnessing her parent's potential divorce and i remember feeling -knowing- that writing was an act of escapism, yet a way to re-enter reality and perceive it with clarity. i want to be a voice of this time because i am a voice of this time and i am fearless enough to let it be heard, challenged and criticized. i have been through differing extremes that come with exposure (a website created about me as an attempt to belittle me, my image stolen and used to inspire anorexia) that sometimes i wonder what else has all my persistence been for but in some way to teach, explore and honor the imperfections that become you - distinguish you and therefore, make you perfect in your own right of passage. being remembered for my words, rather than for a contribution i gave to the media's power of persuasion, will be a more successful feat (in my mind). graduate school for writing means following a path of production - a path so entirely mysterious and vague and in doing so, only have one thing i can rely on happening - becoming increasingly passionate - falling deeper - falling where the pride lays. i see many "business oriented" mindsets tell me that "the arts" (writing, photography..) can only be a hobby, that passion is fun but it doesn't pay the bills. i don't want what keeps me healthy to only be a hobby... (but at twenty-one does the pressure of the world make you feel the weight of giving in?).

mya & the mirror - hesitation

loving this tonight. you can download it for free here

the sanded hill sat beneath the sky for eye to see.

Stamping the grass with my figure, I sat there, on the spine of the hill, nearly breakable, struggling with this unexpected dimension of solitude. Both the hill and I kept still before the shadows of artificiality, lingering at our back like a deep stain. The two eyes of mine looked out upon birds pushing apart the traveling clouds—as delicate as breath wafting through a room contained by darkness and contaminated by carnalities. Eyes watched as they fell through the sky and landed on an afterthought. Where in the world is he? I circled the curiosity that paced through the alleyways of my mind, while my rationale was drenched in feces. Where in the world is he, if he is supposed to be here with his nude feet tucking through the blades of grass?—too featherlike to inflict wounds. I could hardly move for I was far too centered in the depths of a distant wish. Feeling as though I had returned to a familiarity—a moment’s happening that spills forth my fragility, a time that pulses though my blood only to rise with awareness and singe my oiled flesh. Good day, I scream. But I feel something less remarkable. For what is a wish, other than a memory that turns and chases after our moving body until it stares us straight in the face and falls through our eyes? I let myself drop, so my back and the grass perked up beneath it collapse on what I imagine to be beads of sand coated by the sunset’s warm afterglow. My hands stretch out at my sides and I look like I have been pinned into the earth. However, the dramatics of such an event drop away, as I am robbed by truth. Looking with more intensity it can be seen that I am solely fingering the sand’s surface, searching for gold. Coming across nothing but the powdery substance of a coke man’s dream, I raise my arms as the wealth of the world slides through the slices between my fingers. I almost laugh at the idea that I am situated on a sick soul’s superficial dependency. Lifting elated eyes, a white washed sky covers my sight like a puff of smoke that makes me feel lazy. Perception has no permanence. Blankness covers my head and cools me like a wave underneath my chin. Whiteness: the inexistency of color, I repeat again and again. “Whiteness: the inexistency of color,” until it defines me, until my body memorizes motions of continual movement—again and again. Arms flap in flight at my side. Wings for fleeing spaces of solitude, I am an angel in the snow. I am an angel in the snow I am an angel in the snow I am an angel in the snow. And then, with senses cut out from myself, I am nothing—just a sleeper drowning in dreams on a dry and restless hill. Eyes waken and renew me. My wings are laced with his fingers, as his body lays present on the spine. You have finally come. “I have been here. You were safely sleeping and I did not want to force you into wakefulness.” The outer corners of my lips curl up toward my cheeks, I could not have wished it otherwise, for this was the way to open my eyes.

fleet foxes - mykonos

And you will go to Mykonos

With a vision of a gentle coast

And a sun to maybe dissipate

Shadows of the mess you made

Black Balloon

Black Balloon, an Australian film (by director Elissa Down) with Gemma Ward. 

"Close your eyes. What do you see?" -Blacker. "Look harder."

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

A fictionalized account of Japan's renown author Yukio Mishima
when art becomes life, when passion bleeds into the everyday.

FIVE OCLOCK HEROES

So I am sure most of you know of the blonde british model, Agyness Deyn, well did you know she made a guest appearance in a band, THE FIVE OCLOCK HEROES? And has a legit voice to be heard? Check it, I'm impressed. click here. AND THE BAND IS SOMETHING I CAN REALLY GET USE TO. Also, the May issue of ID Magazine dedicated their entire issue to her (interviews...nude photographs). I'll scan them when I get back to Manhattan.

when is there time?

at night i have the sea as a blanket over my skin and the wind against my tongue. 

the summer is special. i have a pond outside my bedroom door. 

it helps me feel like the world moves slower, 

even though time will always be of the essence 

and perception is all make believe.

when i leave, i am not sure i will yet be ready for what comes.

Extracts from A SENSE OF SCENT (a longer product I am working on)

Ch #? Entitled: A love tap for a friend. A moment outside her body.

So far everything had been easy. She landed and felt like the plane had taken her out of time and deposited her in another life. Traveling always had this effect on her. And long ago, instead of trying to figure out the psychology behind this feeling of displacement, she decided to just let it take her places. Her paradise green suitcase stitched with fleshy pink lotus flowers clasped her hand and adorned her side. A scarf tied in a droopy bow around her neck, while wearing a crème hat that fell over her pronounced eyebrows and extended to her shoulders, Claudelean looked the part like traveling was in her blood, like a snapshot come to life. Awaiting her arrival was a van who would take her to the dock. She climbed in for the two-hour drive and slid down the pleather seat to the window, saying nothing and feeling everything. She watched the driver all hunched over at the wheel, giving a honk and a wave to the passing cars and noticed how every time the car went over a rock, the driver responded with an animated bounce of his shoulders as if he had been driving for years, and by now, he and the car felt the same things. Claudelean could tell he was proud of his own personal space and it made her feel like she had been invited to spend the afternoon in his home. She laughed because it seemed endearing and because everything simple and genuine brought her that much closer to happiness.

"Whatcu’ got a smile growing across your face for?" He teased her like a grandfather would do, while the corners of his eyes curved upwards similar to her smile.

The way you honk is so different than it is in Manhattan. Yours is more like a love tap. While back home it sounds like the cars are arguing. 

"Oh no, no arguing here. These people are my friends."

Claudelean felt cleansed and with her face flushed with sea air, she let herself indulge in the experience. The van winded down the hills and closing her eyes, she felt she was descending into a waking dream. Falling, falling, falling through time and almost removed from her body completely. 

Ch #? Entitled: I am a memory come alive, a thought in sight you cannot do without.

When Peanut embarked at sunset, Claudelean was on the sailboat’s deck. With her face turned toward the sky, watching the daylight being eaten and swallowed by the hour, Llurence found her. He waited, shadowed in the distance, unnoticed; wanting the moment he finally saw her again to stretch on—needing it to feel as long as it seemed when he imagined it happening so often before. The moment they shared the same space again had taken him forever to get to. And now, he hoped it would last. He hoped the sky, the only reminder of time while at sea, would stay suspended. 

She seemed to be living an intense inner life, which no outer impression could penetrate. But she did not look oblivious to this. In fact, Claudelean looked liked she had covered her face with a mask to conceal how tired and worried it had become. Others may believe it would be a great gift to see and simultaneously feel. But sometimes Claudelean felt like life had betrayed her by giving her this overwhelming pressure to have awareness externally and internally and all at once. She could not help but think it prevented her from living life with complete confidence and most importantly, from living quite normally and naturally. The magnitude of perceptions were constantly transforming and intensifying her perspectives and if one looked close enough within her, one could see that Claudelean’s mind inhabited chaos. 

But Llurence could not see this. Her back was turned and it was only her subtle gestures that he could try and make sense of. He thought she seemed familiar, as if time and distance had not completely changed the Claudelean he knew. This made him feel like time had worked in her advantage and his too. He believed it had not taken them beyond their memories and that they would be safe in the future this trip would unfold. "As long as I can make the moment memorable so I can see her smile, we will be happy," he thought. Seeing how she mirrored the sea, he admired her as always and like any lover would. Claudelean and the sea seemed the same, essentially gentle and contemplative, and this made him feel like he could escape into the body of both and be impressed by the sight of either. But she was so within her own scene, apart of her surroundings, yet entirely removed at the same time. She was a metaphysical speculation—he reasoned with intellectual mockery—neither here nor there, not entirely real or unreal either. This thought made him walk forward with the familiar desire to touch her, to reach her, to enter into a world that was locked away from the reality of others. 

He touched her between her shoulder blades, which were spread like wings. She turned slowly like a musical key that was not advancing and with the awareness of a musician playing out an effect. But when they came face to face, she saw Llurence not as he is, but as he was, not as the moment made him appear, but as the memories made him seem. They were inescapable and it was there—the first moment meeting each other again—that she remembered what she thought she couldn’t and remembered what she promised would have been forgotten by now. 

She saw quick scenes playing like vignettes taken from the film of their life together. They were scenes where everything was illuminated to seem not not real, but unreal and unbelievable. A collection of stop motion moments: newspaper mornings on the summer porch, a Santa Monica night spent inside a lighthouse, a picnic in a graveyard, her lips stained red, asleep on his shoulder, cinema and a thermos of wine like only young romantics would do. She saw him and smiled. And he saw his hope extending through her—the hope that the distance had not changed her.

In passing I have dreamt this familiarity, and still now, I see I know I’d like even more a kiss to you, but I, I am breathless.

"You have always been, but now even more so. How can it be possible? Claudelean, you look beautiful. Healthy. Full of life."

So it’s that noticeable? The winter use to be the only thing that made my cheeks fuller, but now being a writer puts the pounds on me too! It was true. Her weight had increased, but she did not look heavier. She looked, just as Llurence had said, full of life. She looked like she was enjoying life, not suffering from it. Perhaps it was her poetic license for illusion. Llurence thought it was a shame that the act of indulgence carried such a negative connotation in society today, as if one should have to apologize for experiencing what makes one happy. 

"You are always too hard on yourself. Don’t be," he said emphatically. Llurence saw through her formidable exterior, he always had, and behind her shield was what he loved: the unnecessary insecurity, the fragility and the vulnerability that made her so soft and sincere. She was not a perfectionist, just a real idealist. He remembered her often declaring. But he saw through that, too. It was just an excusable title she thought she could exercise until she found solace in something truer to character, something open and honest. But she had not found it yet. 

No, I am not being hard on myself. I am being hard on you! And with a persuasive laugh, she pressed her finger over his lips that were opening like a bud, as if to say either two things: I have the last word or Don’t say my secret aloud. Her eyes said please.

Llurence understood. Claudelean had not changed. 

Ch #? Entitled: She let the moment be his instead.

"At sea, in the middle of nothingness, I lack nothing. Before coming, I knew this, and asked for you and no more. We have made it and now the weather has no worry. See how the sky displays its expression and spreads around us a clearing of sanity. We can see everything. And what a surprise to have no secrets! There is nothing we cannot know."

But man is nature, unpredictable and uncontrollable. 

"Not here. Not this time. Not now, for us, on this sea."

Hearing only illusions, she laughed at this poet who spoke as if he were seeing through a screen in his imagination and using words that had not been filtered through reality. But it was not a poet she was staring at. It was Llurence and his voice had changed. 

Don’t get ahead of yourself, Crazy. 

"You still call me that," he said through the mist her sentence made. It was endearing. It was a reminder. It was a nickname he had not forgotten, but had not been used since their relationship ended. He had hoped that if he ever heard it again, it would feel familiar. And it did, just then, promising him that a name had the power to resonate forever. 

Always. And even when I’m not calling you that, I’m still thinking you’re crazy. She spoke with coyness as if each word were flirting with the sentence it stood within. It felt fun and fresh, like something she was good at, but hadn’t had time to do in awhile. She came closer to him, guaranteeing they would share the moment even more and said, An outsider—her hand now wrapping at his waist—no matter how close, can not know precisely the extent of another. And perhaps, the individual does not know either, unless they are deeply acquainted with themselves. Letting her hand come loose and fall on the railing, she purposefully had her speech stretch into space so the silence of the sea could emphasize the meaning of her discourse. No one can control nature, Llurence, no matter how well one knows its behavior. Take the waves, for insistence, and watch how they are constantly fleeing their partner who is so close behind, but probably began chasing a moment too late. Will they ever tire out and come together in forgiveness, leaving the sea with no agitation, just one long sigh? Who knows! Perhaps, they are not in flight from each other but trying to escape us. Look at everyone fixated on the sea, maybe the waves think they are being studied and don’t want to be seen. 

He took his time turning, letting his stance fall into a comfortable angle on the rail so his back was against the sea, as if his attention had grown distant from it, appearing to prove his fixation was not on the waves, but Claudelean herself. "You can’t convince me so easy, Claudelean," he said with eyes that revealed he felt otherwise. "I know you think it’s time to stop thinking like a child, but I’m still a believer. And I believe we’re still of the age where we can think we know it all, just so we can live a little more."

Claudelean smiled. He hadn’t changed. His pacific eyes were still blue with sleep and his sandy hair was still curled and springing with life. Behind the poet façade, there was still Llurence with his lyrical lines he’d never loose because he always had hope and a child’s heart. She loved him for it. She always would because it was the one thing she felt maturity had taken from her. She loved him. It just killed her seeing him trying to be someone for her, still. She just wanted him. Not the poet, the artist, the actor. Llurence played a deeper part in her life and seeing him again brought upon a pain, the pain of reality, that once love touched you, the feeling would never go away and your skin would have the imprint for life. You will always be a dreamer, Llurence. 

"A believer."

Yes and that, too. But she did not say it because she believed there was a distinction that he was not yet accepting.